How virtualization benefits tax and accounting practices

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An increasingly popular way of delivering IT services is through virtualization, which comes in several flavors. With server virtualization, a physical server is split into multiple virtual servers. Each virtual server can run its own full-fledged operating system, and these operating systems can be different from one virtual server to the next. The physical server typically runs a hypervisor program to create the virtual servers and manage the resources of the various operating systems. Then each virtual server can be employed as if it were a stand-alone physical server, thus reducing the number of physical servers needed in an IT shop and saving the organization money and space.

By desktop virtualization, whatever user sees on his/her desktop is completely isolated from the physical machine and accessed through a client/server computing model. This virtualized desktop environment is stored on a server, rather than on the local storage of the desktop device; when the user works from his or her desktop device, all the programs, applications, and data are kept on the server and all programs and applications are run on the server. In this kind of practice, the server does almost all the work and a thin client can be a normal desktop or it can be even notebook, smartphones.

The above virtualization model can serve ideally to the tax and accounting professional. For a general accountant or CPAs, the desktop consists of tax and accounting applications as well as many other supportive tools to process their operations. These applications require heavy system resources to function and there is even desperate need of any expert technician to manage their setup. Having separate desktop setup for each individual in the office not only costs in the term of licensing but also gives us huge burden of resource setup and management. A centralized server helps us to address these concerns.

Tax and accounting professionals can opt to use cloud computing to host their resources. Cloud computing is the latest form of the virtualization technology. By implementing cloud for tax and accounting practices, all the benefits of cloud computing get inherited to the operations of tax and accounting jobs. The major benefits of cloud computing are: increased performance, high availability, anywhere and anytime access and reduced expenses which can be very helpful to boost the performance of accounting firms or departments.

It is not necessary to have our own cloud computing or virtualization infrastructure to share the benefits of these technologies. We can choose any hosting provider to host our tax and accounting applications to get these features of technology. We even get full technical support on our resources. The hosting provider becomes responsible for setup, management and to fix the issues.

Specialize in Accounting and advance in your career prospects and CGA designation

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A Jack of all trades is important to the quick demands on many businesses but Jack is a master of none. Although it may seem better to have a broad knowledge of many things, having a specialization can have its benefits, including helping in your decision-making. Career-wise, specialization does not mean that you do not have plenty of knowledge but it does require you to be an expert in at least one area. This gives you more job prospects and greater chances of getting noticed by recruiters. Strategic management programs are gaining popularity as employees become empowered to make strategic decisions, as they can one day become leaders of the company.

Realizing the potential for this area, Centennial College created a graduate certificate program in one of the popular areas in business: Accounting. The Strategic Management – Accounting (2844) program is based in accounting principles but with managerial leadership in mind. The School of Business deploys one of the best professors to teach the courses, contributing examples from their personal experiences to add much interest and value for students. The benefits of enrolling in this one-year program are described below:

Accounting graduates from universities and colleges can specialize in this program and increase their chances in getting hired as well as expanding their job prospects.

Students undergo an intensive training with theory, case studies, simulations and technical skills sought out by employers in the industry.

Upon graduation, learners can find employment in various industries in addition to financial institutions, including public administration, government offices, manufacturing industries, and public accounting firms.

As financial managers, graduates can become entrepreneurs and establish their own accounting firm.

Students canstart working on theirCGA Designation by moving up to level four of the requirements by the Certified General Accountants Association of Canada.

Students advance in their education, while progressing with their industry designation — a win-win situation where students spend their time resources wisely. Strategic management in accounting involves more than balancing books. The program teaches the following managerial perspectives:

A broader and more in-depth look into budgets, with lessons on capital budgeting, profitability analysis, and strategic accounting decision-making process

To define objectives and plan strategies for a multiplatform businesses by studying the five phases of strategy-making and strategy-executing process

Calculation and preparation of consolidated financial statements for non for profit and government organizations

Control the audit plan and audit program in accordance with the Generally Accepted Auditing Standards

Learn how to make decisions and apply actions in an ethical manner and in compliance with industry standards

Centennial College students will graduate with a positive outlook on their career in accounting. They are more prepared than ever to enter the workplace with strong knowledge of day-to-day operations and strategic view of the accounting function of a business. The Strategic Management – Accounting program also offers an articulated program for some graduates who want to pursue a degree with Centennial’s university partner.

Top Accounting Tips for Businesses This Tax Season

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Tax season is here and it’s important that you and your business are prepared well before the deadlines. We wrangled the Accounting Troops and asked our small business accountants that they provide us with some useful tax filing tips to ensure you get the best return possible.

