Manual Bookkeeping Systems or Free Accounting Software?

January 26, 2012 Category :Bookkeeping 0

Neil Rischall asked:




Everyone today is always looking for technology to do things better and faster. So why would an accountant who uses the internet all day long to speed tasks even think of using a manual system to do accounting or bookkeeping?

The answer is that although technology is the answer for many things it is also sometimes likened in my mind to using an atom bomb to kill an ant. Excessive firepower can sometimes do more damage than necessary. So if you have a very simple business that has relatively few transactions you may be surprised that a carbonized system will be superior and simpler than a computerized system.

In fact recently I picked up a new client because his old accountant demanded that he use a computerized software program to do his financial records. After making an attempt and feeling like he had no control over the accounting software the client through it out and found a new accountant, yours truly. And after looking at the results I would agree with him that his old system was not broken, so why should it be fixed?

All this being said I would be remiss not to address the benefits of a modern computerized accounting system whether it is operating on a Windows system or a Apple or even Unix. The accounting systems today are generally quite user friendly and will make doing many repetitive tasks faster. If you use computerized checks than much of the information only needs to get inputed once and will even making mailing the check easier and sometimes not necessary.

Reconciling with software from Peachtree, Intuit or Microsoft can make the job seem effortless. It is just a matter of checking off checks and deposits and entering he bank statement balance and the computer does the rest.

Caffeinated Content

18 Ways Your Child Can Benefit From Hobbies

January 26, 2012 Category :Tax 0

Merry Makes asked:




We teach our children many of the skills and experiences to prepare them for adulthood. Home education and some form of formal or academic education, together with a wide range of social experiences help our children grow in many ways.

But what can we do to equip children with the unique skills and experiences that will enrich their lives in other ways?

Learning a hobby is my number one choice for the enrichment of a child, and here are 18 reasons why:

A HOBBY…

Has great entertainment value - Hobbies are a wonderful opportunity for the extra-curricular development of your child, providing additional learning perspectives while the child is being entertained. Makes good use of spare time - Instead of lounging around or watching excessive television or loitering in parks and streets, hobbies can be a great way to keep your child occupied in relevant activities which they enjoy. Stops your child from getting bored - From time to time, all children complain of being bored. Having a hobby to engage their interest in, is invaluable in relieving that problem. Encourages using external sources of information – Having a hobby can help your child to learn independently of an adult e.g. a child can learn to fold paper and make origami objects from a book; she can learn and make a delicious recipe from the internet; she can learn and try out hair-styling from an instructional CD. Teaches different skills – E.g. crafting and cooking are hands on activities, sports exercise the whole body, puzzles challenge the mind, performing arts and debating develops verbal skills. Improves motor skills - Crafting teaches fine finger-movements; cooking and sports such as badminton and tennis, teach hand-eye co-ordination; ball-games e.g. football, basketball etc. improve accuracy while skate-boarding improves balancing skills. Increases listening skills - In addition to developing musical abilities, learning a musical instrument can result in your child learning all of the above (as listed in reason 6). It doesn’t have to be music but listening to others’ opinions, or the instructions of a martial arts’ master can also increase your child’s ability to listen carefully. Develops fitness, strength and endurance – All sports including cycling, swimming and martial arts will help your child’s physical capabilities and general state of health. Improves social skills – Playing board games and team-sports encourages trust in others and trustworthiness. Participating in a choir or a gardening club requires a child to be less self-centred and more considerate, teaching her to act as a part of a whole. Increases self-confidence – As a child improves in a particular skill, so does it increase the child’s sense of self-esteem. Develops strategic thinking - Your child’s mind will be stretched beyond their daily thinking capacities when pursuing pastimes such as the classics: chess and draughts, board games like Ludo, some video games, Mancala, Chinese Checkers, Rubik’s Cube, code-breaking games etc. Improves deduction skills – Some activities will help your child to sharpen her ability to ‘think outside the box’ i.e. use the information available and use it in an unusual way. For example, some scouting activities may demand the development of deductive skills and innovative thinking under limited conditions. Develops word-power and number-power – Any hobby which involves extensive use of the written word or numeracy skills will ultimately increase your child’s competency in these crucial areas of communication. This may be as simple as reading and following an instructions manual for assembling a model. Improves management skills - In order to make time for her chosen hobby or hobbies, your child will soon learn to manage her homework and chores. She will also improve in her management of time for other social arrangements such as spending time with family and friends. Losing and winning - Competitive sports and activities teach children to be good sports, whether they win or lose. They can help your child to deal with anything less than success with grace, learning that winning is not always as important as participating. Quickens reflex responses - Some electronic games can be useful for sharpening a child’s wits, and processing and responding to multiple stimuli. There are many educational and fun electronic gaming systems which a child can engage in and benefit from. However, it is recommended that parents check and screen video games to determine suitability for the age of their child. In addition, it is best to talk over and agree with the child about the length of playtime per day. Develops a child’s sense of achievement – When a child successfully reaches a milestone in her chosen hobby or follows a project to completion, she is rewarded with a feeling of accomplishment and pride in her work. Can lead to tangible rewards – A finished jigsaw puzzle or art project, a successful sporting event resulting in a medal, a completed Rubik’s cube in her hands, or a well-attended choir recital – these all offer real, tangible recognition of your child’s sustained efforts and serve as encouragement for continued progress in her chosen hobby.

