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Congratulations you’ve decided to take the plunge and start studying for the CPA exam. Successfully completing the CPA exam can seem like a daunting task, especially with the publically posted (low) pass rates. However, the end result is well worth all the time, struggles and sleepless nights. Earning a CPA designation should result in higher earnings potential and additional career opportunities.

2018 is fast approaching and with it comes busy season for auditors. If your company is subject to an audit (as of and for the year ending December 31, 2017) this means it is time to start preparing.  

Companies need audits for a variety of purposes and the accounting personnel of auditees vary in size, background, and experience. Suppose you are the owner of a construction company that's subject to an external audit for insurance purposes. Maybe you are the internal accountant of a larger company. Whatever the reason for your audit, or the position you hold, sometimes it can difficult to know how to best prepare for your audit.

If you are in charge of communicating with your external auditors, we advise that you review the following. Ask yourself if any of the tips below are applicable to you.  Being prepared will not only reduce the headache involved with finding the answers to your auditors' questions, but will also reduce the overall cost of your audit by increasing your auditors' efficiency. 

Despite tax-exemption, nonprofit organizations are still subject to reporting requirements with taxing authorities, namely the Internal Revenue Service and various state revenue departments. For the Boards and Executive Directors of nonprofits, this means it's important to have a clear understanding of their organization and where it falls within filing requirements. 

• Which is it?
• What is it?
• Determining Who Needs One
• Recap
• Other Resources

Using QuickBooks requires the creation and maintenance of lists such as customer, vendor, chart of accounts lists. Frequently, clients come across a scenario where they find duplications within these lists. For instance, they find two slightly different versions of the same customer or vendor.

Unfortunately, this can become a data management nightmare. Applying payments to a customer's account, pulling a report to determine if a vendor should receive a 1099, or posting a transaction to a general ledger account, etc. when there are active duplications in the necessary lists will result in potentially major errors.

This issue seems to be more prevalent when more than one person has access to the QuickBooks® data. One person may not see the name already created in the list by another individual and will proceed to create another. QuickBooks has a built-in feature to prevent this. A warning message should appear indicating the name is already in use and asks would you like to merge them. However, even the slightest variable in how the names are entered will bypass this feature. It only takes one small difference in the name to create a new one. An example is putting a middle initial in a name of an individual or a comma in the name of a business.

In July 2014 the IRS released a new, easier version of Form 1023, Application for Recognition of Exemption Under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. 

Businesses can make any number of transactions in a given year. A transaction being any business agreement or exchange that one makes with another person or business.  To minimize mistakes and increase efficiency business should utilize QuickBooks to memorize transactions.

QuickBooks Memorized transactions:

Instructions on memorizing QuickBooks transactions.

What is QuickBooks Class tracking?

Class tracking is a feature in QuickBooks that enables you to keep track of your transaction data by creating classes to categorize them.  

What is a class?

Classes are assigned to transactions that relate to one another by category.  For instance, many clients have a need to track income and expenses by categories such as, department, business segment, location, etc.

This feature is the best way for a business to separate any significant segments of the business without having to add additional income and expense accounts to the general ledger.

Examples:

• For profit companies may want to track multiple locations or divisions of the company.
• Not-for-profit companies may need to track grants and restricted and unrestricted funds.
• Any company doing business with a governmental entity can use classes to track fixed priced jobs versus cost plus jobs versus overhead.