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Accounting Basics – The essence of the principle of double entry

February 8th, 2010 | No Comments | Posted in Web Design

The purpose of this article is to help understand one of the fundamentals of accounting, ie, double entry principle, which applies for the purpose of recording business transactions in the books of the entity. Double-entry bookkeeping is a method in which each transaction is recorded in two separate accounts, ie in an account as a debit card and other account as a credit. In other words, in principle, twice each transaction that has added value to the assets of the account has a balance of the account value of liabilities – These operations are called credits. By contrast, each transaction that has added value to the liability account has a subtract value of the assets of the account – these operations are called debits.

Principle of double-entry bookkeeping is used more frequently than the first one-stop, in which each transaction is recorded in a single account. It is used more often since it prevents many errors and alerts the business quickly so that errors can be corrected in a timely manner. As the credits and debits must always equal, ie according to the essence of the basic concepts of accounting should have an equation between the debits and credits, if there is ever a difference between the value of credits and debits, is an alert to the company that failed during the recording of the transaction on the books of the company. Thus, with the double entry accounting principle is quick and easy to ensure that the accounts are always balanced. Also this principle is useful to separately record transactions and provide adequate and accurate data to its users for the purpose of making decisions regarding the entity.

Example 1

Consider the following example of the principle of double entry. Cut to the chase, a hairdresser, hairbrushes bulk purchase, once every quarter, the purchase is made on credit, ie cash paid for purchase later after the purchase. Most of the brushes for $ 250. Thus, each quarter the counter to cut to the chase wins $ 250 for entry into the liability account (adding to the value of liabilities) and a $ 250 in the goods account (adding to the value of assets). Below you can see how the entries look like this:

D Stock (Active) $ 250

C Accounts payable (liabilities) $ 250

Example 2

The next example is the use of brushes purchased in the activities of the Court to the hairdresser Chase. Suppose that during the next quarter the company used all the brushes gained in its activities, ie $ 250 expenditure was incurred and assets declined from $ 250. The counter recorded a $ 250 in assets as a credit and a $ 250 in the capital account and debit, ie expenditure as a decrease in equity. Below you can see how the entries look like this:

Expenditure D (Equity) $ 250

C Stock (Active) $ 250

As these examples show, the bottom line of the double entry principle is that for every entry in an account (ie, liabilities or equity), compared to an entry in the same amount of original entry must be realized another (ie, assets).

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Simple bookkeeping for small business – Accounting by a simple spreadsheet template

February 8th, 2010 | No Comments | Posted in Web Design

Starting a small business outside their home, which offer products or services such as consulting, photography, selling on the web or a MLM? You are now faced with tracking all your expenses and income of your business and you certainly do not have the money yet to hire a bookkeeper or accountant. If your business is a sole proprietorship, whether a Canadian owned company or a property-based, does not need an accountant to submit financial statements of the Company (the books) to the IRS (USA) or Revenue Canada). Your income and losses are recorded as part of your annual tax personal income. For this start small businesses, you will not have to buy luxury accounting software, ACCPAC and Quick Books or to track your business.

Only as part of the incorporation of Bizfare Enterprise Inc in 2005 was a requirement to hire an accountant. My accountant insisted on the use of Quick Books software for my company accounts. Until then, using a simple spreadsheet template to serve my business accounting needs for over ten years. This simple accounting spreadsheet stood the test of multiple audits of Revenue Canada (CRA and Revenue Canada Goods and Services Tax. Both the hard copy book of columns and a version of an electronic spreadsheet of my financial books were accepted by Revenue Canada. (BTW audits revealed more ways for me to claim back additional taxes for the previous three years: that is my type of audit!)

In its start-up in business, is likely to generate anywhere from 10 to 30 month accounting operations. These operations should include items such as cost, sales revenue (), Liability (loan) type operations and Sales Tax (Federal + State / Provincial) Collection / Deductions. These operations are divided into several business accounts. All accounts you have set for your business is called a chart of accounts. Record of financial business transactions (Journal Entries) can be executed with pen and ink on an accounting columnar pad or electronically with the computer using a program Spreadsheet (MS Excel, Open Office, Star Office).

Whether you use the electronic media or printed, it is necessary to develop a simple Journal template for building your business Synoptic Journal. This Journal synoptic format has the advantage of allowing a complete overview of all transactions of individual journal entries against all various commercial accounts. The creation of this Journal Synoptics is easier to do what you think and requires no prior accounting or bookkeeping knowledge.

