Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Xero Accounting's half year report – firing on all cylinders

Den Howlett for Diginomica writes: Xero has just released a detailed half year report that indicates it is firing on all cylinders. Co-incidentally, I visited the company’s San Francisco offices, meeting up with both Gary Turner, UK MD and Jamie Sutherland, US CEO.
Having raised a further NZ$180 million (USD 147 million) in October, Xero believes it is poised to grow the business substantially in all markets but the US market in particular. It has hired 100 people for that geography and fitted out downtown San Francisco offices capable of holding around 200. It is clear Xero is throwing a LOT of money at the US operation but then it has to in order to both attract the talent it wants while fueling the revenue engine in a market that totals some 36 million SMEs.
On to the numbers. It is a sure sign of a confident company that it talks in considerable detail about what it has achieved and where it is going. Here are some examples:
country growth xero

and…
xero ACMR growth
All figures are expressed in NZ$.
The acceleration in investment is clearly impacting the bottom line with a reported loss of NZ$17.1 million. However, with a war chest of NZ$230 million, Xero can go a long way before it runs out of cash. In talking to the company, two things emerged:

Investment barriers

They believe the entry cost for a global player in the SME SaaS/cloud accounting market is around NZ$200 million. This is a very high barrier to entry for any vendor that also impacts the incumbents that simply cannot afford to devote those resources without cannibalizing their own models. That’s do-able if it can be explained in a coherent manner to the financial community. So far, we have not seen that although Intuit is having (yet another) foray into this domain with its beefed up QuickBooks Online offering.
Even if the Sage’s and Intuits could muster the funding, they face three significant problems:
  1. Institutional DNA prevents them from placing this kind of bet
  2. Xero has aggressively built out a channel of partners who are doing things differently. They represent the future face of professional accountancy and do not look like the firms of old. It is hard to see how an incumbent could offer a proposition that will prove attractive to these new professionals.
  3. Xero has grasped the necessity of building its offering upon a platform for growth and expansion. None of the other players in the market has understood this. It is very difficult to build a platform that serves both end user organizations and professionals while holding the promise of limitless expansion, either through add-ons or new functionality.

The platform advantage

xero plarform
An example is the recent Files extension. This allows users to attach a document to an accounting record. Turner reckoned that when this was presented to a group of professional accountants in the UK, the audience gasped.
The potential is huge. Having the ability to attach a receipt (as example) to an expense record, or an order (to a sales invoice) opens up the potential to provide documented proofs for tax purposes. This in turn means Xero based accounts could be considered more reliable than those that have to rely upon paper based documents.
While rudimentary today (you have to manually upload), Xero is talking about adding in the ability to email documents. I can see numerous additional benefits as this functionality improves. What’s more, it obviates then need for professionals and their clients to run Dropbox or Box accounts. And while Expensify might be a partner today, Files could be the cornerstone for rendering that partnership obsolete.
That illustrates the difference between building an application that can be consumed by others and an application platform. And in tomorrow’s world, the platform wins.

Tipping points?

20131125_135806
Gary Turner – UK MD Xero
In a UK survey of 250 professional accountants commissioned by Xero, 45% of respondents said they had no plans to adopt cloud systems. 28% said they are using cloud already while 27% said they have plans to do so. The adopted figure is remarkably closely aligned to results from a survey conducted by ReallySimpleSystems that I am currently digesting which said 26.4% are using cloud accounting systems.
On a quick tot up, Turner and I concurred that the total UK uptake by those paying for cloud accounting now amounts to some 100,000 customers. It is still a drop in the ocean and given the both the addressable market and Xero’s growth plans, there is still plenty of runway before the market tops out. Even then, Xero has plenty of options by which it can expand its offering and scoop up revenue that would otherwise go elsewhere.

Clear skies ahead?

Xero has put its foot firmly on the expansion gas having convinced investors that it will be the winner. In turn, the markets have rewarded the company with a monster valuation. However, there are some glaring holes and major challenges.
Multi-currency handling needs improvement. It is easy to get confused when reviewing bank reconciliations involving other currencies.
Reporting is not great. This has been an ongoing challenge the company continues to solve.
Xero offices
Xero offices
While Xero makes a big deal out of bank feed support as the cornerstone upon which its ease of use is built, there is a long way to go, especially as the uK banking system in particular has a non-standards based approach to file formats.
We should not write off Intuit or Sage but I wouldn’t bet with them at this point. Their reliance upon an incumbent profession which itself is being cannibalised by both software and new entrants is eroding their addressable market while improving Xero’s chances. But what of others?
Kashflow is now part of Hg as is e-conomic. They’re off the table for all practical purposes as IRIS tries to figure out how to integrate what looks like a hairball of acquisitions into a coherent offering.
That really only leaves FreeAgent as a significant independent operator. But they don’t have the financial muscle with which to go toe to toe with Xero. Clearbooks is still playing in the weeds as is Crunch and others.
Add it all up and you’d be forgiven for thinking that the winner has already been decided. But then this is a very fast growing market and we could yet see changes in the running stakes as the story unfolds.
Posted on 7:38 AM | Categories:

Tax planning strategies require careful consideration of taxable income

Gordon Dale writes: Tax planning presents more challenges than usual this year due to the passage of the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, which was signed into law on Jan. 2, as well as certain tax provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 taking effect in 2013 and 2014.

