How Can a Tax Accounting Professional Help You

The tax season can be highly stressful for many individuals. You may not know how to fill out a tax form properly and because of this, you worry about getting audited. If you are filing your taxes for the first time or if you are not completely sure of how to file your taxes, you may want to invest in professional accounting services. Although you may save money by trying to do your own taxes, it is important to file your taxes in the correct manner so that you can avoid trouble from the IRS. Professional accounting services will save you a lot of stress during the tax season, and they are usually affordable.

Individuals who are self-employed will benefit most from tax accounting services. Those who are self-employed are required to fill out separate tax forms. For some people, this can be a tricky process. One must make sure that all deductions are valid and that all income is reported. For the self-employed, these numbers might be more difficult to calculate, which is precisely why such individuals would benefit greatly from tax accounting services. Correctly filing your taxes is extremely important and if you take the small amount of time to invest in professional services, the tax season will no longer be a source of confusion and stress for you.

Many professional accounting services offer affordable pricing for their aide. If you are thinking of investing money in these services, do some research beforehand and make sure to work with a company that is trustworthy and reliable. After all, they will be dealing with a great deal of your personal confidential information; as such, you want to make sure that this information is in the right hands.

Closely work with the tax professional that you have chosen, and ask any questions you may have. Not only will you be ensuring that all information is filed properly, but you will also be learning more about doing taxes. With enough practice, you will be able to do your own taxes in the future. The most important thing is, if you have any sort of doubt during the tax season, consult a professional.


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7 Tips To Improve Your Small Business Profitability

There are a number of ways in which you can improve the profitability of your small business; here are 7 tips that you may be of help to you.

1. Evaluate your most profitable and least profitable business activities

- You may have some product lines that are extremely profitable for you whilst other product lines are giving you a minimal profit or perhaps even a loss. Unless you identify this you'll be carrying on with low profitability business activities whereas you could be focussing your efforts on the more profitable products or even consider bringing in new products to replace the least profitable ones.

2. Analyse your competition

- You should make yourself aware of what your competitors are doing. Are they doing things better than you? Are there areas that they are focussing on that you are not? Are they operating in markets that you are not? How does their service or offering compare with yours? How are you priced compared to them? Are they advertising in places that you are not? You may well be doing a lot of things better than your competition but there are usually things you can learn or improve upon by taking a look at what they are doing.

3. Set some realistic targets and goals

- You may of course simply want to make as much money as possible, by selling as much as possible but even so, you should have some more specific targets and goals in mind so you can gauge the progress that you are making. Perhaps you could set monthly or annual targets for sales figures, or numbers of new clients that you can win, or volumes of products sold, or annual profit figures.

4. Offer incentives for repeat business

- To encourage your customers to do repeat business with you, depending on your particular business sector, it may be an idea to offer incentives or discounts to encourage more business from them whether it be for the same product or service or additional products or services that you may offer.

5. Consider expanding your online marketing efforts

- Some businesses miss out on lots of potential business by not having an effective online presence. Online marketing is something that is very measurable so you can easily see the cost effectiveness of your efforts. You can promote your business on Facebook or Twitter for free or using Google Adwords for a very measurable cost.

6. Optimize your website

- If your website is well optimised for the right keywords for your specific business sector then you can win a lot of new business from customers online searching for the products or services that you offer. You can learn about SEO yourself if you have the time and inclination or you can engage a reputable SEO company.

7. Implement an effective bookkeeping system

- You need to have your finances organised and your records in order if you're going to stay on top of things. Cashflow is important and so is your time. If you're currently struggling to be organised and are trying to do all the bookkeeping yourself then perhaps it's time to consider getting an experienced bookkeeper to implement an effective bookkeeping system for you and to regularly do the bookkeeping work for you. This would not only get your business finances more organised but would also free up more of your time to focus on your key profit-making business activities.

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Stressing Over QuickBooks? 10 Steps to Better Manage Your Bookkeeping Records

Do you cringe when you open up your QuickBooks file? You have receipts in the car, crumbled receipts in your purse or briefcase, and vendor invoices buried in the papers on your desk or email inbox. Here are 10 easy steps you can put in place today to better organize your bookkeeping records so the next time you open up QuickBooks, everything will be nicely organized for you.

1. When vendor invoices are received, enter into QuickBooks as soon as you can. Try to set up time on your calendar once a week to handle this task. Don't wait until the end of the month and most likely find yourself scrambling to locate the invoices and fitting it in to your busy schedule. By handling this task frequently, you will pay less late fees and perhaps take advantage of those vendors who offer discount pricing if paid within 10 days.

2. A simple way to manage those vendor invoices, purchase an accordion file A-Z and use this to file your vendor invoices. No need to set up individual file folders that take up valuable file space. As soon as the invoice has been paid, just file the invoice in the appropriate letter slot. If you need to locate a past invoice, all you need to do is go to that letter and you'll soon find what you are looking for. If you are converting to a paperless office, set up a file folder on your computer for Vendor Invoices and store the paid invoice in this file. You can set up a file - Vendors A - L and Vendors - M - Z. At the end of the year, copy these files onto a CD and store with your business tax files.

