Whether your bookkeeping is outsourced or not,  preparing and using budgets is an important tool for your success.  Why spend time budgeting?

• A budget can greatly enhance your chances of success by helping you estimate future needs and plan profits, spending and overall cash flow.
• A budget allows you to perceive problems before they occur and alter your plans to prevent those problems.
• Budgets help you determine how much money you have and how you will use it
• Budgets help you determine whether you have enough money to achieve your financial goals.
• A budget can help convince a banker that you know your business and have calculated its needs.
• Budges help measure performance.
• A Budget can be used to perform “What If” scenarios on changes in income and expenses.

 When you’re running a business, it’s easy to get bogged down in day-to-day problems and forget the bigger picture. However, successful businesses invest time to create and manage budgets, prepare and review business plans and regularly monitor finance and performance.

Dashboard Accounting

330-908-0888

8536 Crow Drive, Suite 120

Macedonia, Ohio 44056

www.DashboardAccounting.com

Press Release on Workshop for Budget Planning

If you’re like many small business owners, you handle payroll yourself. Maybe you don’t trust using small business payroll services. Perhaps you get pleasure in personally handling the money, when each of your employees gets paid. Maybe you’re trying to save a few bucks by keeping it in-house instead of using a small business bookkeeping service.

Cutting paychecks once was much easier. But thanks to today’s laws… deductions and the IRS… the simple task of paying your staff has evolved into a time-consuming nightmare.

In fact, many payroll do-it-yourselfers don’t even realize how much time they spend on payroll alone. Recent studies showed that small business owners spend an average of eight hours a month performing payroll functions.

That’s 12 full days a year — over two working weeks! Wouldn’t that be better spent generating sales, prospecting new business opportunities, improving products or services, or servicing customers?

Instead of working on payroll, you could be generating more business so you actually can make payroll. Instead of cutting checks, you could be collecting them – from fresh sales.

In today’s competitive economy, it makes sense to outsource bookkeeping help and payroll, with small business accountant solutions that meet your business’s needs. Letting go of this one task will quickly let you to spend more time doing what you do best… like running your company.

Here’s why you should outsource your payroll:

• Save money – Use your staff more efficiently by letting professionals handle payroll and the associated legal details. This allows you to better contain your overhead, removing expense of specialized employees.
   
• Save time – Outsourced payroll services eliminate the hassle of customizing, updating and maintaining your own payroll system. No more data entry… no more researching updates or stressing about new laws… no more worries.
   
• Worry-Free Tax Filing – Eliminate the risks of calculating and filing your own payroll taxes. Have professional CPAs do it for you. Federal, state and local payroll tax laws always seem to be changing, becoming more complex. Your time can be better spent than researching new rules and updates.
• Easy-to-Understand Payroll Reports – You get a wide variety of user-friendly and accurate payroll reports. For a tiny fee, we can even include union reports, certified payroll, workers’ compensation reports and much more.
• Let the pros handle it - Our professional staff allows you to focus on the core competencies of your business. You get true accounting professionals working for you and with you.

When you’re ready for book keeping service — whether you need bookkeeping Akron or bookkeeping Cleveland — there are many bookkeeping firms and bookkeeping businesses from which to choose. At Dashboard Accounting, we specialize in virtual bookkeeping and outsource small business accounting services, giving our clients the complete financial picture and expert advice — all at a price that makes sense. We’re also QuickBooks certified, and can train you on small business software tax, payroll, and serve as a general accounting software consultant. For more details, go to www.DashboardAccounting.com.

Most small business owners hope to at least break even, right? Trouble is that one bad calculation on your part can turn your profits into losses in a puff of smoke. “Now you see ‘em… now you don’t!” Like the magician who forgot to load the rabbit, you’re left standing there holding an empty hat, when your audience (your staff) is counting on you to deliver.

Virtual bookkeeping can help your small business can do better than that.

When times are tight, an outsourced book keeping or outsource CPA service can give you the bookkeeping help you need, while helping you run your business at greater efficiency. It helps make your “break even” and your profitability easier to manage.

A basic break-even analysis is the number of units you need to sell in order to make a profit of zero. When your total revenue equals your total costs, you’re at break even. That’s the sweet spot – anything over that amount is the gravy that makes business profitable and worthwhile.

To make this easy for you, plug in your fixed and variable costs and other details into the free calculator tool at the Dashboard Accounting website,  www.DashboardAccounting.com (see “Resources” for “Financial Calculators” for the Sales Volume Break-Even Analyzer).

But use your best judgment here. As wonderful as our free calculator tools are, they may not give you the complete picture… especially if you don’t have solid data to feed into the equation. (It helps is you use bookkeeping firms or at least part-time bookkeeping to make sure your data is up to date and accurate.)

For instance, one area often underestimated without a small business accountant is your fixed costs (versus variable costs). This is the sum of all costs involved in producing any product at all. This fixed-cost number should include the salary you ought to be paying yourself. Also remember that the fixed cost amount does not change as sales/production volume increases or decreases. Consider it your core expenses.

