Jeannette

12 Important Accounting Terms Explained

I think it’s important for all small business owners to know something about accounting so that they can better understand the financial, or money, side of their business; especially if you’re going to undertake your company’s bookkeeping work yourself. Just like every other industry, accounting has its own important terms. Becoming familiar with these
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How to Maintain Your Entity’s Legal Standing and Protect Your Assets

As a new business owner, you know that protecting your personal assets is one of the main reasons for forming a business entity instead of operating as a sole proprietor or a general partnership. So you decided to incorporate your business or you formed an LLC. That’s great. But that’s not the end of it. In
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Accounting Rules vs. Tax Rules: Tax Deductibility of Travel Expenses

There are generally accepted accounting principles that are used for bookkeeping purposes and there are tax laws that are used for completing and filing a tax return. These two things are not always the same. Because there are differences between accounting principles and tax law, the amount you can deduct for tax purposes may not
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The Top 10 IRS Publications for Small Business Owners

A number of accounting rules evolved from tax rules and vice versa. Therefore, as a small business owner, if you have no formal training in bookkeeping or accounting, you can turn to IRS publications for help in illustrating the rules. I use the IRS website almost every week to research topics relating to taxes as
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Cash Accounting vs. Accrual Accounting: Which should your business use?

What’s the difference? The concept of cash basis accounting is rather easy to understand: A business records an expense only when cash is spent and recognizes income only when cash is received. That’s pretty much it. Accrual basis accounting on the other hand, is a bit more complex. When you use accrual accounting, your accounting system
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Forming Your Business Entity: Which Business Type is Right For Your Business Model? – Part II

There are many issues to consider when deciding which business type will be best for your business model. In my last post, I wrote about the ease of formation and the liability of owners of each of the four types of business entities: Sole Proprietorship Partnership Limited Liability Company Corporation In this post, I’d like
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Forming Your Business Entity: Which Business Type is Right For Your Business Model? – Part I

The answer to the question, of course, depends on a number of factors. There are four business entity types: Sole Proprietorship Partnership Limited Liability Company Corporation I would like to discuss the ease of formation and the liability of owners of each type in this post and in my next post, I’ll discuss the
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How to Set Up Your Company’s Books: Understanding the Chart of Accounts

The terms “books” comes from the old days – before computers – when businesses actually maintained ledger books that the company’s listing of accounts and accounting transactions were recorded in. They were called the books of account. Business owners began to refer to their “books” and the term stuck. Most all businesses these days
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Why Every Small Business Needs An Accountant (Not Just A Bookkeeper)

I have found over the years that many small business owners start out attempting to do their financial record keeping themselves. The smart business owners quickly realize that there is an awful lot of work that goes into maintaining a company’s books and that their time is better spent concentrating on producing and selling
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It’s A Beginning

I’m an accountant by trade; a CPA in fact. But when people ask me what I do for a living, I tell them that I am responsible for the financial health and wellbeing of the company that I work for. Sounds more impressive, doesn’t it? But it’s true; I have a very important job. As
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