Archive for the 'Accounting' Category

Office Accounting Software

Published
by
Raymond Lam
on August 16, 2008
in Accounting
. 0 Comments
by Ray Lam

Buying the right Accounting Software for your business is very important. Because you will be using your Accounting Software frequently, it?s urgent to ensure that you pick the right software for your business and your needs. Accounting Software can be a great tool for your small business, allowing you to keep track of all your financial data, and easily produce reports for effective planning. Here are some things you should think about, before buying your Accounting Software:

The present day work pressures ask for unerring handling of finances and accounts. In case of small business houses, it is really important to be organized which is possibly only by adopting a good accounting software. Long-term financial goals of a business unit, requires effective management of accounting. All in all I would say your small business accounting software just lets you be the boss of your business. For, it is just not possible to have an error free accounting manually.

And worst of all you don’t want to get software with little or no support. Our research lead us to a website that has compared some of the most popular small business accounting packages released in 2005.

The cheapest software cost US $89.99 and the most expensive software cost US $1,499. It was interesting to note that the top 3 ranked websites were not the most expensive and cost between US $250 - US $300.

You are able to manage the flow of cash in little time. It is also possible for you to predict future bills, revenues and reports generating. But before buying accounting software for your business, certain things like what are the functionalities you want in your software must be considered for sure.

E-commerce and Internet are also important for your small business. Look for software which combines all these features. There are many benefits of accounting software and there are many accounting software in the market as well. And choosing the best software and learning about its benefits is tantamount to learning the benefits of a small business accounting software.

About the Author:
Learn about business accounting software and get a limited Accounting Software Guide by visiting http://accounting-software-tips.info, a popular website that provides free software for accounting advice.

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Got to love that accounting equation

Published
by
Kim and Charles Petty
on May 26, 2008
in Accounting
. 0 Comments
by Kim and Charles Petty

A company’s financial position indicates the amount of resources that they have, and also the claims against those precious resources at any time. Claims can also be referred as equities. So, a company can be known as a combination of economic resources and equities. Economic Resource=Equities. No mater what type of business your in, every type of company has two different types of equities. They are creditor’s equity and owner’s equity. In another way Economic Resources= Creditors Equities +Owners Equity. When using accounting language, the economic resources a company has at a particular time is called their assets? On the other hand the amount of creditor’s equity a company has is known as their liabilities. So here is the standard equation of accounting or better known as the accounting equation: Assets=Liabilities + Owner’s Equity. Similar to an algebraic equation, both sides of the equation has to be equal. This equation comes in handy when analyzing the financial effects of your everyday business activities. Let’s talk about a very important concept of any business. Assets are known as the economic resources that a business has that are expected to generate money for them in the future. Some examples are real estate and any other property that a business own so that they can rent out to people. If a business is owed money than it goes into what is known as accounts receivable which are monetary items. However, there are some assets that are not physical. Some examples are copyrights, trademarks, and patents, but they are still extremely valuable to a business. Next, liabilities are the obligations that a business has such as paying cash, provide future services to individuals, or transferring assets to another entity. These are known as the debt of a business or the money that they have to owe in the near future. All of these are recorded in the accounts payable. As I’m sure you know, having a lot of debt is not fun and liabilities/debt are claims that are seen by the law. The law gives creditor (People that money is owed to) the right to push the sale of a company’s assets if they don’t pay their debt on time. Creditors have a ton of rights over owners and they have to be paid in full even before the owners receive anything. It is very possible for a debt to consume up all a company’s resources. Next, owner’s equity refers to the claim that owners of a business make in regards to the assets they have. It is the residual interest or the remaining assets of a company after deducting the amount of entity liabilities. Here is the equation for owner’s equity. Owner equity=Assets-Liabilities. The owner’s equity within a particular corporation is referred as stockholders equity, so the equation then looks like this. Assets=Liabilities +Stockholder’s Equity. The stockholders equity has two distinct parts which are the contributed capital and retained earnings. Stockholder’s Equity=Contributed Capital + Retained Earnings. The amount than an individual stockholder puts into a business is known as the contributed capital. Contributed capital is usually divided into two separate parts known as par value and “par value” and “additional paid in capital.” The retained earnings are the amount of equity that is earned by stockholders from the income generating activities of a business that are kept for future uses by a business. Retained earnings are affected by three types of transactions which are revenues, expenses, and dividends. The increase and decrease in a stock are known as revenues and expenses respectively and these come from operating a business whether online or offline. If you’re online than an operating expense that you will have if you have your own website is your domain name and hosting service. Another example is if a customer agrees to pay you in the near future for a service that the company will perform. The money is recorded in the accounts receivable (asset account) which increase the asset value but decrease the stock holder’s equity amount which is an example of revenue. However, if a company promises to provide a service in the future than this is known as an expense. When this happens the assets decrease (accounts receivable) and the liabilities (accounts payable) is increased, which makes pretty good sense right? When the revenues exceed the expenses this is known as the net income which is good, and on the other hand when expenses are greater than revenues than this is known as net loss which means that you’re losing business or your business costs more to operate than what you make. Dividends are the distribution of assets to stockholders which refer to the past earnings. Do not confuse expenses with dividends, because they both are reducing the retained earnings amount. Retained earnings are the collected net income or revenues minus expenses. The financial statements are the main way for communicating information about a business to those who have some type of interest in it. What helps me is to think of these statements as a type of model for business because they show how a business is doing in financial terms. However, like a variety of methods and models, financial statements are not perfect and have their flaws. There are four main financial statements, and they are income statement, the statement of retained earnings, the balance sheet, and the statement of cash flows. What the income statement does is summarize the revenues earned or the money made, and the expenses or the money that is deducted from a business. Many accountants consider it the most important financial report because it makes it clear whether a business has met its profitability goal. The next one is the statement of retained earnings, and it displays the retained earnings over a period of time. The time that the retained earnings will be zero is when a company first started out in their accounting period. A lot of companies use the statement of stockholder equity as a substitute of retained earnings. This is a more detailed statement because it displays not only the aspects of retained earnings but it also shows the changes in the stockholders equity accounts. Next, the financial situation of a business on a particular date, usually on the end of the month or the year is the balance sheet. The balance sheet displays the value of a business according to their assets and the claims against those assets which are the liabilities and the stockholders equity. Last, the statement of cash flows is geared towards a company’s liquidity measures. They are basically the flow and outflow of cash in a company. The net cash flow is the subtraction between the inflow and outflow of money. The statement of cash flows also display the money generated by simply operating a business, and it also displays the investing and financing transactions that occurs during a particular accounting period.

