first blogs info

Trading Forex is an exciting way to make heaps of money, however with all business opportunities only some people are successful. Today there are many good trading systems being offered online, so why isn’t every one making heaps of money. The answer is simple, there is more to trading than placing a trade. I have researched the different behaviour of those who have maintained a successful trading career and those who have similar trading systems but have not been able to sustain a trading business and have written down tips and strategies that will help you take your trading to the next level.

Foreign Exchange Online Trading Tip 1.
The Real Cost of Trading

All Brokers will advertise a “no commission” policy, however it is important to understand the costs of trading. The Brokers are there to make money and they want your business , accordingly they will try to attract you with their advertising.

The way the prices are quoted shows 2 prices, for example EUR/USD 1.3800/5. This means the bid price (what you get selling) is 1.3800 and the ask price (what you pay) is 1.3805. The difference between the two prices is known as the Spread and this is what the Brokers charge for every trade. Before signing up with a Broker I would check out what spreads he is offering.

The points to note are that the size of your account could affect the spread, for instance a full account trading lots of 100,000 will usually have a smaller spread than a mini account. The 2nd point is that different currency pairings also have different spreads. The more popular EUR/USD, and GBP/ USD often attract a smaller spread of 2 or 3 pips, other pairings might have a spread of 5 pips. 5 pips as a cost does not sound very high if you are trading a mini account with a pip being worth around $1 however if you are leveraging a full account your cost could be $40.00. per trade.

You will be tempted to enter 4 to 10 trades per day if you are looking at very short trading times. Multiply this out and your costs are $3,500 to $8,800 per month. The way to avoid this cost is to be more selective about your trades, in other words trade less often and remember if your stop loss is very close to your entry you run the risk of being stopped out (losing) your trade even if there is a small dip in the trend you are trading with before it goes your way.

If you place frequent trades always factor the spread into your accounting. An unexpected high deficit from your Broker will be an unpleasant surprise.

ForeignExchange Online Trading Tip 2.

Leverage.

Leverage is always expressed as a positive for the Forex trader and used correctly it can help you make large amounts of money, used incorrectly you can lose your capital very quickly.

Brokers will offer a wide range of leverage ranging from 3:1 to 400:1. When deciding on your Broker make sure you have arranged for leverage that you are comfortable with.

Basically the Broker gives you a loan to enable you to control a much larger trade than your capital. An example of leverage of 1:100 means you need $1000 to control $100,000. Your $1000 is called a margin and normally if the trade goes the wrong way the Broker will close the trade once your $1000 is lost. This is very important and you must understand what your specific Broker will do. The amount of your margin should be the maximum you can lose.

When using leverage the pip value is increased therefore the spread (cost of your trade) goes up as that is also measured in pips. Leverage totally changes the affect the price changes have on your account.

Leverage totally changes the affect the price changes have on your account.

Example: 100:1 leverage means 1% price change in the market means a 100% price change in your account.

Leverage must be understood before you use it.

No matter what system you use you will have losing trades, all successful traders do.

I hope these two tips were helpful.

Lyndsay is a successful entrepreneur, author and forex trader. Discover how you can get the best proven forex system and start trading successfully today. For the #1 forex system available check out http://www.best-fx-trading.com/

Imagine a world without taxes… Sounds nice, ha? Well, some people do not just dream, they make this dream come true. Is what they’re doing legal? not so much. Can you do the same? Sure you can. However, strong word of advice: do not try it at home.

So, how does it really work? How do you stand up to the Internal Revenue Service and just do not pay taxes?

Actually it does not work, and if you do that you may be in trouble. But for some people this cat and mouse game with the IRS is not so problematic, so they made up a list of reasons (excuses) for not paying taxes to the government. The IRS calls this list “Frivolous Tax Arguments”.

And here they are, the most outrages reasons for not paying taxes. Now remember, there are real people who instead of filing their tax return, send a letter to the Internal Revenue Service saying that they are not willing to pay any taxes because of the following reasons:

The filing of a tax return is voluntary – no it’s not, filing is mandatory, by law.

