Being engaged in business is not a simple task. You must take care
of a lot of things to keep the business going and the money flowing.
However, many do not become successful at their attempts to put up a
business because of loss of track of their finances and cashflows.
If you intend to stay in business for a long time, you need to know and understand your financial situation.
Taxes Compliance to the law regarding taxes will keep you out of trouble.
Keeping track of all your income and expenses is necessary for you to be
able to ensure that necessary tax payments are correctly made.
Taking Control of Your Business Using financial data is one of the best ways for one to achieve
better control of their business. Monthly reports will show you how good
or bad your business has been performing and in what particular area is
improvement required. Things to watch out for are:
To search and hire the right chartered accountant for you is not an
easy task, but if you are going to start up a business, hiring an
accountant must be one of your priorities. It is of course required that
the one that you are going to hire has the qualifications. One of the
best ways is to ask your professional associates or find a reliable
source.
The internet is replete with accounting firms who
advertise their services online. You can check out these firms and
contact them. Most of them are promising and can help you find the right
accountant for you, who of course, has the right qualifications. You
should also go for a firm which offers a free needs assessment, as it is
as important as hiring the right accountant for your business.
The Benefits of Having an Accountant
An
accountant's job description includes studying and taking care of your
accounts, diagnosing financial problems, and improving your company's
financial sta
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There are quite a few checking account plans out there, that tempt
retail bank customers with high yields if -those hopeful people
qualify..
To qualify of course, you need to meet their (demanding)
expectations in being an ideal customer - which means, that you'll need
to show them your goodwill by being regular enough with certain kinds
of profitable banking transactions.. One very good example would be
spontaneously using their online mode of bill payment service in paying
your debit card for a month or more.
Bankrate conducted an
analysis, wherein they discovered about 50 banks situated in the
country, offering high rate business checking account plans to
customers; With an astounding high interest rate of 3% for average up to
as high as 6%.
After qualifying and getting used to it for
several months there would be certainly come a time when you're not
making sufficient business payroll checks with the bank; Your interest
rate are t
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There are a daunting amount of companies out there practicing
accountancy so what should you consider when choosing an accountant...
There
are a number of factors to consider when choosing an accountant but the
most important is whether you need a general or specialist accountant. A
general accountant can help service the overall needs of your business
or can help with personal finances; a specialist accountant will be able
to help with more specific areas of finance such as cash flow
projections or VAT. The following will help explain the specific
services that accountants can provide:
Account Production -
Account Production is the preparation of annual accounts for inspection
by the Inland Revenue; you are required to keep track of your spending,
profits, tax returns and all manner of transactions.
Audit - An
audit is the systematic examination and verification of a firm's
accounts which results in the publication of an independent o
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The new government accounting system (NGAS) is the shift to new
accounting procedures in order to facilitate the process of recording
system, and expand a range of users who can use and understand the
accounting system.
The important features and policies of the new government accounting system comprise of the following
1. Accrual basis of accounting system (all expenses shall be recognized when incurred)
2. Adoption of one-fund concepts
3. A new coding structure wit a three-digit account numbering system shall be adopted
4. All national agencies shall maintain two sets of books, regular
agency books and national government books, (National Treasury)
5. Financial statements books
6. Us of two money column trial balance
7. Allotment and obligations accounts (Registry allotments)
8. Notice of cash allocation
9. Financial expenses
10. Depreciation, accounting for borrowing and loans, recognition of liability
11. Elimination from
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When folks talk about accounting generally they think about
business and corporate accounting, and yes that is a huge topic with
corporate audits, SEC rules, Sarbanes Oxley, and the latest new
accounting rules. Still, government accounting is very important too,
along with Government like organizations, yes, I speak of Freddie Mac
and Fannie Mae. Now then, we have the Government Accounting Office, GAO,
and the OMD - and many other accounting agencies to keep a check on our
money.
And that's just at the Federal Level, as the same thing
goes for our States and Counties. Yes, and our cities, many of which
have millions of people in them. Take the New York City for instance,
where does all that money go, how is it spent, and how is it all
accounted for, or is it. Well, this is a troubling question as New York
City recently discovered. For instance there was an interesting piece in
the New York Times recently.
The article was tiled; "New York
Ci
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Liquidity is simply defined as the ability of a company to convert
its assets into cash quickly or in the short term (usually encompassing a
12-month period). When your business is liquid, it means your company
can easily turn assets into cash and pay-off its short-term debts or
liabilities to creditors.
Liquidity is important when applying for
a loan since this will be used by banks and other creditors to gauge
your company's ability to pay off your debts and not go bankrupt. It can
also be used to make financial and management decisions. For example,
would you continue to buy inventory with cash to get a discount from
your supplier, but risk not having enough cash to pay for wages, taxes,
and interest on your loan?
There are two common ways to measure your company's liquidity just by looking at your accounting sheets:
1. Current Ratio
Current
ratio is calculated as the current assets divided by current
liabilities (Current asset
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One of the key software that every small business owner should
consider buying is an accounting software. Not only does it decrease
cost and time in preparing financial information, it can also be used by
businesses to instantly generate reports for decision making.
Choosing
an accounting software is an important decision for small businesses
since choosing the wrong one would mean losing a substantial amount of
money, and losing productive time and other business opportunities due
to time spent learning and implementing the system. Here are some
guidelines to follow when evaluating different accounting software
packages in the market:
1. Cost
Most
accounting software can be had for a one-time fee while some charge
recurring yearly or monthly payments. There are free accounting software
but these packages usually lack support and various updates that paid
programs provide. Similarly, open source accounting software, li
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Account reconciliation or balancing bank accounts is representing
vital financial management task. You improvise on the correctness of
your bookkeeping assuring that bank haven't made any errors, and by
regularly reconciling your records you reduce your chances of being a
victim of fraudulent transactions.
Bank Account Reconciliation Problem
At
times reconciling a personal or corporation bank account with Microsoft
Money can be frightening. If a comparative study between your records
and the balance in your bank account and its records show inconsistency.
Reconciling a bank account would just explain you the difference
between your records and the bank's.
Missing Transactions
Usually
two factors explaining the discrepancy between two sets of records are:
your unrecorded transactions in your account that has been recorded by
the bank could be for reasons like either the transactions that you have
missed to record or
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Budget is not just a book-keeping exercise for recording government
receipts and expenditure. It is a significant instrument of economic
management and has important basic functions of stabilisation,
allocation, distribution and resolution of conflict.
The way funds are raised and spent has far-reaching implications
for the economy and the society at large. From that angle, budget
should be very transparent so that all stakeholders may be able to
understand and respond rationally to the proposed measures.
It has been customary for the finance minister, to sum up, while presenting the annual
budget, the financial impact of the proposed measures. This vital
information is conspicuously missing in the Federal Budget for 2010-11
with the result that the size of the budget deficit-- a crucial element
for fiscal and economic management-, cannot be determined by an
outsider.
