Checks and Balances Bookkeeping provides full-service bookkeeping and accounting services for small to midsized companies.  We provide our services on-site to customers on Long Island and in the New York Metropolitan area, as well as virtually across the United States.   Our team of qualified professionals will provide you with unparalleled service and guide your company to financial success.

Our services include:
-Bank reconciliations
-Invoicing
-A/R and A/P
-Payroll
-Bill Processing
-1099/W-2 processing
-Check Printing

You didn’t go in to business to do bookkeeping, we did! Let us take care of your bookkeeping so that you can focus on what you do best.

I feel like I am rambling, like a broken record.  (Internal controls, Internal controls, internal controls)

I was reading Newsday this morning, and yet two more cases of financial fraud, by the people in-charge to manage it.
Though you cannot prevent people from doing the wrong thing, there are steps you can put in place to protect your company.  With some internal controls and separation of duties, you can make it difficult for fraud to take place in your company.

See the below links:

Officials: Synagogue treasurer stole $612G

http://www.newsday.com/share/officials-synagogue-treasurer-stole-612g-1.2992881

AG alleges fraud by LI breast cancer group

http://www.newsday.com/share/ag-alleges-fraud-by-li-breast-cancer-group-1.2991125

or else PAY UP!

Worker’s Compensation insurance is NOT OPTIONAL.  New York State law requires all employers operating in NYS to have coverage for their employees, even part time and family members.

If you think its no big deal – look at the penalty:

“Section 26-a says an employer is liable for a penalty of $2,000 per 10-day period of noncompliance, plus the actual award (including both compensation and medical costs), plus any other penalties the Board assesses for noncompliance. In cases involving severely injured employees, the medical costs alone could be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars per injury.” (wcb.state.ny.us)

And

“The sole proprietor, partners or the president, secretary and treasurer of a corporation are personally liable for a business’ failure to secure workers’ compensation insurance.” (wcb.state.ny.us)

PERSONALLY LIABLE for the business’s failure. In business school we are taught that if you have a corporation, you are personally protected by the corporate shield, this is one of the few times where the corporation cannot protect the business owner.

Find more information at:

http://www.wcb.state.ny.us/content/main/Employers/noncompliancePenalty.jsp

Third business owner I met this week that doesn’t know what their overhead costs are.

I think this is something all business owners need to know.  What is your number?  Every month how much needs to come in to cover your expenses?

“Business owners need to have a good understanding of their business expenses and how these expenses impact the overall pricing structure of their business. Most owners understand the cost of individual items but many lack a methodology that insures all these costs are captured in their selling price. They encounter difficulty when they try to factor overhead items such as indirect labor, interest, rent and utilities into their price. These costs are not easily attributable to a particular product or service and often one or more is overlooked.”(http://www.missouribusiness.net/sbtdc/docs/calc_overhead_percentage.asp)

For most companies it’s:

Rent: $1,500
Internet: $60
Phone: $55
Electric: $200
Salaried Employees: $8,000

To determine your overhead expenses you need to:

1. Pick a convenient time period. For instance a month or a bi-weekly period.

2. Put together all of your monthly  and reoccurring bills

3. Calculate your average payroll expenses for that period.

4. Also calculate indirect costs such as accounting, advertising, depreciation, indirect labor, insurance, interest, legal fees, supplies, taxes, travel and utilities.

Yes, that’s right, as of May 30, 2011 businesses will be mandated to e-file their returns and payments, if they meet all of the following criteria:

• It does not use a tax return preparer to prepare corporation tax returns and/or extensions;
• It uses tax software that has been approved by the Tax Department for e-filing corporation tax returns and/or extensions; and
• It has broadband internet access.

 

A few clients have asked; what if they prefer paper returns, whats the penalty.  Businesses who do not file electronically would be subject to:

• $50 penalty for each return or extension that isn’t electronically filed, even if your tax preparer filed the return
• $50 penalty for failing to electronically pay any balance due
• penalty for failure to file a return or report

 

For more information, please see the state website:

http://www.tax.ny.gov/bus/efile/elf_busn_mandate.htm

Earlier in the week I was on the phone with a potential new client reviewing her bookkeeping needs.  She mentioned she had written out everything she did that was taking away time from growing her business and being with her family, and she was going to e-mail it to me.  I remained on the phone why she e-mailed the list to me, only to hear “Why you can’t trust your bookkeeper”, “Excuse me” I said.  She said “I just got an e-mail from the Better Business Bureau, about bookkeepers embezzling money from companies they work for”.  “Oh” I said, “Could you be so kind as to forward that article to me” still a bit shocked.

Reading the article, it was just as I has suspected, the bookkeeper was someone in house, working for a company with no internal controls, or financial regulations.   In other words, they lacked checks and balances.

Putting these procedures in place can take some time, but it is important for any business owner or manager to know what is going on in the business’s accounting.

But as stated in The Virginian-Pilot said “Entrepreneurs aren’t interested in the minutiae of bookkeeping.  It’s utterly boring, so they put their trust in a bookkeeper.” (The Virginian-Pilot, March 27, 2011)

Here is the article if you would like to read more:

http://hamptonroads.com/2011/03/embezzlers-stealing-trust-small-businesses-hampton-roads