Along with shopping, eating & drinking local, the crew here at Bottom Line Management loves it when we get the chance to help support other local North County San Diego businesses.

Join us at Señor Grubby’s 11th Anniversary Party & Charity Event to Support Warrior Foundation Freedom Station!

Señor Grubby’s is throwing their 11th Anniversary Party & Fundraiser to support the Warrior Foundation Freedom Station.

The charitable event will feature carnival games, a dunk tank, face painting, raffles, giveaways, and more to raise money for injured warriors recovering at Camp Pendleton, Naval Medical Center San Diego and Naval Base San Diego.

The event is free & open to the public, all ages are welcome. Here is a link to the event press release.

All proceeds will be donated to Warrior Foundation-Freedom Station to fund quality-of-life items, support services and transitional housing for injured veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

We are proud to be sponsoring the event, along with:

• Blackheart Building Solutions
• Stipp Law Firm
• GEARWRENCH
• Crescent Tools
• Scott Kennedy – First Team Real Estate
• Brio Skin Studio
• E&D Framers
• 3 Cubs Realty
• eLiveLife.com
• Anar Party Rentals
• Camarena & Associates
• My Preferred Lender
• Pacific First Realty
• The Movement
• Interchange Plus
• Los Tacos
• Grubby’s Poke & Fish Market

If we missed you at the last Spring Fling event at the Oceanside Moose Lodge, we hope you make it out to Señor Grubby’s, here are all of the event details:

• WHEN: Wednesday, August 7th, 6-10pm
• WHERE: Señor Grubby’s (Carlsbad) – 377 Carlsbad Village Dr. Carlsbad, CA. 92008

Help Support Warrior Foundation Freedom Station

Come join Bottom Line Management and all of the other local Carlsbad & Oceanside businesses sponsoring the Señor Grubby’s 11th Anniversary Party

We’ve invited all of our clients & neighbors to join us for some great food, entertainment, carnival games, face painting for the kids, a dunk tank, jump house, Libre Tequila photo bus and more.

Party services include a photobus by Libre Tequila, treats for sale from Handel’s Homemade Ice Cream, printwork by Pacific Coast Printing, t-shirts by Whitlock Ink, graphics by Ray Goudey II, magic performed by Dr. Jeff Pearson aka ‘The Magic Doc’ from Medicine in Motion, and bounce house by Beach City Jumpers.

There will be plenty of swag to go around, but be sure to get there early as the first 100 guests will get a FREE swag bag.

And be sure to stop by the Bottom Line Management booth to say hi & see what we have in store for our guests!

Let us know if you’ll be attending: https://www.facebook.com/events/770806499980202/ (RSVP encouraged, but not required!)

Carlsbad Bookkeeping & Accounting Services

Betty Moore is the numbers nerd behind Bottom Line Management.

Betty and her staff will save your business time and money by turning piles of receipts into complete financials with every penny accounted for.

Here at Bottom Line Management, we love keeping track of ALL the financial activity in your business, down to the penny!

This will help alleviate any financial problems and keep you in the know. We take pride in our clients and their company so they can have peace of mind.

We let you focus on what you do best — running your own business.

Connect With Your Carlsbad Bookkeeper

Click the icons below to connect with us on social media!

Did you give your business financials a Spring cleaning this year?

As a business owner, you understand the importance of having essential financial documents at the ready.

Things like your balance sheet, income statement and cash flow report should be easily accessible and updated regularly.

But do you really need to keep seven years worth of federal & state tax returns?

Yes, you do.

But, while you want to hold onto some financial documents like tax returns, others can be shredded and tossed.

If you’ve already taken steps to go green with your business then you’ve probably taken a big cut out of those mountains of receipts, bills, pay stubs, tax forms and other financial documents.

So how do you know what to keep and what to toss?

We’ll get into that, but first, let’s divide and conquer.

Use this blog post as a guide of which financial documents to keep, and for how long.

