If you’re thinking about taking accounting classes in order to better manage your own business or non-profit organization you’re off to a rewarding experience! In fact, chances are that you’ll notice evidence of your expanded understanding of accounting and financial management in various ways almost as soon as you apply the new knowledge and methodology.
You don’t have to earn a four year degree in accountancy in order to expand your knowledge of accounting in meaningful and productive ways. If you want to make accountancy your profession, you would do well to invest your time and resources into a two or four year degree program.
If you’re serious about educating yourself about financial accounting in order to manage an organization that you participate in you may also find that a two year degree program is worth your time and effort. There are, however, many community college and leisure learning classes that may fit your schedule and budget to a tee.
If you live near a community college, visit the campus or website and find out more about the types of accounting classes that are offered. If you don’t see the information that you’re looking for, don’t hesitate to ask questions about the curriculum or to seek advice about what types of accounting classes will meet your learning goals.
Particularly if you live in a larger city, there are many learning centers and organizations that offer classes on all kinds of things from sushi making to kayaking, CPR and accounting. Many times these types of classes are the most feasible type of education because sessions last from one day to a few weeks long so participants can fit them into their schedules. Additionally, accounting classes from these smaller learning organizations will cost less than college degree programs.
Take a look online and ask around about local accounting classes. If you’re looking for a quick solution, there are also some online courses if you enjoy self-paced learning. Take your time to research tuition for online schools, as many of them have rates that are much higher than others.
Showing posts with label accounting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label accounting. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Accounting and Accountancy
Oftentimes when I meet someone for the second or third time, they say, “aren’t you in accounting?” While I am into accounting, which is the methodology and measuring aspect of my work, the profession as a whole is better labeled as ‘accountancy’.
Accountancy is the profession and accounting it the methods by which accountants measure, track and report on financial information so that resource allocation decisions can be made by, well, whoever the decision makers are.
For a small business owner’s personal finances, as an example, I may be measuring the finances of a few people (the family), and reporting the necessary information to the small business owner. In this situation, the decision maker is the small business owner and his decisions involve deciding how much money he has to put toward family necessities.
Generally speaking, there are two main types of accounting. There is financial accounting and there is auditing. Financial accounting typically involves processing of financial information about a business operation where information is recorded, organized, summarized, interpreted and finally communicated.
Auditing, on the other hand, is there process that an independent auditor examines accounting records and financial statements so that he or she can express a professional opinion about the financial records and answer questions about projections.
At the heart of accountancy lies the need to take stock of the day to day state of various sales and expenses. In the modern world when many contracts are partially fulfilled at varying times, bookkeeping is the only way to know where you and your business stand in the greater scheme of things.
If you operate your own small business, you may be able to do just fine with some accounting software. Take a look around for some flowchart templates. These can make monthly financial recording and reporting, dare I say it, fun. Simply enter in the various types of income and expenses, then each subsection updates the appropriate fields. Before you know it you’ve got proof that all bills have been allotted for and you’ve got your bottom line.
If you find you can manage your business finances on your own, then, by all means, stick with the system that you know works for you. If, however, you start running into complications that make it hard for you to see where discrepancies are coming from, it may be time to enlist the services of a professional accountant.
memory bus is also called an address bus or front side bus and both busses are high speed digital superhighways. Access methods and speed are two of the fundamental technical differences between memory and mass storage devices. All memory sizes and storage capacities will inevitably be exceeded with advances in technology over time.
Cache memory is a special type of internal memory used by many central processing units to increase their performance or throughput. Some of the information in the main memory is duplicated in the cache memory, which is slightly slower but of much greater capacity than the processor registers, and faster but much smaller than main memory. Multi level cache memory is also commonly used. Primary cache is the smallest, fastest and closest to the processing device. Secondary cache is larger and slower, but still faster and much smaller than main memory.
Semiconductor memory uses semiconductor based integrated circuits to store information. A semiconductor memory chip may contain millions of tiny transistors or capacitors. Both volatile and non volatile forms of semiconductor memory exist. In modern computers, primary storage almost exclusively consists of dynamic volatile semiconductor memory or dynamic random access memory. Since the turn of the century, a type of non volatile semiconductor memory known as flash memory has steadily gained share as offline storage for home computers. Non volatile semiconductor memory is also used for secondary storage in various advanced electronic devices and specialized computers.
Accountancy is the profession and accounting it the methods by which accountants measure, track and report on financial information so that resource allocation decisions can be made by, well, whoever the decision makers are.
For a small business owner’s personal finances, as an example, I may be measuring the finances of a few people (the family), and reporting the necessary information to the small business owner. In this situation, the decision maker is the small business owner and his decisions involve deciding how much money he has to put toward family necessities.
Generally speaking, there are two main types of accounting. There is financial accounting and there is auditing. Financial accounting typically involves processing of financial information about a business operation where information is recorded, organized, summarized, interpreted and finally communicated.
