The Importance of Basic Accounting Knowledge in Business

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After completing my first year of business classes at West Chester University, I realized how important accounting knowledge is for any business major. Regardless of the field of business that you choose to pursue, whether it be marketing, management, economics, or finance, you will need to be able to have at least a basic understanding of accounting. Every business has to deal with observing and understanding source documents, income statements, balance sheets, and statements of retained earnings in order to be successful in today’s business world. Anyone interested in entrepreneurship who is looking to start their own business will have a definite advantage if they can understand financial statements of accounting. The truth is that accounting exists in our every day lives whether you realize it or not, so being educated in the field will do nothing but help you in a future business career.

The process of accounting will almost always begin with source documents. In the past, most of the source documents that CPA’s (Certified Public Accountants), auditors, and other accountants would have to deal with were tangible paper documents such as receipts from a recent purchase at a store. The accountant would then have to transfer these source documents into a journal to start the accounting process. Today, most of the source documents are electronic. When a purchase or sale is made between any two businesses or consumers, it is filed into a computer on an electronic database. This method has made accountant’s jobs far more simplistic, as they can they place the transaction directly into an electronic journal on Microsoft Excel.

The basic accounting equation that anyone who works in business should know, is that Assets= Liabilities + Equity. Assets include accounts such as cash, land, building, equipment, office supplies, inventories, and accounts receivable (money owed to you by a customer). The normal balance for these assets are a debit, which means if you are gaining any of the previous, you debit that amount of money towards that account. For example, if a sale is made in your store and a customer pays fifty dollars cash, then you would debit the cash account for fifty dollars. Liabilities include accounts payable (what you owe others on account), unearned revenue (you have been paid but haven’t performed a service), salaries payable (salary money owed to your employees), taxes payable, and interest payable. The normal balance that increases these accounts is a credit, unless the account is a contra account in which the opposite normal balance applies. Equity accounts include dividends (money owed to your stockholders), revenues and expenses. The normal balance for owner’s equity is a credit, but expenses made by your business are always treated as contra accounts. So for a transaction where a customer purchases something from your store on on account, you would debit accounts receivable and credit revenue. Each transaction is then recorded into a journal organized by month.

At the end of each month, the totals are added up from the journal and are placed into what are called “T-Accounts”. These are T-shaped charts with the debits on the left side and credits on the right. It is used to more easily find the ending balance of each account at the end of the month. After the totals of each account are found, you can now make an income statement to determine your amount of money lost or made during the month. The amount of income can be found by subtracting the expenses from your revenues. This is one of the most important financial statements that accountants have to deal with. Your income statement helps you determine if you are making profits or if you are losing money and need to improve a sector of your business.

Once you have transferred all of your journal entries into T-accounts and have made an income statement, you are then prepared to make a balance sheet. This is the basic accounting equation in which you make sure that Assets = Liabilities + Owner’s Equity. When you sum all of your asset accounts they should be equal to all of the liability and equity accounts as well. This is why anyone in any type of business should always have a basic understanding of the accounting process. With the knowledge of how money flows throughout a business, you can make wiser, more experienced decisions with your business, and protect yourself from losing money. It also allows you to take risks with your business and potentially gain a big return when it comes to the bottom line of your income statement. I’m pleased to say that I can now understand a company’s financial statements and comprehend the transactions that go on in every day business. Any business student will be more successful in their future career if they learn the crucial basics of accounting.



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Public Accounts 2010_1


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BC Finance Minister Colin Hansen released the 2009/10 Public Accounts July 8, 2010, showing the Province ended the fiscal year with a smaller deficit than forecast.

Accounting Tips Small Businesses Canada Accountant Oakville

Accounting Tips for Small Businesses in Canada by Accountant Oakville Mississauga

If you own a small business in Canada, then you must read this article. As an Accountant in Mississauga and Oakville, I will share the best accounting tips that will put your business on the path to financial success.

Accurate Books and Records

Account Tip #1 for Small Businesses in Canada – Keep accurate books and records

As a small business owner it’s very important that you keep accurate books and records in order to:

- Assess the profitability of your business
- Evaluate the financial health of your business
- Cut costs by identifying excess spending
- Have peace of mind when audited by the Canada Revenue Agency
- Apply for a long by presenting accurate financial statements to your bank

Review Financial Reports – Accounting Tips for Small Businesses in Canada – Accountant Oakville Mississauga

Accounting Tip #2 for Small Businesses in Canada – Review financial Reports Regularly

A proper accounting system should provide you with accurate, monthly financial reports such as:

• Income statements
• Balance sheets
• Goss margins by product
• Inventory listing
• Cash flow statements
• Budgets
• Financial statements by company division / department

With monthly cash flow statements you can identify the sources and uses of cash, which enables you to better manage company resources.

