Tuesday, July 8, 2014

QuickBooks Online Adds Receipt Bank (UK)

Rich Preece for BDaily Business News writes: Small businesses and accountants to save hours of time and reduce errors through integration of receipt management app with QuickBooks Online ecosystem
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Intuit, the largest provider of back office software to small businesses in the world, has announced that it has integrated the popular Receipt Bank app into its QuickBooks Online system. Receipt Bank helps remove the data entry hassle of processing invoices, bills and receipts by allowing small businesses and accountants to submit invoices and receipts using a smartphone app. The integration with QuickBooks Online will allow users to seamlessly use Receipt Bank’s service and manage more of their finances from one place, removing the hassle of juggling multiple pieces of software. The integration will also allow users to reimburse expenses unlike some other providers.
Receipt Bank – the latest addition to the large and rapidly growing QuickBooks Online ecosystem - is already used by more than 10,000 small businesses and finance professionals globally to save hours of manual entry, improve data accuracy and safely store their receipts. QuickBooks Online users can now submit receipts using the Receipt Bank app, email or post; the information will be uploaded to QuickBooks Online and properly classified under categories such suppliers, expenses, as well showing up in the P&L.
Rich Preece, VP and UK Managing Director at Intuit commented: “Everyone hates dealing with receipts; they get lost, damaged, are a pain to enter and it’s easy to make mistakes. Now you can scan them in on the move using the Receipt Bank smartphone app, and have them appear almost instantly and properly classified in QuickBooks Online.
“Adding Receipt Bank is a great example of how we are constantly innovating to make our customers lives easier so they can concentrate on the important things. Our customers have told us they really wanted a way to ease the hassle of manually entering receipts. With Receipt Bank’s integration with QuickBooks Online, we’re delighted to bring it to them. The integration adds to our growing ecosystem of applications that help small businesses and accountants manage their finances and grow their business from one place.“
“I am delighted with QuickBooks Online’s partnership with Receipt Bank”, said Charlie Carne of Charlie Carne & Co, Chartered Accountants. “The ease with which my clients can now upload their purchase invoices and expense receipts directly into QuickBooks Online will dramatically improve the efficiency of our work. Our bookkeepers can now spend more time on valued-added work, as much of the data entry is automated. We can now provide a quicker and more responsive service for our clients, with much more timely reporting.“
Nelson Da Silva, Partner Manager at Receipt Bank said, “The days of a small business owner taking a shoebox full of receipts to their accountant at the end of each month are over. Using Receipt Bank within QuickBooks Online gives small businesses and accountants the ability to process receipts and invoices instantly.  This enables them a real-time view of what is coming in and going out of a business. We estimate that using our software saves accountants one hour per week, per client.“
Posted on 2:27 PM | Categories:

Study: Best Small Business Accounting Software - QuickBooks vs Wave vs FreshBooks

Sarah G for Credit Donkey writes: Whether you're working on sending out invoices, paying taxes, or managing cash flow, there’s more than enough to do on any given day of running a small business. All those minutes of doing non-essential tasks can really add up, taking you away from making progress in moving your business forward.

What’s holding you back? Manual processes and the old way of doing things. Excel spreadsheets are for the small-business newbies, those people who are not yet sure their companies will go anywhere. You are past that point. You are ready for the next step – cloud-based small business accounting software. This may sound scary to non-accountants, but it will actually make your life easier by smoothing over how you send invoices and track and report your income.

The three obvious front-runners? Intuit’s QuickBooks Plus, Wave, and FreshBooks. They have excellent design aesthetics, mobile versions, and an easy set-up process. The comparable versions are also within $5 of each other’s monthly subscription costs. But which is best for your business? CreditDonkey helps you figure that out by ranking the priorities for small business owners.

