Saving Your Accountant Time, Saves You Money

This is just common sense, but something that many business owners overlook when preparing their books to send to their accountant for the preparation of year-end financial statements and tax filings. The more accurate and complete your accounting records are, the less time your accountant needs to spend on reconciling and correcting the details before beginning on the reports and taxes. The less time they spend on your books, the less it is going to cost you. Here are some tips to help make sure that your books are as easy to work with as possible. Read More »

Tags: Account Balances, Accountant, Accounting Records, Accuracy, Asset Purchases, Assets, Bank Accounts, Business Owners, Common Sense, Detailed Records, Financial Statements, Loan Accounts, Payroll Tax, Quarterly Tax Reports, Receipts, Reconciliation, Spreadsheet, Tax Filings, Tax Liabilities, Year End

Preparing for a Sales and Use Tax Audit: Part 3

In Part One of this series, we discussed the initial contact with the auditor in response to the notification of your upcoming audit. In Part Two we covered two of the main areas that the auditor will be expecting to find errors in tax filings, use tax payments on purchases and collections of adequate sales tax from your own sales. In this article we will discuss the documentation you should include with your sales tax returns for the audit period selected.

Read More »

Tags: Audit Period, Collections, Digital Storage, File Cabinets, Receipts, Sales And Use Tax, Sales Invoices, Sales Tax, Sales Taxes, State Sales Tax, Storage System, System Vendor, Tax Audit, Tax Auditor, Tax Filings, Tax Jurisdictions, Tax Payments, Tax Periods, Tax Returns, Vendor Invoices

Transform Your Business With Spreadsheet Accounting – Part 1

When a new client approaches me to do their accounting for them, they often bring in their previous financial “system”… which usually consists of cardboard box overflowing with files, receipts, envelopes, and notebooks of spreadsheets. The first thing I do, before I start any official “help-them-save-money-and-make-more-money” accounting work, is to roll up my sleeves and systematize the avalanche of papers.

If your small and growing business doesn’t have an accountant yet, or if you want to make it really fast for your accountant to get through your records and start delivering the meaningful insight that you are hiring them to provide, you need to build and implement a spreadsheet-based accounting system as early as possible.

Read More »

Tags: Accountant, Accountants, Accounting System, Avalanche, Business Profitability, Cardboard Box, Cash Flow Statement, Envelopes, Google, Google Spreadsheets, Gross Profit, Income Statement And Balance Sheet, Meaningful Insight, Microsoft Excel, Profit And Loss, Profit And Loss Statement, Receipts, Spreadsheet, Step 2, Step 3