Find The Right Accountant For Your Business

Hiring an accountant for your business is no longer just about finding someone good at number-crunching and getting the maximum returns come tax-filing time. A good one can save you time and help your business grow; a bad one could cost you much needed money. Yet with thousands to choose from, it can be a daunting call to make. So when you have to choose an accountant for taxes, what are the questions every business owner should ask so as to make the most informed choice?

1) Get Referrals

Most of the experts say that the most of the businessmen get 90 per cent of their clients through word of mouth. Word of mouth plays a crucial role when you choose an accountant for your small business.

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6 Payroll Mistakes You Are Probably Making

The process of payroll can be defined as the distribution and calculation of salary, wages, and taxes for your employees. When you run a business, you are responsible for making timely salary payments to your employees. In Canada, the same is not possible without complying with the requirements of the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA). Also, by managing your payroll without the help of professional payroll services in Edmonton can cause you to make some mistake. The common payroll mistakes you may probably make include the following.

Misclassification of Employees

When you have a business and manage a payroll system, you are entitled to a payroll tax based on the number of employees you are paying wages or salaries. Often business owners make a mistake of classifying their employees as contractors instead of employees. Never make this mistake as the money paid to contractors is not taxable. This will eventually cost you more as you will have to pay the tax along with the penalty for misclassifying an employee as a contractor.

If you want more information about the payroll services in Edmonton, then contact ATS Accounting Inc. today.

Business Owners: How to Pay Yourself

It is good to have your own business. It gives you a sense of independence. It is good to be the boss. But what about your salary? You have put in a good amount of capital investment, and your business has started running. The question on your mind now is how to pay yourself. Accountants Edmonton recommends a few tips to help business owners to pay for themselves.

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Four Tax Saving Tips For Business Owners

Planning and preparing for tax payment well in advance can help you save both time and money. But, if you haven’t started preparing for the tax season, don’t fret. Experts from the top Edmonton accounting firms suggest the following tax saving tips for business owners.

 
Maintain Books of Account

 
Hire an accountant to maintain all your transactions in the accounting format. Maintaining books of account or bookkeeping can help you in keeping a track of all the income from different sources and the expenses of your organization. It will also help you to see where you can save taxes and claim returns wherever possible.

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Five Signs Your Business Needs A New Accountant

An accountant is one of the most important people in your organization. Apart from maintaining your financial transactions, you need an accountant for many other purposes. This may include filing your tax returns, systematic recording of books of account, assisting in making financial decisions, and looking after the accounts payable and receivables to name a few. However, if these simple routine operations are not done properly, then you should consider hiring a new accountant or outsourcing your accounting work to one of the professional accounting firms Edmonton. This is because a bad accountant will certainly create multiple problems and affect the smooth functioning of your organization. The following are some signs of a bad accountant and that you need to consider hiring a new one.

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How To Improve Your Working Capital

Working capital is the capital used by a business for its day-to-day operations. The formula for working capital is current assets minus current liabilities. This capital has a direct impact on the cash flow as well as on the finances of a company. Being able to effectively manage the working capital can ensure that it meets the business obligations as well as avoids bankruptcy. Hence, follow these ways on how to provide working capital efficiency and manage it as per your business requirements.

Reduce Expenses

Review your fixed and variable costs to determine if there are areas to reduce your expenses. For instance, office supplies, equipment, and technology represent expenses that could be reduced by negotiating with the new suppliers. Thus, by reducing these expenses, you will have more cash available to you for your daily operations.

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Four Tips For Managing Accounts Payable And Receivable

Accounts receivable and accounts payable are the two main factors that affect your business cash flows. Managing both is an important skill that needs to be mastered for an effective financial stability. It also helps boost the overall performance of the company and avoid cash problems. Properly tracking accounts receivable and payable involve the creation of invoice on time, delivering the receipts, tracking the shipping orders and maintaining financial transactions. Here are a few tips that will help you in managing accounts payable and receivable in an effective and efficient manner.

1. Organize Your Transactions

Be organized and send out invoices immediately after the transaction has been completed. For a regular delivery of goods or when goods are taken on credit, send the invoices when they are due. It may be difficult to remember all the transactions for which payments are expected in future. Hence, make sure you keep a proper record system and organize all your transactions. See to it that your accountant effectively organizes all your transactions as your books contain valuable information and prevent you from forgetting or making incorrect invoices.