Taxpayer is not a citizen of the United States, thus not subject to the federal income tax laws – taxpayer can be a citizen, resident or non-resident and as such subject to tax.

The United States consists only of the District of Columbia, federal territories, and federal enclaves – The US consists of DC, 50 state and other territories.

Taxpayer is not a person as defined by the Internal Revenue Code, thus is not subject to the federal income tax laws – taxpayer is either a person or a legal entity and as such subject to tax.

Taxpayers can refuse to pay income taxes on religious grounds by invoking the First Amendment – No, the tax code is a federal law, and religious is not a ground for non-payment.

Federal income taxes constitute a taking of property without due process of law, violating the Fifth Amendment – TITLE 26–INTERNAL REVENUE CODE, imposes the federal tax, thus representing a due process.

Taxpayers do not have to file returns or provide financial information because of the protection against self-incrimination found in the Fifth Amendment – Wrong, filing a tax return is mandatory and Fifth Amendment is not a legitimate ground for not filing.

And the list goes on and on and on. Think it’s funny? Think it’s not real? Just go to the IRS website and read what the IRS thinks about those excuses and the people who make them up.

Conclusion

So, while we keep paying those nerve racking taxes and dream of a taxless world, other people join the tax resistance and use an almost believable reasons for not paying them taxes.

Keep dreaming.

Tax USA Inc.
————

http://www.tax-usa.net Tax USA, Inc. is a complete tax, accounting and financial management firm specializes in small businesses, corporations and high income individuals. Tax USA Inc.’s mission is to exceed clients’ expectation by providing superb tax, accounting & financial Management services. We offer our clients tax, accounting and bookkeeping services, CFO Outsourcing, Budget Review and Business Plans, Cash Flow Management, Payroll Services and Entities’ Incorporation.

Our Clients

We focus on small and mid size businesses, non-profit organization and high income individuals. Client list comprised of corporations, non-profit organizations and high-tech employees. Our corporate clients operate in various industries:

- Security
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You would be surprised how valuable your Profit & Loss Statement is tax mistakes how it can help taxes manage your business. It can show you if you material, labor or administrative costs are too high or too low. It can also show you the trend in your business so that you can capitalize on favorable trends and mitigate negative trends. And finally, your Profit & Loss Statement can provide the foundation for creating a budget and truly enable you to get control of your costs.

Most small-business owners think of their bookkeeping as a necessary evil that is useful only for the preparation of tax filings. But your Profit & Loss Statement is much more than that. Comparing the current year financial activity to the prior year can tell you how your business is progressing – whether the trends are headed up or down. If they are headed up then you can expand on what you are doing right. This will increase your profits and make your business stronger. Conversely, if the trend lines are heading down, you can identify what is causing the negative trend and then make changes to rectify the situation. Maybe your quality is slipping or your vendors are causing delays in the production cycle. Whatever the problem, by figuring out what is going wrong, you are sure to improve your business.

Another useful tool is calculating costs as a percentage of sales. This calculation will tell you if your material or labor costs are too high and show how your selling and administrative expenses are tracking against sales. Costs that are too high will eventually put you out of business. But costs that are too low are a real danger too. It could indicate a decrease in product quality or reduced customer service.

By digging a little deeper you can identify which product lines are most profitable. It might surprise you that a product receiving little attention has a great gross profit. That is your starting point for a marketing program to push a product with low sales volume but great gross profit potential.

Your Profit & Loss Statement is also a useful tool for creating a budget. Once you have identified your sales streams and costs, you can estimate what those items will be next year. It might surprise you that a small increase in sales without a corresponding increase in costs can have a dramatic positive effect on the profitability of your business. At the same time, increased costs without a corresponding increase in sales can cut deeply into the profitability of your company. This is especially true of labor costs which are often the highest cost in a business.

So take a few minutes and look tax your Profit & Loss Statement. Compare it with last year and see how your business in progressing. Then look at those percentages to see if your costs are too high or too low. You will be surprised at how much valuable information is available just by reading your Profit & Loss Statement.

