Individuals Services
To Individuals, we provide the following
services:
Upon request, we will
provide you with the following services (starred services are provided
monthly or quarterly with our Bookkeeping services at no extra charge):
(if required, Clients Agreement available):
Balance Sheet:
A balance sheet is
a snapshot of a your financial condition at a specific moment in time. A balance sheet comprises assets, liabilities,
and owners’ or stockholders’ equity. At any given time, assets must equal liabilities
plus owners’ equity. An asset is anything a business owns that has monetary value.
Liabilities are the claims of creditors against the assets of the business.
A balance sheet helps to quickly recognize your financial strength
and capabilities.
A balance sheet can identify and analyze trends,
particularly in the area of receivables and payables.
Balance sheets, along with income statements, are the most basic elements in providing
financial reporting to potential lenders such as banks, investors, and vendors who
are considering how much credit to grant the business.
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Bank Reconciliation:
Bank reconciliation is performed monthly when the business receives the bank statement.
It plays a very important part in a business' cash control procedures. It verifies
the amount of cash in your checking account.
The cash balance in the your checking account will never agree with the balance shown
on the bank statement because of the delay in checks and deposits clearing the bank,
automatic bank charges and credits that have not been recorded, and errors that
might have been made in the books.
Let us prepare your bank reconciliation so that you can be comfortable that the
account balance shown on your books is up-to-date.
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Bookkeeping:
Accurate financial records will help you answer some very important questions. Are
you making money, or losing it? How much? A sound bookkeeping system is the foundation
on which all of this valuable financial information can be built.
As a financial individual, you have more important things to do than to keep your own books. We take
care of your books for you, so you can concentrate your time and efforts into doing what you prefer.
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Budgeting:
Budgeting is a tool
to help you to reach your financial goals. It is intended to be an organized way
to compare income and expenditures over a relatively short time frame (a week, month,
or a year). It should allow you to forecast your income and expenses, monitor your
progress, and make changes as needed to achieve your goals.
Income budgeting: when setting up your budget,
you should not look only at the cash outflow (the payments you
make), but we strongly advise you to closely monitor the personal
income as part of the budget-creation process.
Budgeting for expenses: although many small
business owners would agree that scrutinizing personal expenditures is a necessary
part of a personal budget, setting up and maintaining control over expenditures
is often what you'll find most difficult and tedious.
Budgeting tools: finally, you can match your income
with your expenses and see what needs cutting back, or where you need to make increases.
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Cash Flow Analysis
Cash flow analysis is the study of the cycle of your cash inflows and outflows, with the
purpose of maintaining an adequate cash flow and to provide the
basis for cash flow management.
Cash flow analysis involves examining the components that affect
cash flow, such as accounts receivable, inventory, accounts payable, and credit
terms. By performing a cash flow analysis on these separate components, A. P. Accounting
& Bookkeeping Services will identify cash flow problems and suggest ways to
improve your cash flow.
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Cash Flow Statements:
A cash flow statement reports the movement of cash in and out
in a given period. Cash includes currency, checks on hand, and deposits in banks.
Cash Flow Statements are broken down into three sections:
- Operating activities
- Investing activities
- Financing activities
Operating activities (all transactions
and events that normally enter into the determination of operating income) include
cash receipts from selling goods or providing services, as well as income from items
such as interest and dividends. Operating activities also include your cash payments
such as inventory, payroll, taxes, interest, utilities, and rent. The net amount
of cash provided (or used) by operating activities is the key figure on a statement
of cash flows.
Investing activities include transactions and events involving the purchase and
sale of securities (excluding cash equivalents), land, buildings, equipment, and
other assets not generally held for resale. It also covers the making and collecting
of loans. Investing activities are not classified as operating activities because
they have an indirect relationship to the central, ongoing operation of your business
(usually the sale of goods or services).
All financing activities deal with the flow of cash to or from
the business owners (equity financing) and creditors (debt financing). For example,
cash proceeds from issuing capital stock or bonds would be classified under financing
activities. Likewise, payments to repurchase stock (treasury stock) or to retire
bonds and the payment of dividends are financing activities as well.
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Credit Card Reconciliation:
Reconciling revolving credit card debt can be a challenge.
Entering the charges as the credit card is used will eliminate the need to do it
when the statement comes each month, plus recording the transactions throughout
the month will result in more accurate interim financial information. In many situations,
for a variety of reasons, this is not practical.
There are other alternatives. You could:
- Enter
one charge for the month for the total amount purchased using the credit card and
manually reconcile the receipts to the statement. The detail lines can be entered
as splits so the general ledger remains accurate.
- Enter
one charge for the month for the total amount purchased and code it to a credit
card clearing account that will be reclassified based on the receipts. This method
can be more cumbersome.
- Enter
the detail transactions individually when the statement arrives and any transactions
without a receipt are noted as such in the memo field (so a report can be generated
and cleared as receipts are obtained) or coded to a credit card clearing account
pending reconciliation with the receipts.
The methods mentioned above requires
you to spend your time and resources in tasks that take time away
from the things
you like the most.
Let A.P. Accounting and Bookkeeping Services take care of all
your needs, so, you can concentrate on spending your time in more pleasant ways.
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Financial Planning:
Our mission is to provide high quality and affordable financial planning guidance
to individuals who are just starting out or to individuals that want to learn
how to manage their financial affairs. Help these individuals articulate their lifetime
financial goals and create a plan to achieve them.
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Individual Income Taxes
Preparing your own income tax return can be a task
that leaves you with more questions than answers. According to a study released
by the US Government's General Accounting Office last year, most taxpayers (77%
of 71 million taxpayers) believe they benefited from using a professional tax preparer.
Whether we like it or not, today's tax laws are so complicated that filing a relatively
simple return can be confusing. It is just too easy to overlook deductions and credits
to which you are entitled. Even if you use a computer software program there's no
substitute for the assistance of an experienced tax professional.
Here's what your get:
-
Your tax return will be checked and rechecked by our computer
software identifying potential problems the IRS may look at more closely and reviewing
the math to limit IRS contacts.
- Your tax return can be filed electronically so you will
get a refund back quicker.
- Our staff will show you how to adjust your payroll withholding
to get more money back each week. Why give the IRS an interest free loan for up
to 16 months.
- We will show you potential deductions to limit your tax
liability for next year. In addition, we will give you a sheet of commonly overlooked
deductions to limit the following year's tax liability.
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Sales and Use Taxes
In Connecticut the state sales and use taxes are generally imposed at the rate
of 6 percent. The Connecticut sales tax is imposed on the retailer (or service
provider) measured by taxable gross receipts. However, the retailer is entitled
to collect reimbursement of the tax from the purchaser. The use tax is based
on the retail sales price for the storage, acceptance, consumption or other use
by a person in Connecticut. The use tax is not imposed on sales or services that
are subject to the sales tax.
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