How to Book Returned and Postdated Checks for Customers

October 15, 2009

To avoid mispostings—and liability for another employee’s misdeeds, follow these simple steps: Returned checks. When the bank notifies you that it is returning a customer’s check for NSF (not sufficient funds), debit the customer’s account immediately—even if you plan to redeposit the check the same day. For good internal controls, instruct your bank to address [...]

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QuickBooks 2010 and Wrinkle on Restoring Backup

October 13, 2009

Restoring Backup for Earlier QuickBooks Version Change: The compression software that QuickBooks uses to back up and restore files has been upgraded in QuickBooks 2010 and is not compatible with earlier versions of QuickBooks. Occasional Result: Accountants who find it necessary to open the backup copy (made as part of conversion of a company file [...]

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How To Implement a New W-4 —and Handle Complaints

October 1, 2009

Problem: Employees try to increase their take-home pay by handing in a new W-4 with more withholding allowances or by claiming exempt from withholding. Solution: Tell employees that you are not required to post the new W-4 until the first payroll period ending on or after the 30th day from the date the new W-4 [...]

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How to avoid triggering a Wage-Hour audit —and protect yourself if you are audited

September 12, 2009

To avoid major penalties, audit your own practices to ensure FLSA compliance, advises Shawn Smith, Next Level Consulting LLC, Harrison, NY. She cites four common problems: 1. Worker classification. You cannot avoid overtime pay simply by paying employees a salary and classifying them “exempt.” To avoid misclassification, know what jobs are exempt (regardless of whether [...]

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Five Facts about the Making Work Pay Tax Credit

September 10, 2009

Working taxpayers may be eligible for the Making Work Pay tax credit, a significant tax provision of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. This tax credit means more take-home pay for millions of American workers. Here are five things the IRS wants every taxpayer to know about the Making Work Pay tax credit: [...]

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Keeping Good Records Reduces Stress at Tax Time

August 28, 2009

Although most people won’t be filing their tax returns for several months, the dog days of summer are actually a great time to start planning for the tax filing season by ensuring your records are organized.  Whether you are an individual taxpayer or a business owner, you can avoid headaches at tax time with good [...]

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How to change an asset’s useful life

August 27, 2009

For example, suppose your firm makes an estimate of an asset’s life at time of purchase, then a new estimate several years later. How does the change affect annual depreciation expense? Here is the answer. Example: On Jan. 1, 20X5, DryCo acquires for $40,000 a machine with an estimated useful life of 10 years and [...]

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QuickBooks 2009 Release 8

August 25, 2009

Major New Release Addresses Online Banking and Much More Last week Intuit enabled Intuit® QuickBooks® 2009 Release 8 (QB09-R8) as an automatic update. Clients who have enabled automatic updates will be prompted to complete the update. Note: This is a significant update covering many issues, but most importantly to some QuickBooks accounting professionals will be [...]

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Can Your Password Be Cracked?

August 9, 2009

Password protection for sensitive personal and other data is only as good as the password itself. Easily accessed “cracker,” “breaker,” or “recovery” software runs millions of passwords per second through a log-on box. A password of even 6 characters combining numbers, symbols and upper- and lower-case letters can be broken in 5 hours; only numbers, symbols [...]

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IRS Warns Taxpayers to Beware of First-Time Homebuyer Credit Fraud

July 29, 2009

The Internal Revenue Service today announced its first successful prosecution related to fraud involving the first-time homebuyer credit and warned taxpayers to beware of this type of scheme. On Thursday July 23, 2009, a Jacksonville, Fla.-tax preparer, James Otto Price III, pled guilty to falsely claiming the first-time homebuyer credit on a client’s federal tax [...]

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