Quickbooks Help

In 2009, many tax credits were augmented and created. Tax credits can help you lower your total tax bill and increase your chances for a tax refund. Below are some of this year's most important tax credits. Some are new, some changed, and some became part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).

For those of you who are unsure of the difference between a tax credit and a tax deduction, a tax credit lowers your total tax bill directly, whereas a tax deduction lowers your taxable income (indirectly taxes dollar for dollar), sometimes placing you in a different income tax bracket.

Consumer Energy Tax Credit
This tax credit is a good one. If you have made repairs to your home (non-business) to improve energy efficiency you will be able to get up to 30% back from that investment but no more than $1,500. This would include better insulation through the installation of more efficient windows, doors, roofing and even the installation of water heaters, solar thermal technologies, natural and oil furnaces and so on. If you are unsure whether your recent energy efficiency investment qualifies, contact a CPA or the IRS directly.

American Opportunity Tax Credit
The old Hope Tax Credit was expanded for 2009 with the new American Opportunity Tax Credit. As a parent, for each student in college now, you can save up to $2,500 in taxes. There are income limitations with this credit though. Once you start to make over $80k as a single parent (or $160k for married couples), the credit begins to phase out. Realize though that you cannot claim the Hope Tax Credit and this credit in the same year for one student.

Home Buyer Tax Credit
This credit applies to new home buyers and even existing home buyers that meet certain guidelines. First time home buyers who purchased after January 1st, 2009 and before April 30th, 2010 can take up to $8,000 ($4,000 if married and filing separately) off of their tax bill. This tax credit is completely phased out once you make over $145k (individual) or $245k (for a married couple).

For existing home owners, who moved primary residences, the credit is $6,500 (individual) or $3,250 (if filing jointly) but you must have lived in the home for five consecutive years. Furthermore, it only applies for homes purchased after November 6th, 2009.

Making Work Pay Tax Credit
With this credit, you can claim up to 6.2% on earned income from wages but no more than $400 for individuals or $800 for married couples filing jointly. However, this really only applies to those that are self-employed as your employer should have reduced withholding for this during the year. Realize that does not apply to those receiving a pension, or unemployment.

Electric Motor Vehicle and Electric Plug-In Vehicle Tax Credits
These tax credits differ slightly in a few different ways if you went "green" in 2009.
* The Electric Motor Vehicle tax credit ranges from $2,500 to $15,000 depending on the capacity of the battery and how heavy the vehicle is.
* The Electric Plug-In Tax Credit is 10% of the vehicle cost capped out at $2,500. To take advantage of this your vehicle had to go into service after February 17th, 2009.

Adoption Tax Credit
This tax credit increased to $12,150 for 2009 but the tax credit is only applicable if the adoption expenses were paid this year (unless they are a special needs child).

Government Retiree Credit
This tax credit is $250 ($500 if filing jointly) for 2009 if you received a government pension payment or annuity in 2009. Realize though this credit becomes invalidated for you if you took an economic recovery payment.

Earned Income Tax Credit
This credit applies to low-wage earners and it had a few changes in 2009. One change is that the credit increased for individuals with 3 children or more and for married couples filing together. Also the income limit to qualify for this credit has increased as well.

For more details on any credit, visit IRS.gov.

Bonus: Use Your Tax Refund To Buy US Series I Savings Bonds
By utilizing some of these tax credits above you can increase your refund or your chances of getting a refund. Starting this year, the IRS is you purchase US Savings Bonds with your refund. Although these US bonds offer low rates of return during these economic times, they are great investments.

The IRS for this year's filing will allow you to take up to $5,000 of your tax refund to buy U.S. Series I Savings Bonds in multiples of $50 by selecting this on Form 8888.

If you purchase more than $250, the denominations of the bonds should get larger. Anything over $5k or that be divided by a multiple of $50 will need to be deposited into a savings/checking account. 

