Tag Archives: Year End

Ilene Eisen to Speak at Inuit Virtual Conference

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Ilene will be speaking that the Intuit Virtual Conference , Wednesday December 10, 2014  she will be presenting:

QuickBooks Desktop Accountant: Your Friend at Year End (Part 1 of 2)

This course has been designed to introduce the accounting professional to strategies for working with your clients’ QuickBooks company files at month‐end or year‐end. It provides an overview of  the tools and features that streamline the process of evaluating and correcting your client’s QuickBooks data as well as those tools and features that enable you to work efficiently and directly with your client on month‐end and year‐end accounting processes & financial reporting. These tools are available with your QuickBooks Accountant Desktop Plus 2015 subscription or QuickBooks Accountant Desktop 2015 software, and QuickBooks Enterprise Accountant 15.0 software

QuickBooks Desktop Accountant: Your Friend at Year End (Part 2 of 2)

Your clients’ QuickBooks data is seldom clean enough or complete enough for you to use when preparing their year‐end financial statements and / or income tax returns. In this session, we will “walk through the Balance Sheet” using the tools and features covered in the previous session (QuickBooks Desktop Accountant: Your Friend at Year End ‐ Part 1) to quickly find AND correct mistakes, allowing you to confidently use the QuickBooks trial balance to prepare your clients’ returns. You will also learn proactive steps you can take with your clients to keep their data accurate throughout the year – to streamline both income tax return preparation and periodic financial statement preparation.

 

Saving Money on Monthly Expenses

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Lately I’ve been working with clients on their budgets.  I notice they spend a lot of time on maximizing the income section and then they treat the expense section like a ball and chain and feel they have no options.  I suggest clients review monthly expenses at least once a year.  Call vendors to see if they can reduce fees or change service plans.

I will call my vendors and ask about plan changes for cell phones, internet, software contracts, website hosting, and fax service.  I often find that my usage is examined and a plan change will save me money or provide additional benefits that I need.  These calls take time, but the benefit is ongoing savings.  Many times we wait until a contract expires to re-negotiate.  Sometimes these contracts auto renew or we are too busy to make changes when they expire.  Calling the vendors on your schedule gives you time to consider the options and make better choices.

I also suggest that clients call their banks about fees.  Quite often clients are paying numerous fees or keeping minimum balances on a large number of accounts.  One client had a credit line that he was using to maintain minimum balances in numerous accounts at the same bank. The banks want to keep business accounts and are often willing to write off fees or update the account to a different fee structure.

If you schedule a call once a year for multi-year and recurring expenses and you will be surprised at the ongoing savings that you can achieve.  Also look at the vendor and see how their services are meeting your needs.  I often find that changing vendors can also save me money, however this involves more time and unless you see significant advantages, this may not be the best strategy.

Creating a QuickBooks Period Copy

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There are times when you may need to send someone a copy of your QuickBooks company file but you do not want to give them access to all transactions.  This could be in response to the Internal Revenue Service, a subpoena, lawsuit, etc.  Once the decision has been made to supply specific information, you can use a utility available in the Accountant version of QuickBooks or QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions Accountant  to create a “Period Copy” of your data file.

I recommend that you make a backup of your file, Restore the backup to your computer using a different file name, and then make a period copy from this backup.  Therefore you will not be affecting the company file.  Keep in mind that creating the period copy can take several minutes to several hours depending on the size of the company file, I generally run this overnight.  Below are the instructions for how to make the period copy using the newly created data file

File Menu – Utilities – Condense Data

In the Condense Data screen select the third option “Transactions outside a date range (to prepare a period copy of the company file),  Enter your Date Range , Select Next

Select create one summary journal entry (recommended), Select Next

Select Summarize Inventory Transactions (recommended), Select Next

Select all the listed in the next two screens, Select Next

Select Begin Condense

After the utility runs verify that the balances are correct !

