Amid the uncertainty of 2020 and into 2021, leaders in all industries are taking a close look at their revenues, costs, and cash flow. These considerations are important and sometimes urgent, especially in the past year or so. One approach is to focus primarily on cash flow. A cash flow focus alone won’t always [...]
In February 2016, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) issued Accounting Standards Update (ASU) 2016-02 – Leases (Topic 842), which contains substantial changes in the accounting for leases by lessees: organizations which lease assets. The new lease accounting guidance will require lessees to record an asset and liability on the statement of financial position [...]
Your financial reports should provide the relevant information you need to make financial decisions. An analysis of your company’s Chart of Accounts should be done to compare these accounts with the data utilized in the report, so you have quick access to the information you need. All accounting systems ultimately gather costs or revenues [...]
As businesses grow, trust and delegation can cause the business owner to be less hands-on with their financials. Small businesses don’t always have the people and resources to put the proper checks and balances in place. As a result, small businesses are more susceptible to employee fraud. It’s important to understand how employee fraud [...]
As your small business grows, the demands on your time and energy grow, too. You and your employees can find yourselves consumed with activities that creep beyond your passion and proficiency. This can be risky for your business, at worst, and boring or unfulfilling for you and your employees, at best. Many business owners [...]
Have you recently provided your financial statements to a lender, investor, large customer or vendor? Did you wonder what they were looking for? Were you caught off guard by the questions they asked or the decisions they made? Financial statements reveal a lot about a business. Readers of financial statements use financial information to make [...]
There has been a lot of commotion in the gifting arena recently. Gifting is something to consider when moving farm assets from one generation to another. Particularly land if the intention is to keep it in the farming operation indefinitely. Timing may be of the essence when it comes to gifting decisions and getting [...]
Taxable Limit Bases & Rates Social Security wage base $137,700; rate 6.2% Medicare wage base unlimited; rate 1.45% Additional Medicare tax 0.9% on wages in excess of $200,000 Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA) wage base $7,000; rate 0.6% Iowa unemployment tax wage base $31,600 You should have received a notice of your 2020 rate in early [...]
The Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC) is a federal tax credit available to employers for hiring individuals from certain target groups who have consistently faced significant barriers to employment. The target groups include unemployed veterans, ex-felons, designated community residents in Rural Renewal Counties (ages 18 to 39), etc. Some of the Rural Renewal Counties [...]
The IRS is being more aggressive in assessing penalties for 1099 forms that are filed late or not filed at all. The penalties range from $50 to $530 per form. The penalty depends on the size of your company, how late the filing occurs, and the intentions for missing the original due date. In [...]
