Protect your Assets...

I've been in business for over 21 years now. All too often small business owners are too willing to turn over the "Keys to the Kingdom" by delegating too much of the financial management of their businesses. This is one of "THE" most important aspects of being in business that you must embrace and educate yourself in.

You do need to understand your financial statements and how the cash flows through your business. You do need to delegate the mundane tasks, and separate duties never allowing anyone of your employees full access to the accounting. YOU do need to review your own bank statements. You need to remain in control of the check signing authority. You can set aside sums of cash for petty cash expenses for your office, hold an employee responsible for reporting all expenses to you.

Cover your assets my friends, don't become another "news item" where the headline reads "Bookkeeper Embezzles"...

MI UIA response

The State of Michigan Unemployment Agency going through "growing pains" with new system. This is the e-mail I received today explaining what's been going on.

"Dear Employer:

We have recently become aware of an issue that some employers are experiencing regarding the addition of a 3% penalty that is incorrectly reflected on some 2012 and 2013 unemployment insurance tax rates. We have received many phone calls regarding this issue in the last several weeks and want to take this moment to let you know how we are handling this situation.

The new MiDAS automated tax system at the Unemployment Insurance Agency (UIA) is part of our continuous effort to improve and modernize the Unemployment Insurance Agency. This system replaces one which is nearly 30 years old. In an effort to reduce paperwork, and employer time filling out paperwork, UIA forms 1017 and 1020 were replaced with a single new form, UIA form 1028.

The UIA assigns a 3% non-reporting penalty to any employer’s rate when the employer had a missing quarterly report during that rate year. The new UIA system assigned a 3% non-reporting penalty to any employer’s 2012 rate when the employer had a missing 1017 quarterly wage report OR a missing 1020 quarterly tax report; this was an error. The old UIA system only assigned a 3% non-reporting penalty to any employer’s 2012 rate when the employer had a missing 1020 quarterly tax report, and this is what the new system will also do.

Therefore, UIA is removing the penalty where it was applied due to a missing 1017 wage report and is re-determining the employer’s rate to correct this error. This will be applied to the 2012 Tax Rate Redeterminations issued December 11, 2012 and subsequently to the 2013 Tax Rate Determinations originally issued December 28, 2012.

As the 1017 and 1020 were replaced by a single report, the 1028 combined quarterly tax and wage report, this cannot happen in the future.

Several Michigan employers were affected by this and we apologize for any inconvenience this has caused. Rest assured that we are quickly fixing this issue and those affected should be receiving a re-determined rate very shortly. Should you have any questions regarding this matter, or if we can assist you on any other issues feel free to contact us by phone at 1-855-484-2636 or by email at: OEO@michigan.gov.

Thank you for doing business in the State of Michigan.

Steve Arwood
Acting Director
Licensing and Regulatory Affairs
611 W. Ottawa Street
4th Floor Ottawa Building
Lansing, Michigan 48909
517-241-7124"

Changes in tax laws...

List of IRS forms that 1040 filers can begin filing in late February or into March 2013

I've been asked about these changes quite a bit lately. If you look at this list, these changes are effecting your year-end tax accountant, not bookkeeping.

The change that effected bookkeeping and payroll was the Social Security rate for employees returned to 6.2%. And our payroll software updated that correctly for January.

This time of year is always my busiest, as I process 4th. Qtr. taxes, W-2's and 1099's.

QuickBooks and Windows 8

Please don't be an early adopter of technology!

QuickBooks and Windows 8 don't play well together. If you must, because you cannot stand the suspense, please install Windows 8 on a machine you aren't going to have to rely upon for your business.

I received my first phone call today from a neighbor who did just that, now she's unable to e-mail invoices to her customers. I asked her who recommended that she upgrade, but no one did, she decided to try this on her own. At the end of our conversation she said she would go back to Windows 7.

Always consult with professionals before major updates in operating system on your main production software, and that means QuickBooks 2013. There are those of us who enjoy picking apart new releases to see how many bugs we can find. Don't be an unwilling beta tester of new software releases, stick with what you know until all the bugs are worked out.

This is a site that I trust, with a reliable and knowledgeable author. I hope you find this enlightening.

Charlie's Rants - QuickBooks and Windows 8

Michigan Unemployment Qtr. report

Michigan Unemployment tax processing is still very challenging with the new MiWAM web site.

If you are having trouble with the new system this month download the new UIA 1028 form to report and pay your 3rd. Qtr. State of Michigan unemployment taxes. The new 1028 form combines the old UIA 1017 & UIA 1020 forms.

http://www.michigan.gov/documents/uia/1028_Internet_394774_7.pdf

When it looks fishy, it probably is phishing... for your info!

A long-time client of mine sent me an e-mail yesterday asking me if she needed to to this. She received an e-mail, in the body of the e-mail was this message:

"You will not be able to access your Intuit QuickBooks without updated Intuit Security Tool (IST™) after 31th of August, 2012.

You can update Intuit Security Tool here.

After a successful download please run the setup for an automatic installation, then login to Intuit Quickbooks online to check that it is working properly."

As long as you have your QuickBooks set to Auto Update, you have all the security updates that you need. Intuit will never contact you like this asking you to click on a link.

If you're ever unsure of any link sent to you in any e-mail, hover your pointer over the link, in a moment it will display the web address of the link it's taking you to. In this case it was not Intuit.

I'm so glad she asked! You can never be too careful!

QuickBooks, IE9 and Online Banking...

More time wasting conflicts today...

Microsoft Internet Explorer 9(IE9)is the default browser when you use QuickBooks online banking features. IE9 may conflict with your bank's export of your QuickBooks transaction file.

If this happens you to, log off of your online banking within QuickBooks. Choose another browser to access your bank's web site. Today I used Google Chrome successfully. Download your transactions as your normally would. Install by clicking on the downloaded file, or save the file and use Banking > Online Banking > Import Web Connect File. Then proceed to review transactions as you always do.