Tax planning strategies for individuals this year — and for the next several years — require careful consideration of taxable income in relation to threshold amounts that might bump a taxpayer into a higher or lower tax bracket, thus subjecting him or her to additional taxes such as the Net Investment Income Tax  or an additional Medicare tax.

Accelerating deductions

Here are several examples of what a taxpayer might do to accelerate deductions and your lower his or her 2013 income tax liability



►Pay a state estimated tax installment in December instead of at the January due date. However, make sure the payment is based on a reasonable estimate of your state tax.

►Pay your entire property tax bill, including installments due in year 2014, by year-end. This does not apply to mortgage escrow accounts.

►Try to bunch “threshold” expenses, such as medical and dental expenses (10 percent of AGI starting in 2013) and miscellaneous itemized deductions. For example, you might pay medical bills and dues and subscriptions in whichever year they would do you the most tax good.

Threshold expenses are deductible only to the extent they exceed a certain percentage of adjusted gross income. By bunching these expenses into one year, rather than spreading them out over two years, you have a better chance of exceeding the thresholds, thereby maximizing your deduction.

In cases where tax benefits are phased out over a certain adjusted gross income amount, a strategy of accelerating income and deductions might allow you to claim larger deductions, credits, and other tax breaks for 2013, depending on your situation.

The latter benefits include Roth IRA contributions, conversions of regular IRAs to Roth IRAs, child credits, higher education tax credits and deductions for student loan interest.
Alternate Minimum Tax: The Alternative Minimum Tax exemption “patch” was made permanent by ATRA and is indexed for inflation. It’s important not to overlook the effect of any year-end planning moves on the AMT for 2013 and 2014.

Items that may affect AMT include deductions for state property taxes and state income taxes, miscellaneous itemized deductions, and personal exemptions.

Strategize tuition payments

The American Opportunity Tax Credit, which offsets higher education expenses, was extended to the end of 2017. It may be beneficial to pay 2014 tuition in 2013 to take full advantage of this tax credit, which is up to $2,500 per student.

Residential energy tax credits

Non-business energy credits: ATRA extended the non-business energy credit, which expired in 2011, through 2013 (retroactive to 2012). You may claim a credit of 10 percent of the cost of certain energy saving property that you added to your main home. This includes the cost of qualified insulation, windows, doors and roofs, as well as biomass stoves with a thermal efficiency rating of at least 75 percent.

In some cases, you may be able to claim the actual cost of certain qualified energy-efficient property. Each type of property has a different dollar limit. Examples include the cost of qualified water heaters and qualified heating and air conditioning systems.

To qualify for the credit, your main home must be an existing home located in the United States. New construction and rentals do not qualify. The credit has a maximum lifetime limit of $500; however, only $200 of this limit can be used for windows.

Not all energy-efficient improvements qualify, so be sure you have the manufacturer’s credit certification statement. It is usually available on the manufacturer’s website or with the product’s packaging.

Other year-end moves
Retirement plan contributions: Maximize your retirement plan contributions. If you own an incorporated or unincorporated business, consider setting up a retirement plan if you don’t already have one. (It doesn’t need to actually be funded until you pay your taxes, but allowable contributions will be deductible on this year’s return.)

If you are an employee and your employer has a 401k, contribute the maximum amount ($17,500 for 2013, plus an additional catch up contribution of $5,500 if age 50 or over, assuming the plan allows this much and income restrictions don’t apply).

If you are employed or self-employed with no retirement plan, you can make a deductible contribution of up to $5,500 a year to a traditional IRA (deduction is sometimes allowed even if you have a plan). Further, there is also an additional catch up contribution of $1,000 if age 50 or over.

Health Savings Accounts: Consider setting up a health savings account. You can deduct contributions to the account, investment earnings are tax-deferred until withdrawn, and amounts you withdraw are tax-free when used to pay medical bills.

In effect, medical expenses paid from the account are deductible from the first dollar (unlike the usual rule limiting such deductions to the excess over 10 percent of AGI).

For amounts withdrawn at age 65 or later, and not used for medical bills, the HSA functions much like an IRA. To be eligible, you must have a high-deductible health plan, and only such insurance, subject to numerous exceptions, and must not be enrolled in Medicare.

For 2013, to qualify for the HSA, your minimum deductible in your HDHP must be at least $1,250 (no change in 2014) for single coverage or $2,500 (no change in 2014) for a family.

Summary

These are just a few of the steps you might take. Please contact your CPA for help in implementing these or other year-end planning strategies that might be suitable to your particular situation.
Posted on 7:38 AM | Categories:

Deducting investment expenses (traveling to stockholders' meetings)

Barry Dolowich for the Monterey Herald writes: Question: We are planning to attend the stockholders' annual meetings this year for Netflix and Apple, companies we have large investments in. Are any of the costs (traveling, hotel, food, etc.) of attending these meetings tax deductible?


