Corporate recovery and restructuring firms often have a need to consult with a forensic accountant. The financial difficulties of a company have become a way of life for many in corporate business and financial disasters are a common occurrence. Often times, a corporate recovery and restructuring firm with the assistant of a forensic accountant can find ways to work through financial crisis and find ways to recover or restructure a company’s assets.

Working for corporate recovery and restructuring firms, forensic accountants help to determine what operational issues have played a role in a company’s financial demise and also try to assist in finding viable resolutions to put the company back in business with financial stability.

With the global business market the way it is today, corporate recovery and restructuring firms and forensic accountants have never been busier, dealing with scandals, frauds, bankruptcies, security issues and other conflicts that require intense investigations to analyze what forces stopped the company’s financial wheels from turning, and finding out how the company’s money flow got so misdirected. A corporate recovery and restructuring firm will use a forensic accountant because any findings can and, if necessary, will be used in a court of law.

Forensic accountants are used to investigate disputes and ligations, Wall Street scandals, insurance allegations, audits on construction and royal claims and personal injury claims to name a few. Today’s criminal fraud claims have become more complicated to resolve with kickbacks and billions of dollars in missing money. Technology has allowed criminals to electronically wire money all over the world, making it very difficult to track where exactly the fraud began or ended.

(more…)

Many businesses think estimating is useful to only construction companies. But any company that produces estimates, quotes, bids, and proposals can use QuickBooks to get a handle on their job costing. The accuracy of your estimating process can make or break your project success. It is critical because if your estimate is too high you might lose the job, while estimates that are too low can reduce your profits or even make you lose money on a job.

However, you can reduce your risk and increase profits by using QuickBooks for estimating. Even if you don’t provide your clients with estimates, you need to enter them in order to get the most out of the QuickBooks job costing reports. These reports, especially the Job Estimates vs. Actuals reports, are the key to making sure your existing job budgets are on track. They are also important when evaluating the accuracy of your estimates so you can make adjustments for future projects. They are also required if you want to do progress invoicing.

This is the second of a four-part series about how to use QuickBooks for job costing. Intuit, the creators of QuickBooks, has also asked me to present a series of free Small Business Town Hall covering the same topics every Tuesday this month. This is your chance to get your job costing questions answered live. You can get more information here:

http://www.theqbspecialists.com/quickbooks_training.php

Setting Up Estimates

1. Turn on the Estimate function at Preferences > Jobs & Estimates.

2. Create service items that match your project phases at Lists > Item List. You might also want to create sub-categories for materials and labor for tracking purposes, and use groups (see below) so they don’t show up separately on your estimates and invoices.

(more…)

Have you ever read the “Ant Philosophy”? The second point of the philosophy states “Ants think winter all summer” which implies they keep on toiling in summers so that they save enough to sustain the winters. Well, if such a tiny thing can be so prudent to think of savings it must be important criteria of us as well. And opening a savings account is just the first step to consolidate our fiscal position. But before doing that, it becomes imperative for us to undergo an exhaustive saving account comparison.

We all need to compare and then select the best of the available deal. In fact there are various high interest saving accounts comparison sites that are offering the services of clubbing together of multiple providers under a single platform, thus, easing your efforts. While comparing you must look for few things that will certainly help you to avail the right savings account.

First and the foremost thing that you need to see are the types of savings account being provided by the financial firm. There are various types of such accounts like Cash ISAs, fixed term bonds, easy access account and notice accounts. Each has its own distinct features so you must garner sufficient knowledge as to which will exactly suit your taste.

(more…)

Accounting is one such crucial task carried out on day to day basis in every firm without which not even a single business activity can take place. It’s not merely dealing with financial figures but it involves crucial task of invoice keeping, maintaining records, analyzing financial data, bookkeeping, data entry, and taxation. If your business is based in US, then you can trust your accounting work in the hands of a professional accounting firm NYC.

There are umpteen accounting firm NYC active in the entire US which avails proficient accounting outsourcing services to business firms of all kinds. Accounting forms the framework of any business since it is one discipline that dictates at the end of every financial year, how much profit has been made and what is the percentage of loss incurred. Recruiting a highly trained and skilled accounting staff is similar to taming an elephant. Above all you have to spend lots of time in managing the staff and disburse the day’s task in between them.