Auditing, on the other hand, is there process that an independent auditor examines accounting records and financial statements so that he or she can express a professional opinion about the financial records and answer questions about projections.
At the heart of accountancy lies the need to take stock of the day to day state of various sales and expenses. In the modern world when many contracts are partially fulfilled at varying times, bookkeeping is the only way to know where you and your business stand in the greater scheme of things.
If you operate your own small business, you may be able to do just fine with some accounting software. Take a look around for some flowchart templates. These can make monthly financial recording and reporting, dare I say it, fun. Simply enter in the various types of income and expenses, then each subsection updates the appropriate fields. Before you know it you’ve got proof that all bills have been allotted for and you’ve got your bottom line.
If you find you can manage your business finances on your own, then, by all means, stick with the system that you know works for you. If, however, you start running into complications that make it hard for you to see where discrepancies are coming from, it may be time to enlist the services of a professional accountant.
memory bus is also called an address bus or front side bus and both busses are high speed digital superhighways. Access methods and speed are two of the fundamental technical differences between memory and mass storage devices. All memory sizes and storage capacities will inevitably be exceeded with advances in technology over time.
Cache memory is a special type of internal memory used by many central processing units to increase their performance or throughput. Some of the information in the main memory is duplicated in the cache memory, which is slightly slower but of much greater capacity than the processor registers, and faster but much smaller than main memory. Multi level cache memory is also commonly used. Primary cache is the smallest, fastest and closest to the processing device. Secondary cache is larger and slower, but still faster and much smaller than main memory.
Semiconductor memory uses semiconductor based integrated circuits to store information. A semiconductor memory chip may contain millions of tiny transistors or capacitors. Both volatile and non volatile forms of semiconductor memory exist. In modern computers, primary storage almost exclusively consists of dynamic volatile semiconductor memory or dynamic random access memory. Since the turn of the century, a type of non volatile semiconductor memory known as flash memory has steadily gained share as offline storage for home computers. Non volatile semiconductor memory is also used for secondary storage in various advanced electronic devices and specialized computers.
Monday, August 9, 2010
Accounting
When starting a business, you have to determine the method you are going to use for accounting and paying taxes. The two choices are the cash method and the accrual method.
Cash Method
If you are looking for simplicity, the cash method is probably your best accounting choice. Generally, income and deductions can be claimed when payment is actually received or made. This is best shown with an example.
I open a small business and have to order business cards and stationary. I receive the products and pay the invoice on November 18, 2007. Under the cash method, I can deduct the cost on my 2007 tax return.
Some businesses are restricted from using the cash method. C corporations may only use the cash method if they have less than $5 million in gross revenues for a particular year. Professional Service Corporations can use the cash method without limit, while farming corporations can due so if gross revenues are less than $25 million. Tax shelters are prohibited from using the cash method.
Accrual Method
The Accrual Method of accounting is a bit more complex. Under this method, the focus in on the date the expense is incurred, not paid. Although this may seem a small difference, it can play havoc with your books and piece of mind.
Using our previous example, assume I order business cards and stationary on the December 18, 2006. I receive the products on December 30th, but don’t pay the invoice until January 20, 2007. When can the expense be claimed? It depends on when economic performance occurred.
Generally, economic performance occurs when goods or services are provided to you. In the above example, economic performance would arguably occur when the business cards and stationary were delivered with the invoice on December 30th. Thus, I would be able to deduct the expense for the 2007 tax year.
In Closing
As you can see, the cash method is the easier of the two accounting methods. To determine the best method for your business, speak with a tax professional.
Cash Method
If you are looking for simplicity, the cash method is probably your best accounting choice. Generally, income and deductions can be claimed when payment is actually received or made. This is best shown with an example.
I open a small business and have to order business cards and stationary. I receive the products and pay the invoice on November 18, 2007. Under the cash method, I can deduct the cost on my 2007 tax return.
Some businesses are restricted from using the cash method. C corporations may only use the cash method if they have less than $5 million in gross revenues for a particular year. Professional Service Corporations can use the cash method without limit, while farming corporations can due so if gross revenues are less than $25 million. Tax shelters are prohibited from using the cash method.
Accrual Method
The Accrual Method of accounting is a bit more complex. Under this method, the focus in on the date the expense is incurred, not paid. Although this may seem a small difference, it can play havoc with your books and piece of mind.
Using our previous example, assume I order business cards and stationary on the December 18, 2006. I receive the products on December 30th, but don’t pay the invoice until January 20, 2007. When can the expense be claimed? It depends on when economic performance occurred.
Generally, economic performance occurs when goods or services are provided to you. In the above example, economic performance would arguably occur when the business cards and stationary were delivered with the invoice on December 30th. Thus, I would be able to deduct the expense for the 2007 tax year.
In Closing
As you can see, the cash method is the easier of the two accounting methods. To determine the best method for your business, speak with a tax professional.
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