With the empty bottles of bubbly placed safely in the recycling bin and the confetti swept off the floor, it’s time to get back to the grind. The beginning of the year can be a busy time for business owners and executives, because you no doubt want to get off to a strong start in […]

You already may have reviewed a preliminary draft of your company’s year-end financial statements. But without a frame of reference, they don’t mean much. That’s why it’s important to compare your company’s performance over time and against competitors. Conduct a well-rounded evaluation A comprehensive benchmarking study requires calculating ratios that gauge the following five elements: […]

While you were celebrating the holidays, you may not have noticed that Congress passed a law with a grab bag of provisions that provide tax relief to businesses and employers. The “Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2020” was signed into law on December 20, 2019. It makes many changes to the tax code, including an extension […]

Technology has made it easier to work from home so lots of people now commute each morning to an office down the hall. However, just because you have a home office space doesn’t mean you can deduct expenses associated with it. Regularly and exclusively In order to be deductible for 2019 and 2020, you must […]

If your business solicits bids for goods or service contracts, there’s a risk that employees will solicit or accept kickbacks to favor certain vendors. Or, they might steer a bid to a vendor based on their personal ties to the company’s owner or employees. Here’s how to prevent this unethical — if not illegal — […]

If, like many people, your traditional IRA holds a mixture of deductible (after-tax) and nondeductible (pretax) contributions, it’s important to track your contributions carefully to avoid double taxation of distributions. Why? Because the IRS treats distributions as a blend of pretax and after-tax dollars. If you treat distributions as fully taxable, you’ll end up overpaying. […]

If your company comes up over budget year after year, you may want to consider cost management. This is a formalized, systematic review of operations and resources with the stated goal of reducing costs at every level and controlling them going forward. As part of this effort, you’ll answer questions such as: Are we operating […]

When the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) updated its rules for recognizing revenue from contracts in 2014, it only added to the confusion that nonprofits already had about accounting for grants and similar contracts. Fortunately, last year, the FASB provided some much-needed clarification with Accounting Standards Update (ASU) No. 2018-08, Not-for-Profit Entities (Topic 958): Clarifying the […]

Some fraud schemes refuse to die. Jury duty scams existed long before phishing, malware and other cybercrime methods became synonymous with identity theft. Yet just this month, the U.S. Marshals Service issued a fraud advisory about this old-school con that’s enjoying a resurgence. Common methods Here’s how jury duty scams work: Perpetrators posing as court […]