Business Analysis for Employees, Benefits & HR

The payroll service I often refer to is named Gusto. They just added a certification program for accountants to learn about Employees, Benefits, and HR. Took me quite a few days of studying because there was so much to learn and integrate into my practice. 

As a small business financial analyst I'm used to thinking about how to relate the financial reports to the businesses clients are running and have conversations with them about how to get what they want. This Payroll training taught me how to do this same process with staffing, benefits and HR. 

It's brilliant of Gusto. Even though they spent a fortune developing the course material, by teaching accountants how to use Gusto for payroll, the services Gusto offers and when to refer a situation to Gusto, the company will get a return on their investment by needing less tech support for accountants. Accountants in turn train customers. If you go with Gusto, you'll quickly learn that they are committed to going all out with tech support, which is great for customers, but it still it costs. If they can think of a less expensive way to get that information across, it's going to be a win for their business. 

I think this new certification is a win/win/win situation for Gusto, me, and my clients. 

If you're interested in learning more about Gusto, login using this link;

https://gusto.com/partners/invite/qc-computing-llc

This link says I referred you. There is no cost to you (until you actually run payroll) but you will receive invaluable advantages if you decide to go with them. It's so frustrating when clients want the advantages but they didn't use my link and Gusto won't compromise, so use this link please. 

Intuit Introduces a new SMB Bank called QuickBooks Cash

Intuit, the corporation that publishes QuickBooks Accounting Software, is adding "a Bank" to their collection of products and services. They're calling it QuickBooks Cash. 

Naturally it ties in with QuickBooks Payments, Intuit Merchant Services, Payroll, and QuickBooks Online. 

Right now they're offering awesome features: 

Zero account opening, maintenance, overdraft or other recurring fees.

Free ACH transfers.

Free instant deposit for select customers. 

1% interest. 

Debit card with your company name. 

FDIC insured for $250K. 

It's only for QuickBooks Online users, so apply from within QB Online.

Even with this awesome bank account feature, I still recommend QuickBooks Desktop for a variety of reasons, critically so if you collect and pay salestax in the state of WA. 

I'm Advanced Certified Pro-Advisor, QuickBooks Online AND QuickBooks Desktop and happily support both, actually ALL of Intuit's products and services, including all QuickBooks Products. Feel free to ask me about any QuickBooks help your small business may want?

Payroll Protection Loan Forgiveness

Payroll Protection Loans have been a godsend for clients businesses. They were stressed out about money before this loan came through. 

All of my applications were successful. Last week I attended an online seminar in what's required to have the loan forgiven, so it becomes a grant.

You have exactly 2 months to the day from the time the money was deposited to "use" the money, so being proactive is key. 

I decided to track the money coming in as income, using the class feature in QB so that I can produce a Payroll Loan P&L for the bank. If you don't pay income taxes on the loan/grant, you also can't deduct related expenses. Since I hope to have 100% of the loan forgiven, there is no advantage to classifying it as something other than income. 

Whatever is not forgiven, you'll have 3 years to pay it back at 1% interest, which is better than most loans.

This is how it pays to have me as your accountant. Unlike business owners I think about this stuff all the time. Plus, I spend loads of time doing research, attending seminars, talking to other business owners who have the same problems, and making sure I'm in the know, so you can make your business more profitable. 

We've got this Issaquah - Response to Shut down.

Issaquah's YouTube channel is great if you want to see what's going on in town. The video guy, Tim Smith, made it fun to participate in the "We've Got This, Issaquah" video compilation about small business resilience in the face of a pandemic and shut down.

I'm the last person featured. Check it out! 

We are a small business nation

. 

There are over 30.2 million small businesses in the USA. As of 2018, 99.9% of US businesses are small businesses. Currently, small businesses employ more than 47.5% of the private workforce in the US and account for 1.9 million new jobs in 2017. That's not counting the 10.5% (or over 3 million) micro business who don't have any employees but support the owner. Small businesses remain a vital part of the USA's economic landscape. 

Written on the blackboard of the Courtyard Cafe in Port Townsend, WA, The Courtyard Cafe

"When you buy from a Mom and Pop business, you are not buying a CEO a third vacation home.

You are helping a Mom and Dad pay rent and put food on the table.

You are helping a girl get photography lessons and a boy get a baseball glove. 

Our customers are our shareholders and the ones we strive to make happy.

Thank you for supporting our small family business."

  

Accounting for Stock Market Investments

Recently I was privileged to work with a client whose income came half from real estate rentals and half from stock market investing. After a series of QuickBooks accountants and bookkeepers had messed up his bookkeeping, it was like a tangled mess of hair. Different people had tried this and that way of tracking his stock market investments, none of which were successful.

QuickBooks is the ideal software for business, and property rentals, so I recommended he leave that part of his business there. But I recommended that he switch to Quicken to account for his stock market portfolio. Quicken is better suited for stock market investments than Quickbooks. For example, one drop down choice in Quicken includes "stock split". How else would you track that one share became two shares, but the purchase price and brokerage fees didn't change?

What tax preparers want to know is date of purchase, # of shares purchased, total cost, minus any brokerage fees. Even if you hold that stock for years, decades, you still need this information when you sell for tax purposes. Make a file for "stock purchases" to store the paper that outlines the trade there. One advantage of Quicken is that if the stock pays dividends and interest, you can see watch how profitable this stock is for you. 

If I had to track stock market investments in QuickBooks, I would use items and track it the way one tracks job costing. Each stock would be an item, with additional items for brokerage fees, etc. The purchase would be tracked as a purchase order, and the sale as a sales receipt or invoice/payment. There is a job costing report to show profit. But once again I recommend Quicken for tracking your stock portfolio.