If your child doesn’t already have a hobby which she enjoys in her spare time, offer her the opportunity to try out a few of the pastimes referred to in this article (or any other hobby you consider suitable for your child). If your child has a favourite hobby, encourage her to pursue it to the next level and support her activities by providing resources, time and opportunities which will help her to develop in up to 18 different ways.

child benefit

Best Way to Outsource Bookkeeping Services

January 25, 2012 Category :Bookkeeping 0

Azharok Mohd asked:




If you are looking for bookkeeping services outsourcing then this article is especially for you. When you don’t have sufficient knowledge to report your bookkeeping and accounting services you should outsource your services to the company which is best in the industry.

Now the question arises is how to choose one best bookkeeping and accounting services provider? The answer for this question is in this article keep reading on, if you choose the small or medium scale companies then it is more likely better for your business needs. Because these companies are better compared to large scale companies in terms of quality and costs.

For instance, if you selected a big company then they will charge more for your services, of course they will maintain quality and time frame delivery, but I can show you a lot of companies to do same in low cost which best option for you no matter whether your business is small or large scale. Make sure that your bookkeeping services means that they include the record of each and every transaction that your business performs. If you got the quality certified bookkeeper or bookkeeping company it is easy for tax preparation without any conflicts.

Bookkeeping services can let you know the status of your business. That is the reason today every company maintaining their bookkeeping record regularly, of course it is bookkeeper duty to update regularly.

However you can maintain your bookkeeping manually, but when you do any mistakes then it is more difficult to fix the problem.Hence, online bookkeeping is the best way to reduce time and maintains accuracy.This is obvious for mid or large scale companies.

Finally you can select a company such that it should have quality and security certifications along with that good track record of executing online, bookkeeping services with their certified bookkeepers.

Website content

Financial Bookkeeping Services With Professional Bookkeeper

January 24, 2012 Category :Bookkeeping 0

Maulik R Panchal asked:




Bookkeeping services is an important process of any small business and other large size of outsourcing bookkeeping and accounting firm.

Bookkeeping is the recording of financial transactions. Transactions include sales, purchase, income and payments by an individual or organization. Bookkeeping is usually performed by a bookkeeper.

The accounting process is usually performed by an accountant. The accountant creates reports from the recorded financial transactions recorded by the bookkeeper. There are some common methods of bookkeeping such as the Single-entry bookkeeping system and the Double-entry bookkeeping system.

Accounting is the art of recording, summarizing, reporting, and analyzing financial transactions. An accounting system can be a simple, utilitarian check register, or, as with Microsoft Office Accounting, it can be a complete record of all the activities of a business, providing details of every aspect of the business, allowing the analysis of business trends, and providing insight into future prospects.

