Category Archives: Accounting

Virtualizing Your Business To The Top

Posted by on September 9, 2010 Comments Off
In today’s world more and more business are relying in visualization technology in order to support them in their day to day duties, reduce cost, improve bottom line gains and obtain peace of mind.
By outsourcing several aspects of your business you will insure a constant work flow of key elements even while you sleep.  Consider hiring a Miami accountant that sends you biweekly reports on your finances, manages your payroll, maintains the book keeping and detail records of account receivables and payable, now image how it would feel to be free of those obligations? Or perhaps hiring a virtual assistant in the Philippines, India, or in a country outside your local time zone.  While you sleep someone can be collecting leads for you, working on your company next marketing project, your website or any other time consuming task.

This allows you to focus your time on the top 20% of activities that are income producing for you and your business.  By thinking in this way, you are setting yourself up as an automation engine.  Think of it as a computer program that executes itself to perfection each time.  Virtual assistants can be a great asset.  In addition it can be reported as a business expense that you can write of in your taxes.  This is another reason how a Miami accounting firm can be of value.  They can identify what type of deductions are available to you and your industry to save you money.  There benefits of outsourcing and virtualization highly out weighs the reasons not to have one.  A good practice is to hire a VA right away so that you can start getting used to the idea and gain first hand experience of the immense benefits it provides.  It does not matter if you are just starting out or have already expanded your business, the important thing is to get started.

Can You Have Fun Working As A Forensic Accountant?

Posted by on January 22, 2010 Comments Off

When a forensic accountant tells somebody what they do as a living the normal response is “gosh that must be interesting”. It is true that the business can have interesting moments but like all careers it has its fair share of routine work and often can be downright boring.

What is involved in a forensic accountant’s job? Forensic means “pertaining to the court” – and the work involves investigating a financial or business related matter and writing a report that will explain the complex accounting issues so that the rest of the parties can fully understand what is going on. This is why a forensic accountant is essential when dealing with matters of fraud and white collar crime.

Other aspects of the work can include valuing a family business for a matrimonial dispute. The court needs to decide who gets what and a forensic accountant will help them to decide. Alternatively they may be asked to investigate a loss of profits. One company may be suing another for breach of contract and an expert accountant will be asked to determine how much money has been lost as a result.

However, the fun parts of the job probably come mostly with asset recovery work. For example in a recent job I was asked to investigate the losses by a company that had just gone into liquidation. I needed to interview one of the company directors but she had gone abroad to live in Spain. As a result I had to go out to Spain in order to ask her my questions. This meant a three day round trip to a holiday destination! Other times have seen me visit Prague in Czechoslovakia, Nice in France, New York and other places. If you like travelling, this part of the job certainly can be fun!

Another part of a forensic accountant’s job that is more exciting than fun is the first day of an investigation on behalf of a fraud regulator. Investigating on behalf of a regulator means that you will be confered with legislative powers – from the Companies Act or the Insolvency Act for example. In these cases you are investigating a business that has been up to no good – but do not know what to expect until you get there.

Giving fraud advice, working as a financial investigator, an expert witness or an forensic accountant, can be an interesting and rewarding career – but do not forget that you have to be able to do the accountancy work as well!