You are the author of your companies books!

A nice feeling to me is when I know the financial books are in order. Once all the data is entered to date, all accounts are reconciled and reviewed, I’m confident that the reports are telling the true story of a companies’ wealth.

One reason I like accounting is that everything has to balance. If the bookkeeper/controller is true to her/his work, they will work to make sure everything balances to the penny. You just never know when a $1.00 adjustment is really a combination of errors resulting in a net difference of $1.00.

Once you know that things are caught up and in balance, it’s time to read the reports that tell the story. Learn to read the following reports:
• Balance Sheet
• Profit and Loss aka Income Statement
• Statement of Cash Flow
• Subsidiary reports which may list out items that are shown as totals on the Balance Sheet

Once you understand these reports, you open the book of your company… the General Ledger, this is where the detail is.

And your companies story goes on year after year….

Tofu with Peanut Sauce

In my last entry, I mentioned that I would send you a recipe. Recently, my favorite dish is one I made up but I absolutely love it. I'm trying to stay away from meat. After seeing the movie "Food, Inc" I try only to buy organic meat, but that can be expensive, so I've been eating more tofu and tempeh.

Tofu with Peanut Sauce (spicy)

Saute garlic and sliced onions
Add Tofu (cubed, firm)
Add Shredded carrot (I used my potatoe peeler to shread it)
Peanut sauce (I add liberally, but it might be spicy if you do)

Saute the tofu long enough to get it browned and simmer with the peanut sauce long enough to allow the tofu to absorb the flavor.

I have had this at a restaurant and it includes broccoli and cabbage so you could add any vegetables that you like.

Serve over rice.

Kicking it up

I have decided to kick this blog up a few notches. Let's face it, accounting is boring. If you need help with accounting the best bet is to contact me, schedule some one on one time together and nip your fear of accounting in the bud, or call me and have me do it for you. So...I have decided to include in this blog, some everyday tidbits of my life as a small business owner and under-employed accountant/business consultant.

Yes, that's right, business is so slow that I cannot maintain just with Success In-Formation LLC. I have been hitting the pavement, both literally and the cyberspace pavement, looking for a job. A job that includes benefits so I don't have to wait two years for the government health insurance option (cross our fingers on today's vote).

Back to the blog, I am going to offer interesting information other than accounting, I need to hear from you if you like it, that will determine the direction of my blog. Today I'm making a vegetarian dish with tempeh, kale, sweet potatoes and marsala wine (I'm making it up as I go) If it's good, I will tell you about it. If it's not good, I'll tell you about a different recipe maybe.

If you like this blog, please share it with your friends, the more hits I get, the more traffic to my website and maybe I'll get some much needed income.

I will still offer accounting and business tips, but they will just be a part of this blog, not all of it. Thanks to Cheryl from metro Detroit who called today for QuickBooks help. We will do a short (1.5 hrs) session tomorrow on line. Yes, that's right, I work on Sundays!

American Contractor by Maxwell Version 8.1

What a nice upgrade we now have in American Contractor. New features like the ability to create your own screen views, filter by any field "easily" (you could do it before but now it is much easier) and the cleaning up of many reports and adding new reports, like number S0571 (billing form for AIA type invoicing).

If you are an American Contractor User, it is definitely time to perform the upgrade. The program is stable and much much nicer than 7.8. When you do, your first step should be to go into each "center" and click on View: Customize Current view. You can add calculated fields to your views as well as simple changes like rearranging columns and deleting columns you don't want to see. No more seeing unnecessary fields (like state and zip) on a daily basis unless you really want to. To me, it was wasted space better used for something like "user defined: job type" or "last receipt date".

And if you aren't using info center yet, you will need to now. Drop and drag your outlook contacts into AC and it will create a contact for you in AC that you can use for any purpose, maybe for a "bidders list". Drop and drag your outlook emails into AC and attach them to a job.

For me, attaching invoice PDF's to jobs is a lifesaver for looking up information. And if you are using efax, they already come to you in fax form, so it's so simple to attach the pdf, you don't even need to scan them. But scanning with info center is a piece of cake. One example of the time saving of doing this: a job is a cost plus job, when it comes time to do an invoice, you are required to submit copies of vendor invoices. Now, just go to the job record, click on info center and there they are, waiting for you to print them to send with the invoice.

All in all, Maxwell has shown that they have the resources and the desire to stay in the market for the long haul. While we are in an economic downturn, they are using this time to improve their product for contractors who are also, in it for the long haul.