Category Archives: Tips

Report Comparison Chart for Different Types of QBO Subscriptions

QuickBooks Certified ProAdvisorA colleague recently shared this wonderful link that compares each type of QuickBooks Online subscription and which reports are available in each one:

Report comparison between QuickBooks Online subscriptions (US) – QuickBooks Learn & Support

Her note was, “Here’s a handy chart comparing all of the reports available in the different versions of QBO. I know I can use this reference all the time!”

I had no idea it existed and I was glad to see it… so I thought I’d pass along this convenient summary. Use it in good health. :)

New Rules for Submission of 1099-MISC Forms

Good article recently from one of my favorite publications, CPA Practice Advisor. They note two big changes for filing of 1099-MISC forms.

New IRS rules for submitting late 1099-MISC with Box 7

After January 31, 2019, 1099-MISC with Box 7 filled in should be filed separately from 1099-MISC with any other box filled in. As an example, on February 5, if you have a 1099-MISC with Box 7 and a 1099-MISC with only Box 1 filled in and your e-file provider has put them in the same record, as per last year’s format, the MISC with Box 7 will be flagged as late, which indeed it is. The challenge is, however, that the 1099-MISC with Box 1 may also be flagged as late, even though it is not, since it is not due until Mar. 31.

If companies do accidentally submit non-Box 7 1099-MISC along with late Box 7 forms and get a Notice 972CG (A Penalty is Proposed for Your Information Returns), according to the IRS they may respond and clarify the content of the submission, indicating the number of Forms 1099-MISC that did not report Box 7.

More on this from the IRS here:
https://www.irs.gov/forms-pubs/changes-to-current-forms-publications/filing-forms-1099-misc-with-nec-in-box-7-with-the-irs-dec-2017

New 1099-K State Filing requirements with Gross Amount more than $600

The IRS does not currently require companies to submit 1099-Ks unless the Box 1a Gross Amount for the year is at least $20,000. However, individual states have become attuned to the income reporting possibilities with this form and are mandating submission of the 1099-K for gross payments more than $600. This $600 is the same threshold for 1099-MISC Box 7 reporting.

At the moment, Massachusetts and Vermont have implemented the reporting requirement for 1099-K with more than $600. Be sure to stay up to date with your particular state’s rules as they may pick up this requirement in the future.

Source: New Rules for Submission of 1099 Forms | CPA Practice Advisor

IRS Withholding Calculator: Give Yourself A ‘Paycheck Checkup’

Funny story: Last week I attended the IRS Tax Forum and our keynote speaker was Kirsten Wielobob, Deputy Commissioner for Services and Enforcement. In sharing her enthusiasm for various IRS tools and features, she encouraged us to suggest to our clients that they use the “Paycheck Checkup” (then proceeded to joke about how that phrase makes her think of “how much wood could a woodchuck chuck”).

But that’s not the funny part of the story. That part came when she said that she decided to go ahead and try it out herself, in her own tax situation, and the results came back that she was under-withholding by $500 per paycheck!

My main take-away was that the new “tax reform” has made calculating taxable income so complex that even the revised IRS W-4 form isn’t properly estimating taxpayer withholding. And clocking in at 11 pages of instructions… it’s unlikely most taxpayers will bother with it.

So if you have any concerns whatsoever that you might not be having enough taken out of your check to cover federal taxes, especially if you’re participating in the “sharing economy” — which complicates things exponentially — please do yourself and your tax preparer (so they don’t get shot as the tax-time messenger) a favor and give the new IRS Withholding Calculator a try.

And for the record:

New York state wildlife expert Richard Thomas found that a woodchuck could (and does) chuck around 35 cubic feet of dirt in the course of digging a burrow. Thomas reasoned that if a woodchuck could chuck wood, he would chuck an amount equivalent to the weight of the dirt, or 700 pounds. –American Forest Foundation

 

Source: IRS Withholding Calculator | Internal Revenue Service

City of Chicago Small Business Center on the Road Expo, Sept 8th

The Small Business Center on the Road Expo series is back for 2018! The next expo will be at Truman College Saturday, September 8th from 10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. The expos are free and open to the public.

