There's all kinds of accounting and administrative people out there.With varied backgrounds and education. Some designated...somenondesignated. There some with a designation who are inexperienced andcan't handle the work. Some whose nothing more than data entry clerkstake on tasks not qualified. You have to choose carefully.Want someone who can handle the tasks that has been done by 2 or
Equine Accounting: These are the days of our lives...
In this era of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, people document a lot of information about their lives - where they are, what they think and who they know. Documentation for business purposes is far less common but some might argue (particularly the IRS) far more necessary. What types of documentation does your business need and for what purpose?
Written Documents:
1. Contracts: boarding, training, leasing, sales, etc. To avoid any confusion or disagreement after the fact, you should document all of the terms of the arrangement in a contract. If it is a contract that you will use on a regular basis, such as a boarding contract at a boarding barn, you should have an attorney that specializes in equine law review the contract periodically.
2. Receipts: for all business expenses. When you get the receipt, take the time to write notes on the back regarding what the business purpose of the expense was - e.g. lunch with Sparky's owner, Chris, to discuss her show schedule this year. By tax season of the following year, you may not remember anything about the business purpose for the receipt so make a note when it happens. If you cannot document the business purpose of the expense, it may be disallowed by the IRS.
3. Daily Journal: Find some way to keep a daily journal of relevant business activity and ideas. All the information doesn't have to be included in one source document but there are a lot of pieces of information you need to include.
Let's use one day at a boarding and lesson barn as an example. Your day sheets should include the time of the lesson, the name of each student and the horse they are assigned, the name of the instructor, any management notes (use a different bridle, payment owed from last week, etc.), instructor notes after the lesson and payment information (paid with check # 123 for $45). There should be instructor notes for each rider every week. In one legal case, the lack of instructor notes was used by the plaintiff's attorney to attempt to prove negligence by the instructor.
Your day sheets will also be used for internal control purposes to track that each student has paid for their lesson and that all checks have been deposited to the bank.
You should also track daily farm activities and note any unusual occurrences. Document your order from the feed and grain store, the farrier's visit (who was shod, what customers owe you for holding their horse, etc). Make extensive notes about any activity that could possibly have legal/medical repercussions such as a bale of hay falling from the loft onto an employee, a horse demonstrating symptoms that could be the beginning of colic, etc.
4. Travel log: For any auto travel related to business, the IRS requires that you keep contemporaneous records which should preferably include the date, the business purpose (who and why) and the beginning and ending readings on the odometer. Remember that trips to the Post Office to mail marketing materials, the office supply store to buy file folders and other business related auto travel are all deductible.
Photo/Video Documents:
1. Marketing documents: Take photos/video of happy students, training horses going well, whatever your marketing focus - visually document your successes and use it in your marketing materials. If you are a clinician and want to expand your target market, create a DVD of one of your clinics, with snippets from various riders and send it to the appropriate potential clients.
2. Client relations: Use your happy student photos as Christmas presents for students or parents of students.
3. Insurance documents: Photograph the tree that fell on the fence BEFORE you begin to remove it. Take a photo of your boarder's horse after he is released from being cast in his stall to document his injuries (or lack of them).
4. Sales videos: enlarge the geographic market for your sales horse by posting the videos on You Tube and various equine sales websites.
When in doubt, write it down or take a picture of it! Your business will probably benefit from the information
Written Documents:
1. Contracts: boarding, training, leasing, sales, etc. To avoid any confusion or disagreement after the fact, you should document all of the terms of the arrangement in a contract. If it is a contract that you will use on a regular basis, such as a boarding contract at a boarding barn, you should have an attorney that specializes in equine law review the contract periodically.
2. Receipts: for all business expenses. When you get the receipt, take the time to write notes on the back regarding what the business purpose of the expense was - e.g. lunch with Sparky's owner, Chris, to discuss her show schedule this year. By tax season of the following year, you may not remember anything about the business purpose for the receipt so make a note when it happens. If you cannot document the business purpose of the expense, it may be disallowed by the IRS.