STUDY METHODOLOGY

Here are the main factors we considered for the daily and quarterly management of a small business:
  1. Invoicing and Payment System
  2. Tracking Time
  3. Monitoring Your Small Business Reports
You won’t be in business long if you don’t bill for your work and get paid for it. The right software helps you quickly create and send professional invoices and provide convenient options for clients to pay those invoices. And since your invoice is an extension of your company, you want the option to make your invoice match your branding.
Here’s where these tools can take you to the next efficiency level outside of Excel. Forget tracking your hours on Post-it notes or separate spreadsheets compiled by your employees. The time-tracking aspects of small-business accounting software should be easy to use and be tied directly to the invoice function.
All of these data points can tie into your small business reports. At the very least you’ll need easy access – at anytime, whether you’re in the office or at home – to profit and loss reporting, time sheets, invoices, and expenses.

INTUIT QUICKBOOKS PLUS Share "Intuit QuickBooks Plus" on Facebook Tweet " on TwitterIntuit QuickBooks Plus"

BEST ACCOUNTING SOFTWARE FOR WORKING WITH EMPLOYEES AND BILLING HOURLY

  • Sending Invoices and Getting Paid: With easy on and off buttons for accepting credit cards, this program makes it very easy for customers to pay you; however, it’s not so easy to avoid the common fees that come with online transactions, 4/5
  • Tracking Time: The time-tracking worksheet makes entering your time and creating and monitoring your employees’ timesheets so easy, 5/5
  • Monitoring Your Small Business Reports: All the forms you’ll need are there, but the report that is delivered isn’t as visually easy on the eyes as other programs,3/5
  • CreditDonkey Score: 4/5
Intuit’s QuickBooks Plus is a well-known and award-winning small business accounting software with millions of users. And it includes eyebrow-raising customization features that automatically configure your QuickBooks setup for your specific type of business, by creating industry-related defaults and reporting before you even get started.

Why We Like Intuit QuickBooks Plus 
QuickBooks Plus is a thorough small business accounting program. From the clean login dashboard to the extensive sidebar list of Customers, Vendors, Employees, and Transactions, you won’t be able to think of anything you can’t track or report on. It provides especially detailed information for working with employees and tracking your payroll.

The Downsides
With all of these pros comes a logical downside: this program has a lot of bells and whistles that work well for a multi-person organization but might confuse a soloprenuer. If you’re a one-person business, you might spend more time trying to figure out what to do than doing what you need to do.

Who Intuit QuickBooks Plus Works Best For
PC Magazine reported that “Intuit beats the competition when it comes to its integrated payroll application,” and we agree. This program works best for small companies that have employees that they track and pay hourly. The time-tracking feature is the easiest of all of these programs to update, submit, and track, and you have access to payroll functions you might not have otherwise realized could be beneficial.

WAVE Share "Wave - Study: Best Small Business Accounting Software - QuickBooks vs Wave vs FreshBooks" on Facebook Tweet " on TwitterWave - Study: Best Small Business Accounting Software - QuickBooks vs Wave vs FreshBooks"

BEST ACCOUNTING SOFTWARE FOR ACTIVELY BUILDING A BUSINESS
  • Creating, Sending Invoices and Getting Paid: Simple, from-the-dashboard invoice creation and popular payment option integration, but a heavy-handed fill-out process, 4/5
  • Tracking Time: Difficult to get started with tracking time, expensive to integrate employees, 3/5
  • Monitoring Your Small Business Reports: Clear navigation to find and create reports, accountant-friendly results, 4/5
  • CreditDonkey Score: 3.66/5
Wave is an up-and-coming small business accounting software that launched in 2009 to rave reviews. It offers a suite of financial products that provide a thorough financial management system for growing businesses and entrepreneurs.

Why We Like Wave
The standout approach Wave brings to small business accounting is its well roundedness. As reported by CPA Practice Advisor, “the application has the capability of working with both business and personal accounts, and different reports are available for the two different groups of accounts.” Not only does it have features that help you manage and track your business assets to grow your business over time, it also has a built-in sister site that helps you create and monitor your personal budget within the same account.