With monthly budgets for your small business in Canada, you can better plan for the coming months, and effectively manage cash inflows and cash outflows.

With departmental financial statements you can assess the profitability and financial health of each department.

If your current accounting system cannot produce appropriate financial reports, then you should seek the advice of an accountant in Mississauga or Oakville.

Purchase an effective accounting software package

Accounting Tip #3 for Small Business in Canada – Buy the right accounting software

Your small business in Canada requires an effective accounting software package to produce reliable financial reports.

“I recommend accounting programs such as QuickBooks Pro or Simply Accounting, both of which are great for small businesses,” says Allan Madan, Accountant Mississauga & Oakville.

In addition to the right accounting program, your small business in Canada requires an excellent bookkeeper. If you have a good accounting software package, but you lack a capable bookkeeper, then the information produced by the accounting system will not be reliable or useful.

Financial Controls – Accounting Tips for Small Business in Canada – Accountant Oakville Mississauga

Accounting Tip #4 for Small Business in Canada – Implement strong financial controls

Effective financial controls are a must for a small business in Canada. A lack of financial controls can lead to unreliable business intelligence, poor financial information and fraud.

Examples of financial controls are:

- Keep receipts for expenses. Without receipts you have no proof of purchases made.

- Maintain a separate credit card for business purchases only. The last thing that you want is a grocery bills or movie tickets appearing on your credit card. Imagine if a tax auditor saw that.

- Have a separate business account for your deposits and your business expenses. There should not be any personal expenses whatsoever in your business account.

- Keep a daily sales log and a deposit book so that you can track sales deposits. This will reduce the chance of employee theft.

- Dual signatures should be required on company cheques. If only one person has signing authority, then that person has the ability to commit fraud by writing cheques for invalid expenses.

- Review and approval all employee expense reports before they are paid, which will keep spending under control.

- Regularly backup your electronic financial data so you don’t permanently lose it

Consult with your accountant in Mississauga / Oakville on how to improve your small business’ financial controls.

Ken Boyd, owner of St. Louis Test Preparation (www.stltest.net) presents part 13 of his course on Understanding Intermediate Accounting. Boyd points out that students can have success with Intermediate Accounting concepts by making connections to actual examples from business. As a former CPA, College Accounting professor and Auditor, Ken has a wealth of experience to bring to the subject.

Personal Finance Planning

Managing your spending, creating a mental picture of what you have spend instead of recording the same may often make it complex to maintain a perfect budget. In such a case, personal finance planning holds key importance. Your monetary decisions or those concerning your entire family can be addressed in the best manner with the use of personal finance tools; personal finance may include the money you gain or earn, spending, saving, long term spending, including financial risks and monetary conditions that may affect future life. The scope of personal finance planning may also include your savings account in a bank/banks, credit cards, loans, stock market investment, mutual funds, income tax management, retirement plans, insurance policies and related paraphernalia. Watch personal finance news to know the tricks of managing your budget wisely. Personal finance news also keeps you updated about credit cards, home loans, car loans, etc.

Personal finance planning entails consistent monitoring and re-evaluation. Start with assessing your personal financial situation by keeping track via manual records of your balance sheets, income statements and liabilities. Then set your financial goals either for long term or short terms or both. Financial portfolios help you in setting your financial goals in the right direction. Create a plan to reduce unnecessary expenses, increasing your income and investing in such areas which promise returns. Thereafter you need to execute your plan and keep on monitoring constantly so that you maintain a balanced budget. Holding financial portfolios limits the risk factor involved in your financial condition. Financial portfolios refer to owning of several assets that retains their value; these may include stocks, real estate, bonds, warrants, gold certificates, etc. To execute your personal finance planning or manage your financial portfolios, you can take the services of a financial adviser or a financial institution or a financial expert.

Using the right personal finance tools will help you manage your personal finance wisely. Investment in stocks, funds, bond, etc; maintaining and using the budget worksheet, credit calculator, insurance calculator, real estate calculator; finding the right retirement income source; and spending wisely can be calculated with personal finance tools.

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New York Accounting Firm – The Solution You Are Looking For

Accounts and the recruitment of accounts has always been a headache for entrepreneurs who don’t know how to manage them. Small scale business units have faced major problems because of the wrong calculation of profits and stock-in-trade in their balance sheets and profit and loss statements. The question then arises is how can this problem be solved. One solution is hiring an accountant preferably a CPA to handle accounting worries. But then this becomes very expensive and in present day market condition where due to recession and competition, there is a lot of cost cutting, the salary and perks paid to an accountant turns out to be highly expensive. Where cost cutting is the motto of the day one simply can not afford to hire a CPA anymore. What the recent trend has changed into, is taking the help of New York accounting firm to manage all the accounting worries.

