Bryan Sumner
Bookkeeping is a full time job. It includes keeping records of invoices, purchases, time cards, paid time off, paychecks, withdrawals, deposits and much more. A good bookkeeper is hard to find while accountants can be found just about anywhere. A bookkeeper is right there, with the business and the business owner, learning intimate details of how the business works and what needs to be done to keep it successful. A bookkeepers books can be taken to an accountant for tax purposes. Many people often confuse the two jobs. The only thing that separates the two jobs is usually a college degree.
Bookkeepers often employ one of two methods for documenting financial data. The double entry method, while complex, helps ensure a set of books that are free of mistakes. It employs a balancing system of credits and debits separated by two distinct ledgers within the books. The single entry system is much less complicated and is often the method of choice for small businesses. Data is maintained in a revenue and expense journal and utilizes accounts solely of income and expense.
Several distinctive books are used to log the various financial transactions of a company. Depending on the company, either daybooks or journals are used to record the in-depth financial data created on a daily basis. Ledgers are used to record each section total, such as the ones logged for purchases, sales, cash, credit, etc.
All ledgers contain different areas so they can then be used to create the financial reports, including the balance sheet and the income statement. Ledgers can be used for recording any category. Businesses commonly have customer ledgers (or sales ledgers) where they track transactions with customers. They also have suppliers ledgers (or purchase ledgers) where they can track their transactions with their suppliers. The general ledger will include information on the company’s assets and liabilities, income and expenses.
Part of a bookkeeper’s job is to check the books for mistakes. This is done by creating a worksheet where they record the balance shown in every ledger account. Each balance will show as a debit or a credit, as of a set date. When the double-entry system is being used, the debits should equal the credits. When the two are equal to each other, the accounts are considered to be balanced. If they are not equal, a mistake has been made and the bookkeeper will have to root out the mistake.
Depending on the size of your business, you may feel the need to hire a bookkeeper full time so that they are in complete control of your income and expenses, while you deal with the suppliers and customers. Some businesses are still small and so they do not need a full time bookkeeper but they do need help. They can easily find someone who does bookkeeping and contract the work to them. A contract bookkeeper will either visit the business on a weekly basis or will have all the invoices brought to them so that they can put them in a ledger. Whichever way you prefer, a bookkeeper can help your business stay in the black by staying on top of income, expenses and your businesses bottom line.
Now Try – Rouse Hill Bookkeeping
Tags: accountancy, bookkeeping, Finance, small business, Taxes
Posted in Taxes · July 19th, 2010 · Comments (0)
On the basis of estate and tax planning, cash gifts as exchanged from individuals, or from individual to organization, the process is known to follow a standard legal and rule-based framework. The process is familiar, accepted and rarely questioned when it is conducted according to the standard precedent.
In direct opposition, whenever cash gifts are conducted follows the same rules, limits, etc. apart from the estate and tax planning context, there emerges a very disparate mental perspective to the thoughts of how cash can be exchanged between consenting individuals.
There exists a legal and accepted function provides a legitimate foundation for handling of those assets in the hands of those of sufficient or greater financial positions. Professional counsel is acquired and used as a normal consequence of maintain the rules. However, outside of this familiar context, the action of gifting could introduce a penalty of suspicion, or worse in specific locales, including Iowa and Kentucky, have recorded actual penalties under specific circumstances.
Mentally and functionally, those seeking to explore gifting activities beyond tax or estate planning region engages in a balance of the possibilities, both right and wrong, from the latest and mostly well-intended programs. This examination scenario then follows with a breaking down of a major obstacle of a different type, a barrier that is key to the gifting concept – that one gives first, initially for the benefit of the recipient, as a method of attraction and as an act of faith to others who possess the ability to move beyond the same mental obstacle. Honestly, the idea of releasing hard-earned assets flies in the face of that which we have learned. We have learned that unconventional, benevolent giving can be a cloak for fraudulent activity, and that ‘..if it looks too good to be true, it probably is..’ However, benevolence is a learned behavior, or not one that is necessarily natural for many, and is hopefully, expected to be the basic trait. The absence of which creates the justification for suspicion and scrutiny, given the legacy of previous abuses in some not-so- well-intended approaches historically.
A different contrast, and in contrast to the characteristic of suspicion, we’re brought to an opposing perception through estate planning rules, where the win-win outcome is the target of all concerned, undoubtedly. Estate and tax planning in itself is a constant struggle toward win-win, to treat the tax laws fairly, as we aim for the optimum conclusion for the management of ones personal, appreciated and acquired assets.
It is the responsibility of all who participate in all cash gifting, and certainly for purposes not involved in estate planning, to scrutinize the motives, the paths that exist, to insist that ethics and laws are respected, and to maintain reasonable expectations with regard to what can or should happen as a result of any participation.
Tags: cash, gifting, Gifts, Legal, Taxes
Posted in Taxes · May 24th, 2010 · Comments (0)