The Downsides
Once you sign up, extra features like payroll and live support cost extra. We like to see all the features wrapped up in one fee, rather than wondering what you’ll get (and what else you’ll need) once you sign up.

Who Wave Works Best For
With a focus on your personal finance and business growth, Wave is clearly for business owners intent on building an empire (especially if it’s a solo empire). If you want to have all of your financial data collected under one roof, Wave is a flexible program to help you do so.

FRESHBOOKS Share "FreshBooks - Study: Best Small Business Accounting Software - QuickBooks vs Wave vs FreshBooks" on Facebook Tweet " on TwitterFreshBooks - Study: Best Small Business Accounting Software - QuickBooks vs Wave vs FreshBooks"

BEST ACCOUNTING SOFTWARE FOR SIMPLE BUSINESS ACCOUNTING
  • Creating, Sending Invoices and Getting Paid: Invoices are a click away, and arrangements with popular payment programs like PayPal make for low fees, 5/5
  • Tracking Time: The feature is accessible and mobile-friendly, but the tagging and tracking for projects and tasks gets a little complicated, 4/5
  • Monitoring Your Small Business Reports: Popular and customized forms are a click away and easy to read, download, and send to your accountant, 5/5
  • CreditDonkey Score: 4.66/5
FreshBooks is a plucky Canadian application that’s five million users strong and growing, with a formidable goal of making business painless. It offers creative features like letting you take a photo of your receipt from your phone and loading the info into your system, as well as free, award-winning one-on-one customer support by phone and email (some software providers will charge you for service calls).

Why We Like FreshBooks
By our math, FreshBooks is the best overall accounting software. The company is guided by a mission to simplify the basics of business as much as possible: invoice, get paid, report. And the fact that it has an ever-growing list of integrated applications to make it even easier to customize how you run your business? Even better.

The Downsides
Being a new and creative business, FreshBooks is frequently updating its services and offering new products (like its freshly minted partnership with Fundbox, which provides cash flow loans to small businesses). While each of these products may be useful and helpful, it can feel like there’s a lot to catch up on as you go. Fortunately, all of these features are free to use or try.

Who FreshBooks Works Best For
FreshBooks is hands-down the best application for simple businesses like sole proprietors.Kathy Yakal at PC Magazine zeroed in on the big plus of this software by saying that “FreshBooks' focus… is on invoices. And it handles this task with more flexibility and functionality than its online competitors.” It has the bells and whistles if you need them, but if you don’t, you won’t be distracted (or disappointed) doing what you need to do.

OTHER BUSINESS ACCOUNTING SOFTWARE TO CONSIDER Share "OTHER BUSINESS ACCOUNTING SOFTWARE TO CONSIDER" on Facebook Tweet " on TwitterOTHER BUSINESS ACCOUNTING SOFTWARE TO CONSIDER"

Not entirely sold on these options? For simple income and expense businesses, you might still feel tied to that tried-and-true Excel spreadsheet. For more cloud-based options, you could also try Less Accounting or Kashoo, both of which offer free trial versions.
Posted on 10:20 AM | Categories:

Advisors and Clients Value Tax Deferral, But Unaware of Full Scope of Benefits

Laurence P. Greenberg for WealthManagement.com writes:  High tax rates are top of mind for every advisor as they see the impact on their clients’ returns, and therefore this issue is increasingly becoming important for clients as well, particularly for those with higher incomes. As a result, tax management has become critical. High net worth investors face not only the impact of prolonged periods of increased tax rates on their investment performance, but also a challenging market environment in which to generate wealth. Not surprisingly, according to Jefferson National's recent survey of financial advisors, the vast majority (91 percent) of advisors use tax-efficient investing strategies to mitigate tax burdens for clients.
Tax deferral is central to creating tax efficiency.  Jefferson National’s survey found that 96 percent of advisors state that tax deferral is important in the current environment and 86 percent of advisors expect that tax deferral will be even more important in the future. Following the same trend, 59 percent of advisors have increased their use of tax deferral over the past five years.
Further Education Needed Around Tax Deferral Benefits
Even though tax deferral is viewed as an essential tool to maximize wealth and generate more retirement income, Jefferson National's survey revealed a lack of understanding around the scope of benefits associated with tax deferral—for both advisors and their clients. Only 19 percent of advisors are aware that low-cost tax deferral can add up to 100 bps of alpha to an investment portfolio without increasing risk, and 59 percent say their clients have no knowledge about tax deferral beyond traditional 401(k)s and IRAs. This ultimately means that many investors are leaving opportunities on the table to maximize their wealth through other tax-deferred vehicles, such as a new generation of low-cost, investment-only variable annuities. Advisors can provide more value for clients by educating them on the accumulation benefits of leveraging a low cost, investment-only tax-deferred account in a retirement income plan once traditional 401(k)s and IRAs have been maximized.

How to Leverage Tax Deferral Through Asset Location
As advisors depend more on tax deferral to maximize accumulation, defer current taxes and prepare for their client’s future lower tax brackets, they must look for the right type of tax-efficient investing strategies to create "tax alpha" without increasing risk. Of the advisors who use tax-efficient investing strategies to mitigate taxes, almost all (92 percent) use asset location in a tax-deferred vehicle to help their clients. Advisors can leverage low-cost tax deferral and boost accumulation by using asset location to help minimize the impact of taxes and enhance after-tax returns. To start, advisors should not only evaluate their clients' portfolios by asset class or risk, but also by tax characteristics: tax-efficient assets vs. tax-inefficient assets.
Advisors can further evaluate tax efficiency by looking at their clients' breakeven points, which is the point in time when tax deferral will help assets yield a better after-tax return. Tax-inefficient assets, such as bonds and REITs that can have breakeven points of one year or less, should always be located in a low-cost, investment-only tax-deferred account. By locating fixed income assets in these accounts, advisors can potentially improve returns by as much as 100 bps without increasing risk, according to a concept known as the "Tax-Efficient Frontier."

Expanding Tax Deferral Vehicles
After advisors examine the breakeven points, they need to locate tax-inefficient assets and strategies in traditional tax-deferred vehicles, such as IRAs, 401(k)s first and then leverage next-generation low-cost, investment-only tax-deferred accounts once the traditional vehicles have been maximized. This will help minimize taxes on accumulation and maximize after-tax returns. These tax-deferred accounts allow the returns from tax-inefficient assets to compound without a tax penalty until income is distributed. This approach is attractive for any client preparing for retirement.
Tax deferral should be a key component to any advisor's retirement planning process with a client. Given the impact of taxes on investor returns, a systematic usage of tax-efficient investing combined with broadening tax-deferred accounts is becoming a critical part of advisors' strategy to help improve retirement income for their clients.  
Laurence P. Greenberg is President of Jefferson National
Posted on 5:42 AM | Categories:

What to Do After Your 401(k) and IRA Are Maxed Out / These tax-efficient investment options will help you further grow your nest egg.

 Robert Berger for US News World Report writes:  Maxing out your 401(k) and IRA contributions is certainly a good “problem” to have. But then you have to figure out what to do with the rest of your investable assets. Investing in a taxable account is the next logical step, but you need to do so in a way that minimizes your tax liability. Here are three tax-efficient investment options for after you’ve filled up your retirement accounts:


Health savings account. This option is available for those with high-deductible health insurance policies. When you have a high-deductible health plan, you can put pre-tax dollars in a health savings account. This account is designed to help you pay the high deductibles of your health insurance policy throughout the year, but certain features of HSAs also make them ideal for retirement savings.
Unlike a flexible spending account, HSAs are not “use it or lose it.” Any money in the account at the end of the year rolls over to the next year. Money withdrawn for qualified medical expenses is tax-free. Withdrawals for other purposes are subject to income tax and may trigger a penalty. However, once an account owner reaches age 65 they can withdraw the money penalty-free for any purpose. For this reason, many people use HSAs as an alternative retirement savings vehicle.
Deferred variable annuity. Contributions to a variable annuity are on an after-tax basis, but the earnings from the investments grow tax-deferred. Taxes on the earnings are typically paid when a retiree begins to withdraw money from the annuity.
However, like most insurance and investment hybrid products, there are many issues to consider before buying a variable annuity. Chief among these issues is cost. Variable annuities have significantly higher expenses than the cost of the underlying mutual funds. In some cases, these costs are so great that they exceed any tax benefits. As a result, it’s critical to evaluate the cost of a variable annuity closely.
Even with low cost annuities, it takes time for the tax benefits to justify the costs. Tim Holmes, a principal with Vanguard Annuity Insurance and Services, says that people should plan to invest in an annuity for a minimum of ten years (and sometimes longer) to ensure that the tax benefits outweigh the cost.
Taxable account. The easiest option is to invest in tax-efficient investments in a taxable account. Investors are often in complete control of when and whether to sell shares, and thus when to pay capital gains tax. For those more comfortable with mutual funds and ETFs, there are many options that are extremely tax efficient. As a general rule, index funds generate relatively few taxable gains from year to year. And some funds are specifically designed to minimize capital gains tax. Morningstar offers a tool called the tax cost ratio that measures how much a fund’s return is reduced by the taxes investors pay on distributions and can help you evaluate the tax efficiency of an investment.
Once you are in the enviable position of having maxed out your retirement accounts, you need to find other places to save. While there are a variety of options to delay and minimize taxes on your investments, taxes cannot be avoided forever. However, the longer you can delay paying Uncle Sam, the more your money can work for you. 
Rob Berger is an attorney and founder of the popular personal finance and investing blog, doughroller.net. He is also the editor of the Dough Roller Weekly Newsletter, a free newsletter covering all aspects of personal finance and investing, and the Dough Roller Money Podcast.
Posted on 5:42 AM | Categories:

India : INCOME TAX FILING GETS LESS TAXING AS PAYTM TIES UP WITH CLEARTAX.IN

WallStAnalyst.com writes: Paytm, India’s largest mobile commerce platform, has added Income Tax filing to its bouquet of services. It has tied up with ClearTax to enable Paytm users to file their tax returns free of cost and hassle free. The single-click tax filing experience enhances customer experience for a difficult process like tax payments – Paytm leading from the front again with the user experience and ease of payments.
Shankar Nath, Senior Vice President, Paytm said, “It is our constant attempt to make things simpler and easy for our customers. We are right in the middle of the tax-filing season, and the online tax filing facility will make it convenient for our users.  The partnership with ClearTax  is in its second year and it blends perfectly with our objective of offering simple and uncomplicated  tax filing solutions for our users. The ‘Income Tax’ tab on Paytm.com helps customers navigate through the maze of tax slabs, making this otherwise lengthy process uncomplicated and convenient.”
To start e-filing of the taxes, all one needs to do is click on the ‘Income Tax ’ tab on Paytm. After signing in on the Paytm account, one can choose to either upload a soft copy of the Form 16 or go through the simple step-by-step guide for filling the form. Both processes are simple and super fast. Additionally, one can also solicit the services of a Chartered Account for a nominal fee.
For Paytm users, the process of filing Tax Returns is truly not taxing anymore. All they need to do is log on through their Paytm account to simplify the daunting task of filing mandatory IT returns!     
About Paytm:
Paytm is India’s largest mobile commerce platform. Paytm started by offering mobile recharge and utility bill payments and today it offers a full marketplace to consumers on its mobile apps. In short span of time Paytm has scaled to over 10 Million orders a month. Paytm's mobile wallet is used by more than 10 million users to pay for various services. 
Posted on 5:41 AM | Categories:

Freshbooks vs. Quickbooks – Best online accounting softwares for small business

Itzik Levy for Simplistics Web Development writes:  As a small business owner, it’s important to keep track of your day-to-day business activities. There are many available softwares for you to choose from, but which is the best?