Linda Dawson is a Certified Public Accountant with more than 25 years experience helping small and start-up businesses. Dawson & Associates has just introduced their latest service, the Virtual Accounting Office. Learn more about this exciting new product at http://www.MyVao.com.

The first step tax the procedure of recording transactions is to journalize and the second step is to post the transactions in the ledger. Ledger is known as the ‘principal or chief’ book of accounts. In ledger the financial information is classified by its nature and relevance.

The statement which records the transactions tax one place relating to a particular subject is known as account. The book which contains all the accounts is known as ledger and the procedure of writing up the accounts is known as posting.

The ledger is the most important book of account and is the destination of the entries made in the Journal or Sub-divided Journals. It is a collection of all the three types of accounts –Personal, Real and Nominal. If you are faced with questions like:

- How much a particular customer owes you?

- What is the amount payable by you to anyone of your suppliers?

- What is the amount of goods purchased by you during specific period ?

- How much sales you have affected during, say, last three months?

- What has been your expenditure on, say, labor during the period?

Then the quicker and easier way of ascertaining the relevant information is to turn to your ledger, find out the balance of the Customer’s A/c or Supplier’s A/c or Purchases A/c or Sales A/c or Wages A/c.

How to write Ledger

In ledger we maintain accounts. Each account is allotted one or more pages depending upon the requirement. Ledger is usually ruled in anyone of the following tax alternatives. First alternative is followed in those cases where balance is required to be ascertained after every transaction e.g. Banks.

Second alternative is followed in those cases where balance is required to be ascertained only periodically, say after a month or quarterly. In your study of book-keeping and accountancy T- shape accounts will be used (alternative-two).

The transactions are entered in the ledger accounts in order of dates. Every entry must be dated which must be shown in the column meant for date. This is the first column on the left of each side of the account.

Record the relevant amount on the left-hand side of the account which, according to the journal is to be debited and record the amount on the right-hand side of the account which, as per journal, is to be credited (use ‘amount columns’ for this purpose). In ledger account each entry on the debit (left-hand) side commences with the word “To” and one the credit (right- hand) side with the word “By”. In the ‘particulars column’ reference is made to the other account involved for providing cross reference. In the ‘folio column’ would be entered the page of the journal (or page of the relevant sub-divided journal) from which entry has been posted and in the folio column of journal, the page number of the ledger is written on which the relevant account appears.

Following the above procedure of recording the entries in the ledger will in fact amount to this The account receiving the benefit in shape of cash or goods will receive the debits and the account imparting i.e. giving away the benefit will receive the credits.

The author is an engineering graduate, B.E.(Hons), and is managing his own software development firm, HiTech Computer Services, that mainly deals in accounting, billing and inventory control software for traders, industries, business houses, hotels, hospitals, medical stores, newspapers, magazines, petrol pumps, automobile dealers, commodity brokers and other business segments, website and web application deveopment for business. The software are available both for intranet and internet. These software are available for download from the website:

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There are many success stories about self investing IRA money in less “traditional” investment vehicles. Many people would never think about investing 401K money in real estate, tax liens or anything else besides stocks and bonds. But, more and more experienced investors are realizing the benefits and growing truly tax-free wealth for their retirement.

In order to get the most out of self investing IRA funds, you first need to do a little comparative shopping. The average broker does not offer all of the different investment opportunities that can truly increase and individual’s profits.

A lot of professional advisors that are well educated in other aspects of accounting and tax laws have never heard of investing 401K money in real estate. But, it is a perfectly legal option. You just have to find a trustee that offers the option.

Also, you need to look at the fees charged among trustees that do offer the less traditional investment options. Some companies charge “per transaction” fees that can really eat away at your returns and profits.

A better choice, for most people, is a flat annual fee. There are a lot of new companies that are offering free and easy set-up for self investing IRA accounts. But, when you look for further information and read their free structure, you will see that they are charging you per transaction fees, as well as a broker’s commission.

Most of them still only offer the tax mistakes of stocks and bonds. It is rare to find a company that offers you the option of investing 401K money in real estate, but when you do, there are sometimes even more and higher fees.

