The strange and confusing world of Canadian accountants

The strange and confusing world of Canadian accountants

The word “accountant” is not protected by legislation in Canada. Anyone can claim to one. I’ve seen people call themselves a practical accountant, small business accountant, tax accountant, registered public accountant and many other similar names.

To complicate matters there are three accounting bodies recognized by legislation – Chartered Accountants (“CA”), Certified General Accountants (“CGA”) and Certified Management Accountants (“CMA”). They have varying amounts of experience, skill and training. Another organization – The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (“ACCA”), which is not recognized by legislation, and claims to be the global body for professional accountants, offers their services. There are also thousands of Certified Public Accountants (“CPA”) from the United States and elsewhere.

For a country of about 34 million the accounting landscape is very complex. Contrast this with the United States, with a population of over 300 million, where a single designation is the most prominent – Certified Public Accountant.

Given all the choices how do you pick a Canadian accountant? I’m a Chartered Accountant (and a licensed public accountant in Ontario), and perhaps a little biased, but I believe Chartered Accountants are the best option. Regardless, start first by deciding why you need an accountant. Often the need is to prepare a tax return, help with special tax situations and planning, bookkeeping or just general advice. Then develop an image of the ideal accountant and try to find a match. Get a referral from your banker, a business colleague or friend that uses an accountant or knows one. A referral from a trusted source is one of the best ways to find a good one.

If you are a business owner, and give your financial statements to anyone other than the tax department, you need a licensed public accountant. Almost all public accountants in Ontario are Chartered Accountants but in the rest of the country a public accountant could be a CGA or CMA. If you don’t distribute financial statements, or are not a business owner, you can usually pick an accountant of your choice – licensed or not. 

If you come up short check the member directories of the accounting associations. Every professional body maintains a complete list of members and the directory is searchable.

Another way is to search Google. Search for the word “accountant” and the city where you live. We’re located in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada so you’d search “Mississauga Accountant” or “Accountant Mississauga” and the names of local accountants are listed. Google is a good way to find names but not necessarily the best accountant.  

Commercial Credit Reporting

Commercial credit reportingis the compilation and reporting of the credit histories of commercial enterprises. While most people are familiar with consumer credit reports, many are unaware that a similar reporting system exists to assess risk in extending loans to businesses, underwriting insurance risk, purchasing or investing in businesses, and shipping goods to businesses on credit.

Every country in the world has commercial credit reporting agencies, which allow foreign exporters to asses the risk in shipping goods to a wholesaler in that country. Governments also use commercial credit to regulate businesses and collect taxes.

The information age has changed the gathering of commercial risk information. Before telephones and the Internet, the only way to gather risk information on a business was to visit the business owner in person. Credit reporters would ask business owners for the names of the companies that supplied them on credit terms, what banks they dealt with, how many workers they employed, and so on. It took days, even weeks, to fulfil a request for a commercial credit report.

This time-consuming process is no longer necessary. Credit Report Australia can now be compiled in seconds, without a business-owner’s knowledge. Suppliers are now asked to supply commercial credit-reporting agencies with frequent trial balance downloads on all their accounts receivable.

These trade-payment experiences are linked in order to show how a business pays its suppliers. Collection agencies share this information with credit-reporting agencies.

Publicly available information—bankruptcy filings, lawsuits, lease registrations, and judgements, for example—is also gathered. As this flood of information accumulates over a period of years, trends become apparent, making it possible to track a business’s cash flow.

Companies that are frequently unable to pay their suppliers are quickly identified. Computerised monitoring systems tell suppliers when to restrict credit to unhealthy businesses. These comprehensive, detailed reports are reduced to two-digit scores that enable automated credit approvals and rejections.

Commercial credit is more volatile than consumer credit. Few businesses remain unchanged five years after their founding; all businesses face constant competition for clients and markets. And the granting of credit by businesses is very much market-driven. Retailers buy goods on credit in the hope that they will be able to sell them at a profit before being required to pay for them.

Retailers who are required to pay for their inventories in cash on delivery—due to their inability to obtain credit from suppliers—are at a serious competitive disadvantage. Most businesses, unlike consumers, are oblivious to the risk-reports being compiled on them, and may never discover why they are unable to obtain credit from their suppliers.

The strict laws that govern consumer credit-reporting agencies rarely cover commercial ones. Despite this lack of oversight, complaints about the accuracy or completeness of information in a commercial credit report can potentially harm an agency’s reputation, so they do take complaints seriously.

Global Credit Solutions Australia (www.gcsaustralia.com) is recognised as a leading supplier of global commercial credit reports.

Sweeping new reforms for the credit card industry will soon go into effect. As Elaine Quijano reports, these new rules are designed to put consumers back in charge.
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Accounting Outsourcing (Why Not?)

Mostly, size of any business is an essential factor for deciding over the matter of implementation of various strategies but for accounting, there are very few options to maintain an effective accounting system. It has been seen that an efficient accounting system can turn a small business into a large organization. Therefore, it is essential for all businesses to manage every aspect of accounting very carefully. Accounting is a necessity for every business, regardless of size and purpose of any company. Every business owner needs to take care of their available savings and should utilize it in a productive manner. Since the accounting section is the future prospective of any business, it is important to understand and implement useful plans for establishing a sound accounting system. Usually, businesses tend to handle that task with available staff but in circumstances where it in not possible to maintain a sound accounting system accounting outsourcing can prove to be of great help and benefit.

