8 Reasons You Are Losing Out by Not Using a CPA

1. Without using a professional, you will question if you are getting all the benefits of tax credits and deductions that are available to you. Many tax laws change near the end of the year (sometimes the beginning of the following year) with retroactive impact. Most good CPAs will go to a tax training session near the end of January or early February to get the latest information. 2. A good CPA will help you focus on profitability and where you should place your efforts. The CPA looks for a long-term relationship with you and will work to understand what your goals are and how you can be more efficient in spending your time on profitable lines of business 3.

Five Potential Barriers to a Successful Accounts Receivable Factoring Transaction

Accounts receivable factoring is a simple and quick method for temp nurse staffing agencies, medical transcription services and medical coding companies to access working capital. However, certain requirements must be satisfied to take full advantage of accounts receivable factoring's many benefits. Sales must be final. The only way a company can factor an invoice is if the sale is final: the company provided a service (i.e. a medical staffing agency sent temporary nurses to work in ABC hospital) or a good (i.e. a medical supply company sold latex gloves to a doctor's office), and the customer unequivocally accepted it.

Are Your Meals 50 Deductible Or 100 Deductible?

There are several specific rules to determine if a meal is a legitimate business expense. These specific rules include meeting the business purpose requirement and the ordinary and necessary requirement. In this article, it's assumed that the meal has met these requirements and is indeed a business expense. *General Rule Meals are generally 50% deductible. This means when a business pays for a meal, only 50% of that amount is deducted on the tax return. It's extremely important to know the exceptions to this rule because some meals are 100% deductible! Meals that are 50% deductible include: - Meals with clients, customers and vendors.

Outsourcing SOX - Best Options

SOX - An Overview It is mandatory for all US public companies to adhere to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) introduced in the country in July 2002. The primary objective of the Act is to regulate financial practice and corporate governance and restore investor confidence in response to major financial scandals involving Enron, WorldCom and others. But public companies are already grumbling about the costs of abiding with the Act's requirements. The Japanese government similarly, promulgated a law in June 2006, known as J-SOX in order to prevent accounting frauds by public companies and to safeguard investor interest.

Online Bookkeeping Services - Why it is Redefining Bookkeeping

With modernization, different techniques and services made possible in physical world are also available through the virtual world of the internet. This includes the online bookkeeping services. The online bookkeeping services give the companies, whether big or small scale, the convenience of easy access to bookkeeping services the way a physical person does. Every business owner can take advantage of the online bookkeeping services available nowadays. The transactions are done through the internet which means that there is no necessity for physical contacts of the agreeing parties. Furthermore, the bookkeeping services will be catered right to the company's door when the needs arise.

DBA Fictitious Business Name Filings

Whether you're a corporation, LLC or sole proprietor, there may be advantages to filing a "Doing Business As" or "DBA" for your business. What is a DBA? DBA stands for "doing business as" and is an official and public registration of a business name. DBAs are also known as Fictitious Names, Fictitious Business Names, Assumed Names, and Trade Names. Essentially, a DBA is the name of a business other than the owner's name or, in the case of a corporation, a name that is different from the corporate name as on file with the Secretary of State. What are the benefits to filing a DBA? A DBA makes it easy to: Open a bank account and collect checks and payments under your business name Look more professional, by establishing a separate business identity Start marketing and advertising under a name other than your personal or corporate name What is an example of a DBA and how it is used?

Questions You Really Must Ask Before You Appoint a Bookkeeper Or Outsource Your Bookkeeping

The decision to let go of your business bookkeeping is not one that people take lightly, after all, you are letting a stranger into the inner sanctum of your business and private life, and your finances. So how do you know that they are trustworthy, responsible, discrete, accurate, professional and competent? Most employees or subcontract service providers you take on are there to provide a relevant service for your business and it is quickly apparent when they cannot perform. For instance, a salesman who upsets all your customers, a secretary who can't keep a polite tongue in their head under pressure, a worker who cannot get to grips with a process.

S-Corp Election

Incorporation is a big step toward success for you and your business. Chances are you've considered the key benefits of incorporation: Secure personal assets through liability protection Save money on taxes Establish credibility with customers There are many people who consider S-Corporation election when forming their new corporation. An S-Corporation offers both advantages and disadvantages that regular C-Corporations do not, and may be beneficial depending on what type of business you run and how you would like to run that business. S-Corporations operate similarly to regular corporations, but are taxed in a manner that is similar to a Limited Liability Company.

A Checklist to Properly Document Your Meals and Entertainment Expenses

One thing you can always count on during an audit is a request for documentation supporting meals and entertainment expenses. The IRS has found that these expenses are heavily abused and are an easy way to generate additional tax revenue, not to mention additional revenue from penalties and interest. You don't have to spend a lot of time reading tax cases to find one where meals and entertainment expenses were disallowed specifically because of improper documentation. *Here are a few examples from recent cases: The taxpayer's business meal expenses did not satisfy the substantiation requirements because they did not include the taxpayer's relationship to the parties involved or specify the business purposes of the meals.

Accounting Outsourcing - A New Trend in Accounting

It's a competitive world out there. So it is quite important to grab every opportunity to cut cost to be more productive and to be more efficient. Fortunately for companies today, it is now possible to outsource back office functions. Accounting outsourcing companies provide solutions that will not only save companies money but will make them do business more efficiently as well. If they go for accounting outsourcing, they will be able to do what they do best instead. Since cost is one of their foremost concerns, it would be important to take note that outsourcing accounting will save them up to as much as 50%.