If you are interested in self investing IRA money in real estate or investing 401K money in real estate, there are specific fees that you want to avoid. Here’s a brief look at a common scenario that many people run into.

Let’s say that you decide to hold rental property in the account. Initially, you would instruct your trustee to write a check for the property. There are companies that charge as much as $175 simply to write a check to buy the property.

The deed is held in the trustees name tax the additional line “for the benefit of Your Individual Retirement Account.” Some companies charge quarterly fees for asset administration. That can cost as much as $8 per deed.

Once you start self investing IRA in real estate and you see the profits or income rolling into the account, you will want to keep going, so a fee like “asset administration” could become quite unreasonable. But, that’s not even the most expensive fee that can accompany investing 401K money in real estate.

In order to buy, manage and maintain rental or other properties, you need a cash balance, because all of these things must be paid by the account. Rental income will constantly flow into the account.

So, it would not be unusual to have an un-invested cash balance of $10,000 or more. There are some account custodians that charge as much as 45% of your earned interest just to maintain the records for that balance.

The bottom line is that self investing IRA money is a good idea, if you have the time and the know-how, but remember to find out about the fees, before you choose a custodian.

Mark Nenneman is an advocate of IRA investing in Real tax mistakes as a means of taking control of portfolio management. He has invested his own IRA money in Real Estate and has seen fantastic returns on his investments. You can read more about the benefits of IRA investing by going to http://www.ira-private-money-investing.com

How often have you heard the emphatic statement, “We’ve got to stop meeting like this?” No, this is not a shout from some secret rendezvous, but rather the emotions expressed by many individuals who attend regularly scheduled company meetings. Frustrations frequently result when these gatherings are poorly conducted and produce few, if any,
perceived results.

T Frank Hardesty used to say (albeit a bit tongue in cheek), “Be sick when meetings are called. Never attend them. Later, ask anyone who was at the meeting what happened and, within five minutes, you will know anything of any significance that took place.” While this strategy is extreme, it points out a common feeling – many company meetings just aren’t worth attending.

If your staff cringes when the word meeting is uttered, consider these five guidelines for successful meetings. They will direct your thinking as to what must be considered for
meetings that produce results, making people want to attend and participate.

1 – FOLLOW AN AGENDA:

Too often, attendees enter the meeting room unaware of what the meeting is all about. When they business know what to expect, they won’t be totally prepared to participate. Key facts and data may be left in their work areas and frustration strikes if they are not able to
fully discuss the issues.

The agenda must be published far enough in advance for everyone to schedule the gathering and prepare to be a valuable participant. Each attendee should receive a personal copy of the agenda and have the opportunity to review it. Company mail will suffice for most notification, but E-mail can be even more effective in many office environments. Whichever medium you select, develop a system that ensures everyone will get the word.

A published agenda should include a start time and an ending time. Attendees are more likely to achieve results when they are working toward a specific deadline rather than attending an open-ended meeting which ends partnership when everyone has had his or her say.

The discipline of an ending time also enables the person who called the meeting to speed things along to adjourn the meeting as scheduled. (”We’ve got to move on if we’re going to end on time.”) Or, it can become the reason for excluding unnecessary additional topics. (”That’s a good point, but we don’t have the time to discuss it right now.”)

Also, the ending time allows attendees to plan the remainder of the day without having to worry about the possibility of a meeting extending longer than expected. Any person who
publishes an agenda will become a hero or heroine for the time management considerations it indicates.

2 – LIST OUTCOMES, NOT SUBJECTS:

Don’t call a meeting to discuss the new training program. Instead, call a meeting to implement the new training program in the accounting department by January 31, 2009. The first statement is a subject and doesn’t direct the thinking of the attendees. Instead, it opens up the meeting for the inclusion of many extraneous issues.

The second statement is an objective and focuses everyone’s attention to find ways of achieving a specific result. Each meeting should be called for only one reason. When objectives are mixed, attendees become confused and the outcome cannot be honed to effectively meet organizational needs.