Every business organization has different sets of requirement and depending on this accounting strategies are planned. Accounting firm NYC are basically outsourcing firms that take up accounting task of various organizations. They have team of highly skilled and professional accountants and CPAs who have knack of dealing number of tasks related to accounting. They are trained in handling accounting software tools that assist in making quick data entries. They make sure that your business does not get hampered by pending accounts records.

Every outsourcing firm makes it a point to avail the best services and deliver flawless results. For this they allow you to have a sneak preview into their way of working so that you can be assured of the quality being offered to you.

(more…)

Cash advance loans are making it easier for a lot of people to take care of their temporary cash needs. While there are a lot of cash advance loan lenders offering their services all across Australia today, some people are still unsure as to how cash advance loans can benefit them. If you are one of these people, here are some points that may help clear up this matter for you.

The main thing, I think, is that cash advance loans are FAST. And I mean fast. Think about your conventional loan. Most of the time, you have to spend at least a day filling out paperwork and stuff like that. Then you would have to look for the tons of requirements that they will ask of you. This could take you another day or so. Then you would have to wait for your application to be processed. This can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks. With a cash advance loan, you only have to wait for a day or so to get everything done – from application to the release of the money. In some cases, processing times can exceed 24 hours, but this is very rare. Sometimes, processing times can even be less than 24 hours! It is difficult to find another loan product that can offer you this speed.

Another benefit of a cash advance loan is that it is very convenient to acquire. Most cash advance loan providers offer their services online. This means that you do not have to drive across town to apply for your loan. The same thing goes for picking up the money. Indeed, you only have to have a computer that has access to the Internet. In this day and age, you can do this practically anywhere!

(more…)

Though it has been said many times that it is very important to keep a complete set of books for a business either for business tax reporting or business management purposes, many businessmen and businesswomen have deliberately ignored it until they are forced to do so.

Why is it so important to maintain complete books for our businesses? The following are some of the benefits and reasons.

i) Submission of annual tax return – Every business whether it is big or small is required to compute and submit tax return on an annual basis. In order to be able to do so, a business has to keep a complete set of books. If you keep your books up to date using the correct bookkeeping methods, you can also plan for your business taxation on a timely manner.

(more…)

In Australia over 97% businesses are small to medium businesses. Roughly half go out of business in the first five years!

There is little reason to expect the world wide trends to be any different.

Its easy to start a business. All it takes is an idea, something to annoy you in your existing job, a market downturn, a moment of entrepreneurial valour, a touch of envy when you see someone making a killing at something.

Why dont most businesses make it?

One reason is that business owners lose sight of the importance of working ON your business and not in it.

Working on your business, means just that, spending time working on developing your staff, systems, business plan, budget, products, doing your own accounts, sorting out legal issues, vision casting, developing a marketing plan, and so on. It is strengthening the foundation upon which your business will sit.

Working in your business means doing work for your clients that generates income. It means attending to short term and urgent matters.

Its easy to talk about working on your business rather than in it. A lot easier than actually doing it!

Imagine you start a business as a lawyer, and you have experience. Since you know what you are doing, you can service clients and provide excellent services without much thought. Now imagine you are so busy you need to hire your first employee – a junior since that’s all you can afford. How do you ensure that the work they provide to your clients is up to your standard? What systems and procedures for work have you implemented? What about review procedures? It is at this point that many business owners, have an entrepreneurial seizure. They decide that every employee is an idiot, that they are the only person who knows how to do anything, and many decide to get small again, to have no more staff than required, and to do it all themselves.

That my friends, is what you call a job, and is very different from what I would call a business. After all, the risk of starting your own business is that you might find yourself working for an even bigger idiot than the one you thought you were working for before! and this time your stuck together!

When starting a business you should be honest with yourself about whether you are starting a business or simply starting a job where you are self employed but have no intention of building an organisation that will service customers and generate income primarily through employees and a system of doing business that you oversee.

The fact is that the fruits of business for people who have a self employed job are small. You will most likely find someone out there who also wants to buy a job if you want to sell, but the second you stop working you stop earning, and rather than increasing your freedom, you will probably end up increasing your working hours.