3 Steps To Give Your Business Financials A Spring Cleaning

Step 1: Get Rid Of The Clutter

There’s a good chance that a good deal of the paperwork in your files can be thrown in the trash – or shredded.

Be careful to shred anything that contains personal information like birthdays, social security numbers, bank accounts…etc.

Generally speaking, you can safely trash the following items:

• Paycheck stubs after reconciling with W-2 form
• Expired warranties
• Coupons after expiration date

Let it go!

Step 2: Categorize & Organize

Once you’ve made a good swath through the trash pile, do yourself a favor and set up a system to separate important financial documents into four categories:

1. Documents you need to keep for 1-3 months.
2. Documents you should keep for 1 year.
3. Important documents you need to keep for 7 years.
4. Essential documents you should keep forever.

Have a system and a place to collect, categorize, file and store these documents.

Step 3: Keep It Up

Now that you’ve created a system, the key is to actually use it, regularly.

This will help you avoid this major spring cleaning next year…and every year thereafter.

A system does you no good unless you’re actually using it.

What Financial Documents To Keep & For How Long

Keep for 30-90 Days

• Utility bills
• Sales receipts for minor purchases
• ATM and bank deposit slips

Keep for 1 Year

• Checkbook ledgers
• Paycheck stubs
• Monthly mortgage statements
• Expired insurance records

Keep for 7 Years

• Bank statements
• W-2 and 1099 forms
• Receipts for tax purposes
• Cancelled checks
• Disability records
• Unemployment income stubs
• Medical bills/claims
• Records of paid-off loans

Keep Forever

• Annual tax returns
• Deeds, mortgages and bills of sale
• Year-end statements for investments
• Legal documents (birth certificates, marriage license, divorce papers, passports)
• Home improvement documentation and receipts
• Receipts for major purchases—for warranty and insurance purposes
• Wills
• Living wills
• Power of attorney designation
• Medical and burial instructions
• Beneficiary directions
• Real estate certificates
• Automobile titles
• Current insurance policies
• Medical records
• Education records
• Pension plan records
• Retirement plan records

Carlsbad Bookkeeping & Accounting Services

Betty Moore is the numbers nerd behind Bottom Line Management.

Betty and her staff will save your business time and money by turning piles of receipts into complete financials with every penny accounted for.

Here at Bottom Line Management, we love keeping track of ALL the financial activity in your business, down to the penny!

This will help alleviate any financial problems and keep you in the know. We take pride in our clients and their company so they can have peace of mind.

We let you focus on what you do best — running your own business.

Connect With Your Carlsbad Bookkeeper

Click the icons below to connect with us on social media!

If you own a business in Oceanside, the tax rate has increased from 7.75% to 8.25%, effective April 1, 2019.

The tax rate for all other cities in North County San Diego remains unchanged.

The sales and use tax rates vary depending on your retail location, with a base sales and use tax rate of 7.25 percent applied statewide.

In addition to the statewide sales and use tax rate, some cities and counties have voter- or local government-approved district taxes.

Know Your Sales and Use Tax Rate

As a retailer and local business owner, it’s important that you know and understand your sales & use tax rates.

In addition to sales & use taxes, district tax areas also exist in most counties and cities in the state. In addition, there may also be more than one district tax in effect in a specific location.

More than 75% of all businesses in California are located or do business in areas with a district tax.

How do you find out about the current sales, use, & district tax rates in your specific municipality?

To verify the tax rate for your business location:

• Find a list of the latest sales and use tax rates at the following link: California City & County Sales & Use Tax Rates
• You can look up a tax rate by address
• Visit or call their offices
• Call their Customer Service Center at 1-800-400-7115 (TTY:711). Available 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday, except State holidays.

The California Department of Tax & Fee Administration has a variety of helpful resources to assist retailers and purchasers in determining the correct sales and use tax rate for any city or county in the state.

What Tax Rate Should You Use?

According to the CDTFA, if your business is located in an unincorporated area of San Diego County, you should generally collect the county sales and use tax rate.

