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You might think cash is the most essential resource to a business owner, but it’s not. As a business grows, the business owner quickly finds that it’s not cash, but time that’s most difficult to come across.Bookkeeping, accounting, payroll. All of these are key to sustainably growing a business, but they also require time.On that note, meet John. John decides he’s going to go into business painting houses.Year 1John’s sets up an LLC as a one man operation. He spends most of his time painting houses, but has enough downtime between jobs to manage his business books himself. He sets up QuickBooks Online and, for efficiency, syncs his business bank account with QuickBooks. As revenue and expense transactions run through his checking account, he categorizes them in QuickBooks. At the end of the year, John’s confident the Profit and Loss statement in QuickBooks is accurate, and he relies on that information to prepare his income tax return; disclosing his business activities on Schedule C.Year 2John’s an amazing painter. In fact he’s become so busy that he’s had to hire 2 employees to assist help him. John’s got a lot on his plate, but still manages to squeeze in a couple hours a month to update his business activity in QuickBooks. However, having employees is a big change. John knows there are federal and state taxes he’s supposed to withhold from his employees’ wages and there are forms he’s supposed to file, but he’s not sure what they are or when they’re due. John could pass on a few jobs and set aside some time to research payroll and labor laws, then set aside an extra few hours a month to handle all the payroll duties, but instead, John hires the payroll processing company ADP to manage payroll for him. To get started, John provides the company with basic information about his employees. From there, John notifies ADP of his employee’s hours each pay period and ADP handles issuing checks, withholding taxes, and preparing the necessary payroll filings. John just makes one payment to ADP each pay period, and they take care of the rest.When tax time rolls around, John’s not as confident with the accuracy of his books as he was last year. There were a lot more transactions in his bank account this year. He’s also not certain that he recorded all of his payroll entries correctly. Instead of preparing his tax return himself, John meets with a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) to get some guidance around cleaning up his books. Further, John engages the CPA to prepare his tax return; as John would rather be making money painting houses than sitting in front of a computer worrying about whether he’s doing his taxes right.Year 5Business is booming. In fact John is so busy he rarely touches a paint brush anymore. John has a whole crew of employees working for him. The company has 5-10 jobs going at all times. John is constantly running between jobs and closing sales with new customers. He no longer has time to keep up on his QuickBooks. Rather than letting things fall behind, John engages a part-time bookkeeper to manage the books for him. The bookkeeper logs into John’s QuickBooks, categorizes the bank transactions and records payroll. John logs into QuickBooks periodically to review the financial reports and make sure everything is still on track. John meets with his CPA quarterly to identify tax planning opportunities and to make sure that when tax time rolls around, there are no surprises.As a business grows, the business owner’s time becomes more and more valuable. Rather than wrestling with accounting processes that are time consuming and confusing, outsource those functions to professionals and focus your attention on revenue-producing activities.

On average fraud continues for 18 months before it’s going to be detected. These occupational frauds represent the threat to small businesses and you’ll be surprised to know that the most of the fraudsters are first time offenders with clean record.Here are the best practices to minimize the risk of fraud.Separate the duties: The best practice to prevent frauds is to separate the duties like authorization, record keeping and custody of assets. No employee should have control over these 3 primary accounting functions.If you are in a 2 person office then:Duties assigned to one personMail checksPayroll ( Approval )Account Receivable and General LedgerPurchases, checks and invoicesDuties for second personBank transferCheck signingPetty cash reconcilingManage payroll (Distribution)Invoice processingBank statement reconcilingFurthermore, if you are a three person office than designate the third person as a bookkeeper that will assist the office manager and owner/manager in invoice processing, bank deposits and checking writing etc.If you are a four person office, then the fourth person can be assigned to the payroll process, purchases and protect the book from fraud.Check Tempering Controls:· Go for Outsource accounting services (much affordable) or hire an additional accountant (expensive) to separate the duties like date entries and bank reconciliation.· Switch to electronic checks instead of a paper check· Only owner or manager has access to the bank statement and cancelled checks.· Setup a bank account with daily transaction download.· Payee of cancelled check must compare with QuickBooks (or any other software you prefer)Payroll Fraud controlOutsource payroll to automated billing system.That will require manager/owner permission for any changes in payrollFraud detection tool offered by your outsource accounting partner. That will match the account number, check number and amount.How does outsourcing help to stay compliant & avoid payroll penalties?Billing Fraud ControlMatch invoices to purchase order.Separation of duties bill payment and bank reconciliationUse of electronic bill paymentReview the approved vendor listScan bills, then link them in QuickBooks in matching transactionDoes every company need financial accounting?Conclusion – These all tasks divert you from your core business tasks to manage back end office tasks, and it directly affects your business performance. The best solution is to go for Outsource Accounting, that will save your cost up to 60% and access your accounting details anytime anywhere with cloud based accounting. These outsourcing firms are committed to their word as they are very sensitive about their reputation.

I use the following three mobile apps to save time in my busy schedule. Something to organize my stuff and write notes, manage my finances and to automize my repetitive tasks in the Internet… That saves me time!1. Evernote: Organizing everything from a project to small personal moments.Also considered a note taking app, but with task-listing and archiving functionalities. Evernote allows you to take notes, add pictures, web page excerpts, voice memos attachments, and hand-written notes, and even scan documents with your mobile's camera.But what really makes Evernote an amazing tool is that it offers a free usage plan with certain limitations and a paid plan with extended capabilities. Evernote is a cross-platform tool, it is supported by Windows, MacOS, Android, and iOS.2. Mint: Comprehensive Money managerA complete and free money manager app from Intuit Inc (The software developers that brought you QuickBooks and TurboTax). Mint is an all-in-one app that allows you to create a budget, track your spendings, learning how to save and becoming better at your own finances.Mint gives you everything you need in a single and centralized platform. You can link your bank accounts, credit cards, monthly bills, and see them in one place.The app will send reminders when is time to pay a bill so you avoid late fees. It will also notify you when a bill is due, the amount that you owe and what percentage you can pay.And probably the best in this list…3. ifTTT: Helps apps and devices work together.ifTTT or (if This Then That) is a free online service used to create easy conditional statements (or applets). An applet can be caused by a change that occurs in another service, such as Instagram, Facebook, Gmail, etc. ifTTT has a very large collection of applets.ifTTT is gaining a lot of popularity. Over 11 million users are using the service with more than a billion of applets a month. This app is looking to become the one that connects everything together.Some of the amazing things that ifTTT can do with the help of applets?Lock your front door or turn on the porch light when pizza delivery arrivesTweet your Instagrams as native Twitter pictures.Tell Alexa to call your phone.Track your daily Fitbit activity on a Google Spreadsheet.Create an event on your Calendar with a voice assistant like Google Home.4. There are probably more apps and tools, that can help you manage your time better, if you are a project manager, consider Asana or Trello. If you are a designer, Canva has a lot of templates that will save you time. CloudConvert will convert all those file extensions right in the cloud, so you don’t have to use multiple local utilities.But everybody is different, we do have different jobs, tasks, etc. For me, those are the most important 3. There is a very comprehensive guide with about 77 productivity tools that will definitely help you find your best solution.