The first part of this series has already been posted. It is titled Increasing Productivity with the small things. In that post I summarized several small techniques or tools that you can use to increase your office productivity. This post will focus on several more things that you can do to increase your overall productivity. I will assume that you already have a small business or are thinking of going in to business for yourself. I think that this is most useful for startups and smaller companies. Productivity is a [...]
Increasing productivity with the small things
This will hopefully become a series of posts. I am currently doing some consulting work for several small businesses near my home and there seems to be an interest in office productivity. Productivity is an accountant’s best friend. We love to count and measure, and the result is usually a clearer pathway to increase productivity. Increasing productivity is something that everyone should be focused on or at least aware of. Generally we think of productivity in the manufacturing world as an hourly or direct labor statistic. This is very important. [...]
Thoughts on this IFRS thing
For those of you who don’t know. IFRS is International Financial Reporting Standards. They are a body of professionals independent of country that create standards for all countries to follow. They aim to create an international standard so that as the global market grows, investors can have comparability and consistency among reporting methods. This has yet to be implemented in the United States but is up for debate. I realize that this is an insanely huge topic. But I thought it would be good just to throw around some common [...]
Counting Money and Making Money
One of the main reasons I switched from being a math major to being an accountant was the money. To be honest I do like money. When I did the research of the most profitable careers that required just a college education, accounting was among the top. Actually the starting salaries are not great. Engineers, database managers, software programmers, and consultants usually start off better than accountants. But I like to look at the best return for my time and stress; also job availability. With all these things in mind [...]
Foreign Earned Income Exclusion
Ok, so I wrote a post about my friend and the International tax exemption here [link], but I totally forgot about the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion which may be the best option. This exclusion will allow you to exclude a certain amount of your foreign earned income to not be taxed in the US. This is of course only for U.S. citizens or resident aliens living abroad. Currently the limit is $95,100. You must pass several requirements to qualify: You must be earning income in a foreign country (pretty obvious) [...]
Text to Columns
My last year at university one of my professors gave us a side lecture about some useful excel tips we will use once we start working. I don’t remember all of the tips that he gave us but I do remember that he taught us about ‘text to columns.’ He said that we would use this function many times for sure. I was somewhat familiar with that function but I could not think of any practical uses for it. It wasn’t even two months in to my first job that [...]
Depreciation Expense Accounting
Depreciation seems to be very confusing to a lot of first year accountants. This doesn’t need to be a hard subject. Basically, depreciation is separating cost over time. It does not affect cash flow. For example if you buy a pencil and you use it for 2 years. First you would record the price you paid for the pencil let’s say that is 5 dollars (premium pencil). So your cash goes down 5 dollars the moment you purchase the pencil. But the useful life of the pencil you know will [...]
Because I am an Accountant does that mean I am a Tax expert?
Accountants are always good at taxes… false! Most accountants do not deal with taxes. Accounting is a broad field and includes many different types of jobs. Mostly auditing and business decision support. This may come as a shock to many people. I am often asked questions about personal income taxes. It’s true in my case I actually do some studying about personal income taxes for my sake but I do not claim to know how to help anyone else. But as an accountant I have learned some common personal tax [...]
About Accounting Professors
I have often wondered about the life of an accounting professor. My professors in school seemed to enjoy their job and their lifestyle. I always envied them but assumed they didn’t receive much pay as their big 4 partner counterparts. After some research I found that I was right but at the same time I was wrong. Accounting professors make good money I was shocked to find out that accounting professors can start out making over 100k. And that is just for 9 months. Many professors will work during the [...]
International Tax Exemption
A friend of mine moved to Korea recently. His company provided him with some tax support to help with the year that he would have income from two different countries. I thought it might be beneficial (and educational) to tell you his story. He worked from January to March in the United States and then from March 5th through the remainder of the year he worked in Korea. Now, I am not a tax expert but I have heard that the double taxation for a U.S. citizen living and working [...]