Quickbooks

Quickbooks dominates the market as the most popular accounting program – your accountants and bookkeepers use it, but is it good for the busy small business owner?
The Good
The Quickbooks Online Accounting Software did a major design overhaul in early 2014 and this greatly improved the overall user experience. The system looks prettier with few options to help simplify your experience. When you register, Quickbooks will customize your options based on your industry and your competitor’s trends. Invoices can now be viewed and tracked online so you can see when users opened an issued invoice and sent payment.
The Bad
Quickbooks provides three online packages, but only the most expensive package contains the necessary tools for your day-to-day business operations. The first two packages contain limited features, many of which most small business owners will never need.
You can send your client’s an invoice, but they are not able to pay it online. You can request a credit card number and store it, but there is no way to charge that credit card without a secondary system. As a busy business owner, we want our clients to pay us without any hassle.
The Lowdown
Quickbooks may be the largest online accounting software that most small business owners use, but it’s not because it’s the best option available. The new system update greatly improved the usability, but the confusing charts and lack of options within the basic packages makes this a software more for accountants and less for small business owners.

Freshbooks

Freshbooks is a Toronto-based company that markets itself as “Accounting made for you, the non-accountant”.
The Good
Customizing Freshbooks for your business is fast and easy – they know how to keep things simple.
Freshbooks automates your business activity so you have less work to do. Start accepting payments online right away and track when your invoices were paid. You can set up Freshbooks to import all your expenses from your credit cards and bank accounts, automatically giving you an accurate overview of your business standings.
Like Quickbooks, Freshbooks has a three-tier package. Unlike Quickbooks, all packages have the same features – you are only limited by the number of clients so that you can upgrade as your business grows.
If you ever run into any problems or have any accounting questions, Freshbooks has a fantastic support system in place. When you call over the phone, you speak directly with an in-house staff member. There is no electronic answering system or wait time.
The Bad
Freshbooks keeps things simple, but with the simplicity it may lack some features. Instead of setting up penalties for late invoice payments, Freshbooks is missing the ability to set up bonuses for early payments.
Freshbooks connections with third-party platforms seems to be dated. The connection with Stripe, for example does not allow you to accept payments from another currency. Freshbooks has a great connection with the Basecamp Project Manager platform, but it will not connect to the new Basecamp.
The Lowdown
No online accounting system is perfect, but so far Freshbooks is the closest to greatness. As an automated system that does most of the work for you, Freshbooks is made for the busy small business owner.
When it comes down to it, Quickbooks may be the most popular software but Freshbooks has a range of features much more suitable for a small business owner. Check out Freshbooks here.
Posted on 5:41 AM | Categories:

Visualization techniques revolutionize modern business intelligence gathering

Jason Tee for TheServerSide.com / BusinessIntelligence.com writes: Data scientists and analysts love digging into the architecture of data to grasp its essence, exploring how it works and divining what secrets it may hold. For some expert users, the very complexity of the data is what provides the "thrill of the chase." However, the average user wants data that’s easy to understand. Visualization has proven to be the best way to make this happen.
Why does visualization work so well?
Noah Iliinsky, data consultant and coauthor of Beautiful Visualization and Designing Data Visualizations, spoke at a LinkedIn Tech Talk about the reason visualization is so powerful for analytics. "It turns out that our eyes and our brains have very sophisticated software built into them for things like pattern recognition and detecting when there are pattern violations on a variety of factors in terms of position, skew, color, size, blur, shape, etc. They are called ‘pre-attentive properties’. We can detect very quickly when something is different or out of position. If you leverage these well, you can design things where you can get a lot of information into someone’s brain very easily and very quickly."
Enterprises are demanding more visualization
Business users may not know the science behind the way their brains process data, but they know what works. Presentation is king. Distilling data into the essential intelligence that will inform business decisions is pointless if the resulting reports are visually opaque. According to a recent TDWI white paper on self-service BI, "For information consumers, the results need to be easier to consume and use, and the solution here is to employ more sophisticated visualization techniques. These vary considerably, from using technologies such asGoogle Maps to display location-specific data, to visualization approaches such as small multiples, scatter plots, heat maps, enclosure diagrams, node links, arc diagrams, and more. Advanced visualization ranked third highest in the survey for enhanced user interface requirements, with 41% of respondents saying this was a ‘very important’ requirement."
Tools must match the source, complexity, and variety of data
Being able to look at the same data in many different ways is critical since each perspective can add depth. The data visualization tools of the past, with their two-dimensional pie and bar charts, simply aren’t refined enough to offer real insight into complex data sets. Imagine trying to track the proliferation of power stations across the United States over time using a traditional Excel spreadsheet and a set of static graphs or charts. Assuming you have the relevant information stored on your SQL server, you could sort and present the data by date of initial operation, by state, by county, by power station type, and so on. 
It turns out that our eyes and our brains have very sophisticated software built into them for things like pattern recognition.- Noah Iliinsky, coauthor of Beautiful Visualization
However, making sense of the data really requires a map—and some way to visually express the changes that are taking place over time. The new "GeoFlow" visualization tool from Microsoft is a good example of how geographic data can be viewed in a way that permits the eye to easily detect patterns. It also includes the ability to drill down into the data after the overall trends become apparent so that users can uncover additional intelligence.
More features of a smart enterprise BI tool
Beyond offering many ways to present BI, the right solution will also give users more control over reporting. While visuals are important, they shouldn’t distract from the data or from business objectives. Every feature should be easy to use and fill a functional role. Here are a few key features that make a difference:
  1. Interactivity, especially the ability to slice and dice the data
  2. Full OLAP support
  3. Static and dynamic capabilities
  4. Visuals that relate to the real world within which the business operates
  5. Multidimensional analysis
  6. Collaboration for team analytics
  7. Real time or near real time capability for live BI needs
Meta-visualization in dashboards
Visualization is about more than individual reports designed for distinct purposes or for certain departments. Dr. Joseph Morabito, Industry Associate Professor at the Stevens Institute, maintained in his 2012 talk about Big Data that different users require different types of visualization in terms of dashboards.
"The strategic dashboard is focused on high-level measures of performance. Typically, they feature static snapshots of data on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis, and there is little user interaction. You don’t want too much here. It’s better to be simple. Analytical displays are designed for detailed data analysis. Here, you’re going to have comparatively more data (and more complex data) but richer comparisons. You’ll have extensive historical data, but still mostly periodic snapshots. You’ll have a lot of interaction here with many OLAP features. Operational data requires a dynamic environment where we are using real-time or near real-time data (as in monitoring a supply chain management system). Here we need to keep it simple, as we do with the executive dashboard, but for different reasons. We need to see problems right away and then drill on demand so we can locate problems as they arise in real time."
In the final analysis, users want more than BI solutions that enable them to achieve goals in their business. They want tools that make them feel smart. That’s the kind of positive reinforcement that provides the motivation leading to innovation. A data visualization solution that is versatile, well-rounded, and accessible for self-service is the best BI tool for this purpose.

