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Great Merchant Account research
February 26th, 2010 by Stephen KingMy buddy Rich Santalesa at SmartEdge turned me on to a great blog post a journalist friend recently did on merchant services. After doing all the research he recommends Intuit. That’s what we usually recommend so its nice to get a third party validation
Check out http://strom.wordpress.com/2010/02/22/creditcard/ for the full story.
Canadian Employees working for a US Company
February 22nd, 2010 by MarshaDo you currently have employees who are Canadian residents and are exempt from Social Security and Medicare withholding because they are participating in the Canadian Pension Plan? Well this is no problem if you are running Enhanced Payroll thru QuickBooks. Enhanced payroll allows you to mark such employees exempt from SS & Medicare. However, if you using Assisted Payroll you will have to take a few additional steps in order to get Payroll setup correctly.
For Canadian residents who are exempt from Social Security and Medicare withholding you will need to fill out the CPT56 Form for each employee. This form can be located at http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/E/pbg/tf/cpt56/. Once the forms are filled out, they must be sent to your Assisted Payroll representative. Once this occurs, your representative will walk you thru unlocking your Assisted Payroll file so that you can make your employees exempt.
The reason these employees are exempt from SS and Medicare is because they are participating in the Canadian Pension Plan. The amount withheld from the employees is only applied to the pensionable wages – which are determined by the Canadian Revenue Agency:
For 2009, CPP contributions begin January 1 on all eligible earnings, and will continue throughout the year until the maximum contribution levels are reached. The new rate and maximum are provided below:
Year’s Maximum Pensionable Earnings – $46,300.00
Year’s Basic Exemption – $3,500.00
Contribution Rate – 4.95%
Maximum Contribution – $2,118.60
US entities can not file with the Canadian Revenue Agency; however, the amount can be remitted to them using the employees Canada Social Insurance Number. The employee will also have to include this amount when they file their T4.
QuickBooks Document Management for the Mac
February 22nd, 2010 by MarshaQuickBooks 2010 has some great new features including Document Management, which allows you to electronically “paperclip” documents to QuickBooks transactions to stay organized and save time finding what you need. You can scan documents directly into QuickBooks, or attach electronic files already on your PC. This can be a very valuable tool for your business.
Document Management will only work if you are using the Windows QuickBooks. The Mac versions do not currently have the document manager feature. One main requirement for scanning is that you must have a TWAIN compliant scanner. But don’t worry, most new scanners today are Twain compliant. The tricky part comes if you run your company in a Mac environment and use Windows QuickBooks via third party hosting. You might have trouble finding a scanner that is TWAIN compliant and also supported by Mac operating systems. Below is a list of 3 scanners that work under both conditions.
• Canon DR-2010M (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16838111047&cm_re=twain_scanner_mac-_-38-111-047-_-Product)
• Canon DR-2510M (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16838111046&cm_re=twain_scanner_mac-_-38-111-046-_-Product)
• Epson GT-2500 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16838110016)
Using QuickBooks to Improve Cash Flow
February 21st, 2010 by Stephen KingCash flow is the life blood of all small businesses. In tough economic times, cash flow needs to be watched even more carefully. QuickBooks has several solutions to boost cash flow. We recommend that small businesses implement Intuit Billing solutions to improve cash flow.
Intuit Merchant Services allows QuickBooks users to take credit cards at the same price as the major credit card payment processors. But it offers much more than just taking credit cards. (more…)
Duplicate Bills in QuickBooks
February 17th, 2010 by MarshaIt is an unfortunate part of doing business, but sometimes you find that you have double entered a bill into QuickBooks. Not only have the expenses been doubled, but the open bill continually shows up on the Open Accounts Payable list, making you and your boss very frustrated.
Raul Rivera says the best way to correct this issue is to “enter a credit memo for the total amount of the bill and apply the credit to the open payable.” In order to do this, you will have to go into the pay bills screen and place a check mark next to the open bill. At the very bottom of the screen you will see a button that says “Set Credits”. This will allow you to apply the open credit to the outstanding bill. Once you have completed these short and easy steps, you are ready to click “Pay Selected Bills.” The frustrating problem will now be a thing of the past.
To prevent this problem from happening in the future, make sure your Company Preference (located under Bills) is selected “Warn about duplicate bill numbers from the same vendor.” By entering the bill credit into the current period, you have not only corrected the duplicate bill, no change will be made to past financials.
Preventing Fraud in a Small Business
January 11th, 2010 by Stephen KingThe statistics about fraud in small business from the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners are staggering:
- 42% of all fraud originates in privately-held businesses
- The median loss in a privately-held business is $123,000
- Two-thirds of frauds are from employees – only 12% had a criminal record
- Frauds take an average of 18 months to be discovered
Outsourcing to Make *More* Money
November 20th, 2009 by Stephen KingDan Elliott, CEO of SunBelt Business Advisors – the worlds largest business brokerage firm, and a GrowthForce client, just made this post about outsourcing on his blog…..he says too many busineses focus on outsourcing to save money. Instead they should be focused on spending more so they can focus on their core competency – and making more money. I couldn’t agree more….http://sunbelttexas.blogspot.com/
The End of the Year is Here
November 18th, 2009 by Stephen KingIts mid-November already. Thanksgiving is next week, which means you should be well into your 2010 planning.
If that’s not a natural process for your business, there’s no time like a recession to get started. When times are tough its particularly important to have a financial plan. Now’s the time when you managers and team need to know their income goals, their service targets and how that translates to the bottom line.