With the Federal government spending at all time highs, and with my belief that inflation is on the horizon, US savings bonds can be a very attractive hedge against inflation. Taxes on these bonds are due when redeemed but you will not be responsible for state or local taxes with these bonds. One drawback to these bonds is the fact that they cannot be redeemed until a year has passed from their issuance so be sure to check with your investment adviser.

This is a guest post by Manny Davis of Back Taxes Help.

Stereotypical accountants need not apply!

 We are looking for a PART TIME staff accountant who has experience reviewing financial records, identifying problems and fixing them. 

 The following is required (if you don't have these, don't waste your time applying):

• Bachelors in accounting (or associates and comparable experience)
• Job costing
• General ledger
• Accounts payable
• Accounts receivable
• Bank/account reconciliation
• Payroll and payroll taxes (no using ADP doesn't count)
• Sales tax
• Property tax
• Month end closing and financial reporting
• QuickBooks experience
• Experience working with on-line banking
• Flexibility
• Ability to multitask
• Ability to work in sometimes chaotic environment
• Communication skills (training experience is a plus)
• Ability to work with various types of people
• Understanding that even though it's accounting, it's not always black and white
• MOST IMPORTANT - Positive attitude, desire to grow and develop and a sense of humor

 If you meet these requirements, please continue reading this ad.

 We are Foster Results (http://www.fosterresults.com/).  We provide bookkeeping services to small business, personal money management to individuals and families, QuickBooks training, and part-time Controller/CFO services.  We are a fast growing business in Westfield.

 PLEASE NOTE:  We do not currently offer insurance benefits or a 401(k) plan.  Position offers a competitive salary, bonus potential based on performance and paid time off.

 If you're interested in being a key member of a team that works hard, has ambitious goals, understands the importance of family and has fun, submit your resume to hr@fosterresults.com (in Word format please.)

QuickBooks Online Users beware: A recent notice from Intuit suggests that the phishing continues.

Intuit continues to receive reports of different versions of the phishing email we alerted you about on 11/12/ 09. They continue to investigate the fraudulent emails that were sent to some QuickBooks Online and Intuit Online Payroll users. The email requests users to download a plug-in or windows update to secure your data.

Intuit did not send this email and QuickBooks Online and Intuit Online Payroll will never use emails to request personal information or update security of our service.

What should you do?
To protect yourself from fraudulent emails and websites, here’s what you can do:
    •Do not click any links in a suspicious email.
    •Do not download any plug-ins or tools from an email
    •Be suspicious of any email that asks for personal information, requires you to download anything or 
     requests your authentication information to access your online account.
    •Delete any suspicious email from your inbox and your trash bin immediately.
    •You can report any incidents, see examples of phishing emails, get more security information and
     recommendations on securing your computer at http://security.intuit.com/.

If you think you’ve provided personal information such as your login name and password through a fraudulent website, or if you have recently downloaded the plug-in or windows update suggested in the mail below, here’s what you should do:
    •If you have downloaded the tool, please delete it. You should scan your system using an anti-virus
     program from a respected Security vendor, for example Trend Micro, McAfee, Symantec or Microsoft, to
     remove any viruses that may now be on your computer. Several of these vendors also offer free online
     security tools.
    •Change your password to prevent unauthorized users from logging into your account.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Accounting outsourcing services performs a significant function in finance and accounting. Business managers are under incredible pressure to trim costs of finance and accounting departments to boost productivity, increase profitability and assign strategic value to it. Now there is enough demand in the market for accounting outsourcing services.

The enormous volume of workload on businesses has created a unique position for outsourcing. Outsourcing is becoming one of the most successful tools in solving business problems. To address the excess workload on maintenance of accounts, outsourcing has often been the direction taken. This then allows staffs to have more time to control and monitor accounts properly.

Most companies consider outsourcing as an adjunct to their business. One can definitely design a strategy for a company to outsource accounting activities at best prices. They will also be able to attain the desired quality in the work and turn-around time. Many companies have generated huge savings from this feature. And more and more companies are heading towards this service for their company's growth.