Generally, you must collect, report, and pay the rate for the district (statewide rate + county + city) on the sale of taxable items if you are engaged in business:

• At a business location within the district;
• With representatives in the district who make sales or deliveries into the district;
• Leasing merchandise in the district; or
• Selling or leasing vehicles, undocumented vessels, or aircraft that will be registered in the district.

However, it is not always possible to determine the correct tax rate based solely on a mailing address or zip code.

Visit the aforementioned CDTFA links to offers these tools to find the most current tax rate for any jurisdiction in California.

How Will You Know If Tax Rates Change?

When a tax rate changes, the CDTFA notifies retailers by providing information in a special notice, businesses can sign up to receive email notifications and get the latest news and updates.

When do you begin charging the new rate?

Again, this sales & use tax increase is only affecting business in Oceanside, the rates remain unchanged for the remainder of North County San Diego.

If you own a business in Oceanside, the sales and use tax rate increase went into effect on April 1, of this year.

Your business must collect, report, and pay the new rate beginning on and after the effective date.

Generally, district tax rates become effective on the first day of the next calendar quarter, at least 110 days after the adoption of the district tax.

Carlsbad Bookkeeping & Accounting Services

Betty Moore is the numbers nerd behind Bottom Line Management.

Betty and her staff will save your business time and money by turning piles of receipts into complete financials with every penny accounted for.

Here at Bottom Line Management, we love keeping track of ALL the financial activity in your business, down to the penny!

This will help alleviate any financial problems and keep you in the know. We take pride in our clients and their company so they can have peace of mind.

We let you focus on what you do best — running your own business.

Connect With Your Carlsbad Bookkeeper

Click the icons below to connect with us on social media!

Do you struggle to find the time to get your books squared away each month?

Do you wish there was a solution that doesn’t cost an arm & a leg?

QuickBooks makes accounting easy, in fact business owners can save an average of 42 hours per month with QuickBooks.

In fact, according to Intuit, over 98% of customers say that QuickBooks helps them run their business more efficiently.

What Is QuickBooks?

QuickBooks is an accounting software developed by Intuit.

QuickBooks products are geared mainly toward small and medium-sized businesses and offer both on desktop & cloud accounting applications.

The software has all of the features to enable any business owner to record the daily activity of their company’s operations:

• Accounts Payable
• Accounts Receivable
• Bank & Credit Card Reconciliations
• Sales Tax
• 1099s
• Year-End Financials

See QuickBooks In Action

QuickBooks Is Now Better…On Amazon

Have you ever lost what you were working on because your Internet service went down?

Imagine you were working on something really important when that happened, that would be pretty frustrating.

As more and more companies move to the cloud, improvements are being made continuously to improve the reliability of their services.

And QuickBooks is leading the charge to a more stable online platform by moving hosting for their online products to Amazon Web Services.

When QuickBooks Online goes down, businesses lose money.

Now with QuickBooks using Amazon Web Services, these outages should be significantly reduced.

Amazon Web Services will be able to accommodate spikes from customers during the busy tax season for TurboTax and QuickBooks Online customers, – which previously led to outages & delays – making the service more reliable.

How Can QuickBooks Save Your Business Time & Money?

QuickBooks desktop & online versions keep the business financial activity organized all in one place.

The online version offers (2) subscriptions with multiple users.

So, your staff, your bookkeeper, and your CPA can all share your books for seamless collaboration.

“I always recommend QuickBooks Online to our clients because it’s better access for all of us and data is saved in the cloud.”

Betty Moore | Bottom Line Management

12 Ways QuickBooks Will Help Your Business

1. Simplify paying bills and put more time in your business.
2. Track payments to 1099 contractors throughout the year.
3. Create estimates before invoicing customers.
4. Email invoices directly to customers.
5. Accept payments quicker through Intuit merchant services to improve cash-flow.
6. Track inventory from shelf to shipment.
7. Process payroll at your fingertips.
8. Organize your business income & expenses in one place.
9. Control your books with robust user roles & permissions.
10. See the big picture at a glance.
11. Maximize tax deductions to put more money in your pocket.
12. Track projects & manage work your way.

