Accounting Reviews

Accounting firms come to play in your business when you face taxation problems and financial liabilities. Firms that handle accounting help you in tracking, organizing and updating your financial records and keep your financial books clean. Based on your needs and your organization’s strength, you will have many firms that would be willing to extend accounting services to you. Finding a good firm that can handle all your accounting needs is a small challenge.

There are many firms that are around you; however, not all of them have the necessary skill sets to be the right choice for you. What to look for in an accounting firm which will give you confidence about its working? Read on to know some very essential points that make a firm a good and a responsible one.

An office is essential for an accounting firm to be trusted. There are many freelance firms that operate on the internet without a proper physical address. Trusting a firm that has no physical address is not a great idea. Accounting firms can be online and can have strong online presence; however, they will also have physical office setup where clients can come to meet. An office builds faith in people, and it also gives you a sense of security. It is after all financial matters that are connected in between your business and the accounting firm.

Employees make or break the organizations. A responsible accounting group will have good quality and qualified employees handling your account. There are many firms hiring freshmen with basic knowledge of accounts. A firm has good and highly qualified employees will be able to give you faster solutions for your problems.

Experienced people working in an organization will give you a sense of confidence to deal with the firm. A company will have many complicated issues and you will need people who are capable of handling any situations with ease. This happens only when the accounting firm has highly qualified people working for them.

Trying new firms is not a bad idea as long as they showcase exceptional quality in their work. If you have a large organization and you handle critical financial situations, you will need a firm that has a reputation of handling such cases. A company can have very complicated situations that need great care and only a firm with good track record will be able to do justice to the job. A good track record with good reference will make an accounting firm superior in itself.

Good track records are built over a period time and it also demonstrates quality of work and reliability. Trying to work with a firm that has excellent track record will give your company an advantage. You will be able to experience the power of expertise in dealing and handling issues that make need experts.

No matter what your need is, having a right firm will have all the financial situations under control and well organized. Look for the above qualities when you plan to hire a accounting firm for your organization.

An accountant’s job entails working to ensure that business firms
and individuals are keeping good records and paying taxes properly and
on time. Though the accountant job description for some accounting
positions may be simple, other accountant job descriptions are not quite
as clear because of the number of duties that are required.

In
general, an accountant performs vital functions to businesses, as well
as individuals, of all types by offering a very wide array of business
and accounting services, including public, management and government
accounting, as well as internal auditing. These four major fields of
accounting, and in addition to having a minimum of a bachelor’s degree,
each has a separate accountant job description.

1. Public Accountant

A
public accountant job description can be summed up in what most people
envision as “typical” accountant’s work. It involves performing a broad
range of accounting, auditing, tax, and consulting activities for their
clients, which may be corporations, governments, nonprofit
organizations, and individuals. Specialties in public accounting are
often chosen. For example, a public accountant may choose to concentrate
on tax matters, such as advising companies about the tax advantages and
disadvantages of certain business decisions and preparing individual
income tax returns. Other public accountants may choose areas such as
compensation or employee health care benefits, or may design accounting
and data processing systems. Still other public accountants may choose
to specialize in auditing financial statements and inform investors and
authorities that statements have been correctly prepared and reported.
Public accounts are usually Certified Public Accountants (CPAs), and
generally own their own businesses or work for public accounting firms.

2. Management Accountant

Another
accountant job description is that of a management accountant. Also
called a cost, managerial, industrial, corporate, or private account,
management accountants record and analyze the financial information of
the companies for which they work. The management accountant job
description includes a detailed listing of responsibilities, such as
budgeting, performance evaluation, cost management, and asset
management. Management accountants are often a part of executive teams
involved in strategic planning or the development of new products, where
they analyze and interpret financial information that corporate
executives need in order to make sound business decisions. They also
prepare financial reports for other groups, including stock holders,
creditors, regulatory agencies, and tax authorities. Management
accountants are usually a part of an accounting department, employed a
large company, and may work in many areas that may include financial
analysis, planning, budgeting, and cost accounting.