There are many companies who are geared up to meet companies' outsourcing requirements. They provide not only customized business solutions but also bring flexibility and cost-effectiveness to a company's business services thus helping it simplify resources and maximize time and money.
There are various services provided by these companies. Some are accounts payable / receivable services, bookkeeping outsourcing, tax return preparation services to accountants and accounting firms.

About the Author

Richard Eldridge is a well known and highly respected outsourcing specialist and consultant. He is the co-founder of Infinit-O, a boutique BPO company that specializes in assisting Small and Medium sized businesses realize the full benefits of outsourcing.

Intuit, makers of Quicken, QuickBooks and TurboTax, will shut down its free Quicken Online personal  finance site in six to nine months and put all its chips in with newly-bought Mint.com.

The company closed on its $170 million acquisition of Mint yesterday. That made Mint founder and CEO Aaron Patzer the new vice president and general manager of Intuit's Personal Finance Group, heading up Mint.com, Quicken Online and Quicken desktop products.

His first decision? Quicken Online must die.

"Over the next 6 to 9 months," he said to TechCrunch, "we will end-of-life Quicken Online and their customer's data will be migrated over to Mint."

That's a startling reversal for a company that bashed Mint before acquiring it. It's also a shock that a new Web 2.0 upstart so definitively trumped an established brand with far more customers.

But like the acquisition, the move is smart. Quicken and Mint couldn't coexist for too long because they serve the same purpose. Quicken has about 1.5 million users, but only 100,000 are active each month. In comparison, Mint's got 1.7 million users, and 700,000 are active each month.

So Quicken's throwing in the towel on its brand extension and going with the more engaging site.

The question remains how the company will manage two brands that are distinct from each other. Mint has a very glossy, light feel; Quicken's very red-and-gray, with style to match.

But it makes sense - Mint took off thanks to adoption by young professionals who weren't scared of putting financial data into the cloud. Quicken Online only bulked up after seeing Mint fly past it.

So what should users expect? Like Quicken Online, Intuit can cross-promote Mint from its Quicken desktop products and TurboTax software. But some customers still want their finances on their desktops, so Mint may explore how to store data locally for that group.

But leveraging the personal finance software with Intuit's tax software is where the move really shines: TurboTax may eventually suggest tax deductions to you based on what you've entered in Mint (401k, stocks, etc.).

Expect to see more moves on the mobile front, too. Mint's popular iPhone app will continue development, and perhaps we'll see desktop apps and mobile apps on other platforms. With Intuit's backing, there's also much more hope for international scaling, including Canada, which has been left out of Mint, much to Canadians' disappointment.

November 5th, 2009
Posted by Andrew Nusca @ 8:03 am http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=26936

October 14, 2009 by The Wise One 

Business is composed of a set of interrelated systems that ensure the smooth flow of business processes and convert capital to revenue efficiently. It is important for a business owner to consider each component as if it is just the existing system inside the process. Thus, utmost importance and consideration must be given to each process component, which includes the accounting process.

That is why we have tax lawyers. That is why we have public accountants. That is why we have financial managers.

It is because of the accounting process.

It is the measurement and the disclosure of essential financial information that will help public accountants, financial managers, tax authorities, investors, and other decision-makers to effectively allocate their financial resources to each business process, thus maximizing the conversion of a business' working capital to huge revenues.

Accounting involves processes in which important financial information of a particular business is recorded, summarized, evaluated, and interpreted. Furthermore, since money is one of the biggest factors that may affect the existence of a business in a certain market, accounting is given utmost attention and consideration at all times.

In accounting alone, there are several aspects that a business owner must consider. There you have the cost accounting, the cash-basis accounting, financial accounting, internal fund accounting, management accounting, project accounting, and others.

And the list continues to expand.

In other words, you might conclude that accounting is a serious and a critical matter that must be handled by a group of people who have the technical expertise in dealing with the accounting as well as financial issues. Realizing this reality, more and more business organizations hand the accounting aspects of their business process to third-party organizations, or most commonly known as accounting outsourcing.