About the Author:
Kim and Charles Petty,experienced in Real Estate Market. For FREE Special Report and CD and to set up strategy session on how you can make Six or Seven Figures A Year Buying and Selling Propertiesacross the USA & abroad go to VirtualRealEstateInvestingPRofits or call 1-800-311-9228 You are welcome to reprint this article - but get your own unique content version here.

Can Your Accounting Staff Take You to the Next Level?

Published
by
Jens Rhoades
on May 18, 2008
in Accounting
. 0 Comments
by Margot Brandlin

When your company is just beginning, you’re not necessarily thinking about the talents and skills your employees are going to need in the years to come. At first, you just focus on surviving, and that sometimes means that you’re willing to hire just about anyone who will work at the pay level you can afford.

Oftentimes, a business owner hires somebody they already know and trust, such as a relative or neighbor, to do bookkeeping for them. Even if it means this person doesn’t have experience in bookkeeping (or very little), they’re probably more skilled at it than the owner.

Are You Ready to Bolster Your Accounting Staff?

As the business grows, the needs and requirements of the business exceed the expertise of the original bookkeeper. As transactions get more complex, the books can get messy. And while the bookkeeper focuses on keeping up with the basic tasks, the big picture details go unattended.

For example, profits could be ignored, cash not managed. It may also be that you’re not building relationships with lenders you need to. In short, you’re letting opportunities for your business to grow slip away. If you as the owner know how to present the business to an investor or bank, your numbers might still let you down if they haven’t been done properly. This can negatively impact your entire organization.

Help for the Business Owner

It’s true that many business owners don’t think they are versed in accounting or finance, and don’t have a formal background in these types of skills. This can leave them with little skill and knowledge so that they can’t properly supervise the bookkeeper they’ve hired, much less train them. It’s also true that they might not be able to handle issues like financial forecasting, keeping costs under control, and analyzing profitability.

A Qualified CFO or controller can help in two important ways:

* The CFO or controller can support and train your existing accounting staff, so that they can operate at optimal levels. This might include putting together procedural manuals, automating some processes, and reorganizing disorganized books, so that the bookkeeper can have a fresh start.

* By performing financial duties that fall outside the expertise of the bookkeeper and the owner-this might include things like preparing and analyzing financial statements, creating business plans, defining budgets and performing cash flow analysis.

This helps the business owner, too, because he or she then has the time to actually focus on running the business. In turn, the bookkeeper also tends to do much better once he or she is properly trained and has clear expectations that he or she can follow.

Efficient Processing Adds to Your Bottom Line

Your accounting operations directly impact the profitability and growth of your company. For example, when you’re processing accounts receivables efficiently, payments are collected more promptly, cash flow evens out and banks view your business as being more credible.

If you don’t think your accounting staff can take your company to where it should go, perhaps it’s time to call upon a professional accounting service.

About the Author:
About the Author: Margot Brandlin writes and works for OWL Bookkeeping and CFO Services. Owl Offers Businesses in Minneapolis Quickbooks implementation and training.