3 – INVITE ONLY THOSE WHO SHOULD BE THERE:

A consistent comment shared with fellow employees after many meetings is, “I don’t know why I was invited. The meeting was a total waste of time for me.” Often, departments schedule meetings because “We always have our staff meeting at eight o’clock on Monday morning.” No consideration is made as to whether or not the meeting is required – it is a routine tax over time, may have become only moderately effective.

When Guidelines 1 and 2 are practiced, Guideline 3 is easy to implement. It follows that meetings should only involve those who can supply real input to the desired outcome. Every-one on the staff should not be invited to every meeting. It may seem like the politically correct thing to do (making the assumption, of course, that politics exist in most companies), but it does not make the meeting efficient. To maximize results, it is necessary to pick and choose the correct mix that will achieve the meeting’s objective.

4 – END THE MEETING ON TIME:

The best way to gain points in your prowess rating for conducting meetings is to end on-time. By publishing the ending time in the agenda, you make a commitment to the attendees. By living up to that pledge, everyone at the meeting feels more secure in your ability to coordinate meetings that are goal-oriented.

Of course, on rare occasions more time may be required to resolve a particular issue. If so, you must reach a consensus for extending the meeting by asking permission. You might
say something like, “It looks like we are close to resolving this point. Do I have everyone’s agreement that we should extend this meeting by 30 minutes.” A new end-time is established and adhered to.

5 – FOLLOW-UP WITH AN ACTION PLAN:

A meeting is reinforced, not by distributing minutes of the meeting, but by restating the plan that was finalized for accomplishing the objective.

The format for this action plan is very simple. Make three columns on a sheet of paper. Over the first column write the word, “Who?” The second column is labeled “What?” with
the third column tagged “By when?” When everyone knows who will do what by when in a chronological sequence, you have a cohesive action plan for reaching the outcome that was
set for the meeting.

In addition, this type of action plan serves another vital unction. Not only does it indicate actions, responsibilities and a timeframe, but it serves as an internal cross-check for the attendees. It enables each person to understand how he or she its into the overall plan and provides a name to contact if something has not been completed on-time.

Try using these guidelines when putting together your next meeting. They will set you apart as someone who understands the dynamics of working with others. As your
reputation for running good meetings improves, so will your influence in the organization. You will save time and effort as your meetings become events that are approached with
positive, constructive feelings by all attendees.

Copyright, 2008 Management Strategies, Inc.

For over two-and-a-half decades, Jack Pachuta assisted people in becoming better communicators, negotiators and team players. In addition to working in radio and cable television, Jack was the vice president of training and communications for a company named one of Forbes Magazine’s “200 Best Small Companies.” Currently, he is the owner of Management Strategies, Inc. in Cedarburg, Wisconsin, a training and professional speaking company.

Holding masters degrees from both the University of Southern California and Michigan State University, Jack’s clients have included ShopKo Stores, Jockey International, Maytag, Kaytee Products, Simplicity Manufacturing, The Asia Pacific Institute for Management Development in Singapore, Thomson Audio Products Hong Kong, Multi-Finance of Athens, Greece, and Connex of Romania.

He is an adjunct faculty member of Cardinal Stritch University, and a senior faculty member of the Keller Graduate School of Management and a professional faculty member of the University of Phoenix.

Accounting is the main element that forms the spine of the business organizations and not even a single step can be stirred without managing the accounts efficiently. Any business organization whether the small scale or the larger one can never survive without the accounting finance It is the personnel of accounting departments who are assigned with the job of keeping track of all the accountancy records and monetary transactions that has taken place every minute in the business organization.

The Real estate market is the fastest growing industry which is expanding at greater pace so real estate people have to face new challenges almost every day. Though real estate market is booming and gaining huge profits but firms, companies, brokers, and agents are facing difficulties in managing and coordinating the various functions of the business.
This has become the reason of slackening down of business activity which if regulated appropriately would definitely reap huge benefits. Every year new sapling real estate firms are joining the market but success seems so far from them. And, the major drawback in their success is the unmanageable state of business activities and accounting affairs. The accounting department must be proficient in handling the urgent calculations and monetary transactions. Managing account is very difficult job and even a slight error can lead the whole business into real problem. So, the accountants and the financial experts are required to perform the job but affording large work force for the accounting affairs may drain huge amount of money.

