What is your favorite accounting software? What attracted you to it?

Young Entrepreneur Council writes: The following answers are provided by the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, YEC recently launched StartupCollective, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses.

1. QuickBooks Online

“I love using QuickBooks online because it is available wherever I am, it’s easy for my accountant to log in with her own permission set (that I assign) and it easily integrates with all of my bank and credit card accounts.”
- Windsor Hanger, Her Campus Media

2. Xero

“At Hired, we’ve found that connecting our bank accounts and credit cards with Xero has been great. Expenses automatically get categorized, reconciliations are one click and there are integrations with companies like Expensify and Bill.com — both of which we also use at our company.”
- Matt Mickiewicz, Hired

3. Mint

“For personal use, I always stand by Mint. It’s intuitive, easy to use and free. The hardest part of any accounting software is making sure you use it consistently, but Mint makes that simple by offering the software in the form of multiple apps.”
- Daniel Wesley, Creditloan.com

4. Bench

“We used to use QuickBooks but felt it was too slow and dated. We switched to Bench, which is cloud based, fast and comes with a bookkeeper to manage the accounting basics for us. I love this service! It provides the “need to know” info for us, and they take care of the rest.”
- Patrick Conley, Automation Heroes

5. inDinero

“I like inDinero because it does everything automatically. What more could you want?”
- Wade Foster, Zapier

6. QuickBooks Hosted

“There’s a reason that QuickBooks is still used by 80 percent of our clients. We put our clients on a hosted version rather than online because it’s more robust and offers great functionality. Companies can access it anytime, anywhere. I also like QuickBooks because there’s a product for every stage and level of financial complexity.”
- David Ehrenberg, Early Growth Financial Services

7. FreshBooks

“FreshBooks is a simple, cloud based accounting software that makes it quick and easy to get all of your finances in order. It’s reasonably priced and has support for lots of third party apps to integrate all aspects of your business in one place.”
- Josh Weiss, Bluegala

Betterment for advisers on its way as firm adds trust, tax-loss harvesting products / Betterment Institutional for advisers will launch by early 2015, CEO says

Joyce Hanson for InvestmentNews.com writes: As online investment manager Betterment gears up to introduce an institutional-level platform designed for financial advisers by early 2015, it launched trust and tax-loss-harvesting products for retail customers.

Betterment Institutional, the new platform for advisers, is now in beta testing with the help of about a dozen registered investment advisers, according to company officials. The broader launch will come sometime around the end of this year or early next year, said Chief Executive Jon Stein, who believes his so-called “robo adviser” can be a useful online tool for human advisers to use in tandem with clients.

“Our belief is that there are a number of people who rightly value what advisers bring. They value the personal relationship and the consultation about life's goals, and they value estate planning and tax planning. All of those services are best provided by an adviser,” Mr. Stein said.

Betterment built its trust fund tool because many of the company's 38,000 customers already have trusts and have requested an easier, low-cost way to manage them, according to Betterment product manager Nick Gavronsky, who noted that a customer can have an unlimited number of trusts with a single online login.

“Our fees aren't eating away into the trust's assets,” Mr. Gavronsky said. “We automate the fiduciary responsibility of the trustee.”

Betterment's automated investment service puts customer assets into index-tracking exchange-traded funds. The service costs 0.35% of a customer's average annual balance for a $100-per-month minimum auto-deposit, 0.25% on a $10,000 minimum balance and 0.15% on a $100,000 minimum balance.

Both the trust and tax-loss harvesting products are available at no extra cost to Betterment customers, although the tax-loss product is available only to customers who have at least $50,000 invested through Betterment.

Once Betterment Institutional launches, advisers will also be able to manage their client's personal and trust accounts on the platform, said company spokeswoman Arielle Sobel.

The tax-loss harvesting product, which launched on Thursday,scans the portfolio daily for losses to harvest, said product manager Boris Khentov, a tax lawyer who was closely involved in the launch.

”We're helping people squeeze tax efficiencies out of their index fund portfolios,” Mr. Khentov said. “We've built the platform to tax-optimize every transaction.”

Grant Easterbrook, a senior analyst at market research firm Corporate Insight, said Betterment's larger online investment competitor Wealthfront already offers tax-loss harvesting for customers with a minimum of $100,000 in assets on the platform.