Accounting outsourcing is considered to be one of the more effective management tools, thus many companies often incorporate outsourcing as one of their strategies in business planning. As a matter of fact, the Outsourcing Institute reported that the concept of a CRO (Chief Resource Officer), a professional outsourcing executive manager, is widely-acceptable in larger corporate organizations.

However, you need not be a large corporation to benefit from accounting outsourcing. Even small and medium-sized enterprises can provide better service and produce high-quality products in a more cost-efficient way if they outsource their non-core business processes. This includes the accounting aspect.

By decreasing the demands on your administrative personnel, you will be able to free them from additional responsibilities and they will be able to support areas directly to your sales, clients, and to the marketing task of your business.

Accounting outsourcing firms can execute your accounting and bookkeeping tasks in all frequencies (monthly, quarterly, and annually) or can supplement your present administrative staff to lessen the responsibility. Here is a summary of the services you can acquire from outsourcing your company's accounting process:

- Preparing cash disbursement checks;
- Preparing input credits and bank deposits;
- Preparing company payroll;
- Preparing tax deposits and bank reconciliation;
- Preparing financial statements;
- Preparing payroll tax returns; and
- Evaluation and review of financial results on different frequencies.

With accounting outsourcing, you will be able to see the benefits of having a cost-efficient business operation. With your accounting process at the hands of outsourcing professionals, you can focus to the core of your business and convert every cent of your working capital into hundreds to thousands of dollars in generated revenues and profits.
Premier solution for outsource graphics, marketing and web services

Source:  http://www.wisdompost.com/2198/outsource-accounting-to-boost-your-bottom-line-5/

Monday, October 12, 2009 
Written by IBJ Staff

- The non-partisan Indiana Fiscal Policy Institute this morning released a new study exploring the ramifications of expanding the state's sales tax to include services.

In its last fiscal year, Indiana raised $5.7 billion from its 7-percent sales tax, which applies to the sales of most tangible goods, with exemptions for items such as prescription drugs, groceries and newspapers.

According to the IFPI study, Indiana could raise as much as another $6.76 billion annually if it extended its sales tax to include all service transactions. Even if Indiana exempted medical and legal services, Indiana could raise almost $4.5 billion from an expanded sales tax, according to IFPI.

Such figures are sure to appeal to legislators in Indiana's General Assembly, who struggled mightily over recession-driven spending cuts this spring. A special session of the Legislature was ultimately necessary to craft a two-year state budget.

Indiana government's economic picture hasn't improved much since then. On Oct. 8, Gov. Mitch Daniels revealed Indiana's revenue for the quarter ended Sept. 30 was $254 million less than previously predicted, despite the fact that Indiana's revenue forecast has been repeatedly revised downward.

New revenue could help fill such gaps. But an expansion of Indiana's sales tax has many potential drawbacks, which the IFPI study details.

For starters, Indiana's 7-percent state sales tax is already the highest in the Great Lakes region. Extending it might prompt Indiana residents to seek services elsewhere. Indiana is currently tied with Mississippi, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Tennessee for the second-highest sales tax in the nation. Only California's 7.25 percent tax is higher.

The IFPI study points out that the effective sales tax rate is actually higher in some regions because of local sales taxes tacked onto state sales taxes. Alabama, for example, has a 4-percent sales-tax rate, but certain localities there have their own 6-percent sales taxes, creating a 10-percent total tax.

Most states, including Indiana, already tax a few services, such as public utilities, hotel-room rentals and stadium admissions, according to IFPI. But only a handful, such as South Dakota, West Virginia, Hawaii, New Mexico, Delaware and Washington, tax more than a handful of services.

Indiana currently ranks 39th among states for the number of services it taxes, taxing 24 of 168 services surveyed by the Federation of Tax Administrators.