Answer: In 1956, the IRS issued Revenue Ruling 56-11 barring any deduction for travel expenses when stockholders attend merely to get information that would help in making future investments. It makes no difference if the taxpayer's major sources of income are dividends and profits from stock sales.
However, the IRS has allowed travel and related expenses when attendance at the annual meeting was deemed necessary to protect the taxpayer's investment. In one ruling, the taxpayer was the leader of a stockholder revolt. In another ruling, a major stockholder was allowed his travel expenses when he introduced and maneuvered to pass a resolution requiring the company to halt the practice of issuing shares at below book value through dividend reinvestment and stock purchase plans.
Often, the courts interpret the law more liberally than the IRS. The Tax Court rejected the travel expenses claimed by William Kinney, who frequently bought and sold substantial blocks of stocks in several public companies. He based his investment decisions, in part, on on-site investigations of factories and retail outlets of these companies. The court sided with the IRS because of the large amount of time Kinney spent with relatives on some 15 trips for the year at issue and his failure to link the disputed trips with his investment activities.
But the court noted that Kinney might have prevailed had he produced evidence to satisfy these four requirements:
1. The trip is part of a rationally planned, systematic investigation of investment opportunities.
2. The costs are reasonable in relation to the size of the investment and value of the information the investor expects to derive from the trip.
3. Personal benefits are secondary. That is, the trip is not a disguised vacation.
4. The information gained on the trip is used in investment decisions.
Posted on 7:38 AM | Categories:

8 tax breaks expiring at the end of 2013 / From mortgage insurance premiums to teachers' classroom expenses, don’t miss out on these tax breaks.

Susan Johnston for US News World Report writes: April 15 may seem like a long way off, but with a little planning before the end of the year, you could take advantage of tax breaks to help you lower your tax bill.


Several tax provisions are scheduled to expire at the end of this year. Many of these tax breaks have been extended in the past, so it's possible Congress could extend them again. "It could be in very late December, at which point it's too late to do much tax planning, or January when you really can't do anything," cautions Richard Baum, a partner at accounting firm Anchin, Block & Anchin LLP. The government shutdown could also delay the start of tax-filing season a few weeks as well.
Here's a look at eight tax breaks to consider now before they disappear.
Teachers' classroom expense deduction

Eligible educators who work in a school providing primary or secondary instruction can deduct up to $250 worth of unreimbursed classroom expenses. This is an above-the-line deduction, which means teachers can take this deduction before they get to adjusted gross income and regardless of whether they itemize other deductions or take the standard deduction, according to David McKelvey, a tax and business consulting partner at Friedman LLP.
Exclusion of forgiven debt on home

The U.S. tax code treats forgiven debts as taxable income. However, if your principle residence is foreclosed or sold in a short sale before the end of the year, this provision allows you to exclude up to $2 million of forgiven debt from your taxable income. "I'm hopeful that [this provision] gets extended because there's still a lot of foreclosures in the pipeline," says Keith Spritz, managing director of accounting firm CBIZ MHM LLC. "If you're in that position, at least it provides an easy benefit for you to take advantage of." If your home is on the verge of a foreclosure or short sale, you may want to nudge along the process before the end of the year to ensure you're eligible for this tax break.
Transit benefits

In 2013, employees can spend up to $245 pretax per month on transit benefits such as rail passes, which is on par with the $245 pretax they can spend on parking. That parity is scheduled to sunset at the end of this year so that the benefit for public transportation would drop to $130 per month pretax, while higher parking benefits will remain.
Mortgage insurance premiums

Homeowners who have less than 20 percent equity typically pay for private mortgage insurance (also known as PMI). Those premiums were deductible in 2012 and 2013, but that provision is scheduled to expire at the end of the year. "That's an item that hurts less wealthy homeowners," McKelvey says. However, homeowners who itemize their deductions can still deduct mortgage interest.
IRA distributions to charity

People older than age 70½ are required to take minimum distributions from their individual retirement accounts, so this provision allows them to contribute that money to charity without counting those distributions as income. The provision can keep income low enough for an individual to qualify for other tax breaks that may have phase-out limits.
State and local sales tax

If you pay state or local income tax, you can deduct that amount from your federal taxes if you itemize. But if you live in a state like Florida or Texas that doesn't have income tax, you can't take advantage of that deduction. This provision allows you to deduct state sales tax if your state doesn't have an income tax or if the amount you paid in sales tax was higher than income tax. "You can use the IRS estimate based on your income and the state you live in to calculate what would be a normal sales tax deduction, and then you can add to that certain big-ticket items like a boat," says Mark Luscombe, principal analyst for the tax and accounting group at CCH. "In a given year, even if you have an income tax, you might want to check both if you've made some major purchases."
Electric vehicles

Consumers who buy a qualified electric plug-in vehicle may be eligible for a tax credit of up to $7,500 depending on the size of the car's battery pack. For instance, owners of the Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf may be eligible for a $7,500 credit, while owners of the Ford Fusion Energi and C-MAX Energi are eligible for a $3,750 credit. Some lessees may be eligible for this credit as well.
Remodeling your home for energy efficiency

Homeowners who remodel for energy-efficiency can take a credit of up to $500 over their lifetime. This provision has existed since 2006, so many taxpayers have already used the credit. "It looks at your prior credits that you've taken so there is a little bit of a look back, and you may not get the full amount," Spritz says. There is a separate $500 credit available for energy-efficient appliances. If you haven't used the credit yet, there's still two months left to install new windows or buy an energy-efficient air conditioner.