“One of the great things about these online services is their low minimums,” Mr. Easterbrook said. “A Merrill Lynch adviser isn't going to work with you unless you have half a million dollars.”

Betterment's increased activity follows a $32 million infusion of venture capital that has resulted in new hires along with new product launches. Five new employees joined the company this week, bringing headcount to 62, Betterment officials said.

The company's assets under management stood at $641 million as of Friday, Ms. Sobel said.

Wealthfront last week announced it had crossed the $1 billion mark in assets under management.

Tax Strategy: The demands on U.S. citizens in Canada Entering “Nightmare” Territory

Canadian tax cheats are usually given a fine and let off but the American equivalent of this agency puts people in jail. Called the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), these federal tax collectors are much more severe than their Canadian counterparts.

Even those American citizens who pay their taxes are obligated to file annual tax returns with the IRS regardless of where in the world they live, listing in detail their bank accounts, RRSPs and inheritances. Failure to do so can result in fines and penalties.

A local notary and U.S. attorney, David Altro, specializes in cross-border taxation and has co-authored a new book with partner Jonah Z. Spiegelman, Americans Living In Canada — Smile, The IRS Is Watching You. Says Altro, “It’s one of the only countries that taxes on citizenship not on residency.”

These already stringent tax-reporting rules are about to get even tougher as of July 1 for those living in other countries, including Canada. A measure called the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), to which Canada has pledged cooperation, requires banks and investment firms in other countries to inform the IRS of any accounts held by Americans.

In Canada, financial institutions will have the duty to ask customers if they’re American citizens and share the information with Canada Revenue Agency (CRA), and CRA will notify the IRS.

“The rules have always been there, but now they’re really enforcing them,” Altro said.

Renouncing U.S. citizenship is an option some choose, but Altro said even that comes at a price, since the IRS may impose an ‘exit tax’, depending on your financial situation. The complications go both ways for people with assets and ties to both Canada and the U.S.

Altro said, “Dealing with the red tape of two tax systems has always been there, but is now becoming a nightmare.”

Source: Montreal Gazette

The Secret Advantage of Adding TaxJar to your Xero Account / Easy & Accurate Ecommerce Sales Tax Reporting

Mark Faggiano  for TaxJar writes: We recently announced that TaxJar’s integration with Xero accounting. We’re thrilled that we now work so seamlessly with this accounting app used by so many ambitious business owners.

With the TaxJar add-on, Xero users can:

• See how much of their income was actually sales tax, making for accurate reporting and a quick snapshot of your business’s bottom line
• See a fully-integrated chart of accounts for each account where you have sales tax liability
• Automatically see “bills due” to each state where you owe a sales tax return
• Prepare sales tax reports that the states want to see – all from within Xero

The TaxJar add-on for Xero is perfect for any eCommerce seller who wants his or her finger on the pulse of her small business book.

What’s the Secret?
But did you know that the Xero/TaxJar integration is also ideal for the eCommerce business with big plans?

We talk to a lot of eCommerce sellers, and while some are happy with a fun, lucrative lifestyle business, others have big plans for world domination. This is where that “little known” part of the Xero/TaxJar integration comes in.

With Xero accounting, when your eCommerce business gets too big, you can quickly and easily transfer control of your business’s books to one of Xero’s many qualified Accounting Advisors.

As your business grows, you’ll become busier sourcing products, cutting deals with suppliers, and managing your employees. If you decide it’s time to turn your bookkeeping and accounting over to a professional, most of the work will be done for you.

Xero allows financial pros to assume control of an account. And the TaxJar Xero add-on means it’s easier than ever for them to manage not only your ledgers and taxes, but also your monthly, quarterly and annual sales tax reports.

Here’s what Xero Accounting Advisor Scott Scharf of Catching Clouds had to say:

“TaxJar is the core solution we use to collect all the sales transactions so we can provide our Ecommerce Sales Tax Service….

TaxJar is a dynamic, cloud services company that not only has great support but is making weekly enhancements based on their clear vision of where they are going and customer (including their accounting partners’) feedback.

We couldn’t deliver the service we offer now without this solution and we look forward to the feature enhancements over the coming weeks and months.”

We’re thrilled to be able to provide this seamless service for our customers with fast-growing eCommerce empires.  For more, check out our complete guide to Sales Tax for Xero Sellers.

What accounting program or method do you use alongside TaxJar? Leave a comment become to start the conversation!