Tax time is a natural time of year to choose an accounting firm. However, you may need to find a Certified Public Accountant any month of the year. Selecting a good accountant is important to your business, and while the chore can seem overwhelming, keeping a few key things in mind will make the task easier.
Choosing an accountant is not as simple as googling for the most geographically convenient firm. It’s crucial to choose the right professional for the job. Ideally, you want to develop a long-term relationship with your accountant or CPA. This person should be a …read more

A lot of the confusion in formal accounting comes from the difference between accrual basis accounting, and cash basis accounting.
Under the accrual basis accounting, revenues are reported on the income statement when they are earned. Under the cash basis accounting, revenues are reported on the income statement when cash is received.
As for expenses, accrual basis accounting matches expenses with the related revenues when the expense occurs. And in cash accouting? You guessed it – expenses are booked when the cash is paid.
The reasoning behind accrual accounting is that it creates an a more realistic income statement (in terms of profitability) …read more

Last month the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) participated in a forum hosted by none other than His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales (that’s Prince Charles!) on “Accounting for Sustainability: Decision-Making and Reporting in a Resource-Constrained World.”  The forum was held December 17th in London at the Royal Family residence at St. James’s Palace.
Fancy!
Prince Charles established Accounting for Sustainability in 2004 to research and develop systems that will help companies and non-profits alike account more accurately for the social and environmental costs of their activities. 
Barry Melancon, AICPA president and CEO, who attended the forum says:
“The global accounting profession …read more

A new initiative at the ‘Big 4′ accounting firm Ernst & Young LLP, is helping women entrepreneurs grow businesses by providing them access to critical contacts and support.
In collaboration with Babson College’s Center for Women’s Leadership and its Arthur M. Blank Center for Entrepreneurship, Ernst & Young started the Winning Women program which is tasked with championing the success of women in business through inclusiveness and diversity. Winning Women aims to create a network of women entrepreneurs and business leaders at all stages of growth. The program will also serve to provide early-stage women entrepreneurs access to critical …read more

Banks provide necessary services, but they are there for the money –your money. They are always cooking up new ways to charge you fees: miscellaneous fees, maintenance fees, online banking fees, excessive transaction fees, teller fees, etc.
Do not be taken in by offers of “no monthly fees” checking accounts. You can bet your bottom dollar the bank will make up for this freebie through some other fee.
Take time to shop around for a bank. Scrutinize their fees. Read the fine print. Keep records and study the entries. Avoid the charges that you …read more

You don’t always have your checkbook with you and you don’t want to carry cash around. So, you use a debit card.
Remember, however, that every time you use your debit card you are charged a fee. The fees vary from institution to institution. Some charge less than a dollar, other charges much more. So, the more often you use your debit card, the more costly this bank service becomes.
How about ATM cards? If you withdraw from the ATM machine at the bank’s premises, you don’t get charged a transaction fee. Outside the bank premises, …read more

You receive a check payment which you deposit in your bank account. Don’t assume that you can immediately withdraw or write a check against it.
Out-of-town or out-of-state checks take as much as a week before the amount is actually entered into your account for withdrawals or writing checks against. If you happen to write a check before the amount is actually in your account, your check will bounce –which, in addition to causing much embrassment, will cause a penalty to be charged against your account and do some damage to your credit standing.
To save you from overdrawn …read more

No such thing as a free lunch, specially in bank services. You do a bank a favor by opening a checking account and it charges a monthly fee (which, in some banks, can go over $10 per month).
If you maintain a small balance, the bank will try to seduce you to put in more money by waiving the monthly fees. But –you have to look out for the fee that it will charge if you go below the minimum balance. Those extra charges can add up to a tidy sum.
I think this is an unfair exchange. …read more

In these times of weekly price increases, you have to optimize all your household expenses. The best way to optimize your expenses is to keep to a Budget.
The job of keeping within the Budget is better & easier achieved if everyone in the family (including the children) are involved in the formulation of the Budget. Everybody in the household should know what the Budget is and its limits.
Even as everyone in the household is keeping within the Budget, there should be an ongoing drive to skimp and cut
down on each item of the Budget. In these times …read more

Reduce the number of credit cards that you have. The more credit cards you have, the lower credit score financing institutions give you and, consequently, you are charged higher interest charges & placed under more stringent conditions.
With multiple credit cards, keeping track of your expenses becomes a more difficult personal accounting task.
Believe it or not, you can live with only one credit card. With only one credit card, the monthly billing statement becomes an accounting record of your expenses. You only have to add your cash expenses (which are probably not a substantial portion of your monthly …read more