Posted on 7:37 AM | Categories:

Xero chases financial planners to fuel growth / Becoming a financial planning partner: Xero

NASSIM KHADEM writes: The company dubbed the “Apple of accounting”, Xero, is aggressively ­chasing financial planners in a bid to move beyond $30 million revenue by early next year.
Xero Australia managing director Chris Ridd said the company signs up 30 to 40 accountants and bookkeepers a week to adopt its cloud-based accounting software for dealing with their small business clients, and is now seeing greater uptake by ­financial planners.
The company, headquartered in New Zealand, was founded in 2006 by Wellington-born technology entrepreneur Rod Drury. It now has more than 200,000 paying customers in more than 100 countries around the world.
The Australian arm is a big revenue generator. Operating revenue exceeded $30.3 million in the six months ended September 30, from $16.5 million a year earlier. The fastest growth in the first half came from Australia, where ­customers rose 143 per cent from a year earlier to 79,100.
In its offices in Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra, Perth and Brisbane, Australian staff numbers have risen to 100.
Globally, the company wants to increase its customer base to one  million. Total paying customers rose to 211,300, up 89 per cent from September last year.
Mr Ridd, who previously worked for Microsoft Australia, says about 70 per cent of Xero’s business in Australia comes from referrals.

STELLAR GROWTH SINCE LISTING

The company, which listed on the Australian Stock Exchange in November, has enjoyed phenomenal growth on the ASX since its debut. This led to investment bank Credit Suisse dubbing Xero as the “Apple of accounting”.
Mr Ridd says Xero now has about 2200 accountant and financial planner “partners” who refer Xero products to their customers.
They get a 15 per cent to 30 per cent commission for doing so, which is slightly higher than rival MYOB’s 10 per cent commission to resellers.
“Since the beginning of the first of April we’ve signed up 900 new ­partners,” Mr Ridd said. “That’s a real achievement considering there are 8500 to 9000 accounting practices in Australia.”
What’s more, 58 of the Business Review Weekly’s Top 100 Accounting Firms are Xero bronze, silver or gold partners, totalling 8740 organisations. And of the top 10 firms, eight are Xero partners.
“These numbers verify that the more progressive firms are using cloud accounting software,” Mr Ridd said. It also shows they’ve found a nifty alternative income stream.
Mr Ridd says financial planners, who are increasingly teaming up with accountants, are now also taking up Xero’s cloud software to engage with clients more easily in real time.
“We’ve signed up about 270 financial planners in the past five months alone,” he said. “These are dedicated, stand-alone financial planners who are finding our products extremely useful devising wealth accumulation strategies.”
Mr Ridd says with 15,000 financial planners across Australia, there’s the potential to exceed the number of accounting partners.
“With a major focus on growth supported by $NZ200 million [$179 million] in the bank and no debt, we are moving quickly on market share in the Australasian market,” Mr Ridd said.
----
Xero writes: In his keynote at Xerocon Sydney, our Australian Managing Director Chris Ridd announced we’re expanding our partner program in Australia to include financial planners and advisors, and that a Senior Account Manager (me) had been appointed to work with advisors full time.
This new complementary channel – built around using Xero Cashbook for budgeting and money management – has really started to take off and since August more than 250 professional advice firms have applied to become Xero partners. Check out this video of Steve Crawford of Experience Wealth – 100% of their clients use Xero and he talks about the advantages of becoming a financial planning partner.

Why Cashbook?

More than 1500 accountants, bookkeepers and advisors Australia wide attended the financial advisor session of the October Partner Roadshow. Attendees had an opportunity to find out more about our Partner Program; hear success stories from advisors themselves; meet a few relevant Add-on partners; and see Cashbook in action – with a little help from my “typical”, newly married Gen Y couple William and Kate Windsor.
Xero Cashbook is an ideal tool to help advisors classify their clients’ income and expenditure and start conversations around budgeting, cash flow, income and expenditure classification. Using Cashbook, advisors can collaborate with their clients and develop smart money management strategies together, aimed at boosting savings or reducing and consolidating personal and investment debt.
As the channel grows and more advisors begin to use Xero as a collaborative platform for their clients, we expect to see a significant number of new Add-on partners and industry specific integrations to emerge in coming months.