3. Government Accountant

A
government accountant works in the public sector, maintaining and
examining the records of government agencies and auditing private
businesses and individuals whose activities are subject to government
regulation and/or taxation. This accountant job description, while
detailed, is much more specialized. Government accountants are employed
by Federal, State, or local governments, and work to guarantee that
revenues are received and expenditures are made in accordance with laws
and regulations. Those employed by the Federal government may work as
Internal Revenue Services agents or in financial management, financial
institution examination, or budget analysis and administration.

4. Internal Auditor Accountant

The accountant
job description of an internal auditor can basically be summarized by
the job title. Internal auditors verify the accuracy of their
organization’s internal records, and check for mismanagement, waste, or
fraud. It is an increasingly important area of accounting, because
internal auditors examine and evaluate their firms’ financial and
information systems, management procedures, and internal controls to
ensure that records are accurate and controls are adequate to protect
against fraud and waste. They also review company operations, evaluating
their efficiency, effectiveness, and compliance with corporate policies
and procedures, laws, and government regulations. The accountant job
description of an internal auditor can vary with different companies,
and may include job duties such as electronic data processing,
environmental auditing, engineering, legal auditing, insurance reviews,
banking, and health care auditing.

Accountants in all four areas
can work for a company, or can be employed by an accounting firm, which
would in turn be hired by a company for consulting. An accountant can
also be self-employed, and provide accounting services to individuals,
businesses, or both.

Most accounting jobs include an accountant
job description that requires a bachelor’s degree, at minimum, in
accounting or a related field, and some accountant job descriptions
might include the requirement of a master’s degree or Certified Public
Account (CPA) certification, obtained through a four-part, Uniform CPA
Explanation prepared by the American Institute of Certified Public
Accountants (AICPA). While the two-day CPA examination is rigorous, and
only about 25 percent of those taking the exam pass every part they
attempt, CPA certification can greatly assist in the rate of pay
received, and in most states, the examination can be taken in two parts,
which may assist in preparing for and passing the exam.

According
to the United States Department of Labor, employment of accountants and
auditors is expected to grow at a faster than average rate, for all
accounting occupations from all accountant job descriptions mentioned,
through the year 2014. This is due to an increase in the number of
businesses nationwide, changing financial laws and regulations, and
increased scrutiny of company finances. In addition to these reasons for
new accounting jobs opening up, there will also be a need to replace
accountants and auditors who will retire or transfer to other
occupations.

The field is also becoming more specialized due to
technology and new, accurate accounting and auditing software experience
becoming a crucial addition to an accountant job description. An
accountant job description may include, in addition to educational and
technological requirements, strong interpersonal and communication
skills, simply due to the fact that most accountants work on teams with
others from different backgrounds, and will need the ability to
communicate accounting and financial information clearly and concisely.

Regardless
of one’s qualifications, competition in the accounting field will
remain strong for the most prestigious jobs, as well as for obtaining
clients for those accountants that are self-employed.

In our recent post, we talked about all of the things lawyers have to do to keep their accounts squeaky clean: >

Deposit (most) retainers into a trust account.

Bill their clients, then apply all or some of the retainer funds against the bill.

Mark the invoice as paid, then transfer the applicable money from trust account to operating account.

Update the retainer balance accordingly.

In real life, here is what that looks like:

To see how closely related law firm billing and trust accounting are; take a look at this simple example:

1. On January 1, you opened a new case with an initial retainer of $5,000. You deposited the $5,000 in your attorney trust account. Your trust books need to reflect a retainer balance of $5,000.
2. In January, you record $2,700 in time and expenses. You charge it to the matter.

3. On January 31, your books need to reflect the following: $2,700 for the unbilled balance, and $5,000 for the retainer balance.
4. On February 1, you generate an invoice. This converts unbilled time and expenses to billed. Your books now need to reflect $0 for the unbilled balance, moving the $2,700 into the unpaid balance column. The retainer balance is still $5,000.
5. The same day, you pay the invoice from the client’s retainer balance. Your books now need to reflect the unbilled balance as $0, the unpaid balance as $0, and retainer balance as $2,300. You can make a deposit of $2,300 from your trust account to your operating account.

Skip one of these steps, and you are stuck playing detective.