QuickBooks Training & Consulting Services In Carlsbad

Betty Moore is the numbers nerd behind Bottom Line Management.

Betty and her staff will save your business time and money consulting or training you & your staff on how to navigate the software and manage the bookkeeping in-house

We are an experienced QuickBooks Online Accountant and a QuickBooks Pro Advisor.

Here at Bottom Line Management, we love keeping track of ALL the financial activity in your business, down to the penny!

This will help alleviate any financial problems and keep you in the know. We take pride in our clients and their company so they can have peace of mind.

We let you focus on what you do best – running your own business – while we focus on our best – bookkeeping.

Connect With Your Carlsbad Bookkeeper

Click the icons below to connect with us on social media!

Cash flow is basically the money that is moving in and out of your business in a given month. Think of it as a window into your business checking account.

If more money is coming in than is going out, you are in a “positive cash flow” situation and you have enough to pay your bills, employees, advertising…etc.

If more cash is going out than coming in, your business checking account will be overdrawn, and you’ll be in a “negative cash flow” situation.

• Cash comes into your business by way of your customers or clients that purchase your products or services. If customers don’t pay at the time of purchase, some of your cash flow is coming from collections of accounts receivable.

• Cash goes out of your business by way of payments for expenses like employee wages, rent, utilities, operating costs, loan payments, tax payments, and other accounts payable.

While there are ways to cover cash flow problems in the short term with working capital – like a bank loan, or line of credit – these are not long-term solutions for any healthy successful business.

Running a business is hard work, and that work comes with a wide array of challenges, one of the biggest being managing your cash flow.

Many business owners often underestimate the importance of positive cash flow, they fall victim to thinking that if their business is earning revenue then it will continue to result in growth.

“Revenue is vanity, profit is sanity, but cash is king.”

The fact is, without adequate cash flow your business will certainly not grow, and could very well fail altogether.

According to The Small Business Administration, “inadequate cash reserves” are a top reason why startup businesses do not succeed.

Check out this example of a simple cash flow spreadsheet.

6 Ways To Improve Cash Flow

1. Setting Up A Budget

Create & maintain a budget based on using actual cash in/cash out from the past.

When you are able to predict your monthly accounts payable – such as rent, wages, taxes…etc. – and factor those costs against the income you expect to bring in from sales of your products and services you can identify if & when you’ll need a boost in working capital to cover any negative cash flow situation.

This is where accounting software like QB will help because with QuickBooks you can easily set up a Budget for a calendar year.

Then compare the budgeted amounts against the actual amounts every month to see if you are on track.  

This will help you manage your cash flow more efficiently.

2. Define Your Payment Terms

This one is more for professional services more so than retail, simply because at the retail level businesses sell something and get paid for it at the time of sale.

For other businesses invoicing is a popular way to collect payment from your customers.

What’s important to remember here with regards to cash flow is to make sure that your payment terms are communicated up front and clear enough for your customer to notice.

Furthermore, your payment terms should account for times when you don’t receive payment from a customer even though it is due or past due.

In this case, it’s important to have a follow-up process in place and to clearly communicate that process as part of your payment terms.

Automated invoicing solutions can help you by notifying you when customers have received – and viewed – your invoice, and enable you to set up automated reminders should the invoice go past due.  

When your payment terms are understood and enforced, your cash flow situation will be less likely to enter the negative zone.

3. Streamline Your Invoicing System

No business wants outstanding account receivables, streamlining your invoicing process or system will help you collect payments that are due.

In the digital age, print & mail invoicing has essentially gone the way of the DoDo.

Why spend time manually creating an invoice each month, then paying for postage, then waiting for the mail to get to your customers?

Again, online invoicing solutions can alleviate this time-consuming task.

Instead of waiting for your customers to receive their invoice via snail mail, then send it back to you the same way, you can shave off hours each month by using an online system.

You create the invoice, send it via email, then afford your customer the convenience of simply opening the email, clicking on the payment button and submitting their online payment to you.