Integrating with Midwinter AdviceOS

In early 2014, Midwinter AdviceOS – a next generation, cloud based CRM, compliance and planning platform for financial advisors – will integrate with Xero. Accurate cash flow information from Xero will flow into AdviceOS prompting the advisor to make more informed decisions and provide higher value services for their client.
“Cashbook aligns client transactions to a Chart of Accounts that can be later overridden or commented on by the client or adviser. This results in accurate client cash flow information coming through to AdviceOS in real time and enhances the quality of the advice,” says Julian Plummer, Managing Director, Midwinter Financial Services.

Now is the time to start the journey

With the accounting and private wealth advice sectors converging, legislative reform creating industry disruption and the demographics of advisors and clients shifting away from baby boomers, there are massive opportunities for partners to innovate and produce compelling service offerings for their advised clients.
If you are interested in becoming a Financial Advice Partner, visit the landing page and apply online. As a Xero partner, advisors can run their own business on Xero for free.
We are running cashbook specific online intro sessions twice a week – and additional training and information sessions will be launching soon.
Firms are invited to become a certified Bronze partner and list on our new financial advisor partner directory.
This is a new channel and we are just getting started.

Posted on 7:37 AM | Categories:

Buy ETFs To Beat The Tax Man

David Fabian for ETF Daily writes: With less than six weeks until the end of the year, investors should start doing some tax planning on their taxable investment accounts to ease the burden of capital gains.  Many advisors recommend different strategies to tackle this situation ranging from selling losing positions to gifting investments.  The right strategy for you will ultimately depend on your individual mix of income, deductions, investment vehicles, and other factors.


Mutual funds have also begun to forecast their year-end income and capital gains distributions which may end up being higher than previous years.  A recent Morningstar article pointed to the majority of large mutual fund companies such as Vanguard and Fidelity posting estimates in the 5-12% range for capital gains for 2013.  These are typical of funds with a modest turnover rate and above-average gains for the year.
However, there are instances of mutual funds with large outflows that will be posting excessive distributions that can hurt investors that aren’t expecting it.  The Calamos Growth Fund (CVGRX) is forecasting a distribution that will amount to nearly 25% of its NAV based largely on investor redemptions that forced it to sell appreciated positions.  Other situations that can lead to large distributions are from funds that have changed managers or strategies.  Often times a new manager will want to clean house and implement new holdings that will lead to a big tax bill at the end of the year.
Investors that are considering buying a mutual fund for their taxable accounts between now and year end should check with the fund company to see if they will be susceptible to any large distributions.  The last thing you want to do is enter a new position, only to see it hit you right off the bat with short and long-term capital gains that you will have to declare on your 2013 tax return.  This is even more critical for investors in the top tier tax bracket that will see their capital gains rates increase from 15% to 20% this year.
The most obvious way to avoid this situation is to purchase a mutual fund in a tax-deferred account such as an IRA or 401(k) where the distributions have little to no effect on the owner.   If that is not a feasible solution, another option to consider is swapping that mutual fund for an exchange-traded fund.  One of the benefits of owning a passively managed ETF is that they do not have a high degree of portfolio turnover and are less susceptible to large year-end distributions.
Both Vanguard and iShares have recently posted preliminary capital gains estimates that include only a small percentage of funds that are mostly fixed-income related.  The widely held iShares Aggregate Bond ETF (NYSEARCA:AGG) and Vanguard Total Bond Market ETF (NYSEARCA:BND) are on the list with very minimal capital gains distributions that amount to only a few pennies.
A look back at equity oriented ETFs such as the iShares S&P 500 ETF (NYSEARCA:IVV) or the Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (NYSEARCA:VTI) shows that neither of these funds has paid a distribution other than ordinary dividends for as long as the company has posted data.  This is mainly due to the fixed nature of the underlying index which dictates that the ETF hang onto the same stocks for long periods of time.  This makes them extremely tax efficient for your portfolio no matter when you purchase them.
Even an actively managed ETF such as the PIMCO Total Return Fund (NYSEARCA:BOND) which has a much higher degree of portfolio turnover, is only anticipating a short-term capital gain of $0.41 per share.  That equates to just 0.39% of its current NAV.
While the majority of ETFs are tax efficient, it still pays to research your options and key in on any potential red flags.  One of the hidden pitfalls of investing in certain commodity-related ETFs is the tax ramifications of their legal structure. What I am talking about here is the difference betweenan ETF that is structured as a trust that generates a 1099 vs. being structured as a partnership that generates a K-1.  The addition of a K-1 creates a headache for taxable accounts that must be dealt with on your year-end tax return.  To avoid that mess, you can often times find a similar commodity index in an exchange-traded note.
I never recommend investing solely with taxes in mind, but it does help to understand some of the ramifications that can occur without solid due diligence.  It’s all about the right timing and security selection to meet your goal and avoid any unintended tax burdens.   For the most part, ETFs offer an efficient way to reduce the impact of long-term capital gains for new money that you are looking to put to work this year.
Posted on 7:36 AM | Categories:

Top 12 QuickBooks Reporting Areas / QuickBooks Small Business Reports

Glenn Tyndall writes: You will learn about the top 12 QuickBooks reporting areas that has have detailed reports available to help you get the information you and your employee’s need to ensure your small business runs as smoothly as possible. There are quite a few QuickBooks reporting areas, and literally hundreds of QuickBooks reports, so if you have ever been looking for a report, you may just find what you were looking for below:

1.      QuickBooks Company & Financial Reports gives you information about your company's financial position. You can use the QuickBooks Company & Financial Reports to view the balance sheet and income statement of your small business. You can find a detailed list of QuickBooks Company & Financial Reports here.