Tip # 1: You could further reduce the accounting items online (Journal Entries) by consolidating like items, such as "all sales of the month" and "all parking receipts for the month 'in a game amounted in the month.

Where do we begin to identify the accounts of companies in various synoptic required for Journal?

If you currently work for a company or government, insurance forms one of its employee costs. Look at each of the areas identified as expenses – meals, mileage, hotel accommodations, taxis, car rental, telephone and cell phone, plane ticket, office supplies, etc. This is an excellent place to identify various business expense accounts you need to set for their books of business. To complete your business plan accounts include a Business Bank Account, Sales, COGS (COGS), Sales Tax Collection, marketing expense and others as required. Each of these accounts will figure as a title on top of each column in the Synoptic Journal. Each row (heading) is the journal of individual transactions entered by you.The daily transactions are grouped and business summary for each month, usually January to December.

So your summary would be something like this Official Journal Summary shows http://picasaweb.google.com/carl.chesal/BookkeepingTemplate.

The column headings can be in this order (left to right):

DATE | DESCRIPTION | Bank deposits | bank withdrawals | Sales revenue | COGS | SALES TAX COLLECTED and remission | OFFICE SUPPLIES EXPENSE | EXPENSE # 2 | EXPENSE # 3 | ETC

Tip # 2: Unless your business is incorporated or an LLC, you need not go through the expense of opening a business account with your bank. Usually the accounts of companies charge a higher monthly fee, the burden of printing checks (checks) and offer no interest on your account balance monthly. Instead, open a separate bank account, personal (perhaps the savings). This will show the "collector" that is keeping the company apart from the personal banking. Remember that you are a sole proprietor and all of your business income (and losses) are applied directly to your personal tax filing (as the IRS and CRA).

To save you time and make it very simple, I've created a simple spreadsheet Synoptic Journal template which performs all the calculations for each month and rolls up to 12 months of business so easily can be included in personal preparedness annual taxes. This Synoptic Journal template debit / credit balances and controls, tracks sales taxes, mileage and totals for each of its fiscal year. If you want this free accounting template, you can get it at Communicate Innovate. With a few key strokes which will help to identify himself, will be happy to send you this FREE Synoptic Journal template and also to any future Small Business Tips.

Tip # 3: One of the rules of accounting is that every time you record a diary entry (heading which applies the operation to the appropriate business accounts) debits and credits must remain the same at all times. Debit Credit Like This calculator is built into this template FREE Accounting. When finished entering a line (daily transaction), verify that the amount the debit cell equal to the amount of credit in the cell. If they do not, you have not entered correctly in your transaction amounts of the magazine. Correct the problem before entering the next seat.

You are now ready to catch his books financial transactions with some simple accounting software. Accounting happy! And Happy selling!

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QuickBooks & Accounts Payable – How to solve the negative balances in A / P

February 8th, 2010 | No Comments | Posted in Web Design

Occasionally, there arises a negative balance in accounts payable (A / P), and business owners to look after their own books do not understand how the problem occurred or what to do. Here's the scoop:

A negative balance on A / P can sometimes mean that the invoices were entered, and checks were written against the Bills, but the original bills somehow got deleted or canceled. The bill-payment checks are left "hanging" in the system, creating a negative balance on A / P.

If there is a deficit in the A / P, or even if you have certain vendors that show a negative balance on the provider list, go to the Reports menu and select suppliers and accounts payable. Then select the bills outstanding detail report. Scan through the report and look for negative amounts. If you see any, double click them.

After double clicking, a bill-payment check to open. Watch the bottom half of the screen. Perhaps there will be no bill is here, not matter at all, nothing to indicate that this control was applied to a bill. If so, leave this window open, go to the menu and Suppliers. Select Enter Bills. Enter a bill for the provider you've just seen in the last screen. Be sure to use the same amount as you saw on the check. You have to guess the correct due date – better yet, try to locate the original bill so you can get the correct information from it. After entering it, and click Save again to leave the window open if you have more bills to enter, or Save and Close to close the window when finished.

After introducing the bill, the bill re-paycheck. Watch the bottom half of the screen – the bill should be there. If so, place a checkmark next to it, and write the correct amount (the amount on the check) in the right column. Click Save and Close. QuickBooks will ask if you are sure you want to save the transaction – click Yes

Go to the bills outstanding detail report and click Update. The bill-payment check, which caused the negative of this report, and will be gone. Follow these steps for all negative amounts in this paper.