If your business deals with invoicing, streamlining your system will immediately improve your cash flow.

4. Ditch The Pay By Check Option

Again, we’re in the digital age here, if your business still accepts checks you are negatively impacting your monthly cash flow.

Checks are one of the most inefficient payment methods in terms of cost and speed of payment.

Instead of checks, enable your customers to pay you by credit or debit card. Even a bank transfer would be more desirable than a check.

Got customers who are stuck on using checks?

Here’s one way to make life easier for you, and more cost-effective for them; offer an incentive to switch.

For example, you could offer a discount on their invoice if they switch from paying by check to paying electronically.

Removing the option of your customers paying by check will improve your cash flow situation, immediately.

5. Update Your Point of Sale

This one is especially true with retail businesses.

We’ve all seen them by now, digital payments are the du jour of retail.

No longer do retail business owners have to deal with carbon paper copies of those sliding credit card imprint thingees, nowadays there are many efficient & cost-effective digital point of sale systems to fit any size business.

Not only is this the digital age, but we’re also in the mobile age.

Given the growth of mobile and digital payments, your customers are already used to using electronic payment systems.

With an updated point of sale system in place, the sales transaction is both quicker for you to get your money and more efficient for your customer to give you their money.

That has a direct impact on your cash flow, in a positive way.

6. Leverage 0% Interest Credit Cards

Maintaining positive cash flow isn’t just about how customers pay you, it’s also about how you pay vendors, suppliers, utilities, taxes, and other accounts payable.

Leveraging interest-free credit can have a positive effect on your cash flow.

Talk to your bookkeeper or accountant to see if using an interest-free credit option is a viable option for your business.

Some financial institutions offer up to sixty days interest-free credit.

Just remember, you will need to keep a close eye on actually paying those recurring costs to ensure you don’t go into the negative by having to pay late fees, repayment fees or interest fees – which would negate the whole idea in the first place.

Another option to leverage zero-interest credit is to talk with your suppliers and vendors.

Maybe they would give you a discount for early payments, just like when you offer a discount for your customers when paying their invoice electronically.

Carlsbad Bookkeeping & Accounting Services

Betty Moore is the numbers nerd behind Bottom Line Management.

Betty and her staff will save your business time and money by turning piles of receipts into complete financials with every penny accounted for.

Here at Bottom Line Management, we love keeping track of ALL the financial activity in your business, down to the penny!

This will help alleviate any financial problems and keep you in the know. We take pride in our clients and their company so they can have peace of mind.

We let you focus on what you do best — running your own business.

Connect With Your Carlsbad Bookkeeper

Click the icons below to connect with us on social media!

Bookkeeping and accounting are two of the most important ongoing tasks for any business owner, and it should not be a do-it-yourself endeavor.

You want your business to grow, in order to do so you need to delegate certain aspects of running your business to qualified individuals you trust to do their jobs.

While you don’t have to outsource or delegate everything, there are certain things that just don’t make sense to do yourself.

Bookkeeping and accounting are two areas of your business that are best handled by a trained professional.

Here are four reasons why DIY bookkeeping & accounting will hurt more than help your business.

4 Pitfalls of DIY Bookkeeping & Accounting

1. You Don’t Have (or Make) The Time

On any given day you’re busy tending to all of the different responsibilities that go along with maintaining and growing your business.

As your business grows time management becomes an issue, this is when some essential tasks fall by the wayside as higher priority issues grab more of your attention.

Despite your best efforts to effectively manage & maximize your time, there are always unexpected issues that arise requiring your attention – and time.

This is when those essential tasks start to fall down the priority list, you figure, “what’s the harm if I just delay my bookkeeping & accounting to the next day, week, or even month?”

Before you know it, it’s been a couple of months since you last tended to the bookkeeping & accounting.

If you aren’t able to schedule and stick to doing bookkeeping tasks religiously, you’ll fall behind on recording your expenses and reconciling bank & credit card statement.

This will eventually lead to big financial problems for your business.

