bookkeeping (7)

Well maybe not mad, but we are determined to help as many micro businessowners learn the idea of being PROACTIVE about your bookkeeping insteadof REACTIVE ! What better way to give you a little "nudge" and actuallyoffer to clean your books for 2010 in time for tax season!

So what is this about?
Well my company Your Simple Bookkeeper,is a bookkeeping company focused on Micro business owners just like youthat need accessible, affordable yet high quality bookkeepingservices.We seek to close the gap between the heavily under-served microbusiness owner (most businesses under $500,000 in annual revenue) andquality real-time accounting services. We do this by offeringBookkeeping Support Services starting from $35 - $150 per month. It's anambitious proposition we know but as a micro business, we truly believethat the Micro business is the true back-bone of the "small business"and the country.

So what about this Contest?
The Contest is rather simple. We're asking you to help us spread the word about our unique Micro Business service model by:
  • Tweeting about us (using #ysbcontest and @yoursimpletweet)
  • Sharing the contest with your peers
  • Joining our Facebook page
  • Suggesting our facebook page to your friends
  • Joining our community or mailing list
  • Or any other creative way you can think to help us spread the word
That's the only catch, no limbs, first born or anything, just helpshare with your colleagues that FINALLY there is a resource out therefor the micro business owner.

We'll be picking one luckybusiness every month between October and March 2011. We'll also bepicking one 2nd place winners every month and FREE Tax Review servicesand discounted bookkeeping services available to everyone just forentering! There is no obligation to hire us for ongoing bookkeepingservices after we clean your books (although why wouldn't you?)

I'mexcited about this contest because I know it will change the way manyof you look at managing your books within your business. They aim is tohelp you stay in business. By helping you start the New Year off right with a clean mind mind and clean set of books. Whew, just the thought makes me feel better, don't you?

Click the links above or here to learn more and enter. Good Luck!
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One of my favorite websites for business and entrepreneurship is Inc.com (if you haven't been to this site and you're in business check it out!) Today I got the perfect I mean PERFECT alert regarding business and taxes and I want to share with you the highlights!

The article discusses planning for the next tax season now by being PROACTIVE. In essence, what this means is not waiting UNTIL January 2011 or April 14th for that matter to giving attention to your businesses finances. It means taking small steps through out the year to manage and organize your books, ask questions to your Tax Preparer or Tax Advisors, knowing and understanding the new tax law changes and how they affect your business today and so on. Several tax professionals offer their advice and tips on this and have formulated it into an acroymn: P.L.A.N.

P. Preparing your Records

L. Listing Issues and Questions

A. Analyizing for Accuracy

N. Noting Changes in Tax Laws

Do you P.L.A.N for your taxes? As a Bookkeeper and Small Business consultant, I realize that most if not ALL of these steps can be time consuming or frustrating when you don't know where to begin. Especially noting changes in Tax Laws. Unless you're like me and receive IRS updates and alerts daily most businesses find navigating through the text to find relevant information they can apply today elusive, confusing and just a waste of precious money producing time. I get it!

Some small businesses do hire Bookkeepers to take on this task which is highly recommended, but small businesses are made up of roughly 78% Micro businesses who most simply cannot afford to do this! While I LOVE this article, it does very little in directing business owners on where to begin to Plan for tax time. I consult with or talk to many business owners weekly who have this very issue, "where do I begin, and where do I find the time, how can I afford a bookkeeper?" When you don't feel you can afford a bookkeeper, what do you do?

No this isn't a sales pitch, but there are ways you can get the help of a qualified bookkeeper to get your records and books in order before tax time. Some will help you and provide you with tools if you choose to do it yourself completely free or for a nominal monthly fee. Depending on your budget you may be able to afford an outsourced bookkeeper to help you manage your books. Affordable BOOKKEEPING for your business DOES EXIST if you know where to look! I urge all businesses micro or small to take the time to consult a Bookkeeper at the minimum or CPA to request a review of your books and recommendations for how to P.L.A.N. for tax time. In my blog about Proactive Accounting, I talk about how planning in advance can actually SAVE you money at tax time, and save your business!

Take the time to call your local bookkeeper or CPA, invest a couple hundred dollars and request a review, be Proactive about your business! If you are having difficulty in finding a bookkeeper, give me a call, inbox me. Even better become a fan of YourSimple Bookkeeper, Inc. on Facebook and I'll put you on my priority list for the launch of my YourSimple Bookkeeper -in-a-Box Download on Effective Recordkeeping which is available for Free download Tuesday July 6th (and forever and ever and ever after that)! Information is free in my mind.

Remember: Making Money is EASY, Keeping it is where the Challenge comes.

To check out the full Inc.com article click here.

To become a fan of YourSimple Bookkeeper to be one of the first to receive a FREE download click here.

