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Do bad sales months often take you by surprise? If so, don’t forget the power of flash reports — that is, snapshots of critical data for quick, timely viewing every day or week. One specific way to use them is to track bookings vs. shippings. Doing so can help you determine what percentage of volume […]

Many companies offer health care benefits to help ensure employee wellness and compete for better job candidates. And the Affordable Care Act has been using both carrots and sticks (depending on employer size) to encourage businesses to offer health coverage. If you sponsor a health care plan, you know this is no small investment. It […]

At this time of year, a summer vacation is on many people’s minds. If you travel for business, combining a business trip with a vacation to offset some of the cost with a tax deduction can sound appealing. But tread carefully, or you might not be eligible for the deduction you’re expecting. General rules Business […]

Classifying workers as independent contractors — rather than employees — can save businesses money and provide other benefits. But the IRS is on the lookout for businesses that do this improperly to avoid taxes and employee benefit obligations. To find out how the IRS will classify a particular worker, businesses can file optional IRS Form […]

Electronic transactions and internet-based accounts are convenient, but present an environment that is tempting to hackers. Here are 3 ways to protect yourself against bank fraud. Here’s how it happens: An ACH payment is made from your checking account or your credit card to a Paypal account for $1 to a (maybe fictitious) non-profit or […]

We all know it’s important to back up our files, but in many cases, it takes a crisis to drive the point home. Are you backing up your Quickbooks data regularly? Here are a couple of cases in which experienced bookkeepers learned this lesson the hard way: The QuickBooks file was stored on a desktop […]

On December 20, Congress completed passage of the largest federal tax reform law in more than 30 years. Commonly called the “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act” (TCJA), the new law means substantial changes for individual taxpayers. Here’s how the TCJA will affect individuals. The following is a brief overview of some of the most significant […]

There’s an old saying regarding family-owned businesses: “Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations.” It means the first-generation owner started in shirtsleeves and built the company up from nothing but, by the third generation, the would-be owner is back in shirtsleeves with nothing because the business failed or was sold. Although you can’t guarantee your company […]

If you own life insurance policies at your death, the proceeds will be included in your taxable estate. Ownership is usually determined by several factors, including who has the right to name the beneficiaries of the proceeds. The way around this problem is to not own the policies when you die. However, don’t automatically rule […]

Events of the last decade have taught us that taxes are anything but certain. Case in point: Congress is mulling abolishing gift and estate taxes as part of tax reform. So how can people who hope to still have long lifespans ahead of them plan their estates when the tax landscape may look dramatically different […]