Printing 1099 Forms from QuickBooks Company Files

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One of the tasks that many businesses struggle with in January is issuing 1099s and completing the reports.  I advise my clients to use the QuickBooks procedure for creating 1099’s rather than the timely and costly option of sending the information to an outside service to prepare the reports.   Many clients actually work with a tax preparer the first time to set-up the company file for 1099s, which is a great idea and allows you to learn the process for the next year. Here’s a short summary of the process you’ll need to follow to process your 1099’s and 1096:

Select Vendors from the top menu – Select Print /E-File 1099 – Select 1099 Wizard

You will see a listing of the activities that you will be guided thru in order to complete the task – Select the Get Started button.

Step 1 Select your 1099 Vendors – Vendors are subject to receiving a 1099 if they meet the income and statutory requirements based on business entity.  In this step we will only consider the statutory requirements based on business entity. 

Select all vendors that qualify for 1099s. Do not consider the vendor income requirements at this point, just select individuals, sole proprietors, partnerships, and anyone else who qualifies for a 1099 reporting. If you are not familiar with the requirements, check with your Tax Preparer for more information.  When you are done select Continue.

Step 2 Verify your 1099 Vendor’s Information –You will need the address and tax ID number for each 1099 vendor who will receive a 1099.  To save time, skip this step for now and we’ll complete the process in Step 4. Select continue and we will go back to complete this process later.

Step 3 Map Vendor Payment Accounts –Not all payments to vendors will qualify for 1099s, usually accounts that qualify are Cost of Goods Sold, Expense, and Other Expense accounts and most payments will be entered on Box 7. You should consult your tax preparer if you are not sure about reporting requirements.

 Step 4 Review Payments for Exclusions – This step gives you the opportunity to review both payments included and payments excluded based on the criteria defined in the previous steps.  Also QuickBooks will exclude all payments made by credit/debit cards, gift cards or PayPal in accordance with the IRS requirements. View both reports to verify that you have completed the set-up properly. When done select Continue.

Step 5 Confirm Entries – This step gives you the opportunity to confirm entries and on this screen you will see who needs additional information such as a Social Security number or Federal ID.  I usually wait until I get to this screen to research tax ID and addresses.  Any Vendors with incomplete information, can be edited in the vendor record.  If after calling a vendor you are informed that they do not meet the requirement for a 1099. Uncheck the 1099 vendor box in their vendor record or on Screen 1 of the wizard. You can now print the 1099 and 1096 forms, if you are not confident in the process ask your tax preparer to review your work.  When done, select Continue

Step 6 Choose Filing gives you the opportunity to print forms or e-file.  Please note that if you print forms you can reprint specific vendors or all forms at any time without changing your settings in Step 2.

Should I Process My Own Payroll or Use a Payroll Service?

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The best time to change payroll processing is at the beginning of the year.  Therefore it’s time to look at your payroll processing and determine if it meets your needs.

The first question is, to determine if you want to be responsible for preparing your payroll returns and paying tax payments…

  • I would suggest that only organizations with a full time Payroll or Hunan Resource specialist take on this responsibility since the fines and penalties can be substantial, if errors are made or deadlines missed.

The second question is, if you outsource your payroll, how do you choose a payroll processor or service?

  • If you are a small business and do not use accounting software, check with your Tax Preparer to see who they recommend or if they provide this service.
  • If your accounting software processes payroll ask if the accounting software company also offers full service payroll that will integrate with your software and post the payroll to your records saving you time and increasing efficiently, while handling the regulatory duties of filing payroll returns and making tax deposits.
    • Many large software vendors now provide full service options such as Intuit and Sage.
  • If you need job costing and/or you are billing customers for time it’s important to get a processor who will integrate with your accounting software.  Keep in mind that the best integration will be provided by the publisher of your accounting software as mentioned above.
  • If you need advanced Human Resources features you will probably be happier with a national payroll processor that has these options.

When making payroll decisions it’s always a good idea to check with your CPA and software consultant for additional information and insight on the issue.