However, many big companies have already installed real estate accounting software in their operating systems in order to stream line the accounts and manage the monetary transfers on daily basis. Still, the work load is too heavy and getting out of control so much so that corporations have resorted to the rescue of real estate accounting outsourcing services. This is one of the medium with the help of which not only companies have started regulating their accounts matter but their expenses in recruiting the work force in accounting departments have also reduced considerably. Outsourcing companies are available online and are located all over the world and they complete your real estate accounting task with great efficiency. The best part of the deal is that these outsourcing companies offer the most cost efficient services and that too in very short span of time.

The fact about the outsourcing business is that most of these companies are in third world nations where labor charges are low in comparison to USA. Due to this reason they can employ large work force of expert and highly trained accounting professionals who knows how to deal with real estate accounting matters of USA.

Real estate accounting does not only include the maintaining the data and records of financial transactions but it has lot more extensive functions including balance sheet, ledger book keeping, tracks of credit and debit transactions, billings of office supplies, and machinery bills. Outsourcing companies have knack of handling all these affairs expertly.

Alvis Brazma gives advice to business owners about how to manage their business efficiently without any hassles.To know more about Accounting help,bookkeeping help, Real estate accounting outsourcing services visit http://www.impacctusa.com.

Introduction

QuickBooks is tax far the easiest program to use with the most complicated and diverse applications in it that never get used by most business owners. Fraud happens every day and as I have said before, small businesses lose more money every year due to fraud than some of the largest corporations. What a lot of Fraudsters, who happen to use QuickBooks don’t know is that every move they make, every step they take, is being ‘watched’ by the QuickBooks software.

Prevention

The key to preventing fraud of course is making sure that it is not the same person who handles more than one tax function in a business. You don’t want the same person who is opening the mail, being the one who sends the checks. You don’t want the same person who can sign checks being the one determining the amounts to put on the checks.

Upon setup, QuickBooks allows the business owner to set up users. The owner should always be the Administrator, not the bookkeeper, not the CPA or accountant, but the Administrator. Anyone else using the program can be limited to the parts of the program that they can access by the Admin. Sales persons needing to enter sales can do so, but they don’t need access to the bank account information. Purchasers need to be able to create purchase orders and invoices, but not able to adjust inventory on hand or create checks to pay for invoices. Only the admin should be able to make these adjustments. Name the users of QuickBooks so you know who is doing what and when. This will give you an eagle eye on the security of the QuickBooks transactions.

Detection

There is a little known feature of QB that is called the Audit Trail. The Audit Trail records any changes made to original transactions, any deletions of invoices, checks, etc. You’ll want to do this when the place is closed or when you have plenty of time because this report can take a very long time to generate. Go to the Reports tab on the menu bar and click on it. Find the Accountant’s Reports and you will see the Audit Trail as one of the options. Click on it and apply the dates you wish to check, (the longer the period of time and more transactions, the longer the report will take) and wait.

In the audit trail, if an entry has been altered or deleted there will be two or sometimes three lines for one transaction. The one on the bottom is the original entry, the one(s) above it have been altered or deleted and the report will give what tax changed, the payee, the amount, or an account and tell you which user entered the original, which user changed it and the day and time it was done.

So how do you tell if it’s fraud or just someone making changes? First, deleting an invoice should rarely be done, if there are a large number of deleted invoices then chances are, your company is not using the Estimates icon. The invoice should only be created when you know for sure a customer is going to go through with the arrangement, if you are using the invoice feature to send estimates, those estimates are posting to your accounts receivable account which should not be done.

So how would someone commit fraud by altering an invoice? If the same person that prints the invoices also sends the checks, it is very easy to print the invoice for your approval at $200 or more than what was actually invoiced for. Once you’ve approved what should be a $5000 invoice for $5200, the clerk will change the $5200 to $5000 and send the vendor the right amount, and at the same time issue themselves a check for $200 which would be written off to another account somewhere in the books. The bank reconciliations would always match and no one would be the wiser. This is one reason that you cannot print an invoice without saving it first.