Accounting is a monotonous task, and anyone can get bored very easily while maintaining the day-to-day accounting and financial transactions. In such condition possibility of errors can increase that can affect the annual financial figures of the company. Normally, in most of the companies, people who manage accounting task also bear variety of responsibilities such as balance checking, financial planning, tax assessment; there is a probability that these extra responsibilities affect their efficiency and accuracy. And since these additional tasks can never be avoided, it is always better to recruit more accounting professionals or to hire services of an accounting outsourcing firm. In the first case, hiring new professionals will increases the company expenses as their cost to company will be very high. Moreover, the company will be liable to bear many other additional responsibilities of these professionals; however, in case of accounting outsourcing firms the cost to company is very low and is also free from these additional responsibilities.

Today, all well-established companies have huge accounting department to maintain their daily accounting tasks but for small organizations and start-up businesses it can be quite difficult to hire required work force. In such cases, it is always better to take help of outsourcing accounting firms to manage every aspect of accounting. Not only cost but also efficiency of these firms is excellent.

For a business owner there are also many other important things to work on. Therefore they cannot waste there available resources in accomplishing accounting task only. Accounting outsourcing sets every business owner free from all accounting hassles so that they may better concentrate on the growth of their organization. If you own a business and are worried about proper maintenance of accounting transactions, then you must try out these outsourcing service providers, as it will perfectly manage your financial activities without increasing company expenses and responsibilities.

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Accounting Firm Nyc: Excellent Services to Handle Accounting Tasks

No doubt that accounting is one of the most tedious tasks that are mandatory for every business. Since this task enables a business owner to control the cash flow within and outside his or her organization, every business owner needs to settle a separate department for handing accounting tasks. Settling a separate section for accounting enable the business owner to keep his or her accounting records up to date that can be used at the time of tax assessment or preparation of final financial reports. However, every business owner tries very hard to keep his or her accounting section updated but sometimes failure occurs due to some personal and business reason. Accounting is not as easy as it seems to be, as regular monitoring and updating is required to manage accounting transactions in the perfect. Every business faces the need of accounting records at every step, as accounting details and data incorporate all financial events that take place in any business organization. Since managing accounting records is a complex task and various sub sections of employees are needed to tackle it, every business should employ sufficient number of employees to take care of various sections. Hiring accounting professionals is not possible for sapling and small business; hence, they can approach an accounting firm in NYC.

Businesses that are located in NYC can get plenty of solutions to sort out their accounting problems, as various firms and accounting service providers are there in NYC. Hiring an accounting firm in NYC can enable a business owner to manage every aspect of accounting in the perfect manner, as it provides the client’s business with efficient accounting professionals at affordable cost. In fact, it can add perfection to every accounting record and can give the business owner more time to ponder over other crucial business issues.

Since various business owners are outsourcing their accounting task to accounting firm in NYC, it is useless to ponder over the efficiency and reliability of such firms. Moreover, many established businesses are also taking help of such firms, as their help is enabling them to trim out their accounting cost. However, research and wise selection is advised, as reputed firms possess good track record that assures the business owners about the reliability of the selected firm. In fact, internet can be used to conduct a successful research, as it provides you with details regarding all available accounting firms and give you an idea about their efficiency level.

Since firms that offer such services work independently, your will never need to provide them with any kind of accommodation in your own business premises. All that you need to provide them is your accounting records and access to your business’s modus operandi. Security is also a major issue that should be considered before handing over any of your financial details, as vulnerable proceedings can leak out your confidential business data. Once all aspects are checked thoroughly, you can go for the most reliable accounting firm in NYC to make your accounting procedure less complicated.

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Nj Accounting for Hassle -free Monetary Transactions

Accounting has been a very time-consuming and pestering job from the very start for most organizations, unless they have expert accountants at their disposal to record their everyday monetary transactions. So, if you are also a business owner who has been wasting your time with tedious accounting calculations, you need not worry anymore as NJ accounting professionals are there for your assistance. Accuracy and confidentiality of documents and information are the two primary things that are assured to business organizations when they select reputed accounting firm that operate in New Jersey.

To ensure the efficiency in work and the accounting books that is maintained, make sure you hire competent accountants. Experienced NJ accounting professionals are proficient in their work and provide impeccable accounting services. They do not waste your time with careless miscalculations and value their time as well as yours. However, hiring a capable accounting team is a necessity for every firm, irrespective of the size of the organization. But recruitment of these accounting experts doesn’t fit the budget of all business organizations. Not only do these professionals demand handsome salaries, infrastructure, bonus and other manpower expenses of these accounting professionals are also quite high.

Hence, as the services of NJ accounting experts are undeniable, a good alternative can be seen in the form of outsourcing accounting firms in New Jersey. Once you trust a NJ outsourcing accounting firm with the responsibility of the accounting management of your business organization, you can be rest assured that you will get flawless account books, whenever you want.

From the routine task of maintaining ledger books and making everyday journal entries to overcoming the hurdles of several complicated calculation in making the final balance sheet at the year end, all the tasks are handled by NJ accounting experts. One of the best things about outsourcing NJ accounting services is that it lessens your burden of maintaining a separate accounting department and reduces your expenses on accounting services considerably. Also, as all experienced experts are involved in these outsourcing companies, you are assured of error-free work at cheaper rates.

Furthermore, you can also trust these experts for the investment decisions of your company and where you need to cut down on added expenses for better utilization of the available money. Accountants in New Jersey also prove to be great asset for business organization in their time of financial crunch. Several updated software are also used by these professionals that eases out their burden of recording umpteen number of accounting entries everyday and that too without the slightest of discrepancy.

With so many benefits being offered by the services of NJ expert accountants, it is imperative that you cannot afford to miss the opportunity to hire these professionals. You can search for them online by typing in the keyword “NJ accounting” and you will have the websites and contact details of some of the best accountants offering their services in the New Jersey area. So, do not while away your time anymore due to accounting miscalculations and hire these professionals today!

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Episode 1×01 “Out of great boredom comes great songs.”