General Tips: – Always itemize your deductions if you exceed the standard deduction threshold. – Review the tax documents you gave to your tax preparer last year to ensure nothing is missing from your current year documents. – Inform your tax preparer of major changes from last year that may affect your tax return. Changes include moving, new dependent, marriage/divorce, new job etc.

Refund/Balance Due Advice: – Always remember to e-file and setup direct deposit for a quicker refund. – File early for a quicker refund. – Use Direct Withdrawal if you owe taxes. You can file your return at any time and the funds will not be withdrawn until April 15th.

Penalties: – Always file on time regardless of your ability to pay tax liabilities. This will avoid the automatic failure-to-file penalty. – Be sure to determine your estimated taxes that are due for the current year in order to avoid estimated tax penalties.

Retirement: – Contribute the maximum amount on your 401k to reduce your tax liability. – Make contributions to a regular or Roth IRA by April 15th. The upper limit to put in is $5,000 ($6,000 if you are 50 or older), and you must have earned income at least equal to the contribution. Regular IRA contributions are usually tax-deductible, but withdrawals are taxable. Roth account contributions aren’t deductible, while withdrawals are usually tax-free. Income and other limits apply for both. Taxpayers stymied by the limits can do a -backdoor- Roth IRA: put up to $5,000 ($6,000, 50 or older) in a -nondeductible- regular IRA, and then convert it to a Roth account soon after. Income taxes are due on the conversion, but they will be minimal because the account won’t have earned much. – Filing an extension also provides self-employed taxpayers an extra six-months (until October 15th) to fund a SEP-IRA or SIMPLE IRA.

Medical: – Medical deductions need to exceed 7.5% of your adjusted gross income to be deductible on Schedule A (if you qualify). – Contribute to health savings accounts. You may deduct up to $6,250 per family ($3,100 single) for a health savings account if you had an approved -high-deductible- health plan linked to the health-savings account. The contributions may be made until April 15th.

Real Estate: – Remember to deduct your personal real estate taxes and mortgage interest on Schedule A. – If you refinanced your mortgage, be sure to properly deduct the points paid if any. – Points paid when you refinance may be able to be amortized and deducted over the life of the loan.

Charitable Gifts: – Employees who donate to charities via payroll deduction often forget to include the donations on their personal tax returns. The number isn’t on the W-2 form, and often there is no letter from the charity. – Donors may not deduct their labor or time, but they may deduct mileage or uniforms. For 2012 the allowance is 14 cents a mile. Board members or certain others may also deduct unreimbursed expenses for attending a conference.

Important Dates: – Feb 28th: File information returns, including Forms 1098, 1099, W-2G and form W-3 with Copy A for payments made during 2012. – March 15th: S Corporation tax returns and tax payments are due. – Remember April 15th is when Individual and Partnership tax returns and tax payments are due. Only tax returns can receive a six-month extension, not tax payments.

If you have any other tax related questions, we at Presti and Naegele are at your disposal.

About the author: Here at Presti and Naegele we offer tax services for both businesses and individuals. Investing in tax preparation services and income tax services in this period of the year can become profitable for both companies and individual taxpayers. If you have any tax accounting related questions, our staff is available on phone or via email (www.prestinaegele.com/contact) and if you decide to visit us in person, you are welcomed in our offices in Manhattan, Long Island and Philadelphia.

Benefits Of Professional Accounting Services

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Accounting is a very vital part to the success of any business and although it does not directly add to your profits, it can indirectly because of the power to measure your businesses performance.

Professional accounting services contribute to your business finances because the professional accounting services will improve your day-to-day managing aspect of your business and help with the overall business growth.

There are a fair few benefits to using professional accounting services and in this article covers three of them.

The first benefit to using professional accounting services is financial counseling.

A professional accountant will know that at the end of the day funds and finances are what keep the business afloat and, in many cases, keep you as the business owner afloat. As a professional accountant’s focus is on the accounts, incoming and outgoing, they can take note and highlight issues arising in the businesses finances, especially because their attentions are mainly on the finances. Basically professional accounting services means issues are noticed as they arise and fixed as soon as possible.

Professional accounting services can help you on your business spending habits too, which will see you manage cash outgoing better. They can also help with planning, from setting financial goals to accomplishing them. Also, at the beginning of your business, professional accounting services can help you plan the whole thing from predicting finances to possible pitfalls.This makes going into business more viable in the long run.

The next benefit to using professional accounting services is legal counseling.

