Your  accountant plays a very important role in your life and business. This is why it's so important to maintain a good business relationship with your  accountant. Here are some things you can do to maintain a proper business relationship with your accountant and how to obtain the best service from them. Make sure that he or she understands your needs from them. These needs not only include services but also the amount of attention you need and expect from the accountant themselves to ensure you receive the standard of service that you expect. By doing this, you will know what type of fee ..read more

Have you ever imagined how important the back office process is for the success of any organization? All of us realize the importance of this, but the fact also remains that most of us are actually reluctant to do this work. Outsourcing is one source through which you can stop doing the work, yet your task will be completed in time. Outsourcing is here to stay and more and more business processes are being outsourced. Back office outsourcing is the perfect solution to all your back office related work queries and worries. Most business owners feel that, outsourcing the core process of th ..read more

The term "market analysis" is often confusing to small business owners, especially for people who focus on a specific niche or market segment. In fact, many small business owners don't understand the process or complain that conducting a market analysis is too complicated or too expensive and wonder why or if it's even necessary. What is market analysis? In the most basic terms, a market analysis is an assessment of: - A particular problem or opportunity in a market. - The needs of the target market relating to the problem or opportunity. - Ideas for marketing a particular product or serv ..read more

No matter what industry you're in, or the size of your business, you have various activities everyday and that includes accounting. Whether the company is private or government-owned, it still makes use of accounting. Companies, offices, and various organizations or institutions cannot operate successfully without an accounting staff. However, having an accounting staff can get very expensive and so most companies resort to auditing services or financial accounting services. Bookkeepers and  accountants are not hard to find; with the use of the internet, you can easily locate them and mak ..read more

We all love to criticize the IRS, don't we? It's easy to ridicule a huge organization of government bureaucrats who often seem to be Public Enemy #1. Our negative attitude toward the IRS can lead to a strong desire to just ignore it altogether. But self-employed people who ignore the IRS do so at their own peril.  So when it comes to providing free information about taxes, let's not throw the baby out with the bath water. The IRS does provide some excellent resources to help us make the best of a potentially bad situation. If you need tax assistance and prefer not to pay for it, do not ove ..read more

​Most people probably think of bookkeeping and accounting as the same thing, but bookkeeping is really one function of accounting, while accounting encompasses many functions involved in managing the financial affairs of a business. Accountants prepare reports based, in part, on the work of bookkeepers. Bookkeepers perform all manner of record-keeping tasks. Some of them include the following: 1. They prepare what are referred to as source documents for all the operations of a business - the buying, selling, transferring, paying and collecting. The documents include papers such as purchas ..read more

Just the thought of taxes can scare people out of their minds. You have to keep all your records and documents in order to be able to file easier at the end of the year. Home business owners have their own set of allowable deductions that differ from other businesses. You have a chance to save a lot of money by knowing how to take advantage of you home business situation. Know what your deductions are. There are several deductibles that the home-based business owner is entitled to. There are auto/vehicle deductions that can help with mileage, gas, insurance, and/or other related expenses ..read more

This is that time of year when we all start getting those emails that want to scam us into revealing our secret codes and passwords.  You know the ones that have subject lines like: “Your Account Is About To Be Closed,” “There’s A Block On Your Account,” “Could You Help Me Claim My Funds,” or my all-time favorite “Congratulations – You’ve Won The Giveaway.”   Most of us have spent more than usual recently, and the last thing we need is for our bank or credit cards account to be hindered.  That is exactly what these “phisher” are counting on, and unfortunately some of us are tempted to follo ..read more

Of course profit and cost of goods sold expense are the two most critical components of an income statement, or at least they're what people will look at first. But an income statement is truly the sum of its parts, and they all need to be considered carefully, consistently and accurately. In reporting depreciation expense, a business can use a short-life method and load most of the expense over the first few years, or a longer-life method and spread the expense evenly over the years. Depreciation is a big expense for some businesses and the method of reporting is especially critical for the ..read more

The first and most important part of an income statement is the line reporting sales revenue.  Businesses need to be consistent from year to year regarding when they record sales. For some business, the timing of recording sales revenue is a major problem, especially when the final acceptance by the customer depends on performance tests or other conditions that have to be satisfied. ​For example, when does an ad agency report the sales revenue for a campaign it's prepared for its client? When the work is completed and sent to the client for approval? When the client approves it? When the a ..read more