2.      QuickBooks Customers & Receivables gives you information about your customers and the amounts they owe your company. You can use the QuickBooks Customers & Receivables Reports to view customer balances, open invoice details, and average days that it takes your customers to pay. You can find a detailed list of QuickBooks Customers & Receivables Reports here.


3.      QuickBooks Sales Reports gives you information about your copmany’s billings and sales to customers. QuickBooks Sales Reports can be used to analyze sales information, monitor your sales staff’s performance, and learn more about what your customers are purchasing from you. You can find a detailed list of QuickBooks Sales Reports here.


4.      QuickBooks Jobs, Time & Mileage Reports gives you information about your job estimates, unbilled costs, and mileage for your company vehicle. You can use the QuickBooks Jobs, Time & Mileage Reports to manage the profitability of each of your jobs to make sure there are done timely and within budget. You can find a detailed list of QuickBooks Jobs, Time, and Mileage Reports here.


5.      QuickBooks Vendors & Payables Reports gives you information about how much your small business owes its vendors for the goods and services you have ordered. You can use QuickBooks Vendors & Payables Reports to manage your payables, cash flow, and ensure your vendors are paid timely. You can find a detailed list of QuickBooks QuickBooks Vendors & Payables Reports here.


6.      QuickBooks Purchase Reports gives you information about your company's purchases and open purchase orders. You can use QuickBooks Purchase Reports to make sure that all goods ordered are received and manage inventory levels of your small business to ensure that you have all the goods and materials you need so that your customers are satisfied. You can find a detailed list of QuickBooks Purchase Reports here.


7.      QuickBooks Inventory Reports gives you information about your company’s manufacturing process and inventory on hand. You can uses QuickBooks Inventory Reports to manage work-in-progress for any goods you manufacture, monitor inventory levels at different facilities, and even print forms to help you conduct periodic physical inventory counts. You can find a detailed list of QuickBooks Inventory Reports here.


8.      QuickBooks Employee & Payroll Reports give you information about your employees and your company’s payroll expenses. You can use QuickBooks Employee & Payroll Reports to view a list of your current and former employees, view earnings by employee, among other human resource and payroll-related tasks. You can find a detailed list of QuickBooks Employee & Payroll Reports here.


9.      QuickBooks Banking Reports gives you information about your company’s banking transactions. You can use QuickBooks Banking Reports to help with your bank reconciliations as well as view a list of all checks written from a particular bank account. You can find a detailed list of QuickBooks Banking Reports here.


10.  QuickBooks Accountant & Tax Reports gives you important accounting and tax reports that will help you prepare your company’s income tax return. You can use the QuickBooks Accountant & Tax Reports to print your trial balance and financial statements. You can also run sales tax reports from the QuickBooks Accountant & Tax Reports section. You can find a detailed list of QuickBooks Accountant & Tax Reports here.


11.  QuickBooks Budgets & Forecasts Reports gives you information you need to compare your small business’s actual financial performance to the performance you expected. You can use QuickBooks Budgets & Forecasts Reports to enter your annual budget, run budget-to-actual analysis, and even forecast your company’s results for future periods. You can find a detailed list of QuickBooks Budgets and Forecasts Reports here.


12.  QuickBooks List Reports gives you informational lists that will make certain tasks easier. You can use QuickBooks List Reports are to print an employee contact list if you need to distribute employee extensions throughout your company or a customer phone list so you can call customers with outstanding balances. You can find a detailed list of QuickBooks List Reports here.
Posted on 7:36 AM | Categories:

BillGuard’s CEO on new savings product: “We’re building what Mint should have been” / The Smart Money App - Reivew

