Thursday, March 18, 2010

Ten Great Reasons Why You Should Use QuickBooks Today:

1. QuickBooks saves time, since you do not need to re-enter same information repeatedly.


2. QuickBooks saves money since you can create/customize your own forms/invoices/statements.

3. QuickBooks saves time on bookkeeping and paperwork since many tasks are handled by QuickBooks automatically.


4. QuickBooks provides reports that you can use to analyze company’s performance.

5. QuickBooks lets multiple (authorized) people to access same information.

6. QuickBooks lets one upload data into MS Word and Excel.

7. QuickBooks can be used to keep track of payroll information. (Payroll application has to be bought separately).

8. With online QuickBooks service, one is able to access the information from anywhere in the world.

9. QuickBooks can be used for making payments from your bank accounts.

10. QuickBooks can be used for printing official checks, including paychecks.

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Accounting 101

First rule of thumb: Keep your business expenses seperate from personal expenses. Otherwise it can get very messy later on.

Chart of Accounts is a complete list of business accounts and their balances

When keeping books for your company, you will need to keep track of:
1. Where the income is coming from e.g. customers
2. Where you are going to put it e.g. savings or checking account
3. What are the expense for e.g. vendors
4. What you have used to pay the expenses e.g. saving or checking account

Types of
Accounts   Debit(DR)     Credit(CR)
Asset                    +                       -
Liability              -                       +
Capital                -                       +
Income                -                       +
Expense              +                       -

Note: '+' indicates which account will increase and '-' indicates which account will decrease.

Payroll 101

Payroll process has 3 requirements:
1. Payment to employees
2. Pay your taxes
3. File your tax forms e.g. Form 941/944

Payments the company has to make:
1. Employee earnings
2. Employee withholdings
3. Company owed taxes

Note: number 2 and 3 payments have to be made to federal and state governments.

Payments that have to be made to federal and state government include:
1. Employee income taxes
2. Medicare
3. Social security
4. Unemployment taxes

Following forms have to be used to indicate the payment amounts:

Federal (Payment made to US Treasury)
Form 940: Unemployment tax
Form 941/944:
Federal Income Tax
Medicare
Social Security
Advance Earned Income Credit (if applicable)

State (for California - Payment made to EDD)
CA Income tax and Disability Insurance
CA Unemployment Insurance and employment Training tax