Free up your time to do what you do best – run your business, leave the bookkeeping & accounting to a professional.

2. Mistakes Can Cost You

The term tax audit sends shivers up the spine of business owners.

Nobody wants to experience a tax audit, and many business owners feel that if they haven’t done anything ethically wrong or committed a crime, that if an audit does befall you, you’ll work your way through it.

But that’s not always the case.

Even the simplest clerical errors can appear like fraud to an IRS investigator, and it’s not so easy to prove something that appears to be misleading is just a simple mistake when dealing with numbers and money.

That is of course unless you have an efficient bookkeeping & accounting system in place, with well-organized financial records.

We enjoy letting our clients stay in their comfort zone by taking their piles of receipts and records off of their hands, that’s what a professional bookkeeping service does.

An efficient bookkeeping & accounting service makes sure everything balances to the penny every month, and when you complete your year-end service, you want everything in a neat financial package that’s ready to go for your CPA.

Clients tell us that makes their tax season go a lot smoother, and limits their probability of making costly mistakes that could result in a tax audit, or worse.

3. Time Is Money

As a business owner, on any given day you’re being pulled in many different directions.

Each hour of your time is valuable, and even though you’re doing the bookkeeping & accounting services yourself, you’re still incurring a cost.

To help you determine whether a task is better assigned to a dedicated person or you’re able to do it yourself, you can attach a value to the time it takes to complete the specific task.

This will help you determine whether that task is best completed by yourself, or by someone whom you’ve delegated to handle it.

For example, if you decide that your time is worth $75/hour and you spend 40 minutes each day on accounting and bookkeeping tasks, you’re spending about $1,000 a month.

As a business owner you need to understand the cost associated with DIY bookkeeping & accounting, even though it’s not costing you any money out of pocket per se, you are spending a great deal of time each month tackling these financial tasks.

Furthermore, since a primary concern of any business owner is how to reduce expenses, a professional bookkeeping & accounting service is likely to be more efficient and less expensive than going the DIY route.

4. You’re Not A Professional Bookkeeper or Accountant

Although math is universal, and accounting is a standard business-related task, that doesn’t mean they’re easy subjects.

In addition to education – and continuing education – professional bookkeepers and accountants spend years studying their craft.

Unless you have a bachelors degree in accounting and remain up to speed on the latest software, you’re best served leaving it up to a professional.

Even if you do have an accounting degree and an MBA, aren’t there more pressing things to do for your business on a daily basis?

Servicing your clientele, reducing your expenses, increasing productivity, and acquiring more new customers is where your time should be spent, not DIY bookkeeping & accounting.

Stress less — let Bottom Line Management take care of the details. Your CPA will thank you.

Carlsbad Bookkeeping & Accounting Services

Betty Moore is the numbers nerd behind Bottom Line Management.

Betty and her staff will save your business time and money by turning piles of receipts into complete financials with every penny accounted for.

Here at Bottom Line Management, we love keeping track of ALL the financial activity in your business, down to the penny!

This will help alleviate any financial problems and keep you in the know. We take pride in our clients and their company so they can have peace of mind.

We let you focus on what you do best — running your own business.

Connect With Your Carlsbad Bookkeeper

Click the icons below to connect with us on social media!

The post The Pitfalls of DIY Bookkeeping & Accounting for Your Small Business first appeared on Bookkeeper Carlsbad.]]> https://bottomlinemanagement.org/diy-bookkeeping-accounting-is-hazardous-to-your-small-business/feed/ 1 https://bottomlinemanagement.org/the-3-biggest-money-mistakes-business-owners-make/ https://bottomlinemanagement.org/the-3-biggest-money-mistakes-business-owners-make/#respond Mon, 06 Aug 2018 18:49:54 +0000 http://bottomlinemanagement.org/?p=625 3 Financial Mistakes That Are Hurting Your Business As a local business owner you want to ensure you’re doing everything possible to maximize profit & minimize loss. Financial mistakes can impact your business in the near & long-term, in order to prevent them you need...