The logistics of expanding the sales tax to additional services would be challenging for some businesses. IFPI points out it could be difficult for many businesses to levy such a tax. Businesses that already sell some goods would have an easier time than pure-service providers. For example, a cosmetologist that now collects taxes on the shampoos and conditioners its sells while exempting styling services, would simply have to stop segregating taxable and nontaxable sales.

But other businesses that sell no tangible goods would find they suddenly must establish a relationship with the Indiana Department of Revenue and maintain a whole new type of record. The cost could be significant, IFPI points out, particularly for small businesses.

"Of the major sources of revenue available to the state, broad-based taxation of services is the only one yet to be tapped by the State of Indiana," wrote the IFPI report's author, Earl Ryan. "The revenue possibilities are great, and it would bring a degree of equity to the tax system. At the same time, defining the base would be difficult, both conceptually and politically, and the cost of collecting the tax on the part of both the state and the taxpayers would be significant.

Study: Taxing services could yield state $6.8B Peter Schnitzler   -  pschnitzler@ibj.com 

Many small business owners are so busy with the day-to-day operations of the business that they can’t see the forest for the trees. They are underutilizing information about how the business is doing financially and, hence, are missing opportunities to improve the financial performance of the business.

This financial information is analogous to gauges on an automobile: they tell you how well the underlying business processes are working. They should function as an early warning system of problems requiring remediation or as an affirmation improvement efforts are being successful.

Each business needs to develop indicators specific to its processes, but several are widely used. In this article we are going to share some examples of helpful measures. It is important to note that these metrics are not taken from B-school textbooks, but rather are “best practices” drawn from successful business people.

A typical financial statement is a snapshot in time of what is going on. Graphing trends over time in such areas as sales, gross margin and units produced is analogous to a video, and provide a much clearer picture of whether things are getting better or worse. A second helpful approach – but difficult to format – is to separate fixed and variable expenses. Certain expenses should fluctuate with levels of business activity and others should not. This exercise also will force you to address expenses that should be variable that are, in reality, fixed. Opportunities for improvement come with this epiphany.

Many people utilize certain ratios to help spot trends over several years. These are helpful because it’s hard to keep track of the cumulative impact of the changes made from one year to the next. Ratios such as sales/employee, unit production/ employee and overhead/employee are all helpful long-term benchmarks.

Many small business people let the cost accounting tail wag their pricing dog. They don’t put themselves in the shoes of a customer making a purchasing decision. A product or service ought to be priced to reflect value as perceived in the marketplace. Would someone discern a value difference proportionate to the price difference between your product and the others next to it? What is the competitive price point that will optimize your product’s take off the shelf? Value is a combination of price and quality. Most of the time as consumers, we make trade-offs between these two aspects but our purchasing motivation goes way up and we become raving fans when we get quality at a bargain price. The same is true of your customers.

Once you determine a price point, a projection of the net-before-tax profit of the product should be the basis of evaluating its contribution to the business.

Pricing based upon a mark-up over cost is commonly used because it is easier to determine and accountants are comfortable with it. But it completely misses the perceived competitive value of the product or service in the eyes of the customer. It is helpful – but hard – to develop profitability by customer and profitability by product or service lines. This information is always surprising the first time you do it and usually leads to some different ways of thinking.

Profitability should be calculated at the net-before-tax level to give a true picture of all the costs associated with the product or service line. Some people have difficulty fully allocating expenses but it is doable and follows easily once set up. Formatting information this way can also help reveal if increases or decreases in performance are due to take, costs, or volume.

Putting together these indicators can be time consuming at first but once in place can be easily updated and are invaluable to the health of your small business.
 

From The Collin County Business Press

So what’s new for Quickbooks users in 2010? Intuit says it has streamlined the install process from 15 screens to only six for small businesses with simple accounting needs. You will be able to edit multiple items in the lists of items/customers/vendors at one time in a spreadsheet-style screen, and data can be pasted into those lists from Excel. There are new form templates, and more form customization options, including decorative backgrounds. For more advanced customization, there is integrated access to design services. Quickbooks 2010 users will also have the ability to put their signature on their checks directly within the program without printing them.