Another common method of fraud is altering the payee of existing invoices to benefit the relatives, friends, etc of the crooked clerk. So an invoice may come in that has been created at home and submitted to you for payment by the person creating the invoice. Or, you may be cutting a check for a legitimate expense only to have the funds redirected to the crooked clerk.

You might also be on the lookout for checks being issued for identical amounts, during the same period every week, every month, etc. Sometimes the fraudster will send two checks to the same vendor and call up a day later and ask the vendor to return the check ‘mistakenly’ sent. If the fraudster is the same person who opens the mail, he will take the check and ‘wash it’ and make himself the payee. (If your bookkeeper seems to be continually doing her nails, you smell nail polish remover constantly, your company is at risk as that is what is used to remove ink off of checks) You can catch this by exporting the check detail to Excel and sorting it according to amounts, if you have one or two more checks a month for identical amounts, call your bank and ask for a copy of the cashed checks, front and back. The back of a check tells you which bank cashed it, and often, the name of the person who cashed it as well.

If you get your bank statements already opened by your bookkeeper, watch for checks that have cleared but that aren’t placed into the envelope with the statements. Compare your bank register to the images of the checks on the statements and confirm that the person or company you wrote the check to is the actual person or company that cashed the check.

Conclusion

If you take the basic precautions, it makes this kind of fraud much harder to commit. But you have to be vigilant and ready to take action should fraud be occurring in your business. Remember, however, that this is America, home of the Free Land of the Lawsuit. NEVER directly accuse your bookkeeper of stealing, especially in front of others. Find the services of a Certified Fraud Examiner in your area and they will be able to help you put a successful case together for prosecution, should you choose to go that route.

David Roberts, CFE, CQBPA, MBA, lives in Kissimmee, Florida with four girls, three dogs, two snakes and one wife. He has been a member of the ACFE for four years and has been studying fraud for longer than that. He is the owner of Homesoon Accounting Services which specializes in Quickbooks Consultations and Fraud Prevention and Detection.

Making Money Online

So you want to know how to make money online? Making money online is a time consuming process that will lead to good rewards for you. It is a matter of choosing the right opportunity to invest your time and money in. Then it is a matter of time and hard work to see the fruits of your labors. With any type of work at home industry, it is a manner of time and patience with the labor of your choice. The saying goes that it takes money to make money. This is true especially for work at home opportunities. Each opportunity requires an investment of some kind, whether it is time or money or both.

How much money is needed for an investment into a work at home venture?

This is an explanation of how to make money in regards to a work at home venture. By investing time and money into a work at home enterprise, you are now set up to make money. Now the time frame is different for each type of enterprise in order to begin making money. This time frame ranges from a couple of months to a year or more, depending upon the business in question. Money is not made overnight. Beware those work at home ads that promise you money overnight. Realistically that will not happen like that very often, if at all. The investments for work at home projects can range from as low as twenty dollars to thousands of dollars. The investment required varies by each opportunity. This is just the way of conducting business.

What else do I need to know?

In knowing how to make money online, you need to realize that other types of investments may be required in order to successfully run your online business. These investments can include computer software to run an accounting office, an extra telephone line for working as a remote agent, or the investment of a business license may be required by the state in order for you to be able to do business. That is not a given. It is all dependent upon the type of online business that you are proposing to run. The investment of time, however is a given. You must invest time to your business in order for it to grow. You cannot just sit and think that business will come to you. You must actively seek out business.

Sounds like a lot of work!

In learning how to make money online, you need to realize that work is indeed necessary in order for a business to be successful. You cannot get anywhere by sitting on your behind and wishing for it to happen. You have to have an active hand in your business in order to know how to make money. It takes time, patience and a lot of hard work in order for your online business to succeed. This is the way that you make money online with your business.

Hopefully this article has thrown some light on How to Make Money. Visit the link at Make Money now and get a free report to learn more today.

Introduction

Diagnosing problems in a QuickBooks file is easy once you know what you are looking for. It’s usually a matter of glancing at the chart of accounts for anything out of the ordinary. The problem is that most business owners aren’t sure what is out of the ordinary and what isn’t. This is the first in a series of articles that will explain how to diagnose what the problem is and how to correct the problem once known.