3. Bookkeeping rule #1: do not co-mingle personal and business expenses. Sign up for a credit card exclusively for business and one for personal expenses and get in the habit of using the correct cards. This will certainly save you a lot of headaches if you are ever audited by the IRS. It will also make it easier when the credit card statements are received and you are only looking at business expenses and not both personal and business and spending more time sifting through the charges.

4. Use online banking for bill paying. With most major banks this is a free service and the beauty of online banking, you just enter the amount of the invoice and schedule the invoice for payment before the due date. Just don't forget to enter the transaction into QuickBooks. The benefits of online bill pay - saves you postage costs and also by scheduling before due dates, saves on those late fees.

5. Reconcile your bank statements monthly. Try setting up time on your calendar the week the statement is received. If you have been disciplined to enter your transactions each week, this should not be a time consuming process.

6. Credit card purchases need to be entered into QuickBooks on either a daily or weekly basis. When your credit card statement is received, you reconcile the statement similar to how you reconcile your bank statement.

7. Keep your chart of accounts simple. If you have multiple income streams you may want to set up income accounts for each product or service. This will allow you to monitor sales each month when you review your Profit & Loss report. For your expense accounts, keep it simple. Remember the more accounts you have, the more time you will spend in deciding which account to use.

8. When hiring new employees or contracting with new subcontractors, make sure they submit a W4 or W9 form. Establish a procedure to receive the forms before their first payment is made. Remember to enter their tax information into QuickBooks when the form is received. This will make preparing W2s and 1099s a less stressful task in January.

9. If you have a PayPal account, you need to create a bank account for PayPal similar to how your checking account is set up. This account will need to be reconciled each month as well. PayPal allows you to download monthly financial reports for reconciling the account.

10. If you find you just do not have the time and you are still stressed with your bookkeeping, contract with a virtual bookkeeper. This will allow you time to do the things you excel at and pass the task on to some who enjoys bookkeeping. If you do not know where to find a virtual bookkeeper, contact your accountant and ask if they can recommend a bookkeeper or ask other business owners who assist's them with their bookkeeping.
Linda Siniscal is the owner of Third Hand Secretarial Service LLC which she started in 1994. THSS is a virtual assistance company that assists small business owners with their administrative and bookkeeping tasks allowing her clients more time to focus and grow their business. THSS is an "extra hand when you need one." She served on the International Virtual Assistants Association (ivvaa.org) Board of Directors for the term 2005-2008. You can email Linda at linda@yourextrahand.com or call 732-899-0810 - http://www.yourextrahand.com.

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Why Learning the Basics of Accounting Can Help Your Business

Accounting can be done either through hiring an accountant or acquiring a computer with accounting system to help you analyze your logistics and finance.

But some people stopped worrying about accounting when they have secured a system or an accountant.

Oftentimes the scenario presents itself like this: Business owners just throw all their accounting tasks to the accountant or to the computer operator, expecting them to do the balancing and the whole calculations. And when the deadline is near, they put in the pressure and squeeze their accountants for the tax reports.

However, this is not a good practice since there is a probability that the accountant might feel the pressure working with you and may walk out, leaving you in a quandary. As business owners, it pays to know more and get involved with the financial aspect of your business. This can help you in making the right decision about the company and guide it to a substantial growth.

Accounting can not be fully understood in just a couple of hours or even days. As with the case with those who are not prepared and scramble when deadline is near.

Taking the time to learn accounting is the best ever financial advantage you can give to your business. Even if you are not going to do it yourself, the basics will help you properly communicate with your accountant. This will ensure an open communication that will help speed up the process.

Accounting, in essence, is just some simple mathematical computation that you have already been using since the 3rd grade. It does get complicated as more records and information is entered but the basic mathematical operations of multiplication, addition, subtraction and division are still the fundamental stuff that all accounting is made of.

Before starting, you have to learn the basic accounting terms such as debits, credits, assets, liabilities, equity, revenue, expenses, etc to break the barrier that divides the accounting world with your own. Having a good open communication with your accountant is the key to proper action. Understanding your financials can be downright easy too. It is just a simple enumeration of the columns of what goes in and out of the company. You might tremble at the word financial statement, but it is just a representation of what you have been doing all the time - which is running your business.

Learning the basics also makes you aware if the company is making profits or not. Did the sales increases? Or do the expenses accounts more than the sales? These types of analytics are made available to you once you've mastered the basic principles of accounting.

Also, learning how to interpret your accounting data can translate into a major decision for the company. Are we going to cut in our expenses? What are the sources of the company's spending leaks? Can we expand our business this time of the year? These are just some of the questions that can have a major impact in your company.

Accounting is an essential component of your company and should not be banished to the sidelines. As your role in being part of the management or as the owner himself/herself, it is to your benefit to understand the basics of the accounting, especially those that are utilized by your business or company.
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