Posted on 5:35 AM | Categories:

The Intuitive Accountant really likes: QuickBooks App for Mac

Murph for the Intuitive Accountant writes: So I must admit that I have not been a big fan of QuickBooks for Mac, but I do support it, and I have a lot of clients who use it.  But when I heard that Intuit was launching a Mac App for QuickBooks Online I predicted that it could well be a ‘game changer’ with the QuickBooks for Mac community, and by all appearances in its’ first 30-days since launch that prediction may be coming true. I checked with my friend who recently started using the App to access QBO from her Mac and she says, “it’s the bomb.” (I’m kind of new to all this slang-stuff, but I think that means she likes it; and she accuses me of talking over her head….’what’s up with that?’)

In the past, I like many other windows users’ have struggled with the differences between QuickBooks (windows) desktop products and QuickBooks Online, and while the new (Harmony) version of QuickBooks Online has come a long way in terms of both capabilities and performance, most windows product users still consider it ‘behind the times’ from a feature standpoint.  But QuickBooks for Mac has also always been behind the windows products, and in many ways the feature set of QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks for Mac have been much closer, and continue to be.  For this reason it is probably much easier for QuickBooks for Mac users to migrate to QuickBooks Online, with one exception.  That exception was, until recently, the fact that QuickBooks Online, even when accessed from a Mac browser looked and felt like a ‘windows product’, it didn’t feel like ‘Mac’.  That lack of Mac friendliness (or ‘nativeness’) was a deterrent until recently. [snip]   The article continues @ The Intuitive Accountant, click here to visit the Intuitive Accountant.
Posted on 5:32 AM | Categories:

It’s Cell Phone Courtesy Month! Is Phone Use Tax Deductible?

1800 Accountant writes: These days, everyone has a cell phone. Not only that, most people have smartphones. These incredibly powerful mobile devices are attached to us like an extra limb. July marks National Cell Phone Courtesy Month. This means we should all take a closer look at when, where, and how we are using our cell phones in order to be courteous around others so that we aren’t talking, texting, or playing games at inappropriate times. On a related note, are cell phones and cell phone use considered an IRS tax deduction?

What You Can Write Off

Much like other common expenses incurred by self-employed professionals and small business owners, cell phones and phone-related expenses do qualify as an IRS tax deduction if they are directly related to performing work or business activities. This beneficial tax write-off includes both cell phones and landlines used for these purposes. The deduction also encompasses talk/minute plans, texting packages, and data plans for mobile Internet access.

Claiming This Deduction

In basic terms, the percentage of time spent using a cell phone for business-related reasons can be claimed as a deduction on your tax return. Let’s say you use your cell phone 50 percent of the time for business phone calls, texts to partners, or for data use when browsing the web. You can then write off 50 percent of your phone bill as a business expense when filing your taxes with the IRS. If you have a separate cell phone that you specifically utilize for your small business, your entire bill for this phone qualifies as a deductible business cost. In addition, remember that the purchase price of a brand new cell phone can be claimed by calculating the percentage of time you spend on the phone for work and then multiplying this percentage by the price of the phone. For example, if you buy a $100 phone and use it 70 percent of the time for business, you can write off $70 of the purchase price, along with the costs of your phone plan related to business use.

Simplifying the Deduction Calculation

To simplify the calculation of your cell phone deduction, it is recommend that you request itemized statements from your phone service provider. These statements would appear in the form of a monthly log of all the calls you make, along with the length of each phone call. This information can greatly assist you to determine the amount of time you spent making or receiving business calls in a month, particularly if you use a cell phone for both personal and business purposes. Another option is to simply estimate how much time you spend utilizing your phone for business purposes each month and then calculating the percentage of your total phone bill.

Deductions for Landline or VoIP Phones

While landline phones have become much less prevalent in recent years, they remain a staple for many small businesses in office complexes. Voice-over IP phones (VoIP), which are Internet-based phones, are also popular in the business world nowadays. Landline or VoIP phones used for business purposes qualify as a business expense, according to the IRS. Just like cell phone costs, these expenses can be written off as a tax deduction as well. Because most phone companies offer unlimited minute plans for these types of phones, it makes the deduction calculation process quite simple.
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