Michael Carney writes: Personal financial management is one of those topics that sounds good on paper, but is typically so drab that most people lack the discipline to stick with it over time. This is in large part because the incentives are all wrong. Acting responsibly is a terrible motivator for the average Joe and Jane, and that’s what most budget-focused financial management tools boil down to. Thus most apps like Mint and Check.me have underwhelming user retention and engagement rates.
BillGuard, on the other hand, believes it found a solution to this issue by focusing not on budgeting, but instead on security and on saving money. The two-year old company uses big data analysis, combining anonymized insights from across its hundreds of thousands of users, to identify potentially fraudulent or otherwise unwanted transactions in a user’s bank and credit card financial statements. Founder and CEO Yaron Samid calls it a crowdsourced, algorithmic approach to saving consumers money. The end result is peace of mind and savings, two things that have, thus far, proven to drive user engagement.
BillGuard has identified over $50 million in “grey charges” in its users’ accounts, meaning deceptive, erroneous, and unauthorized credit and debit card charges. More than 1.5 million such transactions were identified in October alone. The opportunity to discover and act on these items leads the average BillGuard active user to open the app four times per week according to Samid, an engagement rate which he claims handily best industry averages, although he declined to share those industry rates citing the confidentiality of his competitor’s performance data. Samid added that BillGuard’s 90-day user retention rate similarly outperforms his industry peers. Unfortunately, without competitor data available, the best we can do is take his word for it.
For most of the last two years, BillGuard has been a Web only product, but the company released an MVP version of its iPhone app three months ago and saw most KPIs increase fivefold, according to the CEO. The app has a 5-star rating in the iTunes App Store and has grown to 250,000 registered users over the last three months, a figure which is growing by more than 3,000 users per day, Samid says. The app is currently ranked No. 1 in the Money Management and Finance Essentials categories in the iOS App Store, positions which not too long ago belonged to Mint.
Today, the company is releasing a significant upgrade to this app, adding more spending visualization tools doubling down on the existing savings value proposition. (BillGuard for Android is expected in Q1.)
“If you pay full price for an item where a discount is available, we consider that a data inefficiency,” Samid says. The CEO went on to describe the update as “what Mint should be today, and where the company was headed had it not been acquired by Intuit.”
BillGuard isn’t adding a standard coupon dashboard, daily deals marketplace, or anything else similarly trivial. Rather, the company is returning to its big data roots and analyzing a consumer’s historical spending habits for clues into where they could save money. For example, if a consumer regularly shops at Amazon, Staples, Starbucks or other mass retailers, the app will surface coupons. In most cases the company receives no compensation for coupon distribution or redemptions, but in a minority of cases it will collect a nominal fee, Samid says.
The key to delivering value under this model is to maintain a sufficiently high bar in terms of suitability, something BillGuard’s founder readily acknowledges.
“This is not an inbox with a bunch of deals, it’s an alerting system triggered when we identify something about your behavior,” Samid says. “We think of it as a shopping protection service where we help prevent you from paying too much. The most important thing is that it learns from your behavior and adapts over time based both on where you shop and which discounts you redeem and which you ignore.”
The major difference between the current generation of financial tools, BillGuard included, and the first-generation of products like Mint, is delivering actionable information. Alerting users to instances where unwanted transactions appear on their account or where savings are available for products they intend to buy adds real value, and thus drives habit formation.
“The first generation [of personal financial management tools] was all about beauty, the next generation is about beauty and brains,” Samid says.
BillGuard supports more than 5,000 credit card and debit card accounts including Chase, Bank of America, Citibank, Wells Fargo, HSBC, Capital One, BB&T, SunTrust, American Express, Discover, and PayPal. The app is free for use with up to two cards, while a third card can be unlocked through a simple social sharing action. BillGuard Premium is available as a one-time, $10 in-app upgrade and allows the user to add as many as 10 cards. Starting today, and running through Saturday (November 30) the company is giving all users free BillGuard Premium for life.
Premium upgrades is not the company’s long-term business model. Rather, once BillGuard reaches critical mass in terms of users and transaction data, the company plans to monetize around “ensuring trusted commerce,” according to Samid. He’s keeping details of the business model close to the vest, but one might envision a paid “BillGuard Trusted Seller” certification, akin to the way Energy Star certifies appliances and trade associations certify organic produce. BillGuard would naturally charge merchants for such certifications.
BillGuard takes a number of steps to ensure security of consumer data and their personal accounts. First, the company requires that users set a four-digit pin for their BillGuard account and encrypt all communication. Second, it only requires read-only access to card activity, meaning that neither the company nor the user can move money through BillGuard.
The company has also developed deep expertise in parsing otherwise messy financial transaction data, and has been issued three patents for doing just that. “It’s a clunky process at first, but once you do it at scale, you start seeing patterns, grouping cohorts based on spending behavior, and deliver actionable advice on what to do to save money,” Samid says.
BillGuard has raised a total of $13 million to date, with the most recent financing being a $10 million Series B round closed in October 2011. The company’s backers include Bessemer Venture Partners, Innovation Endeavors, Bessemer Venture Partners, IA Ventures, Founders Fund*, Khosla Ventures, SV Angel, and Social Leverage, as well as numerous angels.  The company has plenty of runway left, Samid says, but with growth already accelerating dramatically since the launch of the company’s generation one mobile product, he expects to seek out additional capital in mid-2014. The hope is that today’s upgrade will broaden the app’s appeal and bump up that timeline even sooner.