Professional small business accounting is highly valuable to your business growth. Once you have a solid break-even analysis, your expectations become clear. You can create realistic goals… and then have “stretch goals.” You’ll know your “at least” amount you can afford to sell… and then your specific requirements for increase from there.

When you outsource bookkeeping, you’ll have professionals helping you to gather the details you need so your calculations are based on fact — and not on hunches and “guesstimates”. It gives you the edge you need – for less than you’d expect to pay for the quality support you receive.

For more information about accounting outsourcing service, and great calculators and other business tools, check out www.DashboardAccounting.com.

An outsourcing book keeping service is a very efficient option for many small and medium sized businesses.  But many business owners bulk at working with an outsourced bookkeeper due to some myths that they probably still believe.
Myth:  Big businesses can only afford to outsource.

Fact: Outsourcing of accounting functions used to be the prerogative of big business. Now with better sharing options, virtualized books, web based accounting packages and more, small businesses can work daily with their outsourced bookkeeper to keep information up to date and keep control of their information.

Myth:  Accounting Outsourcing is not reliable.
Just as with hiring an on site employee, you have to be careful about interviewing and setting standards to ensure you get someone that you want to work with.  The best virtual bookkeeping firms are going to become a part of your team and do a great job.

Myth: Complex IT integration is essential.
Every year the tools get better.  It is now possible to set up a virtual bookkeeping software in minutes.  You will be surprised at how easy it is now, whether you use Quickbooks Accounting Software or another option.

Myth:  Outsourced Accounting leads to job cuts

At Dashboard Accounting, all employees are employees in the US and working under the close supervision of a virtual CPA.  Even with the higher wages vs overseas, it is still a big cost savings to businesses because they get a team that is optimized to meet the needs of the business and do the job at a fraction of the cost of a full time book keeper.

You may not understand everything about small business bookkeeping and accounting, but you probably do know it takes both time and commitment to do a good job. 

Keeping track of your personal life – and your personal finances – can be a task in itself. You may find it easier to employ an outsource accountant to do the job for you, if that’s an option.

But when it comes to your business, getting the right accounting solution is huge! Making that decision – deciding what small business accountant to hire, who you can trust, who you can afford for accounting services – is crucial to your business.

The best small business accountant will partner with you, helping you navigate the details important to the success and growth of your company. Beyond what a simple software program (like quick book accounting software) can provide, the right accountant helps steer you toward your goals faster.

If you are a small business owner, you may simply need a outsourced book keeping service or bookkeeping help. These services help keep you up to date and organized; they can keep you posted on transactions that may not be known to you — or even clear to you — so you get an idea of what’s going on with your financials. Solid accounting keeps your business going forward. 

Figuring out payroll can be a headache unto itself. With so many different small business payroll services available, you need to have an idea of what you specifically need them to do for your business in order to find the right one.  It helps to find bookkeeping firms that treats your small business as well as it treats big companies. They should take the time to explain the accounting help they offer. Communication between both parties has to be open and trustworthy.  Professionalism is a must.

You’re already aware that the accounting of a business is a system of recording and summarizing financial transactions so the data can later be analyzed, or used to communicate with others. The accounting process packages financial information for a variety of individual or business purposes.

Small business and entrepreneurs just starting out should remember the Accounting Equation — The value of the things you own (called assets) is equal to the value of what you owe for the things (called liabilities), plus what you don’t owe for (called equity). Of course, transactions can get a lot more complicated… but these principles remain.

For a small business owner, however, financial matters need to be taken care of by a professional. Outsourcing accounting service may be the solution — and often the missing link — in an otherwise well-run business.

Basic knowledge of accounting and bookkeeping is something you need to have. But for today’s small business, small business bookkeeping services are a must for those passionate about success. Dashboard Accounting helps you drive your business forward.

A Business Owner utilizing a traditional bookkeeping accountant, in which they send all their financial information to bookkeeping firms at the end of the month, may wait weeks before receiving the results of the financial reports.  Months could pass before the Business Owner realizes potential problems, and the losses could be huge!

Dashboard Accounting’s utilization of Real Time Virtual Bookkeeping provides Daily, Weekly, and Monthly financial reports that are available to view at anytime.  This means the Business Owner no longer has to wait until the end of the business cycle to analyze the company’s performance!

The timely financial reporting gained from Real Time Bookkeeping is an invaluable benefit from utilizing  Dashboard Accounting for your company’s accounting needs.  The Business Owner is empowered to make intelligent decisions and allows time for critical adjustments to prevent weeks of lost income.

Let Dashboard Accounting be your company’s small business accountant, and enjoy all the cost savings that outsourced book keeping provides.  Dashboard Accounting uses Quick Book accounting software and has Quick Book Pro advisors.  Dashboard Accounting is centrally located to easily accommodate bookkeeping Cleveland and bookkeeping Akron needs or may service anyone worldwide utilizing virtual bookkeeping.