The fruits for people who build a successful business are abundant.

1) Selling the business

If you can build a business that profitably employs a number of people, you will most likely be able to fetch a very attractive sale price for the business.

At the moment in Australia, if you meet certain criteria, you can potentially sell your business and receive 75% of the sale amount tax free.

(more…)

Forensic accounting is intended for use in a court of law or other legal processes and should be of the highest standard possible.

The term “forensic” should not be confused with the laboratory work on DNA, toxicology and related sciences used in solving other types of crimes. In the case of forensic accounting, the word applies to a scientific method of accounting to solve legal problems.

A forensic accountant will normally work with cases involving what is called “crimes against property.” Such types of crime would include fraud, insurance cases, audits, personal injury cases, civil disputes and construction cases. Forensic accountants investigate these crimes and offer their expert testimony during legal proceedings. They are sometimes also known as forensic auditors, fraud investigators, investigative accountants, investigative auditors and fraud auditors.

In forensic accounting, the investigators search for signs of fraud in suspected cases. They use certain methodologies and often apply computer software in their investigations. One of the first steps of the auditor, after the evidence has been secured, is to thoroughly review all records – bank records, audit records, emails, etc. — of the subject under investigation searching for irregularities and clues. The auditor will look for falsifications and other misuse of accounts, for example.

After the forensic accountant has obtained adequate knowledge of the financial situation, they will interview the parties involved to elaborate on any leads they may have uncovered during the records review. Using cross-examination will allow the auditor to discover inconsistencies in the accounts of different witnesses and parties. The forensic accountant may compel people to give interviews with subpoenas or obtain evidence using search warrants.

(more…)

Accounting is something that can be broken down into a couple of different categories. Everyone has an accountant to handle their finances and process all of their book work. But what happens when you really need to look deeper into a financial situation for the purpose of the courts. When that happens, you need a forensic accountant to help you out and sort through all of the details. Forensic accountants are people who specialize in looking at the specifics of a financial situation and breaking down just how much value is in one thing or another. Their services are valuable in all sorts of disputes and can save you a great deal of money or heartache.

Ultimately, forensic accounting is just something that is suitable for use in the courts. When it comes to presenting something in court, it absolutely has to be investigated to the fullest and it needs to be verified over and again. With a forensic accountant, that is what you are getting. They go through book work and decipher all sorts of things, and they are useful for a host of different situations. When might you use one of these people and their service? Any time that you have a dispute over funds would be a good place to start.

One of the most common purposes for using a forensic accountant is when you need to decide about funds from a divorce. In many cases, these people can be used to determine just how much a person’s lifestyle should cost, so that the court can assess a certain amount of money in support. In this case, they take a realistic look at how a person lives by breaking down all of their spending. Many times, this is the way that messy divorces end up getting settled, since the two parties cannot come to an accord on just what is needed. Forensic accountants are taken very seriously by the courts, and they can even be used to break down the money side of certain crimes.

(more…)

Forensic accounting uses state-of-the-art scientific methods to solve legal accounting problems. The forensic accountant is a highly trained professional with knowledge pertaining specifically to matters related to property crimes.

A forensic accountant can help with problems related to fraud; with civil disputes, and in marital or family law cases.

How forensic accounting can help companies
If a company suspects fraud and misuse of funds, a forensic accountant can investigate the problem. Their presence and activity can also help in preventing and deterring such crimes and mismanagement.
The forensic accountant will analyze the business structure of the company and search records for possible fraud and misconduct. They will trace all assets looking for irregularities and other clues. Companies benefit from use of a forensic auditor because of their special training and experience in rooting out possible criminal actions. Their efficiency in these matters saves companies time, energy and money. The forensic accountant also has expertise in planning and implementing strategies to prevent fraud or misuse of funds in the future.

Civil disputes and forensic accounting
Forensic accountants help resolve accounting problems in civil disputes including:

• Tort or contract related damages and losses
• Breach of contract
• Compensation and business interruption claims
• Personal injury claims
• Company acquisition claims
• Warranty claims
• Business and share valuation
• Professional negligence claims

(more…)