Salt Lake City Bookkeeping Blog

Today's post is a guest post from Jerry "Fishfull" Smalley. Jerry is an Iowa native that moved to the Flathead Valley in Montana over 30 years go. He is a retired science teacher, fly tying and casting instructor and an avid fly fisherman. He has written a weekly fishing column for over 30 years in the Hungry Horse News called "Fishfull Thinking." When not fishing you can find Jerry fixing things that he breaks like his truck. 

Short Answer: By Saving Time

And How Can They Save Time?

Long Answer: The FIRST time your TPS light blinks, take your rig to the tire company who charges the least to install Toyota EOM sensors and request all 4 grounded tire sensors be replaced at the same time. Get it done ONCE, then go back to work, doing what you do best. Remember the sensors operate on batteries with an 8-10 year life span. Fishfull recommends Tire-Rama, but be sure they use Toyota EOM sensors, not NAPA. Got 3 done for $102 each; last one cost $86. Toyota dealer wanted $160-$190 depending on who wrote the service work order.

Save Time. Save Money. Increase Productivity. Take Fishfull Fishing!

I consider myself an excellent traveler. However, my wife says I'm the most annoying person to travel with. When I'm travelling somewhere and the airport is involved everything needs to be just so. My bookkeeper instincts kick in and there is only one way to travel; that is the right way. Here is how an efficient bookkeeper hits the road.

In recent months, while at networking events both in person and virtually, I've noticed a lot of conversations with successful entrepreneurs and small business owners eventually gravitate towards the importance of their metrics.  The availability of information and data these days is at an all time high, so why not utilize what's out there and help it improve your business.  Most successful small businesses have valuable metrics that help predict their revenue growth, forecast busy times and slow times, understand customer trends, the list just goes on and on.  The reason I say 'most' businesses and not 'all' businesses is that some business owners fly by the seat of their pants and don't have a grasp of what really drives their business.  To me, these business owners are doing a disservice to their business and employees by not harnessing the profitability of their business, but that's a conversation for another time.

We have written a lot of articles about outsourced bookkeeping and have compiled an eBook titled 10 Reasons Your Business Should Outsource Its Bookkeeping.  Outsourced bookkeeping is what we do so obviously we talk about it a lot.  When you outsource your bookkeeping you should make more money.  You should delegate and outsource those tasks that are not your strengths and focus on what you are good at.  If you are not good at selling the service or product that you offer then you might be in the wrong business.  As we continue to work with new clients we are always identifying new benefits to outsourcing your bookkeeping.   

With the holidays fast approaching there tends to be a last minute scramble to find gifts that your friends or loved ones might really enjoy.  Nothing is worse than getting a pair of socks or
something else that easily could have been regifted.  Getting a well thought out gift is the best, it shows the person you gave the holidays some serious thought and planned ahead (even if you waited to the 11th hour).  Here are 4 last minute gifts for that geeky friend of yours that might be a bookkeeper, accountant, or a number loving workaholic in general.  Be prepared to be met with total elation when these gifts are given.  We geeky types get excited pretty easily when something new helps improve efficiency and save time.  

Bookkeeping, in general, for law firms can be trickier than it sounds, let alone trying to tackle it all at year end.  Nothing is worse than spending time during the holidays trying to figure out a year's worth of financials in order to get them to your CPA before the filing deadline.  This is true for all small business owners, but especially true for lawyers and attorneys.  Law firms, and ultimately the owners, are held to strict compliance standards by state regulatory boards and if anything is out of order during an audit, the law
firm's license could be revoked and the doors forced closed.  Some small firms may risk it and go this route, but it's not the least bit healthy for many reasons.  Keeping track of the transactions within the Interest On Lawyers Trust Account (IOLTA for short and also called Client Trust Account by some) does require some extra attention since it's not as straight forward as one may think.   The last thing a law firm should be doing this time of year is having one of the partners sitting down and trying to make sense of the bookkeeping system instead of going out there and getting new business.  The costs of this outweigh the reward.

A dialed bookkeeping system can really be beneficial to a business.  Having an updated and accurate bookkeeping system can help you make crucial business decisions.  While I feel there are many benefits to having a bookkeeping system that works, I wanted to give you what I feel are the five biggest benefits of an updated and accurate bookkeeping system.  

There is not a company anywhere that wants to pay more tax than they legally have to. That is why it is so important to make sure that bookkeeping mistakes are not resulting in overpaid taxes.

Income taxes, sales taxes, payroll taxes and any other state or local tax that relies on your financial information can be overpaid if the data is not correct. This can total up to a great deal of money. 

The one deterrent to overpaid taxes is to have a highly trained bookkeeper.