“Personal financial management is inherently very personal, and is dependent on human behavior,” Samid says. “The way I manage my money is very different from the way you manage your money. There’s real pent-up demand for tools to simplify personal finance management.”
By combining security and saving, BillGuard is able to appeal to an even larger and more diverse audience of consumers. And by starting with security and expand into savings, the company has been able to establish itself as credible and trustworthy, something that is hard to come by in the consumer discounting space.
“We were able to use security as wedge, which enables us to do smart savings without it feeling like advertising,” Samid says. “We’ve developed a trust-based relationship with our users that they know we’re using data to save them money.”
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  • PROS
    Easy connection to credit card issuers. Provides details about transactions. Uses crowdsourcing to flag often-reported merchants. Automated contact with financial institutions.
  • CONSCan't pop back to the dashboard with one click.
  • BOTTOM LINE
    BillGuard connects you to your online credit card statements and flags merchants who frequently charge consumers for products or services they've either forgotten about or they didn't know they were requesting.
BY KATHY YAKAL
If everyone went over their credit card statements with a fine-tooth comb and reported any questionable or unwanted charges immediately, there wouldn't be as much need for an iPhone app like BillGuard.
But not everyone does. I know I don't. And sometimes when I do, I notice that I've been billed for something every month that I never wanted to be a recurring charge. I have to track down the merchants and call or email them to cancel. If that doesn't work or I can't find any contact information for the source of the charge, I have to contact my credit card company and ask to have any new charges refused.
Even then, I'm out several months of fees that shouldn't have shown up on my bill.
BillGuard, described by its developer as a "crowdsourced transaction intelligence network," is a smart, useful, innovative iPhone app that's simple—almost fun—to set up and use. It displays your credit card charges as they occur, flagging any that have been frequently reported by members of its network as questionable or unauthorized. You can either confirm that those charges are OK or ask BillGuard, via a simple automated reporting system, to contact the merchant on your behalf.
That's all it does. But used conscientiously, it can help you nip those pesky unwanted charges in the bud—and save you some money and aggravation.
Grey ChargesBillGuard doesn't promote itself as an identity theft-prevention tool, but it can work like one if you check it regularly. Rather, its mission is to help you avoid "grey charges," unwanted hits on your credit cards. Maybe you signed up for something and forgot about it. Or maybe the merchant used misleading, deceptive language or hid a recurring charge in fine print that you'd be unlikely to see. BillGuard claims that U.S. cardholders spend $14.3 billion in grey charges annually. So it's a good idea to keep an eye out.
A Familiar RoutineThis is the second smartphone app I've noticed that asks not only for a user name and password, but also a "passcode," four numbers you'll use for sign-in, like your ATM PIN. Once you've signed in (assuming you don't actually log out, just return to the iPhone's home screen), you only have to enter those four numbers to get back in instead of your sometimes-unwieldy login credentials. I like this.
Setup works the same way any application that connects you to a financial institution works. You select your card issuer from the list supplied or search for it if it doesn't appear there. Enter the user name and password you use to access your account online, and BillGuard takes a few minutes to set up the connection, showing you a helpful instructional video while you're waiting. You can add up to two cards for free, but after that, you'll pay a one-time fee of $9.99 to add up to 10.
BillGuard's dashboard, its home page, displays a small window and four navigational buttons. Your total credit card debt incurred so far in the current month appears in the window. You can click on the four icons provided to see four different groups of credit card transactions: Priority (transactions from merchants that the "crowd" has reported as a potential problem); Recent (your newest charges); Recurring (and this is where the problem often occurs: periodic—usually monthly—charges that you may or may not want); and All transactions.
(An unnecessary but nice touch: When the "You're All Clear" message appears, you can click an icon to have the inspirational quote displayed sent to Facebook, Twitter or a personal text. There's no white noise in BillGuard.)
Help with TransactionsBillGuard makes good use of the iPhone's navigational tools, though you can't always return to the dashboard with a single click. On the home page, there are icons in the upper right and left corners. One opens your utilities menu, and the other lets you add another card. As you move deeper into the app, you'll use navigational buttons like "Back" and "Cancel" to reverse directions.
You can do one of two things when you're viewing a list of transactions. Tapping on it provides additional details about the merchant and transaction, and gives you "OK" and "Follow Up" buttons. Clicking "OK" turns the transaction green in your list, and "Follow-Up" opens another small window of options. If you click the "Help Me Recognize This" button, BillGuard provides links that let you ask a friend about it on email or via text; the third opens a Google search.
Or you can swipe the transaction entry right to mark it as being approved by you. Swiping it left adds a "Report/Contact Merchant" button. Clicking on it opens the "Report Charge" window, where you can select your problem from a list that includes "Stolen Card," "Forgotten Charge," and "Hidden Fee." You'll be able to enter text expanding on that, and then you have to authorize BillGuard to contact the merchant for you.
A Simple, Friendly SolutionPersonal finance management applications are just getting started when they connect to your financial institution and download transactions. They have many other features. BillGuard is much less complex. It's smart in more than one way, though. First, it draws on the experience of other consumers to let you know when what you're experiencing with a particular merchant is widespread.
And second, it's smart because it has isolated one element of personal finance that can get lost in the noise of more robust applications. It provides a quick and easy solution to one clearly-defined problem–Grey Charges. Which are you more likely to do: pore over your printed or downloaded credit card statement, or pull out your iPhone and spend a minute or two with a cool app?
If another company is providing this kind of service as well or better than BillGuard, I'm not aware of it. But I do know BillGuard is one personal finance app I'm going leave on my iPhone long after I've finished testing it.


Posted on 7:36 AM | Categories: