Accounting Trends in 2022: Grow Your Business Faster

Given that the consequences of the pandemic are still relevant, businesses across industries are looking at different ways to ensure sustainability over prolonged periods of economic uncertainty. The year 2020 saw businesses adapting to technology at an unprecedented pace across diverse industries. Accounting as a function has been gradually adapted to technological advances over the past few years. According to reports, 83 percent of accountants agree that investing in digitalization is necessary to keep up with the market. This fact is separate from the adoption of technology, which has helped businesses operate remotely and remain sustainable.

As we work through 2022, here are a few accounting trends to help your business grow faster and improve your business’s profitability.

Accounting automation and software solutions

Automation for accounting processes has been gaining ground steadily; it helps reduce the workload for time-consuming and attention-intensive tasks while ensuring higher accuracy and reduction of errors.

Additionally, increasing labor costs (29%) represented one of the biggest concerns for accounting firms in 2020. Therefore, the need to shift certain functions to automated processes makes sense. This situation also aligns with the high furlough rate that occurred as a result of the pandemic. Together, these factors make a stronger case for accounting automation.

It also helps to keep in mind that automation of accounting processes does not make accounting professionals redundant. Instead, automation takes over high-volume, time-consuming work from human capital. This step ensures that trained and skilled accounting professionals can shift their focus from resolving accounting and bookkeeping problems to actual business management.

Reports reveal that accountants are either already training for or considering training in other areas, including client management and business advisory services (63% respondents) or business management (59%).

Outsourcing accounting functions

More businesses realize the benefits of outsourcing as economic uncertainties continue to loom. The numerous benefits of outsourcing “detailed attention” intensive functions such as accounting and bookkeeping include:

• Ensuring reliable, error-free accounting and bookkeeping work

• Freeing up trained resources so they can shift their focus to higher-priority work, including financial management and auditing of accounting reports

• Delivering value to existing work by making it more accurate through automation while extending support to new business efforts through a proven system and infrastructure.

• Reducing expenses associated with hiring, training, and retaining resources

Shifting to Cloud Accounting

From on-site operations to cloud-based accounting, the shift has been gradual and noticeable. Given the multiple benefits of cloud-based accounting, businesses can add value to deliverables without increasing costs and expenses. Here are some key considerations why shifting to cloud accounting makes sense for accounting practices:

• Cloud accounting helps businesses store and save information in the cloud and access it easily.

• Cloud-based access saves on expenses associated with needing a physical location; renting or owning can be costly, especially for small to medium-sized businesses. A Forbes report says how moving to the cloud saved businesses 30-50 percent overall, compared to refreshing their on-premises infrastructure.

• Cloud accounting helps ensure better security and safety of data, including customer data, because of digital measures like password protection, encryption, and authorized access to select individuals.

Leveraging professional assistance: Partnerships

When it comes to cloud accounting, electronic storage, and secure backups, all of these require a robust infrastructure. These requirements can prove to be expensive for a business just starting out. Outsourcing accounting and bookkeeping functions or partnering with professionals can help ensure your practice aligns with industry norms. Given the proven systems professionals possess, partnering with them allows businesses to access resources otherwise inaccessible to them. Because cloud accounting is technology-based, it also needs expert deployment. For professionals, this is easier because they have resources ready to hit the ground running.

Consider speaking to your Capex Financial and Tax advisors to learn more about how professional accounting services, bookkeeping services, and customized automation can help your business. For an in-depth discussion on this click on this link —> https://capexcpa.com/contact

-The Capex CPA Team

Proposal Request

How to Fill out Your W-8BEN Form

The W-8BEN form is not applicable to every situation. In fact, it’s one of those tax forms that only comes into play under very specific circumstances. But if you’re a Canadian resident or non-resident who receives income from an American source and you meet the criteria outlined below, you must complete this document before the end of the tax year (that is, by December 31st). Failure to do so could result in an error called ‘backup withholding’ being placed on your payments. 

What is W-8BEN and Where Does It Come From?

The W-8BEN form was first introduced in 1996, and it was designed to allow taxpayers to certify their non-U.S. status and to claim a reduced rate of taxation on their U.S.-source income. Normally, when you earn income from a non-U.S. source, you’re only taxed at the rate of your home country. However, if you’re also receiving income from a U.S.-based source, your tax situation becomes more complicated. This is because the IRS is obligated to ensure that all taxpayers pay their fair share of U.S. taxes. The W-8BEN form was designed to help the IRS manage this situation by providing taxpayers with an estimate of their ‘average’ U.S. federal tax liability. This number is then used to determine how much ‘backup withholding’ (or U.S. tax) should be deducted from your U.S.-source income. The W-8BEN is only available in printed form, meaning that taxpayers have to fill it out by hand and then mail it to the IRS.

Why Do I Need to Fill Out a W-8BEN Form in Canada?

As we mentioned above, a W-8BEN is used to determine your average U.S. federal tax liability. In most cases, this means the IRS will apply a flat 25% rate to your U.S.-source income. In some cases, taxpayers might even be subject to the higher rate of taxation without the W-8BEN form As we saw in the example above, the W-8BEN is used to determine your average U.S. federal tax liability. This average is then used to determine the correct rate of taxation for your U.S.-source income. The correct rate of taxation is then applied to your U.S.-source income to work out your total U.S. federal tax due.

Non-residents who earn a certain amount of U.S.-source income will be subject to a higher rate of taxation. The amount of income that triggers the higher rate of taxation varies depending on your specific situation. As a general rule, the higher rate will kick in when you earn more than 82.5% of your average annual income from U.S.-source income.

When You Don’t Need to Filing a W-8BEN Form in Canada

If you earn less than the threshold outlined above – and you’re not engaged in a profession or trade that’s considered ‘Highly-Sensitive’ under U.S. law – then you don’t need to fill out the W-8BEN-e form. If all of the above criteria are met and you don’t need to fill out a W-8BEN-e form, you should use a W-8BEN certification.

How to Fill Out the W-8BEN-e Form in Canada

Let’s break down the details of the W-8BEN-e form and take a closer look at the information you’ll need to provide when filling it out. The first thing you’ll need to do is check the ‘box’ in section 1 to indicate that you’re filling out the W-8BEN-e form. This should be followed by a declaration to confirm that the information you provide on the form is accurate and complete to the best of your knowledge. Next, you’ll need to identify the source(s) of your U.S.-source income. This includes income from employment, pensions, annuities, real estate rentals, royalties, and interest. You’ll then need to identify the average percentage of U.S.-source income relative to your total annual income. You’ll use this percentage to determine the correct rate of taxation for your U.S.-source income. Finally, you’ll need to sign the form and indicate the period of time to which the form relates. You can do this by selecting the ‘start date’ and the ‘end date’ from the drop-down menus provided.

 Capex CPA has qualified and experienced business consultants to help you with your W-8BEN Filing. Contact us today click on this link —> https://capexcpa.com/contact

-The Capex CPA Team

Proposal Request

Having Trouble Collecting Payment? It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way!

Running a small business means that you constantly have a million things on your plate. Unfortunately, when one of these is dealing with a multitude of late payments, you may find yourself running around in a proverbial circle instead of moving in the forward trajectory you need for your business’s success. In this case, you have two choices: outsource collection or handle it on your own.

An Outside Party

When you don’t have time to handle financials yourself, you can outsource many of your operational duties to a full-service small business accounting agency. Capex CPA offers all of the services you need, including bookkeeping, financial statement generation, and even helping you write a business plan, which you can use to ensure that your business is operating according to your vision.

If you prefer someone full-time that can handle day-to-day transactions and, potentially, some administrative tasks, consider using an employee sourcing firm. Look for a recruiting agency that sorts through candidates and can vet your potential recruits based on the experience you need. Regardless of whether you choose direct hire or agency hire, make sure that you are upfront about their expected tasks, whether that’s tracking late payments, making daily outreach calls, or providing you with financial reports weekly or monthly.

Another, ideally last-resort, option is to begin pushing excessively late payments over to a collection agency. Keep in mind here, however, that a debt collection agency may take up to 50% of the money they collect. Experian also notes that this might hurt your customers' credit, which could damage your relationship with otherwise good customers, who may have fallen on hard times or simply missed the invoice.

DIY Collections

Should you choose to collect late payments on your own, it is those same relationships you want to keep intact. Even if you don’t necessarily mind losing one customer, don’t forget that they may wind up leaving a negative review, which can sway up to 86% of other consumers to hesitate to use your business. Here are a few tips on how to keep payments on track while also building and maintaining healthy professional relationships.

●     Reward early payments. Rewarding early payments is one of the best ways to ensure that you get your money. One way to do this is to offer a small percentage off of their total balance. Before you do this, calculate your profit margin and the amount it would cost you to collect a late payment. You can use these numbers to decide on a total discount.

●     Send a friendly reminder. People are busy, and, sometimes, late payments are simply a side-effect of being on the go. Send out a friendly reminder of payment due one week before the date, on the due date, and then at recurrent intervals once the payment is late. You can use a pre-scripted letter to ensure consistency. These emails should include a company name, contact information, a copy of their invoice, which should also show their balance and due dates. You can also make a special note of potential late fees and alternative payment methods, if applicable.

●     Pick up the phone (and text). A few years ago, one of the best ways to communicate with your customers was to simply pick up the phone and give them a call. Not today. According to PC Magazine, the vast majority of your customers prefer text and are more likely to read these instead of answering the call.

●     Offer payment plans. Finally, consider setting up your customers on installment payments. You can do this at the point of purchase, which ensures you at least get part of your money upfront. You can then require payment at intervals of your choice, which will have the added benefit to your customers by making a large purchase more affordable over time.

Collecting past due payment isn’t a fun job. But, someone has to do it. Whether you choose to outsource or DIY your collection endeavors, the above tips can help. Whatever you do, remember that attitude is everything, and you do not want to lose customers because of a potential payment misunderstanding.

Capex CPA Is one of Canada’s premier bookkeeping and accounting firms. For more information, dial 416.903.4040.

Proposal Request

How to Outsource Your Payroll

For a small business, outsourcing payroll might seem like an expensive and unnecessary step, but there are far more advantages to this than you might realize.

Firstly, if you’re not particularly experienced in payroll and perhaps you don’t have the time, outsourcing can free up your expertise and your time to be aimed towards places that would be better served. You can also take advantage of those with specific skills, e.g. freelancers who have years of accountancy and book-keeping experience, who know the smaller nuances of payroll, which you may not have the first idea about.

The only downside to outsourcing your payroll is that you have less control, but that is a disadvantage that can easily be weighed up against the positives. With all this in mind however, how are you supposed to go about it?

Hire a Cloud Accountant

Freelance accountants or Cloud accountants are the best option for outsourcing your payroll. This means that you communicate via telephone or email, or even instant message, and you can check details of your payroll at any time. The only problem here is that if there is a last minute change to your payroll, e.g. you have a new member of staff starting close to the cutoff date for pay that month, or there is an error that you need to fix quickly, you may find a delay. This all comes down to finding the right accountant too, someone who will be available to talk to you and fix problems quickly, without you having to wait around for a call back.  

For many large businesses, the idea out outsourcing payroll isn’t worth it. Most large businesses have their own in-house department and this department will handle everything to do with the financial aspects of the business. For an organization with a large number of employees, this is certainly the best option, because difficulties can arise on a day to day basis, and trying to contact and outsourced accountant in this case can be a tricky business. In this case, you would have to suggest that outsourcing payroll is best reserved for small businesses, medium sized businesses, and those who really don’t have the first idea where to start with putting together a system which pays employees on a regular basis, correctly.

There is also the formal documentation side of things to consider too, such as issuing employees with taxation documents. This needs to be done via the payroll department and again, if you don’t have specific experience, it can be a difficult area to master. 

Before you choose your payroll outsourced destination, you should certainly ask many questions about their systems in place and how they organize the various different companies they work for. By asking questions at this point, you can be sure you’re choosing the right company, and you also need to ensure that the cost of the service doesn’t outweigh the benefits. Only then can you be sure that your decision was the right one for your specific business.

Contact your Accountants today click on this link —> https://capexcpa.com/contact

- The Capex Team

Why your business needs an online Accountant

Whether you run a small business or own a large corporation in Canada, managing business matters on your own is quite a hassle. You have meetings to attend, deadlines to meet, projects to complete, and various other operational duties.

There is no doubt that business owners have many responsibilities to take care of and running a business may sometimes become hectic for you, particularly when it’s about financial operations. Although you may certainly have a bookkeeper or accountant to oversee your books, you probably can’t access your financial records anytime anywhere. 

While the internet has transformed the ways industries do their businesses, technology has also brought abrupt changes within the business sector. With the advent of internet, accountants have begun to utilize different software to maintain their company’s business records.

However, most business people in Canada review their financial records either after 6 months or even after the fiscal year end. They generally just handover the necessary files to their accountant who uses the information for tax filing purposes. This is how most businesses in Canada carry out financial affairs.

It doesn’t have to be this way; reviewing your accounting books often and evaluating the data to design strategies can take your business to remarkable heights. Several cloud-based accounting solutions not only enhance efficiency of your business but also let you access all your business data anywhere at any time.

Increase your Business Efficiency

Unlike typical accounting software, cloud-based accounting software can save your company a lot of money and time. That means you no longer have to go all the way long to your server or computer’s desktop to review your financial records.

An online accountant or cloud-based accounting software can let you maintain your data back-ups, bookkeeping records, and other essential financial data.

Most importantly, having remote access to your financial record 24/7 through the cloud ensures the ability to make well-informed decisions at the right time. However, with typical accounting software, you barely get the chance to evaluate your business data and make decisions based on it.

In addition, you will have access to real-time information with an online accountant; you can make invoices, prepare periodical financial reports, and do much more. Along with increased efficiency and enhanced collaboration, online accountants with software, like Quickbooks Online, Wave Apps, Freshbooks, and Xero, can help make your business stand out in the small business world.

Enhanced Engagement with Online Accountant

When your accountant is the one who manages all financial books and you just view records once or twice a year, you may hardly pay attention to taxes and other financial figures. Since accounting is an imperative part of business, you really have to stay up-to-date about the current financial matters of your company.  Of course, there are myriads of things linked to your financial books.

For instance, if you keep checking your accounting book records with an online accountant, you’re likely to know whether your revenues are monthly basis or your business earns profits periodically. Similarly, you’ll get to know your gross margins and can set your goals accordingly. Furthermore, you can keep an eye on your expenses and your ROI. In addition, you’ll know that how much finance you’re investing for business promotion and whether you’re receiving desired results.

It’s important to mention here that businesses are dynamic; you probably have navigated through vicissitudes in your business journey. So, remember that an online accountant coupled with cloud-based accounting system can assist you effectively.

Geographical Barriers

These days, many business men prefer to have meetings virtually; with an online accountant and cloud-based accounting software you can share the details of your financial records with your delegates or partnering companies. This not only enhances collaboration with your team, but also provides you with ultimate solutions.

Furthermore, you can let an online accountant use your financial information through cloud system so that they can provide you with effective strategies.

Final Thoughts   

Like other businesses, you might have been struggling to achieve your goals and objectives promptly and effectively. However, make sure to integrate a cloud-based accountant into your business to help it grow and stand out in the corporate world.

Contact your Accountants today click on this link —> https://capexcpa.com/contact

- The Capex Team

Accounting for Amazon, Ebay, Etsy, Shopify, and Other E-commerce Businesses

Accounting Solutions For E-Commerce Businesses

If you run an Amazon Store, a Shopify business, or any other type of e-commerce investment, you will need to keep records and store them in a very organized manner. Accounting for an e-commerce business is no different to accounting for a brick and mortar business, but there are several more choices you can look into.

When it comes to the financial side of a business, there are often several common questions that an e-commerce business has. These include the following: 

•   Should you think about incorporating?
•   Should you charge sales tax?
•   Should you charge provincial sales tax?
•   Should you register for sales tax in the US?

Let’s explore these in turn.

Should You Think About Incorporating?

If you have worries about liability then incorporating is a good option. The reason is because it gives you more protection over your assets (personal) from creditors. In addition, if you’re making good profits, you should also consider incorporating, from a tax point of view. 

If you are going to incorporate, you might not have a clue where you should start. E-commerce businesses are truly global, after all. Put simply, you should incorporate in Canada if you do most of your business from there, i.e. that is your location physically.

Should You Charge Sales Tax? 

This depends on the products you’re selling online, and how much money you’re earning. The golden figure is $30,000 per year, and in that case, yes you will need to register and charge sales tax. You could still decide to do so, if you earn less.

When setting up your platform (Amazon, Shopify, etc), you should ensure that your setup allows you to collect this tax from multiple areas.

Should You Charge Provincial Sales Tax?

This depends on the province you’re in. You should check ahead of time to find out the specific areas which demand this, and which don’t.

Should You Register For Sales Tax in The US?

This is a complicated area, and a personal decision unless you decide to incorporate in the US. If you have an office in the USA, whether you are personally there or not, you’ll need to register. If you don’t, then you need to think about the advantages and disadvantages of whether to register or not. 

E-commerce businesses fall into that grey area much of the time, and the US sales tax side of things, when not physically in the US is one of those areas. If you have a lot of customers from the US, this is something you might want to consider registering for.

Overall, ensuring that you cover the absolute basics when it comes to tax and accounting for your e-commerce business is vital. Just because you don’t have a static office and employees, doesn’t mean that you are exempt from the complicated nature of tax requirements, and it actually means you’re more likely to miss something important, if you don’t do your research.

We hope this post helps you cover all bases and helps you pick a platform which allows you to charge taxes whenever necessary.

Contact your Accountants today click on this link —> https://capexcpa.com/contact

- The Capex Team

Hubdoc – Keeping it Paperless

One of the greatest benefits of cloud accounting is the opportunity to take your business from being audit prone to be audit proof. The way Hubdoc helps to do this is by digitizing all receipts by using the smartphone in your pocket. Hubdoc is like your digital cabinet as it stores all your receipts, bills and other bank/credit card statements. It’s super easy to send bills received via email that come in the mail by simply forwarding them to the unique email address Hubdoc provides.

Now to address the elephant in the blog. The most frequent question we always get is ‘why do I need to manage my receipts in 2018?’ Well if you have your own corporation the CRA requires you to keep your receipts and documents for their potential review/audit for a minimum of 6 years. If you don’t do this than any expenses you have claimed will be disallowed and added back to your corporate income and taxed with penalties and interest being backdated. As you can imagine the cost of going through this is quite punitive. Comparing this to the Hubdoc monthly fee of $25 seems more than reasonable for what the app does for you. 

Hubdoc has a basic proposal which is to organize all financial documents in one place automatically. The key here is automatically. Hubdoc being a smart cabinet uses machine learning-powered data extraction to read the receipt for the key details like vendor name, date, and total amount. These details are extracted and used to ‘file’ the receipt into a folder. All this happens automatically, and the bots do this themselves. It’s quite magical really. #DisneyMoments

Traditionally, Accountants accepted shoe boxes of receipts that clients dropped off which went through quite the process. I think we can create a small film named “the life of a receipt”. Seriously though these receipts were sorted, reviewed and entered in to a desktop based Accounting system. As you can imagine the painful nature of going through this process was not a value addition to clients. Eliminating the need to do data entry switches the focus from administration to strategy. Accountants that use Hubdoc can inherently add more value to their clients by not focusing on receipt sorting but helping a business project and forecast the future performance. Using Hubdoc also helps to work with your Accountant more efficiently by reducing the administration involved in year-end tax preparation. 

Hubdoc plays really well with two main online cloud accounting solutions being QBO and Xero. When a receipt photo is taken, the machine-learning powered data extraction technology kicks in and all the necessary fields are generated by Hubdoc. Within 24 hours from the time the picture is taken the receipts are reviewed by our staff and published. When a receipt is published it gets connected to the transaction in the cloud accounting solution. This creates perfect synergy because now your receipt is attached to the actual transaction from the bank. If the CRA ever target the business for an Audit the receipt is easily found as proof of the transaction is attached to the transaction in QBO/Xero. Hubdoc also has the unique ability to ‘fetch’ bank and credit card statements from the bank which helps with bank reconciliations. The bank reconciliations are extremely important for the purposes of knowing that the pro-forma financials are free of material errors. 

We at Capex implemented Hubdoc as part of our Core app closet. Hubdoc has helped our clients get more organized, keep our clients audit proof and also help us provide a seamless accounting experience. Our goal has always been to provide the Small business owner with high value and low administration. It turns out people love taking pictures with their smartphone because it ultimately saves them tax money. I highly recommend everyone to start implementing this solution for their respective businesses. If you have any questions on how Hubdoc works please reach out to us as we fully support the platform. 

Hubdoc: 
www.hubdoc.com

CRA Receipt rules:
https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/tax/individuals/topics/about-your-tax-return/long-should-you-keep-your-income-tax-records.html

Contact your Accountants today click on this link —> https://capexcpa.com/contact

- The Capex Team

We are your Accountant 2.0

Change is the only constant in the new age of technology. Technology changes companies and even entire industries might get wiped out. The days of looking at a set of financial statements to see how the business is performing are long gone. Small businesses require more relevant information on their business to help make the decisions of tomorrow.

In the past Accountants have played the role of what we call historians. Accountants would typically speak to the historical financial performance and assume that to be a viable representation of the future growth of a business is inherently flawed. Let's think of a practical example, If Rogers Communication loses 20 million in revenue it wouldn't be such a big deal had they lost 20 million cellphone subscribers. Take that in for a minute basically the market now reacts to new information such as the subscriber base which isn't represented in the traditional financial statements. The understanding here is that focusing on the bigger pictures leads to the bigger results i.e. higher subscriber base will bring in the higher revenue.

As such each business has what are called key productivity indicators. It's important to study these metrics as you can not make something better and bigger if you don’t measure it. Measuring can be a lot of administrative work and can be counter productive unless you use the cloud. The cloud can shape your business and empower you the business owner with just in time information. Imagine having the ability to check how your business is doing above and beyond the business bank account.

Imagine being able to run the Profit and loss, balance sheet and cash flow statements all by yourself or just running simple dashboards to see how you did from this month versus the last month? Being able to do projections and set sales targets with a few clicks of the mouse and done. Setting up targets is critical for growth and understanding why you didn't hit those milestones is what financial information should be used for. Reading past the numbers is what business owners require and need and delivering this in a robust and efficient way is what the new breed of accountants will need to adopt.

The 21st century business owner wants a new breed of accountant who plays as a linebacker while they play the quarterback. The days of seeing your accountant once a year are coming to an end and for accountants being a benched player are slowly drifting away. It's game time and it's a exciting opportunity to help each business grow and flourish.

Embrace the silver lining of the cloud and feel the difference!

Choose Change. Choose Capex.

Contact your Accountants today click on this link —> https://capexcpa.com/contact

- The Capex Team

Top 5 Benefits of Cloud Accounting

If you have an email account from Microsoft or Google, then Cloud based technology is not a new concept to you. The technology has finally hit the Accounting industry and is making a huge difference and changing the role of Accountants for years to come. The cloud provides great benefits that save time and money which is re-invested into your business.

Moving your accounting from "On-Premise" to "The-Cloud" can bring significant benefits. Not only is it cheaper, more secure but also accessible comparatively to the desktop counterpart. Below are the Top 5 reasons I think Cloud technology is the best thing after bread.

1.       Accessible anywhere providing the required flexibility - Cloud accounting software allows the user to access their information securely 24/7 from anywhere all that is needed is an internet connection. You no longer have to buy multiple licenses or carry your laptop everywhere. As small business owners are out and about and now have access to the engine room anywhere. That quick report to see how your business is doing. Done.

2.       Cloud Accounting is a time saver. This is taking the traditional method of Accounting and reversing it on it's head. Connecting your online banking to your cloud software package means the bank feeds from your credit card and bank card statements come directly through to the software system. The reconciliation process of accounting used to be a huge headache but with bank feeds your constantly synced to the bank so your reconciliation is never off. No data entry. More strategy.

3.       Build your customized cloud software. In the past building your own customized solution would have been extremely expensive with hiring IT consultants and other experts. Products like Xero and Quickbooks online have an ecosystem of apps to choose from which are called "add-ons". Some add-ons are free while others carry a fee of a few extra bucks monthly. Thinking of automating your Accounts Receivable collection process...Yup there's a app for that!

4.       Sharing and collaboration has been overhauled. In the old days the accountant would spend most of time "converting" a Simply Accounting file to a useable Quickbooks format. Once this conversion was completed the accountant would then move on to the actual year-end process. With the ability of sharing and collaboration the Accountant is now put in a position of having a conversation with clients during the year not just during the year-end. No more copying data to USB drives sharing is effortless.

5.       Improved security. A lot of people object to the security element of financial information in the cloud. Actually cloud-hosted software is more secure than software hosted locally on your desktop or your own server. The data is stored in high security storage facilities and your data is encrypted meaning it is unreadable to hackers. Additionally, your data is backed up multiple times in a day in many different locations to help protect your data. If your laptop is stolen well that's okay just buy a new one because your data is safe. If you are comfortable using online banking, you should be equally comfortable using Cloud technology.

Essentially with Cloud technology you have the ability to compete with bigger companies on a technological level but get to keep that small business owner mindset. I think this marriage of the two principals will help grow businesses. Most businesses see Accounting as a necessary tax compliance, it is but Accounting is the business language and if you know the language well you can really start to realize the benefits the information can provide. 

Contact your Accountants today click on this link —> https://capexcpa.com/contact

- The Capex Team

Lawyering in the Cloud

Let's face it the legal profession has faced aggressive competition. In a industry which similar to accounting is built on trust and relationships it becomes important to manage those relationships both efficiently and effectively. The legal landscape is changing with the introduction of new technologies that lawyers are embracing. Clients are demanding more from their lawyers and expect speedy responses and status updates. With a market full of traditional law enforcers clients are truly looking for legal partners #Suits.

Catering to the changing demands of clients who want answers right away and having a edge over competition has become critical to long term growth for law firms. Competing against lawyers who haven't adopted Cloud practice software like Clio are falling behind the tech curve. Traditionally a lawyer fresh out of the law firm would most probably use PC Law to manage their respective practice which like Clio includes time-tracking and Client-billing. One of the major drawbacks is that PC law is restricted to the computer it is installed on. The client data is actually safer on Clio servers than it is on your personal laptop.

More importantly desktop based practice softwares don't allow for case details to be available anywhere. Forgot your laptop? Lost your laptop? Stolen laptop? #Toobad. Having the ability to work from any device is non existent which leads to inefficiencies. These inefficiencies lead to higher costs which are ultimately passed on to clients. Let's introduce the idea of Clio Cloud practice software which is a completely web based solution. You can effectively run your law practice from a iPad or a iPhone. The practice software allows for seamless integration with trust accounting ledgers. 

Law firms are required to have monthly trust account reconciliations and bookkeeping completed in addition to the form 9As signed. Money movement from the lawyer trust to general Account is a heavily regulated accounting area which is handled beautifully with Clio. The cloud based practice software attaches a Clio matter number which makes it way magically into your Quickbooks or Xero accounting system. Reconciliations are painless and compliance is easier to adhere to #ThankYouClio. We strongly recommend the lawyers starting their practice to try out Clio for a free Trial. Capex is a certified consultant for Clio and we can help you with any questions you might have!

Click on this link below to take it for a test drive! No credit card required and test drive the software in seconds. If you have any questions feel free to give us a call!  

https://app.goclio.com/signup/?referral_code=CCC-CAPEX

Contact your Accountants today click on this link —> https://capexcpa.com/contact

- The Capex Team

Why is Cloud Accounting for me?

Cloud Accounting is a game changer for the Accounting profession an evolution for the accounting industry. Traditionally when you think of the profession of Accounting you perhaps think of Taxes, Bean Counting and Geeky excel wizards #Stereotypes. Things are changing with Cloud Accounting where Accountants are redeeming themselves as more than just #BeanCounters. Accountants are stepping into the role of Strategic Business Advisor, so much better than just being a Governmental filing agent. So what’s the Cloud hype all about? Well for that we have to go back in time to where it all started. #TimeMachine

In the old days the traditional Accountant and client would both have only half the information during the fiscal period. Consolidating these pieces of information together was complicated, difficult and costly because of the multiple software packages used by the Accountant and Clients. Moreover it was super painful to synchronize these accounting softwares into one accounting system so the business can finally be analyzed and Taxes filed. Since the old way of billing a client was strictly based on “billable hours” the Accounting costs for clients kept increasing. #FixedPricesPlease

With the Cloud things changed. The Client and Accountant are using the same software and General Ledger. No more synchronizing issues and installation of software issues. The Client and Accountant can actively collaborate together strengthening the relationship. The Accountant can now take the position of a Strategic Business Advisor rather than just a Tax Advisor. Imagine making the move from seeing an Accountant once a year for compliance work compared to having the Accountant actively involved by providing you the reports and numbers on a weekly/bi-weekly basis so you constantly have financial information available to make more strategic decisions. #NumbersDontLie

The cloud shines in one particular area which is where Cloud Accounting softwares (Like Quickbooks) directly connect to the client’s Business Bank and Credit card. This speeds up the process because the actual data entry work involved is significantly decreased leading to increased time saving which are re-invested into the Client’s business. The security of Cloud accounting is the same level of security of Banks. If you do any Online Banking your comfort level should be the same using this Accounting software package.

With Cloud accounting you no longer have to pass over that dreaded end of year shoebox. When deciding on an Accountant it’s important to not only concentrate on governmental compliance filings (which everyone can do), but are you also getting the skill-set of a Strategic Business Advisor. I’m sure your business would compete better with a Business Advisor on your side speaking of which, when’s the last time your Accountant talked to you about your Business’ Competitive Advantage?

Contact your Accountants today click on this link —> https://capexcpa.com/contact

- The Capex Team