Bookkeeping titles vary based on the size of the business. The following list is just a sampling of titles held by bookkeepers:

o Accountants
o Auditing Clerks
o Financial Clerks
o Billing Clerks
o Cashiers
o Payroll Clerks
o Tellers

A Professional Bookkeeper, known as an accounting clerk or accounting technician, is a person who records the day-to-day financial transactions of an organization. A bookkeeper is usually responsible for writing up the “daybooks.” The daybooks consist of purchase, sales, receipts and payments. The bookkeeper is responsible for ensuring all transactions are recorded in the correct daybook, suppliers ledger, customer ledger and general ledger. Financial Bookkeeping Services provide high skilled accountant with Professional Bookkeepers.

Caffeinated Content

Accounting Software – What to Look For If You Have Sales Representatives

January 22, 2012 Category :Acounting 0

Stephanie Elsen asked:




These days, there are more and more programs available to help you run your business, ranging from CRM software to help you manage your prospect relationships to the photo editing program used to create your brochures, and everything in between. One crucial application most businesses know they must have is accounting software, which helps manage their sales and purchases, customer information, financial details, and of course, their profitability. Choosing the right accounting software for your business is an important decision. When you choose the right program, your processes flow smoothly and you can see at a moment’s notice how profitable every area of your business is, or not. And if your business has sales representatives, there are specific features you can use to make your business more profitable, and keep the sales staff happy at the same time. Here are the tools you should have, and how each tool can benefit your operation.

Sales Commission Tracking: Since most sales reps are paid on commission, it’s important to have a tool that can track the commission as sales are entered, instead of using a calculator and pencil at the end of each pay period. Why? Tracking sales commissions by hand is far too time consuming and leaves room for error, and can also leave the sales staff skeptical of whether their commission calculation is accurate. Set up the commission calculations within your accounting software, so that each time a sales rep enters their order, their commission is automatically calculated. Also be sure to allow yourself various tracking calculation methods. Since your company pays for different product lines in different ways, it’s important to also be able to pay sales staff in different ways, such as by a percentage of the profit, selling price or cost, or by a percentage plus a fixed amount, and more. When pay day comes, you can provide sales staff with a report showing exactly how their commission was calculated.

Sales Analysis Reporting: Information is power, and this is especially true when you are selling several product lines (or sales categories) and trying to determine which items produce the most profits, and also which sales people are performing at their best. Be sure your accounting software has the capability of separating your sales product lines, so you’ll be able to report on those product lines or even individual items separately. Even better, if the system allows you to view profitability by product line AND by customer, so you can see which customer is the most profitable. The same capability by salesperson is also crucial.

Customer Activity Report: This report shows you all of a customer’s activity for a given period of time, and can help you determine trends and identify those customers who may have left, so you can follow up with them and win them back.

Order Entry: Do your sales reps write their orders on a sheet of paper and deliver it by hand to the order fulfillment staff? This not only wastes time, but also causes unnecessary double entry, as it will no doubt have to be entered into the accounting software as an invoice to bill the customer at some point. This double entry causes additional work and can allow for errors. By using order entry within your accounting software, you can eliminate double entry, and make the filling of orders and creation of invoices flow seamlessly. Order entry also allows for partial shipments and backorders, so they are not forgotten and the customer is assured of receiving what they originally ordered.

When searching for accounting software, be sure you consider the above sales tools to make your business flow seamlessly and keep your sales staff happy.

Caffeinated Content – Members-Only Content for WordPress

The Importance of Filing Income Tax Forms Early

January 19, 2012 Category :Tax 0

James Kahn asked:




It is a common habit of people to file their income tax forms at last minute. Many advise that this is not such good idea. Many last minute filers rush to complete their forms and forget to fill-in some deductions which they may regret later because the tax refund will vary on their income less deductions. The sooner you file your tax forms the faster your refund will be received.

There are some companies that file the income tax returns for their employees. However, the personnel in-charge will distribute these forms to each employee to have them review and verify that all details and data are correct, the employee will submit it back to the HRD (Human Resource Department) and the HRD personnel will submit the forms to the BIR (Bureau of Internal Revenue). A system ensures that all employees have their taxes paid on time. And as a result, all employees receive their tax refunds as early as possible.

Some companies do not do the filing of tax; they leave it to their employees to file their own. Usually this happens to small companies or businesses in which the owner runs the business on their own and only hires a few employees. There are employees will file their tax as early as they can but some may not bother at all. However, if the owner of these businesses files their own taxes early the accountants cannot disapprove the business’s request for renewal. Although, many employees are not benefited properly, oftentimes those employees that pay early cannot received any tax refund and for those who did not bother in filing are not questioned. Therefore even for small company or businesses it is recommended that they will properly file their tax and the tax of their employees along for the benefits of all.

Few people that work for themselves do not pay any tax at all, especially when they are initially losing money. Little do they know that any working people need to pay tax according to what they earn annually either small business or big. Besides any individual that will pay their taxes significantly everybody will be benefited out of it by means of government projects and infrastructure.

All must know that the government cannot to any improvements to the country without the taxes. An improved country will cater more businesses from other countries such as more business investment either commercial or industrial or agricultural. These means more jobs be available within the country. And tourism business will boost as many citizens from other country will visit or have their holiday in such country. Therefore, everybody must pay tax for the best of all not just for oneself, not only for the good cause of few days abundance but for continual job opportunity and country’s improvement.

Website content

Forensic Accounting – Be a Financial Detective

January 19, 2012 Category :Auditing 0

Michael Russell asked:




Forensic accounting is one of the newly identified types of accounting jobs available. A forensic accountant is either an internal or external auditor who is brought in to investigate a case of fraud, bankruptcy or other legal conflict. He or she audits the situation and comes to a conclusion regarding the wrong doings and amount of loss involved. The auditor composes a report, which is often used as evidence in a court case. The forensic accountant may even testify personally.

Forensic accounting has arisen from the vast amount of scandals wreaking havoc in the business world the last few years. Enron and WorldCom caused severe loss for many owners and employees. The accounting profession heard the call and has made several mid-course adjustments to help assure these crimes won’t happen as easily ever again.

COMMON PROJECTS

Forensic accounting is a specialized form of auditing. Regular audits are required by the SEC or the company itself to assure compliance with accounting standards or company policy and procedures.

Forensic audits, on the other hand, are done because something happened that needs further investigation. It is not a matter of routine. Here are some examples of projects that may rely on forensic audit procedures:

Agent fraud – A descriptive and frequent example is with insurance agents. An insurance agent has a lot of access to personal information of his customers. A common fraud scheme is for an insurance agent to fake the application for his customer to take out a loan on the insurance policy. The agent keeps the proceeds from the loan and the customer can remain unaware of it for months or even years.

Insurance and personal injury claims – Many people falsify claims they make to insurance companies. This is another big area needing forensic accounting techniques.

Construction audits – Here, forensic accounting is used to make sure construction is done using the quality of components that was called for.

Royalty audits – In any situation where a worker, usually a performer, is owed royalties for the showing or airing of his work, a forensic accountant is often brought in to make sure he is being paid everything that is owed.

SEC inspections – Wall Street scandals abound these days and forensic accountants assist in following the financial information to find the wrongdoers.

Matrimonial disputes – Divorces settlements often use the skills of a forensic accountant to assure both parties get a fair settlement.

COMPETENCIES

To be good in Forensic Accounting, more than just an accounting degree is required. The forensic accountant uses more than just his spreadsheet and accounting skills. He or she must be willing and able to deal with the totality of the particular business situation under investigation. This includes analyzing the financial evidence, reporting it in various traditional and technical ways and perhaps even testifying in court. All delivered documents must be in such a format as to be used as court evidence. Therefore, the forensic accountant must be familiar with legal terms and procedures.

The Forensic Accountant must also be a good public speaker and an excellent writer, as well. He/she must be confident and articulate in convincing the court of the evidence he has uncovered.

Website content

How to Navigate CPT’s 99241-99255 Section in 2010

January 19, 2012 Category :Billing 0

Erin Masercola asked:




No doubt about it. One of the biggest coding challenges in 2010 will be how to code consults – or what used to be consults. Hospital inpatient visits will be especially tricky.

But don’t worry. My Coding Career has consulted the experts to gather these 10 best practices for consult coding in 2010.

The background: Medicare has scrapped consultation codes, and in 2010 will no longer accept codes from CPT’s 99241-99255 section. So, when you’re billing Medicare, you’ll have to find other codes to describe what used to be consults. Meanwhile, some non-Medicare payers will continue to accept consultation codes.

Here are 10 steps you can take to get paid and stay compliant:

1. Expect some larger payers to ditch consult codes as well. Some larger private payers (such as Blue Cross Blue Shield, Aetna, and Humana) will follow Medicare’s lead and won’t accept consult codes in 2010, experts predict.

2. Check with your payers. Some payers will continue to accept consult codes. Payers will announce their consult code policies by mid-December.

Tip for executing #1 & #2: Keep a spreadsheet to track each of your payers’ 2010 consult code policies, and be sure to document their instructions.

Next, what about Medicaid?

3. If you bill Medicaid, check with your state for consult instructions. Just because Medicare isn’t accepting consult codes doesn’t mean things are the same for Medicaid across the board.

4. If two or more physicians see a patient during a hospital stay, make double-sure the ICD-9 codes and/or the physician notes justify the need for two or more physicians to see the patient.

5. Stop thinking of CPT 99221-99223 as ‘admit codes.’ When a physician consults a patient on his first day in the hospital, you should use an initial hospital code. More than one physician can use an initial hospital care code for the same patient, as long as you keep #4 in mind.

6. Meet modifier ‘AN.’ When billing Medicare, modifier ‘AN’ designates a doctor as the admitting physician. If no one uses the modifier, the claim will be subject to medical review, experts predict.

7. Look at time when choosing codes for hospital inpatient care you’re billing to Medicare. At the higher levels, consults’ transfer to hospital care codes will benefit your practice’s bottom line. For 99244 and 99245, you would gain approximately 30 percent in pay if you also report the prolonged services.

8. Expect reimbursement to be lower for lower-level hospital inpatient visits that would have been consults under Medicare’s old system.

9. Focus on total work when coding for split/shared inpatient visits for Medicare. You can ignore one requirement here thanks to Medicare’s invalidation of the consult codes. Even if the physician does not duplicate the key components that the nonphysician practitioner (NPP) performed, you can count all medically necessary history, examination, and medical decision making that the and physician each individual performs and documents on a calendar day.

10. Apply your new/established patient rules when coding visits that would have been consults under Medicare’s old rules. For example, say an internist sends a patient to a cardiologist for an opinion, and that patient saw that cardiologist two years before. The cardiology practice should choose from the ‘established’ patient codes to bill the visit.

Caffeinated Content

Buying a Cheap Speargun

January 19, 2012 Category :Billing 0

Kyle Inglarda asked:




If you love snorkeling and fishing there is a good chance that you will enjoy spearfishing. A lot of people who get into the sport get hooked (pun unintended!) very quickly. The thing is though, rather than going out and buying the best gear that is out there for spearfishing and then finding out that maybe you don’t really like the sport, you need to get some starting gear. A lot of people already have snorkeling gear, and if you enjoy that as a sport there is a good chance the gear that you have will do until you start getting very serious with your spearfishing.

One of the biggest expenses with Spearfishing is buying a gun. You can buy Cheap Spearguns for under $50, but they often don’t work that well. Still, they are better than nothing and are often a good start. I learned spearfishing and got into the sport by using a Pole Spear, which is much cheaper and much less likely to go wrong. Sure, you might not be able to land huge fish with them, but they are enough to give you a taste of what spearfishing is like. I know the first decent gun I purchased blew me away. I could barely load it, and the spear shot very quickly.