3. Daily Journal: Find some way to keep a daily journal of relevant business activity and ideas. All the information doesn't have to be included in one source document but there are a lot of pieces of information you need to include.
Let's use one day at a boarding and lesson barn as an example. Your day sheets should include the time of the lesson, the name of each student and the horse they are assigned, the name of the instructor, any management notes (use a different bridle, payment owed from last week, etc.), instructor notes after the lesson and payment information (paid with check # 123 for $45). There should be instructor notes for each rider every week. In one legal case, the lack of instructor notes was used by the plaintiff's attorney to attempt to prove negligence by the instructor.
Your day sheets will also be used for internal control purposes to track that each student has paid for their lesson and that all checks have been deposited to the bank.
You should also track daily farm activities and note any unusual occurrences. Document your order from the feed and grain store, the farrier's visit (who was shod, what customers owe you for holding their horse, etc). Make extensive notes about any activity that could possibly have legal/medical repercussions such as a bale of hay falling from the loft onto an employee, a horse demonstrating symptoms that could be the beginning of colic, etc.
4. Travel log: For any auto travel related to business, the IRS requires that you keep contemporaneous records which should preferably include the date, the business purpose (who and why) and the beginning and ending readings on the odometer. Remember that trips to the Post Office to mail marketing materials, the office supply store to buy file folders and other business related auto travel are all deductible.
Photo/Video Documents:
1. Marketing documents: Take photos/video of happy students, training horses going well, whatever your marketing focus - visually document your successes and use it in your marketing materials. If you are a clinician and want to expand your target market, create a DVD of one of your clinics, with snippets from various riders and send it to the appropriate potential clients.
2. Client relations: Use your happy student photos as Christmas presents for students or parents of students.
3. Insurance documents: Photograph the tree that fell on the fence BEFORE you begin to remove it. Take a photo of your boarder's horse after he is released from being cast in his stall to document his injuries (or lack of them).
4. Sales videos: enlarge the geographic market for your sales horse by posting the videos on You Tube and various equine sales websites.
When in doubt, write it down or take a picture of it! Your business will probably benefit from the information
QuickBooks POS in a Hosted Environment
QuickBooks Point of Sale in a Hosted EnvironmentRetail operators and multi-location store owners often face difficulties in attempting to bring cohesion to their accounting, financial, and operational data. In so many situations, the retail location – where inventory is sold and money is exchanged – is far-removed from the administrative location where the financial systems and business reporting exist. It seems that the best case scenario is to create a means for the remote (retail) locations to operate with real-time access to centralized customer, inventory, and financial data from a primary source. Application hosting services can provide this centralization, and a platform for standardization, of systems. Further, the application hosting model can deliver security and managed service which ensures that the systems are available and performing as required.
Even though hosted applications and centralization of the systems and processes in a POS environment may appear to be the right answer, there are caveats and considerations that speak to the realities of today’s technologies. These caveats should be strongly considered prior to undertaking any reformation of systems and processes relating to the retail locations.
The first fundamental reality which must be addressed is connectivity. While a retail or store location may enjoy Internet or network connectivity, there should be great consideration given to the wisdom of connecting these locations only and exclusively via remote access systems. Retail is a dynamic business, and the sale is made when the customer is ready and willing to buy. Any retail location must be able to process this sale in order to meet the immediacy of customer demand. If the systems in use are exclusively accessed remotely, then the connectivity to those systems become of paramount importance in the ability to do business. At the very minimum, any remotely-served retail location should have redundant connectivity options, with local personnel being familiar with the connection failover process.
A second strong consideration for a hosted or remotely-deployed POS or retail system is local device support. Devices, such as card readers, scanners, cash drawers, receipt printers, etc. typically require local PC/computer drivers in order to function. When served by a remote system, this connection between the host and the local devices may not function. Limited device support for POS hardware can significantly impact the location’s accuracy and efficiency.