Some of the more useful-sounding new features are the additions to the Company Snapshot screen that was introduced in Quickbooks 2009. This screen can now be personalized to display the data most relevant to the user’s particular business. If this works half as well as described it will be a great improvement to what was already one of my favorite features in the 2009 version. This is the most promising sounding of the newly announced features, but also reminds me of iPhone cut-and-paste: something that should have been there from the beginning.

Another promising area of improvement is in the reporting. According to Intuit, it’s been “radically redesigned” to make it easier to find reports. The redesign includes a carousel view, a list view, and a search function, as well as a favorites view to show your most frequently used reports. As a Quickbooks user who gets annoyed by having to wade through a massive library of irrelevant reports to get to the few that I use regularly, the ability to go directly to a favorites list of reports sounds very helpful.

The most common complaint about Quickbooks has long been its heavy-handed marketing of add-on services inside what is already an expensive software package. Unfortunately, most of the new features being advertised for Quickbooks 2010 appear to simply be an extension of Intuit’s philosophy of aggressively generating add-on sales. Popular personal finance management app Mint.com, recently purchased by Intuit, also operates under a business model based on selling add-on services through its software. But there is a major difference between Mint and Quickbooks: Mint is free.

The features that fall under what Intuit calls its “Connected Services Strategy” include:

• Document Management Services: These services allow attaching of documents to transactions, accounts or people in Quickbooks. The documents are stored online and can be accessed remotely and shared with others.
• Check Deposit Services: With Intuit Check Solutions for Quickbooks, users can deposit check payments into their bank account. For companies not already using Quickbooks merchant services, the check service starts at $19.95 per month plus per-transaction fees.
• Marketing Center: Quickbooks’ integrated email marketing service (currently in beta) offers customizable templates for creating email marketing campaigns and then allows for tracking the results of those campaigns through Quickbooks data.
• App Center: Everyone has to have apps these days, and Quickbooks is no exception. The App Center contains about 25 programs in four categories. The apps cover topics from task management to project management to online storage. Most are only peripherally related to the core accounting functions, and all but a few require a monthly subscription (although free trials are available).

Quickbooks Pro 2010 will have a single-user MSRP of $199.99, or $179.99 for an upgrade. Pre-order street price for the full version Quickbooks Accounting Pro on Amazon.com is currently $149.99. Quickbooks Premier 2010 will have a single-user MSRP of $399.99, or $349.99 for upgrade buyers. The pre-order street price on Amazon.com is $249.99 for the full version of that program.

If you bought Quickbooks 2009 in the 60 days before the 2010 product announcement on Sept. 28, you will likely be happy to know about the existence of a little-advertised “migration upgrade” program that provides free upgrades to the 2010 version. To get the upgrade if you qualify, make sure you have your 2009 product’s information and sales receipt and call 888-246-8848. Stay on the line after the menu options to reach customer service.

We will review your 2009 QuickBooks file for errors, discrepancies, and missing information.  We will present you with a report outlining our recommendations for corrections you need to make before your tax return can be prepared.

Benefits
- Save money on tax preparation
- File your taxes on time because your file is ready for your tax preparer (get your tax refund faster)
- More accurate tax return
- Accurate financials for the first three quarters of the year (you will have time to make changes and adjustments to your business to improve your profitability before Dec. 31, 2009

Limited time offer $100 
 
Offer expires October 31, 2009

Most QuickBooks^® Merchant Services customers will pay more to accept credit card payments as of October 1, 2009, it was announced today by agent relations for Intuit-owned Innovative Merchant Solutions.

According to the release, fee increases to take effect October 1, 2009 are as follows:

Existing IMS accounts and QuickBooks Merchant Service for PC accounts:

• Transaction fee Increased by $.04

New Intuit QuickBooks Merchant Service for PC Transaction Fee:

• Qualified and Mid Qualified: $0.27
• Non Qualified: $0.34