Professional accounting services will involve prior knowledge of the rules and regulations of business accounting. They can help you with tax breaks that your business is allowed and they can help with tax problems, if they were to happen.

The last benefit in this post of professional accounting services relates to networking.

Many accountants will have a database of clients that will include an array of businesses. So, they can be a great way to network your businesses services and find other business to benefit your own. Networking can advantage the business; the accountant’s other clients and the accountant as the possible contact can drum up possible customers, sellers and even business partners.

By employing professional accounting services you, the business owner, can take your mind off the accounts and focus managing and building on other aspects of the business.

Also, as stated above, professional accounting services bring more to your business than just keeping an eye on cash flow because they also supply you with up-to-date tools and software that your competitors may not have access too, making your business ahead of the game. So, why wouldn’t you want to hire a business ‘assistant’ that has more than one benefit?

Self Employed Accounting Software Review And Importance

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The best choice is often dependent upon the size of the business and the employment of full time accountants, accounting staff, bookkeepers or management of the accounting records by the proprietor. Every business needs to choose the most appropriate accounts package according to both the requirements of the business and the capabilities of the person or people who will operate the accounting solution.

Many small businesses do not benefit from sophisticated accounting software if the technical requirements of that software exceed the abilities of the users to produce efficient financial records and use the full capabilities of the accounting software to maintain a high level of financial control.

Alternatively a simple bookkeeping package may not offer the degree of financial control over such financial matters as debtors and credit control, creditors and cash flow liquidity that may be required. Financial control and cash flow is of supreme significance and importance when credit is tight.

Every business needs to maintain a set of books and accounts to satisfy the legal obligations to calculate the net taxable profit which has to be both declared to the taxation authority and provide sufficient financial records to support that calculation.

Up until the mid twentieth century it was common practise to produce accounts handwritten on paper, Typing being reserved for the final set of accounts for publication as required. Handwritten accounting records are largely obsolete for medium and larger businesses although still used by many small business organisations.

With the advent of computers accounting software has become the norm and there are many simple bookkeeping packages that can be easy to understand and offer sufficient levels of financial control for even the smallest business.

In essence each small business has a choice between preparing a handwritten set of accounts, using a simple bookkeeping package which could be based upon spreadsheets or a more sophisticated accounting software package that almost invariably use a data entry system into a database which can then be queried to produce the required financial control.

Choosing handwritten accounts would only be applicable to the smallest business where the proprietor had no employees, limited numbers of transactions and had full financial control without the need for written information. Such handwritten accounts would not be suitable for any business that required control over debtors and creditors or that needed to produce a balance sheet.

For those businesses that could suffice with handwritten accounts there are better options available such as using computer spreadsheets. Minimal knowledge would be required and the benefits substantial compared with being handwritten.

An accounting package based upon computer spreadsheets is suitable for most small business as it can be no more difficult than maintaining handwritten accounts but in an organised format. The sophistication of the format would be according to the ability of the designer of the accounting solution or the bookkeeping knowledge of the person preparing the accounts.

Accounting software written on computer spreadsheets have advantages in that they can save time in data entry, improve accuracy, can be changed to correct errors, highly visible and provide all the basic bookkeeping needs of a small business. Accounting solutions written on spreadsheets are normally limited in relation to financial control and medium sized businesses that require additional control over debtors and creditors may be more suited to a database accounting software system.

Generally if a business is large enough to employ a full time bookkeeper or accountant then that business potentially has the accounting knowledge and skills within the accounting function to use a database accounting system and achieve the additional financial control elements which become available.

Accounting software that uses a database has the facility to produce regular financial and tax reports, debtors reports and statements, creditors reports and statements, cash flow statements and a set of monthly and final accounting reports such as profit and loss accounts and balance sheets.

The disadvantage of such accounting solutions is that to get the most and best out of the system you also need to understand how the package works and how technically to obtain from it the benefits of increased financial control that are available.

The main priority in choosing any accounting package is to first determine the final requirements you need from that administrative system. If detailed financial control, particularly over individual supplier or client accounts is essential and the business is large enough to employ office based staff including an accountant or full time bookkeeper then a database system may be the appropriate choice.

If the business is smaller and requires detailed accounting records to support the year end financial statements while financial control is already sufficient to be in the hands of the business owner then accounting software based upon spreadsheets would probably be adequate. The degree of adequacy being dependent upon the level of expertise contained and automated within the accounts program.

Handwritten books would be the lowest choice. Adequate for some small businesses but only suitable if a computer based option was impossible.