Keynote Speaker will be Josh Deth, Chairman of the Party at Revolution Brewing in Chicago’s Logan Square neighborhood. Revolution Brewing operates two facilities, an award-winning brewpub and a production brewery growing by leaps and bounds. After landing his first brewery job cleaning kegs at age 20, Josh spent three years at Goose Island Beer Company before launching Revolution Brewing in 2010.

You can also expect:
– FREE assistance from business consultants to begin the licensing process
Resources on Procurement, Financial, Insurance, Consumer information
Financial Advisers on hand to answer questions
– Learn how to perfect your Elevator Pitch
– FREE Tax Clinic: One-on-One counseling sessions provided by Center for Economic Progress (CEP)
– FREE Law Clinic: Legal advice and support provided by The Community Law Project
– FREE Networking Hour: Connect and exchange ideas with like-minded entrepreneurs provided by Chicago’s Office of the City Treasurer from 1:00 – 2:00 p.m.

Source: City of Chicago :: City of Chicago’s Small Business Center on the Road

How To Permanently Delete A Client In QBOA

Great news from a thread with some of my favorite ProAdvisor colleagues today. So few of us knew this option had been added that I want to make sure I share the info here.

The question was posed:

“If someone had added you to their QBOA (QuickBooks Online Accountant) company as a team member, and you no longer work with them, can you remove yourself somehow? Or do you need to request that they take you off their team?”

The answer used to be that you either had to ask the client to take you off their team, or you could make the client “inactive”. But there was no option to delete the client from your list in QBOA.

Now there is! With a few caveats and tips.

  1. Click on the name of the client in your client list; then click the drop-down button next to “edit client”. You should see a “delete permanently” option.
  2. If you are the master admin or billing contact for the file, it won’t let you delete them.
  3. You have to do the delete in a browser incognito mode for it work. It doesn’t work in Mac desktop app.
  4. The email confirmation notification is very generic and doesn’t tell which client’s file you removed yourself from. It just says “my Firm has removed access their accountant access to your QuickBooks Online account”.

https://community.intuit.com/articles/1456507-make-a-client-active-or-inactive-or-delete-them-permanently-in-qboa

Note: Many reps in QBO Support do not even know this function exists, and they keep telling us to just make them inactive.

Thanks to Ufuoma Ogaga and the entire Business Workflow & Management community for this!

Source: Make a client active or inactive or delete them permanently in QBOA – QuickBooks Learn & Support

Being Paid “On the Books” Pays Off

I recently received this email from someone considering a new position:

“I haven’t worked a job that wasn’t under the table in nearly a decade, so forgive my ignorance on this matter. Basically, I’m thinking about accepting a part-time job that will be a W-2 situation. The hourly rate is $20, but I’m concerned that after taxes, it would only be about $16 per hour. I have an 18-year-old daughter, who will be starting college in the Spring. My question is: Will I still get the Earned Income Credit (EIC) on my tax return? I will only be making approx $15,000 per year or less with this job. Even without EIC, would I get a tax refund because my income will still be so low? I’m just not sure how taxes work. I imagine they’re all taken out as I go with a W-2, and then if I prepare a tax return, I get some or all of the money back? Last year my employer gave me a 1099 & I still got a refund.”

Income and payroll taxes can certainly be confusing, especially if the person is used to being paid “under the table”… I’ll do my best to explain it, though my ability to give personal tax advice is limited by how little I know of the taxpayer’s individual situation, and because there are liability issues if they’re not a client of mine. However, I felt my blog audience might benefit from the exercise.

First: there are two types of ways of being paid that are referred to as “under the table” — and given the small amount of information in the excerpt I received, I’m taking a guess that it’s the second kind.
1) Real “under the table” pay means that none of the money the worker receives is documented to the required federal and state agencies, and neither the employer nor the employee is reporting it and paying taxes.
2) An independent contractor situation is where an employer gives a 1099 to the employee, meaning that the employer did not pay taxes for the employee, and the employee gets stuck with all the taxes.

Neither of these is desirable for the employee/taxpayer. If it’s #1, then that means the neither the employee nor the employer paid into Social Security, Medicare, Unemployment or Workers’ Compensation… which means that when it’s time to claim from any of those programs, they’re out of luck. If it’s #2, then it means the employer isn’t paying their share of Social Security or Medicare — the employee has to pay all of it in the form of self-employment tax. And again, there’s no Unemployment tax or Workers’ Compensation insurance being paid, which is nice for the employer… but awful for the employee if they lose their job or get hurt.