Another area of consideration for POS and retail systems centralization is integration or synchronization of POS data with core accounting and financial data. Depending on the software solution in use, this integration may require that the POS software/data and the financial software/data reside on the same computer and/or within the same network. This may be one area where a hosted implementation may offer a great deal of benefits, but the benefits to be derived are often a function of the design and behavior of the applications integrating.
QuickBooks Point-of-Sale, for example, was designed for use on a single-user PC environment. The application is not well-suited to a hosted deployment for multiple users, as the software only allows one instance of itself to run on each computer. While there is a “multi-store” option for this solution, the option requires all stores be connected via a LAN/WAN connection to the same network. RDS (remote data sharing) functionality might possibly be used to allow communication between locally-run POS locations and the “master location” at a hosting service provider, but this method of communication has previously been found to be somewhat problematic and platform-specific (see notes following relating to multi-user/store configuration and Vista OS). Further, the potential poor performance of RDS connections often negatively impacts the value of the integration.
In many cases, the suitable answer is to keep the POS systems running on the local computers and network, and run the financial applications and the POS integration at the host. With an installation of the QuickBooks financial application and the point-of-sale solution with the hosting service provider, the core financial data is able to be secured and protected in the virtual environment without risking lost productivity (and lost sales!) due to connectivity failures at the retail locations. The end-of-day process at each location is to then move a copy of the POS data file to the host system, where it would be integrated with the QB financial data. In environments where is is desirable to have the POS systems reading customer and/or inventory data directly from the QuickBooks financial data files, the recommendation is to keep an available copy of the financial data file in the POS network, on the local computers. This copy of the data file provides the point-of-sale systems with necessary customer and product information, and would be copied/updated during the same end-of-day process where POS data is moved up for integration on the host system.
This process is very similar to the way in which a localized system might be utilized, where the POS application runs at the front counter and the accounting application and data run from a back-office system. In this scenario, many businesses elect to simply log off from the front counter system so that they can launch the POS application from the back-office computer, and then integrate the POS data with the QB financial data on that same computer. Even in remote network configurations (WAN configuration), this is often a method which delivers better performance and stability than utilizing the remote data sharing service.
J
CRM Solution Gets High Marks from QuickBooks ProAdvisors
Results CRM offers robust features, yet is simple to use for small business users 
Results CRM Solutions offer more functionality and features than most CRM solutions oriented for small businesses. In most cases, a robust solution like this would require lengthy configuration and training efforts in order to make the system useful. With Results CRM, however, a business can be up and operational within minutes.
The solution was recently reviewed through Intuit's ProAdvisor program, and got a rating of 9.75 out of 10!
From the review:
Results is extremely full-featured. Products with this level of functionality often have a complex architecture making them hard to learn and use. With Results, navigation and search functionality are simple and allow you to easily and rapidly access the data you desire.
Results CRM Solutions offer more functionality and features than most CRM solutions oriented for small businesses. In most cases, a robust solution like this would require lengthy configuration and training efforts in order to make the system useful. With Results CRM, however, a business can be up and operational within minutes.
The solution was recently reviewed through Intuit's ProAdvisor program, and got a rating of 9.75 out of 10!
From the review:
Results is extremely full-featured. Products with this level of functionality often have a complex architecture making them hard to learn and use. With Results, navigation and search functionality are simple and allow you to easily and rapidly access the data you desire.
Regardless of the type of business, I give 110 percent to each client. Working all the time because love what do. There is some who is only out for themselves. Will only do what is required then go home and forget about you. Others are under a mistaken impression about bookkeeping and accounting. They think all have to do is to enter the numbers given.TJK Accounting Services effectively and
Another busy week. Talked to a new client who told me something disturbing. Was overcharged last year for their taxes. A triple percent margin for 30 minutes of work. I looked over the figures of last year return and found some errors and questionable calculations. I was more disgusted. The client was told when questioned the fee that it was standard. May be in some alternate reality called
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)