It is mandatory to keep the books of accounts updated on a daily basis for which one has to take professional help if one doesn’t know how to prepare accounts. Accounts are the face of the business. They are used by not only the shareholders but also the creditors, debtors, government and prospective buyers. Thus it’s very important to have just and regular accounts maintenance.

New York accounting firm charges a very nominal rate for its services and offers all the help one needs to tally the balance sheets and income statements. The fees aren’t that high due to various reasons like outsourcing and managing work of a lot of other businesses. It’s not that far and has professionals with a lot of work experience manage your accounts. Another advantage is that this will give a business the third person perspective and one can make decisions without emotional attachment. The New York accounting firm has a lot of professionals working so if there is any doubt then they will all help in solving that. Plus they also manage work for firms in the same industry and peer groups so one has a fair amount of idea what practices they are using and can compare their standards to the business.

When one hires a CPA then there is only one person to do all the work and this often gets boring and complicated for one person to handle reducing the productivity levels and making the work place monotonous. When a business takes help from New York accounting firm they don’t have to worry about the space the professional would occupy since they have their own office. This is particularly helpful for small businesses where there is a lot of shortage on work areas.

New York accounting firm not only helps in the preparation of accounts but also advices the business to take new steps and what projects to venture in the future according to the market scenarios and the firms solvency. The firm’s net worth is also calculated by accounting firms so that if the business gets a buyer with a 25-40% profit they can consider sale. An accounting firm also saves firms from the constant threat of acquisitions by peer companies by using certain accounting policies.

“Sometimes things aren’t exactly black-and-white when it comes to accounting procedures.”


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Learn how to do double-entry accounting at www.teachUcomp.com. A clip from Mastering Accounting Made Easy. www.teachucomp.com – the most comprehensive Introductory Accounting tutorial available. Visit us today!
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Outsourcing Accounts Management?an Absolute Cost Effective Solution

Many small and medium sized business owners may not understand the importance of preparing and managing financial accounts. Making the wrong accounting and financial decisions can be extremely annoying and expensive, thus accounting is considered to be a high profile task due to the complexities involved. It engulfs a vast setup of tasks including financial and income statements preparation, compiling and auditing, tax planning, budgeting, bookkeeping, recruitment, time management etc.

In today’s financial market, business owners are searching for a good plan to save and invest. The financial accounting management firms may provide you true assistance and direction for all your savings and investment needs. Basically, a financial plan guides you in managing your money and expenses.

Many small businesses have a little idea of the financial state of their organization and are not aware of the benefits of managing financial records. The benefits of managing the accounts and financial records ease the workload at year end, and form the basis of the annual results.

Managing accounts of an organization is a big responsibility and every organization needs to maintain its accounts in order to run the business efficiently. Undoubtedly, maintaining accounts is one of the most demanding and time-bearing job. Apart from this, it also demands a lot of accuracy. Therefore, it is important to hire only professionals to handle various aspects of this field because one wrong entry in accounts books can lead to many problems. Hiring in-house employees for maintaining accounts may again put the organization into the trouble of heavy expenses. In such cases, taking help from accounting outsourcing firms could turn out to be the best cost-effective thing.

Handling accounting tasks require complete accuracy and many organizations achieve it by outsourcing accounting professionals. Outsourcing is a strong option that organizations anywhere in the world can’t seem to ignore. The major benefit behind outsourcing accounting activities is that it saves a lot of time, money, and manpower. Another benefit is that it also manages the tax session which is tough and challenging.

Various accounts management firms offer businesses the chance to maintain their accounts books in electronic form to give a clear financial position of the business at the end of each year. It is only through these record books which are maintained by accounting outsourcing firms that one comes to know about the financial growth of one’s business. These record books contain all the information about company’s profits, losses, and tax estimations. In addition, these books are also maintained for payroll processing of employees working in the organization. Accounting outsourcing is the easiest and most convenient way to look after bookkeeping and payroll records.

Each business is different from the other which is why the requirements of these businesses may also vary. Thus, these variations in accounting tasks can only be managed by professionals who know their job quite well. Accounting outsourcing has relieved businesses from the worry of accounts related issues. The quality and quantity of work provided by these firms are matchless and save organizations from not only the rising expenses, but also saves the valuable time of the organization. This saved time and money can be utilized elsewhere by the organization in their further growth and development plans.

There are a number of firms in Washington DC offering accounting services to various businesses. But if you are looking for a genuine and fast way to accomplish goal of excellence through minimum costs, Avicenna Accounting is one of the top accounting firms in DC . Having a lot of clients in Virginia, they are one of the best accounting firms in Virginia . At Avicenna Accounting, you’ll find all your all bookkeeping outsourcing solutions at one place.

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