Important: Please note that you do not pay the re-entered bills – you did not use the function to pay bills. The original bill payment checks were in the system, and simply apply controls on the re-entered in the accounts. If you accidentally re-entered back into bills, this will not solve the problem of having a negative balance on A / P.

If you see negative amounts which do have bills applied against them, which is an issue beyond the scope of this article.

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How to Choose the Right Accounting Software Libre and earn money

February 8th, 2010 | No Comments | Posted in Web Design

If you are already thinking about getting any kind of software into account, if it costs money or is free, then you have taken the right steps and saving your money. You have accepted that it might be mishandling of money and wants to keep better track of your incoming money and outgoing expenses each month. Be prepared though, because as you start to analyze their transactions of money you could get a nasty surprise on how much money you're losing! So you are saving a lot of money for just get to look at your finances.

For basic accounts, the most accessible free accounting software is available in your spreadsheet program itself. Even if you do not have Excel, you can get free spreadsheets around the place. When working out your budget, simply create a page for each topic, then get automatically cells total incoming and outgoing money. I say simple, I have no programming spreadsheets been since my first job. But as they say, time really is money, and if you're saving money, then the creation of a spreadsheet can not necessarily be the best thing to do unless you are familiar with the process.

So lets go ahead, what about current releases schedule – accounting software right?

I would not recommend any software that was available to the public and not offer some form of encryption. Certainly even contemplating the idea of freely available programs accounts you have requested bank details! Many programs are very good though, so there is no need to worry. Just check that its operation is not necessary that you include your account details.

Some packages of free accounts software allows you to import spreadsheets from your bank. In short, exports in something like a CSV file from your online banking system, and then import them into the program. If you do not like that idea, then you can simply write the data itself. If you are not too complicated financial situation, this last idea is easy.

It is true that many of the most important packages you have to pay is excessive for most users. Remember though, that the reason for this is that as they are trying to serve a broader market. What it might need is something that deals with the budget of a family for you. So this simple guideline is to define what you really want the package to make, and then find the software you get that good. If you are going to do and it's free, all for the better.

If you have never tried a set of accounts before this date will not be prepared to have to read the manual and then reread it. Auditors look simple on the surface, but soon become complex, and are, after all is said and done trying to make life easier for you! So, in short, do not give up on the software after only five minutes. Even worse, do not shoot in the foot by giving free software and then go and buy the versions that are priced. No matter what software you buy, there will be a learning curve. Of course, one that has templates and wizards built into the front to help get the data into the program first will help, and to seek, as one of the most point.

So yes, go for free accounting software, be prepared to enter their own data, not to put any of your bank account in the separate program and data bank name (not account numbers and passwords!) And spend time defining the features you need and then search.

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Do I need an accountant or accounting software?

February 8th, 2010 | No Comments | Posted in Web Design

Accounting is the process of collecting, summarizing and analyzing financial data of your company. Every business needs to remain on top of your accounts to ensure proper management of revenues and expenses. Not doing so could cause your business to fail.

There are two ways of accounting for your business, one is to have the help of an accountant and the other is to buy accounting software and managing the accounts yourself.
Many people are worried about bills, taxes and prefer to pay an accountant to do all the work for them, however this may satisfy some people but not everyone. With the hiring of an accountant this will be quite expensive and the cost depends on the size of your business and the amount of financial data they generate. If you are just starting a business can collect all the information and hire an accountant once a year. Most accountants work for hours so depending on my time to work, your accounts will depend on how much to pay them. If you keep all receipts and invoices in date order that could keep their accounting rates to a minimum.

Another option is to invest in good accounting software. You do not need accounting knowledge, as most good software is very easy to use with simple steps that anyone can follow. More and more businesses are using accounting software as the price of an accountant can be very strong while the accounting software is one of payment. There are many different types of accounting software for small and large companies and for lots of different types of businesses. Some accounting software can work for all size businesses with modules that can be added as your business grows and your accounting needs grow.

Some of the many benefits of having an accounting software are:

Save time

Save money

100% Accuracy

To date, always available accounts

Quick access to information

These are just some of the reasons why the accounting software is the best option for any business. Accounting software will make your business management much better, more efficient and easier. You will be able to access the updated data with a single mouse click gives you the competitive edge that all businesses must have in this day and age.

Choosing the right software is critical. You should always do your research before buying any accounting software. With the Internet is not a problem because you can find reviews, websites and talk to the software users to find the best for your particular business. I would like to talk to many different users and read many different opinions and then weigh the benefits of each. Once you have chosen correctly, then your business can grow and expand without any worries about finances. Free software that the time until you can continue your work.

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