Say you apply a retainer in trust to a specific invoice, but forget to write the check in your trust bookkeeping system. You’ll have an invoice marked paid, but no funds drawn. You might not even notice your own mistake. Imagine the headache involved in tracing this mistake.

Now multiply that scenario by a few occurrences. For each mistake? At best, you’ve got an administrative nightmare on your hands. At worst, you’re under billing-or in inadvertent violation of an ethical regulation.

Accounting is a subject that differs from others its chapters are often interlinked. Failure to master the early chapters would make learning subsequent chapters even more difficult. If you are struggling with accounting, its likely you have not mastered the foundation well. The best way is to relearn the basics from scratch from a qualified teacher.

4 Tips for Mastering Accounting

1. Understand the technical terms – Learning accounting is like trying to live in a foreign country. The first thing is to understand the alphabets, the language and how terms are defined in the foreign world. Take some time to understand the new technical terms in accounting. Often, the same terms used in accounting are different from ordinary usage. Be sure to clarify them quickly with your lecturer or tutor.

2. Master the nature of the accounts – Accounts can be classified as either debit nature or credit nature. Beginner students often think debit increases and credit decreases. This is only true if the account is debit nature. A credit nature account increases by crediting, and decreases by debiting. All accounts have a nature, be sure to memorize the nature of the major categories of accounts before proceeding to learn double entry. Not knowing the nature of the accounts is like not knowing the ABCs.

3. Master Double Entry Seek a good instructor and good books to master double entry. Students who fail to master double entry will find tremendous difficulty in grasping future concepts as double entry is a pre-requisite to understanding future chapters such as correction of errors, depreciation and Provision for doubtful debts.

4. Practice diligently Accounting is a hands on subjects like maths, there must be sufficient practice time devoted to test and develop an understanding of the accounting concepts.

Follow these 4 tips and you will be on track to mastering the subject!

Understanding the Value of Small Business Budgeting Abstract Take the intimidation away from small business budgeting and learn how these simple exercises will benefit many facets of your business. Plan for the future, make more money and control that profit better with budgets. A better, more profitable business is the result. Article Body Although it may seem like a lot of work, budgeting is an essential process for your business. It will help you to plan for the future – this year and over the next decade.

Budgeting will assist you in decision making, goal setting and many other types of planning. It also helps to control the actions of your business. Planning and control work together, but are not actually the same thing. To plan in a business involves laying out the direction and goals. Control comes when you’re in the process of working towards those goals.

If the plan is to purchase a large asset in five years with cash reserves, the control comes into the picture when decisions are made that ensure you have enough cash when that time actually rolls around. Small business budgeting is the tool to help you plan well and exercise control. And it’s the key to your business’s financial success. Budgeting can be done in simple, straightforward methods now using computers, spreadsheets and even specialized software. You can create a master budget easily by starting with your long-term sales forecasts. Once you have a realistic idea of future sales you can plug those numbers into a Sales Budget, which also helps with a Purchasing Budget and an Ending Inventory Budget. Inventory can be a tricky thing within every business and the information gathered in these budgets is extremely helpful.

The Sales Budget also helps to create a Budgeted Income Statement. This particular accounting financial statement is helpful for potential investors to assess the likely profitability over the next few years. Long-term sales forecasts are also the first step in creating an Operating Expenses Budget and a Capital Budget. These figures help with day to day business as well as working to ensure a healthy future. When you can budget for capital expenditures based on sales forecasts and then maintain control on the way there, your business will thrive.

The Cash Budget is often the most useful for small business owners. Knowing how much cash you are likely to have at the end of a period is important and planning to keep a -safe amount- on hand for debt repayment or other things is simpler with a cash budget. Using the Sales Budget, the Operating Expenses and the Capitol Budgets, combined with past habits and events, you can create a reasonable Budgeted Income Statement and Balance Sheet. Those are used to bring about the Budget of Cash Flows, an essential tool for small business. Find out what you can realistically afford in the future and keep a handle on your company.

Remember that budgets are a continual exercise and will be updated frequently as new information arises. Small business budgeting is a flex thing and will need regular attention. Participation within the company is important. Involving managers in the planning stages will give them ownership of the goals and help them feel more connected with the end result.

Your business will benefit when more people work together on the budget.