The great thing about spearfishing is that it costs very little to go out each time, meaning you can justify spending a bit more on a good gun and a good wetsuit. These two things are the most important, and then your fins can be upgraded. You also need a good knife, a float or spearfishing reel, depending on what sort of fish you are trying to shoot. Spearfishing has had such a bad rap in the past few decades, when in reality it is one of the most ecological types of fishing, it doesn’t cost much to do and it isn’t overly risky either. I can’t recommend spearfishing more; its an awesome sport.

Kansieo.com

Project Accounting Software – Best Practices When Developing Residential Estates

January 18, 2012 Category :Acounting 0

Ronald Skeoch asked:




If you’re involved with construction for a Residential Estate then these “best practices” for using your Project Accounting Software will help your client with their dealings with their financiers as well as simplifying your project manager’s work.

However before you look at your software, it’s best to have a clear idea of the processes involved when undertaking a broad-acre conversion to a residential housing estate.

The Big Picture

To start with you know that the financier backing your developer client is not going to take on the all of the Risk involved with constructing the total number of homes that can fit on the broad-acreage. They will aim to minimise their risk by staging the development.

So the the broad-acreage will be conceptually divided into several Development Stages. The first stage release will commence with the construction of a display village consisting of one of each house type. This enables their sales team to walk prospective clients through a completed home and to estimate the cost of changes to the basic design on a client by client basis.

After sufficient sales are made in Stage 1 the developer will release another Stage downstream and in the process build a new display village and sell off the first display homes you constructed.

This provides a positive cash flow for the developer as they progress through building the remaining stages and in doing so lessens the risk for the financier.

Now we understand the big picture, we have to determine how best to manage this Contract using our project accounting software.

One Project or Many Projects?

You may think it a good idea to set up each home as a project but there are disadvantages to this simplistic approach – particularly in terms of reporting.

It would be best if the whole Estate was defined as a single Project and then as you undertake construction you define each house, being the Scope of Works, as a Stage within that project in your project accounting software. The use here of the term “Stage” should not be confused with the “Staged releases” of land within the estate.

Better Client Reporting

One benefit of this approach is that it makes it easier to produce the reporting that your client the developer needs to provide to their Financiers to convince them that their risks are being managed properly. This is because you can produce “big picture” plus” drilled down” reporting as required.

Management Focus

The Stages approach also helps your project managers focus on the construction as they can see all the information about an individual house and follow it right through the system. In effect you have a “sub-cost report” for just a single house.

Managing Subcontractors

When a new house is required to be constructed, then you would add a new Stage and then allocate your tradespeople to work on it. The scheduling process will easily identify the extra details.

If we examine the Subcontractor Payment Claims process then each tradesman has an original contract for work on other stages (homes) so if they win another stage (home) then it will just be another amendment to their contract. You can then pay the subcontractor by stage and in the process make tracking and controlling the processes easier.

Complementary Projects

Depending upon how you contract with the developer you may in fact be establishing two projects – not one – for the entire estate. This would be the case if you decided to use a Complementary Project approach.

This approach enables you to manage the construction project on an “open book” basis, with the developer taking the risk and some portion of the work charged at agreed rates. You would take a small risk for the preliminary items but have an agreed rate of recovery for selected services such as project management on an hourly basis.

To do this in your construction accounting software you would establish one project as open book with the client, where the budgets equal the agreed target prices of the client. In this project, the income is equal to the expenses so there is no profit. But you link this project with a second project which invoices the first project for the value of contracted services at the agreed rates.

Payment Options

The next point to consider is how to pay subcontractors and suppliers in the first project so that it doesn’t affect your cash-flow.

Ideally the client should setup a trust account and you pay contractors out of this account based upon a client approved payment list. However some developers may insist upon greater control of the “purse strings”. In this case you could still control all the subcontractor claims paperwork within you’re construction accounting software and at the end of each Pay-run send the direct deposits data file to your client so the developer can pay off this file using their own bank.

So the developer controls the “purse strings” but your project managers manage the job without you assuming the financial risk.

The practices should enable you to make better use of your project accounting software when you’re constructing for a Residential Estate Developer.

Kansieo.com
Page: 1 of 79 1 2 3 4 5 6 ... 79 Next »