Plant a Tree

I joke that the small business owner needs to print out paperwork. Rather than attempt to have a paperless office, plant a tree. One way I support planting trees is by contributing to the The Fruit Tree Planting Foundation.  

The Fruit Tree Planting Foundation is a nonprofit charity dedicated to planting 18 billion edible, fruitful trees and plants to benefit the environment and all its inhabitants. Our primary goal is to plant trees that yield edible fruits, nuts, leaves, or roots—thus spreading life-sustaining ecological diversity throughout the world. While our ultimate vision is one of overall ecological harmony, incorporating a great number of elements for a self-sustaining world, we chose to name ourselves “The Fruit Tree Planting Foundation” to ensure that as our efforts continue, with the help of those who join us, we will be united in the goal to heal the planet and nourish future generations by planting fruit trees. 18 billion (with a "b") is quite a few trees, but the world is depleted now, so many more fruit trees are needed. We believe in thinking big and loving even more.

American Society of Woman's Accountants

I joined the "American Society of Woman's Accountants". Just in time for the name change to "Accounting and Financial Women's Alliance".

This week we had a presentation on IFRS, International Financial Reports Standards. IFRS is used throughout the world except in the US where US GAAP. There is an urgency for the US to adopt the IFRS because of the growth in global financial markets. We discussed the differences between the two financial systems and the inpact that has on how you understand a business. Very interesting!

Payroll Changes for 2013

If' you're running payroll in QuickBooks, you'll want to know about these 2013 changes. They should download automatically with the Intuit payroll  tax table updates.

First of all, the Employee Social Security Rate changes back to 6.2% for 2013, from the 4.2% it's been these last couple of years.  

Next, beginning 1/1/2013, employers will be responsible for withholding an addition 0.9% Medicare tax from employee's wages and compensation paid in excess of $200,000 in the calendar year. A new payroll tax item, Medicare Employee Addl Tax, is provided in the end of year Payroll Updates to support the 0.9% Additional Medicare Tax. This update is, "Simple", says Intuit. Here is the 21 page manual for this "simple" fix.

 Medicare QuickBooks Updates Instruction Manual

Plus, there is a FAQ bug report in case it doesn't go as planned. Hats off to anyone doing payroll. If it's not simple, than that means that you are smart.

Accounting is Easy

I was at a clients yesterday and we reconciled her bank account statement with QuickBooks data in 15 minutes. Not even a couple of months ago it took 2 hours per month. It did my heart good to have it go so smoothly now.

Another client today was asking me what happens when he finishes the list of tasks I have laid out for him to do? I told him the accounting would be fast, easy, accurate, and the business more profitable. He looked at me with disbelief. Perhaps he can't imagine a business where accounting isn't a problem? Millions of business owners make their accounting easy. Your accounting can be easy too.

QuickBooks Online Edition Inventory

Shout out to Intuit Technical Support expert Dave for helping me solve an obscure bug in the QuickBooks Online Plus Edition Inventory.

If you want to add a new inventory item, and adjust the quantity on hand, do this process in two steps. 1. First, create your new inventory item with cost and price, and save it. 2. Second, come back into your Product/Services List and adjust your inventory quantity on hand. Otherwise, if you add and adjust in one fell swoop, inventory will be saved with zero cost. When you go to sell, zero cost will be moved into cost of goods sold, so your COGS value will be too low, and your Profit and Loss Report will not be accurate.

Invoices by Date QuickBooks Report

Want to see when orders come in, and when it's slow?

Create a custom report to see "Invoices by Date" in QuickBooks.

Start by selecting the following menu items: 
Reports->Custom Reports->Transaction Detail Report

First thing go to Filters Tab.
Filter will be set at "All Accounts"
Change that to "All Ordinary Income Accounts"

Next go to Header/Footer Tab
Rename the header words from "Custom Transaction Detail Report" to "Invoices by Date" or some catchy report title.
Say OK.

You'll see your report of a list of Invoices. (And maybe some sales receipts and deposits depending on how you note sales).

Change your date range perhaps.
Fix the columns perhaps.

Memorize the Report.

Now you'll know the best time to take a vacation!

eReader Version of Radically Simple Accounting

Radically Simple Accounting has been published as an eReader Book. The print book is highly formatted and includes sample reports, so it was quite a challenge to get this to work. Someone can chose to format an eReader book on their iPhone in a 20 character column width. My thought is "good luck with that" but I see people standing in line doing it all the time. Now they can learn accounting while they wait.

eReader books work with the Kindle, Nook, iPhone, iPad, Android, and Kobo Reader. These online stores are carrying it now, or will very soon: Apple iBookstore (32 countries), Barnes & Noble, Kobo (which powers the bookstores of multiple other retailers such as FNAC in France and WH Smith in the U.K.), Sony, Baker & Taylor (Blio.com and the Axis360 library platform), and the Diesel eBook Store.

P.S. The words to the right are a 30 character column width,

Here is the link to: Radically Simple Accounting eReader book at Smashwords. One purchase there and you gain access to multiple formats.