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Difference Between Assets And Liabilities

 

Do you find it difficult to formulate your balance sheet? Do you get confused between what are assets and liabilities? Is it that you always tend to classify your assets and liabilities in the wrong manner? Although assets and liabilities seem easy to classify, they can be quite confusing once you actually start recording them in your books of account. This article will help you in classifying your assets and liabilities and so, you will be able to manage your balance sheet in a much more efficient way. Listed below are the differences between assets and liabilities.

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What Is The Difference Between Financial And Cost Accounting

Financial and cost accounting are a part of the company’s operations. Both help the company control its finances and formulate strategic organization policies. An overall picture of profit and loss is provided by financial accounting, while cost accounting provides a detailed analysis of a product’s cost.

Meaning

Financial accounting keeps track of a company’s financial transactions for a given period of time which is usually for a year. Financial transactions are recorded using a standardized format and following certain guidelines and is presented in the form of income statement or balance sheet.

Cost accounting is a system of recording all the costs incurred in a business. It includes the cost of used to calculate each overhead product-wise, such as materials, labor, direct and indirect expenses, etc.


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Why Capital Budgeting is Important for your Business

The estimation to determine whether a particular  of expenditure or investment is worth funding for a significant amount is called capital budgeting. The large amount of money spent for these investments are called capital expenditures. These investments are mainly for acquiring fixed assets such as machinery, land and building, etc. For getting accurate results to determine whether the investment is worthwhile, the process of capital budgeting needs to be carried out effectively and efficiently. Here are a few objectives of capital budgeting.


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5 Common Errors Businesses Make on Financial Statements

Having a record of your daily transactions is essential for your business. However, maintaining your financial records is not an easy task. You can do it yourself but there are chances of making certain mistakes which may cost your business. We have listed some common errors that entrepreneurs make while maintaining their financial accounts. The effects of errors on financial statement can be costly and hence, every businessman should be aware of the common errors that are made on financial statements.


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5 Common Accounting Mistakes

Finance is the center of any business. Businesses revolve around earning and managing its finances. Therefore, a sound accounting system and practice are vital for the success of your business. As a business owner, your biggest constraint is time. With several things on your plate, overseeing accounting functions becomes difficult. While you may have a software in place to make things easier, accounting mistakes might still occur. Accounting mistakes can have a great impact on your growth and reputation, as well as, other business operations. To avoid this, here are 5 common accounting mistakes that every business owner must be aware of.

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How To Account For Overhead Costs?

Reducing cost is one of the ways to increase your bottom-line. However, it is not easy to reduce cost. For this purpose, it is important to know about the different kinds of costs incurred by the business. The overhead cost that includes rent, repairs, office supplies, insurance, advertising, and interest is one such cost incurred by the business. These costs do not generate revenue directly but are necessary to carry out the business operations. If you want to maximize your revenue, you can do so by reducing your overhead cost. But how do you account for the overhead cost? The following are ways to account for overhead cost.

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Plan Your Business Finance For 2017

You never know what’s in store for your business in the new year. 2017 can present you with really good opportunities or threats for your business. Therefore, you should be prepared for what comes your way and thus, create a suitable plan to take advantage of opportunities and overcome any risks. One way to be prepared is to create a financial plan. Financial planning is important because any unforeseen events that affect your business can have a direct impact on your finances. So if you have not planned your finances for this year, here’s what you need to do.

Update the information

Before you begin planning your finances, keep yourself updated with the latest happenings in the business environment and also within your company. This includes analyzing your competitors’ strategies, evaluating of your marketing costs, settling transactions and others. Once you are aware of this information, it serves as a guide to planning for your finances.

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What Is Bank Reconciliation?

A bank reconciliation statement provides information relating to your banking and business activity that reconciles your business organization’s bank account with its financial records. The statement summarizes the deposits, withdrawals, and other activities that have an impact your business’ bank account for a specific period of time. All businesses, whether big or small, take the help of this tool for various reasons. The importances of your bank reconciliation statement for your business are mentioned below.