Negative Balances in A/P or A/R

Although taxes may seem kind of basic for those who have been entering data into QB for a while, for those who haven’t this may be new information, so hang in there for their sake. Accounts Payable is the account automatically created by QuickBooks when you enter your first bill. This is the account that all these tax mistakes go into and from which these same amounts are taken when you pay the bill. More often than not, the clients I see for the first time have a negative balance in the A/P and cannot explain why, nor do they know what to do with it.

A negative balance in the A/P would indicate that YOU owe your vendor money, and though there are legitimate reasons why you would give a credit to a vendor, a refund for extra material sent, etc., most of the time it is the result of a simple mistake. That mistake is the entering of a payment to a vendor without entering the bill that the payment should apply to. This happens when the data entry clerk is not using the Enter Bills/Pay tax mistakes screens and is simply entering the amounts paid into the check register. Since there is no corresponding bill, (according to QuickBooks) the amount of the check is entered as a credit toward the vendor specified.

Likewise, a negative balance in the A/R indicates that there are customers that your company owes money to. And again, there are legitimate reasons you would credit a customer, but often it is a mistake. The mistake that is made is that a customer payment is recorded without a corresponding invoice being recorded. If the invoice isn’t recorded, then according to QuickBooks, this customer doesn’t owe you anything, upon receiving the payment and recording it, you now have a customer you owe money to, but not really.

NOW HOW DO I FIX IT?

As with all questions related to accounting, the answer is, “that depends”. If these are current mistakes and the bank accounts have not been reconciled as of yet, the method of correction is easy. For the A/P, look for the Pay Bills and enter in the same check number that you used earlier and pay the bill in that screen. The little ‘oh-oh’ screen will pop up telling you that this check number is already used, ignore it and use that number anyway. When you are done with all of these entries, return to the register and look for those identical check numbers, the ones entered correctly will have BILLPMT in the box below the check number, delete the one without that designation and you will have completed the task. Fixing the A/R is not much different, (assuming that the reconciliations have not been completed!) enter an invoice dating back to the time of the payment received for whatever that customer ordered. The invoice will counter the credit received and will bring the balance out of the negative to zero, unless the customer of course, still owes you for work done.

WHAT IF EVERYTHING IS RECONCILED?

If the negative balances date back into months that have been previously been reconciled and the bank statements and QuickBooks match, deleting these payments by customers and reentering them applying them to invoices will throw off all reconciliations for the rest of the year. You will then have to re-reconcile the bank accounts and that can be tedious.

For A/P corrections after reconciliations, DO NOT DELETE THE BILLS! We have to be a little creative with this so here goes. First, create a fake bank account; call it Adjustment Bank or First Bank of David, whatever you wish. Go to the Pay Bills screen and use the fake bank account to pay the bills you are sure have already been paid.

Once you have completed the entries, make a fake deposit from an account called adjustment into the fake bank account for that same amount of the already paid bills. This effectively zeroes out the bank account, which you can then make inactive.

For A/R corrections after reconciliations, since the amounts have already been received and deposited into the right bank account that has already been reconciled, simply entering in matching invoices to compensate for the received funds will not affect the bank account, and thus will not affect the reconciliations already done. Just make sure to tie out the payment to the invoice number you create by using the invoice number in the payment memo box. Since the amount won’t change you won’t have to worry about affecting the reconciled transactions.

CONCLUSION

Admittedly, this is not the ideal solution, and if you only have a few of these transactions and it won’t require an entire year of re-reconciliations, you should do it the long way. However, this way gets you done sooner and let’s you get on with the day to day business you love to do. I hope this helps you with your QuickBooks issues.

David Roberts, CFE, CQBPA, MBA, lives in Kissimmee, Florida with four girls, three dogs, two snakes and one wife. He has been a member of the ACFE for five years and has been studying fraud for longer than that. He is the owner of Homesoon Accounting Services which specializes in Quickbooks Consultations and Fraud Prevention and Detection.