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Picture it – Your Business, LLC, April 14th 20-“you pick the year”. Business is doing relatively great, you’re riding high on the small business/self-employed cloud, there is some cash in the bank, your clients are moderately happy, and you’ve managed to replace your 9 to 5 income. Not so bad for not hiring an accountant or bookkeeper to help you manage things. Well it’s April 14th and you realize that you must file your taxes, ok still not a big deal, I’ll just go to my CPA give him/her my shoebox of receipts and records, and if need be I’ll just file an extension. NOT A BIG DEAL! Your CPA charges you $XXX hundred dollars to file an extension, never utters a word about why you haven’t come to him earlier takes your money and files an extension on your behalf. 1-3 months later your CPA calls you with disturbing news:

“You owe $X,XXX in taxes this year!” Oh and since you are a sole proprietorship you also owe $X,XXX in self-employment taxes” And because you haven’t reported a profit in over 5 years you’ll probably get a notice that the IRS is going to audit your financial records. Ya might wanna also get those contractors to complete a W-9 cause they might want to review that too. SURE we’ll help ya…that’ll be $X,XXX invoice in the mail! See you next year! à Channel “Deer in Headlights”

Ok I may be over dramatizing this, most CPAs and Tax Preparers do not take this drastic heartless detached approach; in fact many of them work tirelessly to encourage small businesses to plan ahead, follow IRS guidelines and actually offer monthly bookkeeping services to businesses to avoid these pitfalls. But the fact remains that a vast majority of small business owners look at bookkeeping and accounting as an afterthought and even put off planning until after they started making money, started incurring expenses and can actually afford to pay for advice and planning. Frankly, you’re not in business to do your books, so why on earth should you care right now? Well as an Accountant, I’m offended (not really), as a self-employed turned small business owner turned entrepreneur, I understand! BUT the truth is hiring a bookkeeper, or CPA or Tax Advisor in the infant stages of your business can save you thousands if not completely save your business if nothing else your sanity!

“Rear-view accounting” is what we are used to, I call it reactive accounting, it’s what most small businesses do, and what I described above. It’s doing only what’s necessary regarding the financial management of your business and seeking counsel from professionals when desperation strikes. For most micro businesses it’s being your own bookkeeper to keep cost down or “DIY” Bookkeeping. I’m a fan of the latter if money is an issue, but it’s the former that has me nervous. Thus, I’m talking a “radical” new approach to the way small businesses view their finances, I call it “Proactive Accounting”. I was excited when I “created” with this term a few weeks ago, until I Googled it and saw that in fact this is a concept that has been around. The model of YourSimple Bookkeeper is based entirely on the concept of Proactive Accounting whether I invented this or not and hopes to give a fresh take on it and use it to totally change how we look at small business finances and accountants overall (to all CPAs and Tax preparers, I kindly welcome all donations).

Proactive Accounting is real simple concept; it’s considering how the financial management of your business affects your business from the inception and throughout the course of managing your business. Proactive accounting involves having your bookkeeper if not your CPA in the front seat with you as your trusted advisor from “Day 0” of creating your business. Traditionally Bookkeepers, accountants and CPAs were looked to only at tax time for payroll or once you were in trouble, but most of my business now-a-days comes from people looking to start businesses and want my advice on the proper steps to do so. Mostly from a “how to I pick the right entity” or “how do I lower my tax bill” perspective, but I use this time to push my agenda of actually getting their books set-up right the first time as well as getting in the habit of reaching out to me on a monthly basis for review. I admit it is a challenge to change the mind set of folks but I’m committed to trying. Instead of doing your books alone, proactive accounting involves tax planning, record-keeping set-up and tracking from the very beginning and including this very expense in your start-up and operating cost if needed. This new approach may make some CPAs uncomfortable at tax time with the onslaught of well prepared clients who no longer need extensions, but with the IRS set to increase its audit of small business particularly those who improperly classify employees as independent contractors as well as the new legislature to enforce 1099 reporting, mileage tracking and self-employment taxes, NOT having your books set up from day one nor having someone on your team can honestly cost you your business.

5 ways Proactive Acct is good for business:

1. Can help with potential borrowing – Lenders almost always want to see a well written business plan. Some probably want to also see that you’ve actually started making money in your business already. Having a way to track your expenses and revenues in the beginning and seeking the advisement of a bookkeeper or tax advisor along the way can ensure your books are sound and accurate, something that is crucial to a potential investor.

2. Can help avoid costly pitfalls – Consider most of us do not realize that the IRS makes modifications or changes to the tax code more often than we know or that there are always new tax law changes in the pipeline waiting to be passed a lot of them recently directly impact micro and small businesses. Having a bookkeeper on your “team” on a consistent basis can help you identify potential troubles before tax time. And alert you when it’s time to take a trip to your Tax advisor, make adjustments to how you conduct business as well as make recommendations to help you save money.