Secondly, the Earned Income Credit has nothing to do with whether a taxpayer is paid as a W-2 employee or 1099 independent contractor. As long as a person is single with one child (which sounds like the situation here), they can make up to $40,320 and still qualify for the credit — the maximum credit is $3,461 in this case, for 2018.

The problem with truly getting paid under the table with the EIC is that some people lie and report less than they actually made, in order to make it look like they qualify under the limit. But remember, that’s #2 above. If the taxpayer is getting a 1099 or a W-2, there’s no difference with the credit either way.

Lastly, I know it seems like a $20/hr job only ends up paying $16/hr, but that’s not accurate. All the taxes that are being withheld are potentially eligible to be refunded at the end of the year when the employee/taxpayer prepares their tax return — if their tax liability ends up being less than they paid in, then they get the balance returned to them — the EIC generally increases that amount, but they may get a refund even if they don’t qualify for the EIC… in which case they may want to adjust their tax withholding for the following year to have less taken out with each paycheck. A tax preparer can help fill out the W-4 form to get this as close as possible when an employee takes on a new job.

The amazing part is that their employer is paying half of the Social Security and Medicare taxes for the employee! This doesn’t happen with a 1099, which is why usually an employer is taking advantage of their employees when they try to do that instead of using a W-2 form. When the taxpayer goes to claim Social Security and Medicare, the reason the system can afford it is all of the employers that pay part of these taxes on behalf of their employees, along with paying the Unemployment tax to the state and springing for Workers’ Compensation insurance. Being an employee is WAY better than being a 1099 contractor. And they’re both better than being truly paid “under the table”, since when those folks go to claim Social Security or Medicare, there’s nothing there for them… because they never paid into the system. It can come as a horribly unfortunate shock.

Here are a few good articles that back up what I just explained:

I hope this is a helpful lesson on being an employee. It’s really a great way to go, because the employer is taking care of their staff… instead of taking advantage of them.

 

Fundamentals of Small Business Information Security

The National Institute of Standards and Technology has published a free guide to the Fundamentals of Small Business Information Security. It offers tips on information security and cybersecurity that are specific to the needs, resources and restraints of small businesses.

The National Association of Tax Professionals recommends this guide not only for small business owners, but for their accounting practitioners. The nature of the work we do is inherently sensitive, and we should be protecting both our businesses and our clients by “making data security a daily priority”.

In order to do this, the guide suggests we first understand and manage our risks, and then safeguard that information. Their five-step-plan for this includes:

  1. Identify
  2. Protect
  3. Detect
  4. Respond
  5. Recover

The pdf publication not only provides details on how to accomplish each of these steps, it also includes an appendix of worksheets and another of templates for policy and procedure statements.

From the NIST:

For some small businesses, the security of their information, systems, and networks might not be their highest priority. However, an information security or cybersecurity incident can be detrimental to their business, customer, employees, business partners, and potentially their community. It is vitally important that each small business understand and manage the risk to information, systems, and networks that support their business.

Download the free guide here. Protect your data and your clients’ data, and be a value to those you serve by recommending they do the same.

Important Changes to Illinois Business Tax Payment Forms On 1/1/19

A quick note about something all Illinois businesses and tax preparers should be aware of — starting 1/1/19, IDOR is going to have all businesses make all tax payments via one type of voucher per entity.

So that means whether you are making:

1) quarterly tax “pre-payments”;

2) extension payments; or,

3) tax due payments;

they’ll all be submitted on one type of voucher for C-Corps (IL-1120-V), one type of voucher for S-Corps (IL-1120-ST-V), one type of voucher for Partnerships (IL-1065-V), etc.

It’s not a big deal in terms of execution — in fact, it makes that part a bit easier — but it’s still really important to know about the change.

It means that when accountants and their clients (or staff members) are referring to tax payments of any of those three kinds, we need to be especially clear about which type it is — since we can’t presume the other person will know what we’re talking about based solely on the form number. (It used to be IL-516-B for most pre-payments, IL-505 for extensions, and then form/entity-specific for tax payments made with the return, so one could just refer to the form number… and the other party would understand what type of payment was being made — and therefore how to log it accordingly).