Identifies Difference Between Bank and Book Balance

With the help of a bank reconciliation format, you can identify the difference between the bank balance and the cash book balance. This is necessary as sometimes the transaction may not be settled in your bank account due to various reasons and your cash book may show a different figure. As a result, there can be a mismatch and this mismatch is easily identified with the help of a bank reconciliation format. Moreover, it helps your accountant to make any necessary adjustments and correction in the books of accounts.


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Why Should You Have A Christmas Party?

Your employees would be eagerly waiting for some celebration during the holiday season. For small or medium businesses, parties can indeed be a costly affair. So even if you plan an office party, you might cut down on certain things and minimize the cost. However, this may not be a good idea if your party lacks certain elements (the ones that cost more than others like some fine delicacy or drinks, live DJ). Such parties tend to be boring and it would’ve been much better if you didn’t have one instead. In fact, having a good party has many benefits for the organization. Since Christmas is near, you can have a Christmas party for your employees. Here are some of the benefits why you should celebrate Christmas at the office.

Enhances Employee Engagement

One of the reasons to have a Christmas celebration at the office is because it enhances the employee engagement. Parties act as an ice-breaker and employees socialize with each other. Moreover, as people begin to talk to each other it helps to develop a good rapport among the employees. This leads to increasing the morale of the employees. So having a Christmas party has some long-term benefits for your organization.

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What is Break-Even Analysis?

Every business involved in the manufacturing or production of goods should be aware of the break even analysis. With the help of the break even analysis formula, you are able to calculate your break-even point. It is the point at which the total expense equals the total revenue. So, there is no net profit earned or any loss incurred by the business at the break-even point. Let’s take a look at the break even analysis in more detail.

Break Even Analysis

The break even analysis can be presented in form of the number of units or the amount of revenue earned. For any company, there are two types of costs-fixed cost and variable cost. The fixed cost remains fixed for a considerable period of time. As and when the level of production reaches beyond the optimal limit, the fixed would increase. This cost is incurred by the firm even when they are no units produced. Examples include salary to the supervisor, rent, power bills. The firm is liable to pay for these costs irrespective of the level of units produced or not.

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Estate Planning Strategies For Small Business Owners

Are you concerned about what will happen to your family owned business after your death?  You want to ensure your family’s future is secured even after your death. For this purpose, estate planning for family owned business is crucial. An estate plan describes how your company assets are passed on to your family members in the most cost effective way as possible. The estate plan you create now can affect the accounts and finance your business substantially.

Here’s some estate planning strategies that you can use to plan for your estate accordingly.

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Dangers Of An Inaccurate Bookkeeping System

An inaccurate record in bookkeeping can cost your company dearly. A silly mistake, such as entering an income which is not realized as yet, affects the profitability of the company. You may end up paying tax for an amount that you have not received. Apart from this, there are many such incidences which affect the smooth functioning of the company if you have inaccurate financial statements. Some of the dangers of an inaccurate financial reporting are as follows.

Incorrect financial position

One of the dangers of inaccurate financial reporting is that it reflects an incorrect report about your financial position. If an investor finds that the financial position of the company is unstable, he would not invest. This also happens in the case of getting loans from financial institutions. Thus, it affects the future plans of the company. Inaccurate financial statements, therefore, prevents a company from growing further.

Can cost the company

As mentioned earlier, an income which is not received and is recorded in the books shows an increase in profits. Similarly, underestimating profits can lead to penalties when an audit is conducted. Moreover, an error in miscalculating the number of years for depreciation of a fixed assets and expenses can result in payment of more taxes than you need to. Such dangers of inaccurate financial reporting can cost the company profits.


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Create A Business Plan That Investors Will Love

Business plans serve multiple functions such as setting a benchmark for growth, attracting investors and acquiring funding from investors. Creating the ideal business plan for investors can help you with fundraising more than any other endeavors. It is essential to learn the art of creating a business plan to attract investors. Often, before you even give your passionate pitch, investors will first want to take a look at your business plan. Here are some pointers on how to create the most effective business plan for investors.

What can a business plan showcase?

A business plan can help highlight key factors which are essential in your quest to acquire funding from investors. A detailed business plan helps the investor visualize the progress of the company and cements the idea that a lot of thought has been gone into the business venture. It also allows investors to hold the entrepreneur accountable for growth by taking into account a set of financial benchmarks to compare with.
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