3. Avoid Cash Flow issues – As anyone who has been in business for at least a year knows is that CASH IS KING. Which in simple terms means knowing where your cash is at all times is paramount to the success of your business. One small business pitfall in cash management is not knowing how their money is being spent or having adequate records of client payments. Having a simple monthly review of your bank and customer records by a qualified bookkeeper can alert you to some potential cash flow meltdowns on the way.

4. You’re always Audit Proof – Poor recordkeeping is one of the top reasons small businesses fail or get trapped in IRS audits and with 78% of all businesses being small business, it’s true that we are the cornerstones of this country economy. Take it from an accountant, great bookkeeping spills over and improves other parts of your business as well. Example, a client called me one day panicked b/c she was being audited from the ESC for her payroll records (this was a routine audit the ESC performs on businesses under 2 years old). They wanted to see her payroll documents as well as tax returns. They were looking not only if the data was there but how was it kept. Luckily, her financial records and payroll documents were in order and the audit went through without a hitch. Had she had some issues, she would have been faced with steep fines and penalties which for her small business would have cost her everything.

5. One less thing to worry about! – Like I said above, unless you’re me, you’re not in business to do books so WHY would you want to worry about this? You’re good at what you do and making money doing it and should be able to focus on that. Hiring a qualified bookkeeper on a monthly retainer may seem like an expense you can’t afford, but add up the hours you spend working on your books and look at that as an actual LOSS of potential revenue as you could have spend that same time improving your marketing to drive more business. How nice would it be to know that you can bring home the bacon and someone else is gonna make sure it doesn’t go bad.

What do you do next? Fortunately there are bookkeepers and accountants out there who offer Proactive Bookkeeping services such as YourSimple Bookkeeper, Inc. whose fees can run as low as $600 annually ($50 a month) for simple reconciliation and review of your books each month. Some can even provide you training on how to manage your own books if you’d prefer that. To get started, I would find a local bookkeeper and ask them if they offer a low cost monthly review service you can utilize, if they don’t give YourSimple Bookkeeper a call for a free 30-min consultation!