Also, if clients or staff are going through client memos in QuickBooks or looking through files to figure out what they paid and when, it will be a little harder to determine, since we will no longer have the additional meta-data of the name of the form, in a sense helping us figure it out. Another reason to get better about making sure to enter accurate descriptions in the memo field in your accounting software.

More information here:

http://tax.illinois.gov/Publications/Bulletins/2018/FY-2018-29.pdf

Just wanted to make sure we’re all on the same page! Or rather, the same tax form.

Source: Fiscal Year Bulletins – 2018

My Three Top Accounting Tips

I recently received the honor of being named one of the Top Accounting Influencers of 2018 by Fit Small Business. As part of the interview process, they asked me for a list of three “top accounting tips” — and they picked one for their article. I figured in announcing the award, I should share all of the tips I provided in a related post, so here you go!

1) Involving an accountant in your business should be one of the first steps a business-owner takes, well before taxes are due. (I’m not saying this just because I’m a CPA; I’m saying it because I see the results of this oversight regularly.) This doesn’t mean you can’t file your own taxes… but if you take the time to consult with an expert first, you’ll make way fewer mistakes when you do. A qualified accountant who specializes in your industry can help you with so many of the key issues that otherwise might come back to haunt you at tax-time — from entity choice to software selection to funding your business.

2) Selecting the right type of entity (sole proprietor, LLC, partnership, S-Corp, etc.) can make a huge difference in both liability and taxation issues. It’s important to understand the rules of the entity type you choose — for example, if you’re an S-Corp, pay yourself “reasonable compensation” via payroll; it’s the law. With the changes in the new tax law, this piece of the puzzle has become even more complex and more important.

3) Technology should play a role in every aspect of your business — accounting, tax and bookkeeping are no exception. Find a CPA who understands and embraces the ways in which tasks can be automated, with an eye toward improving efficiency, accuracy, and audit-proofing your company. The right technology stack can improve inventory and ordering, point of sale, collections, payroll, workflow, forecasting and cash-flow. Almost every system can be leveraged such that the books become a daily source of information for making real-time management decisions… not just a requirement for tax compliance.

Follow these three tips, and in my opinion — the rest will follow.

Source: Accounting Software Reviews You Can Trust: Top Accounting Influencers

The Dancing Accountant Named One of “Top Accounting Influencers”

Exciting news! Yours truly was named one of the “Top Accounting Influencers of 2018” by the popular web resource for small businesses and freelancers, Fit Small Business.

I have three initial reactions to this extremely high compliment:

  1. I am humbled and honored to be in the same space as some of my most respected colleagues. Just recently at a retreat for bookkeeping professionals, Cindy Schroeder introduced one of the speakers — Geni Whitehouse — in the context of how long she had admired and respected her. Cindy shared the experience of when she once discovered she was on the same list of conference speakers as Geni… and how in that moment she felt she had really “made it”. I can now second that wonderful feeling, as Geni is listed immediately next to me on the Accounting Influencers article.
  2. I could not do what I do without the incredible support of an amazing staff. Jessie Goldbaugh takes care of the lion’s share of bookkeeping and staff accounting services in the firm, and Ali Szymanski and Heidi Jacobson provide all the administrative support (and in Heidi’s case, probably most of my emotional support as well). My husband, Mark McClelland, is my personal IT guru and help-desk. Without the dedication of these hard-working folks in my life, I could not spend nearly as much time researching, pursuing continuing education, consulting and writing up related findings.
  3. Ultimately, it all comes down to providing services for my fabulous clients. It is their needs that cause me to constantly push forward, always learning something new, continually taking continuing education webinars, attending conferences and retreats, and researching — and then synthesizing and publishing, in the form of my blog — what I have learned. Were it not for them, there would be no point in it, and I would not be able to take a passion and turn it into a living. So, thanks to all the beautiful small businesses who give us the opportunity to be on your team.

P.S. In the interview process, Fit Small Business asked me for a list of three “top accounting tips”, and they picked one for the article. I figured in announcing the award, I should share all of the tips I provided in a related post — here. Enjoy.

Source: Accounting Software Reviews You Can Trust: Influencers