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Jackie Mayfield the founder of the multi-million dollar company Compro-Tax, the largest Black-owned tax preparation and bookkeeping company in the United States, with over 200 offices in 24 states has joined the Black Business Network 4.0. He has extended an invitation to every Black person we can find to either attend his free seminar this Saturday in person in Atlanta at TAGTeam or to view online. This seminar explains the role of culture in today's business world. Learn how you can create that culture within your family and create massive success for you, your family, your business and your community. Learn from one of the most successful Black men in America. Learn about Jackie's vision, Compro-Tax services and their unique franchise opportunity. Find out how to understand your business or personal taxes to legally get more money back each year.Create the Culture of Business in Your Family Seminar is scheduled for this Saturday, July 18, 2009 from3:00 PM - 5:00 PM View Live Broadcast ONLINE or Attend Event In Atlanta, GeorgiaThis phenomenal event is FREE to attend live in Atlanta or to watch online.TAG TEAM Marketing, Inc.3465 North Desert DriveBuilding 4, Suite 102Atlanta, Georgia 30344Call (404) 305-0300 for directions or add’l info.REQUIREMENTS You must be a Black Business Network member to attend in Atlanta (free, can sign up online or at door and let them know that Darlene Robinson from Orlando invited you). Either way you must register online to secure your seat or your online viewing portal. So if you don’t already have an online account at the black business network go to www.blackbusinessnetwork.com/TeamDollar and get yourself signed up as a general member so you can get registered right now because seating and web viewing slots are limited.I am hosting a viewing party in Orlando from 3-5pm followed by a networking event at my office located at 771 Kirkman Road, Ste 108, Orlando, FL 32811. Hope to see you online or your smiling face on the live broadcast from Atlanta. Have a blessed day!Darlene Robinson
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The form of ownership that you choose to operate your business under will determine the method in which you pay yourself a salary. Making this decision in the start up phase requires much research and should be handled with care. We choose our form of ownership, mainly based on the potential tax consequence that we expect. Of course, our goal is to pay as little taxes as possible into the system, so the form of ownership chosen helps to achieve this goal. There are clear advantages and disadvantages based on each method available.As a small business, many people survive from the earnings from operations. But the key here is to remember to keep your business and personal expenses separate. So the questions is, “How do I pay myself, and what impact does it have on my taxes?” Let’s look at some of the ways a business owner can pay themselves a salary from the earnings of their business.Sole Proprietors and LLCsTaking money out your business or paying yourself under these forms of ownership, the owner will be responsible for self-employment taxes on any profits that remain in the business whether withdrawn or not. Because this income is not subject to withholding, the owner could also become responsible for making estimated quarterly tax payments. The estimated tax payments will account for both the self-employment tax along with income tax. The self-employment tax is the equivalent of what an employer’s payroll tax would be for FICA and Medicare. The disadvantage here would be that the owner is fully responsible for the entire tax, whereas corporations are not. The corporation is only responsible for half of the FICA taxes; Social Security (12.4%) and Medicare (2.9%) tax; with the employee paying the other half.Many owners become confused because they believe that since they are paying the self employment tax, that they are not subject to any further taxation. This is not true. The money you withdraw from your business is still subject to income taxes and you must report this income on your form 1040. The key point to remember here is that, although you are not subject to payroll taxes, you are still required to pay into the system by way of self employment and income taxes. The advantage here is the owner gets a deduction on its taxes for paying self employment taxes, where the owner of a corporation doesn’t. For tax purposes you can elect to have your LLC taxed as a corporation, but be aware that making this choice involves very complex rules and regulations. It’s best to stick with what makes sense for you.CorporationsIf you are established as this form of business, the payment to yourself would be made in the form of a salary through payroll. Under this method, you are subject to payroll taxes, which include income (federal and state), and FICA (Social Security and Medicare). One of the key advantages of corporations is that the owners are not liable for self-employment taxes for profits retained in the business. As with Sole Proprietorships and LLCs, you saw that profits are taxed whether paid out or retained in the business. However, a corporation will be subject to unemployment taxes for both federal and state. The employee does not share in this expense. So, the difference here comes in the classification of a corporation being an entity separate from its owners. Because of this, it has an entire different tax profile than the Sole Proprietor or the LLC. The corporation and its owners are taxed separately. Each must file its own tax form.Deciding on your method of payment simply comes down to how it must be reported for tax purposes. Take the time to do the research so that you can choose the best method based on your company’s profile.
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Your company’s financial records are the window into the soul of your company. Developing a system should be one the first tasks on your agenda when establishing your company. Of course, most of us wait until we’ve begun operations, and then we accumulate a mound of paperwork. At this point, either one of two things happen; you ignore that mound until you can’t ignore it anymore, or you’ll pass it off to someone else to handle for you. That’s why it’s advantageous to create your system in the beginning of your operations. You’ll save time and money.Your bookkeeping system should be designed specifically for your type of industry and it should be modified to represent the uniqueness of your particular company. If designed correctly, your bookkeeping system will not be too complex and it will provide you with pertinent financial data at the click of a mouse. To set up the proper system for your company a Bookkeeper will ask a series of questions to gain insight into the type of business you have, and from that information he/she will be able to advise as to the type of transactions and the establishment of the chart of accounts. In the beginning, your chart of accounts will provided very basic data due to the fact that not a lot of activity is occurring at that point. However, it should contain the necessary information for financial reporting and tax reporting. As your company grows, so will your chart of accounts. Your bookkeeping system should be flexible in that it needs to accommodate the addition of various financial statements that management would use such as a balance sheet, an income statement, budgeting, cash flows, etc.Creating accounts and posting transactions are not the only components of a good bookkeeping system. A good system will include controls to make sure that the data captured and presented is done accurately. For instance processing cash receipts, paying bills, and entering invoices; all these tasks should be clearly documented as to the responsible party, the actual procedures involved, and the responsibility for the review of or oversight of these functions. And most importantly, automation is key. Although you may feel that in the beginning it’s not necessary, do yourself a favor today and make sure that your bookkeeping system is automated. Manual bookkeeping systems are outdated and inefficient. Automated systems provide a higher degree of accuracy, and prevent you from having to set up ledgers, journals and accounts that you aren’t familiar with.It’s not too late to give your current system an overhaul. Have your Bookkeeper review it today!
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Start Early for Tax Season

Business owners are you getting ready for tax season? Believe it or not, it's not too early to start putting your financial records in order. In fact, wise business owners understand that waiting until year end to gather receipts for bookkeeping can be very costly in terms of accounting fees, late tax filing fees, penalties, and worse, missed tax deductions.If you have not been keeping good records throughout the year, now is the time to get your books in order. Set aside some time each weekend over the next month to get caught up. Or, if the idea of recording hundreds of receipts sounds worse than having a tooth pulled send them out to your bookkeeper. This way you still have time before December 31 to ask questions that will help you save money and minimize income taxes.Remember that building a lasting and profitable business requires you to be a good steward over your time, talent, and resources.Have tax questions or need accounting software? If you're not sure where to start, sign up for my newsletter for advice on running a profitable business. You can also e-mail me to request a FREE copy of Quickbooks software to help you keep track of the finances in your business. I'd be happy to send one out to you.Blessings and success,Benita Tyler, MBAAccountant and QuickBooks Consultantwww.tbsusa.com

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