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Month: January 2019

#TechTips: Putting Your Best Foot Forward

Posted on by Navaal Mahdi

By Jonathan Rivlin

In today’s post we’re going to cover the last part of the data management chain: Getting that data out. Hubdoc, Bill.com, Gusto, bank feeds – all deal with data going in, and Xero manages that data once in the system. But how can we get that data out again?

Historically, as a 20 year QuickBooks user, I had my go to reports that I’d create for all my clients – being sure to add, “These statements have not been subject to an audit, review, or compilation, and no assurance is provided” as a footer on each statement. True that irritated the client, but they never figured out how to remove them!

Xero also offers a similar reporting feature. In some ways, Xero’s reporting feature is cooler and has more bells and whistles than QuickBooks. But, I do respect the simplicity of QuickBooks’ reporting.

But this post is about a specialized reporting app that integrates with Xero called, “Futrli”

Maybe this is a generational thing, but I don’t get what today’s folks have against vowels.

Anyway, let’s get into the details with Futrli.

It’s a cloud based app coming to us from across the pond in the UK. The app, as discussed above, integrates with Xero. Futrli pulls data in real time and presents that data in a fashion that is customized to each client’s unqiue concerns.

Before continuing with the details, I can’t emphasize this enough: The cloud, every article you’ve ever read about it, is all about this one item concept: We’re not bookkeepers or tax preparers anymore; we’re high level trusted advisors. The ability to deliver real time, meaningful insights into our clients’ business, as through Futrli, is what the cloud is all about.

We love all the apps in our tech stack, but when it comes to Futrli – it can’t be overstated – the entire purpose of the cloud is borne out in apps like Futrli.

For those practitioners who want to offer additional services, for those who want to strengthen their business if they are under threat due to changes in the tax rules and/or practice requirements, an app like Futrli is what you’re looking for. While it certainly works faster and more efficient if your client’s accounting is in the cloud, Futrli can work with your client’s data even if they are not in the cloud. You just need to distill the client’s data down to a *.CSV format and upload it to Futrli (We’ll cover *.CSV in a future posting.)

Before we added Futrli to our firm’s tech stack, I thought that such dedicated reporting apps were something like “icing on a cake”; the native reports in the general ledger system should be enough; even the customizable reports in Xero. After looking into Futrli, I realized that this is not an accurate comparison. Futrli (and any reporting app really) is not some dispensable fluff that’s “nice to have”; it’s a critical piece – THE critical piece of your tech offering. It is a business model. It is a means to provide real world, real time, meaningful insights to our clients that can help them steer their ship.

A more accurate comparison would be to this quote from the Russian navigator out of the movie, “The Hunt for Red October” when he boasted, “If I had a stop watch and a map, I could fly through the alps in a plane with no windows.” We are the navigator and Futrli is the stopwatch and the map.

Our clients look to us as advisors; not just tax preparers. We can customize the reports on Futrli to give our clients insights into their business that they wouldn’t even know to look for and previously were out of our reach to offer.

True, there are other reporting apps out there, and many have been around for a while – but we chose this company because they make it easy – both to use the app and to do business with them.

For training, they require accounting partners to go through a series of modules that take about 10 hours to complete – though I was able to work through it in about 8 1/2 hours.

They also have a program where for a onetime setup fee, your firm can put its own branding on the reports. That way, your client associates you with the amazing business intel you’re giving them. If you were so inclined, you could build an entire practice solely on advisory services using Futrli as your backbone.

Futrli comes with some pre-made templates – or we can customize our own with their in-app report builder. Once the templates are set, they can be easily applied to all the clients you bring on to this platform. In other words, you invest a little time on setup and learning curve in the beginning and then you leverage those efficiencies with each new client.

You can set the system to track any list of financial or non-financial items – provided that the data is collected and entered into the system. This makes the setup and integration – and training of staff and clients – critical to making Futrli work. The information that comes out is only as good as the data that goes in.

If you have staff or clients that have multiple vendors for say, Wells Fargo Bank NA, WF Bank, Wells Fargo, Bank, they need to stop being so sloppy – yesterday.

Part and parcel to adopting this, or really any cloud app is for the firm to adopt a series of naming conventions and then rigidly enforce it. This isn’t just a requirement of the cloud; it’s something we should have been doing all along.

Finally, once you get the visuals and graphics set, the KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) that your client cares about configured, and the reporting templates implemented, then it’s time to print and deliver your professional looking reports – with your logo on them (and that AR-C Section 70 compliant legend) to your client.

How often have you put a report out there you put so much time and effort into but felt it was missing something to make it “pop”? Futrli’s reports look professional and eye catching, and thanks to our diligence, their content is useful. These are reports that will actually get read and used.

Putting all that work into the various other parts of the cloud ecosystem and neglecting the reporting side is like eating a steamed crab without any Old Bay – why would anyone do that?

Check out Futrli and make your practice indispensable!

——

We’d like to hear from you! Please submit your own tech tips to us at techtips@msatp.org! We will award a free subscription to The Tax Book to the person who submits the best tip.

Thanks, and catch you next time!

TT

Top 5 Books For Entrepreneurs

Posted on by Navaal Mahdi

1. Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol S. Dweck

Start off the new year by learning about the growth mindset. Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D., is a Stanford University psychologist who discovered the power of mindset. Dweck writes about how success in every area of your life can be dramatically influenced by how you think about your abilities. She discovered that people who believe that their abilities are fixed are not as likely to flourish as those who have a growth mindset. This book will teach you how to foster outstanding accomplishment.

 

2. The Go Giver: A Little Story About a Powerful Business Idea by Bob Burg and John David Mann

This book is the story of Joe — a young man who wants to be successful. Joe makes five friends who teach him the Five Laws of Stratospheric Success. They help him open himself up to the power of giving, and he learns that changing his focus from getting to giving leads to great returns.

 

3. Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action by Simon Sinek

Simon Sinek realized that people don’t buy into ideas or products they understand why — the reasons behind them. He shows how the greatest influencers in the world all think, act, and communicate the same way, which is different to how everyone else does. Sinek calls this idea The Golden Circle.

 

4. The E-Myth: Why Most Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It by Michael E. Gerber

Michael Gerber dispels the myths surrounding starting a business. He walks the reader through the process of growing a business from an entrepreneurial dream to a success. Gerber also discusses the difference between working on your business and working in your business.

 

5. Innovation and Entrepreneurship by Peter Drucker

Peter Drucker explains how innovation and entrepreneurship are purposeful and systematic disciplines. He presents an analysis of America’s entrepreneurial economy and uncovers the secrets business owners need to know if they want their endeavors to succeed in the economy.

For more about these inspiring reads, tune into MSATP’s Facebook Live in which Kait LeDonne of LeDonne Branding + Marketing discusses why they’re so groundbreaking.

The Importance Of Self-Reflection

Posted on by Navaal Mahdi

It’s natural for us to want to be the best at what we do. We get so caught up in building our future, though, that most of the time, we forget to take a moment and evaluate ourselves.

As the 2019 tax season begins, think about how the last one went. Did you meet your deadlines? Did you accomplish everything you wanted to? Did you take care of yourself? Did you feel burned out when it was all over?

Though it’s unhealthy to get stuck in the past or to think about what could have been, asking yourself how a situation made you feel or thinking about what you learned from it prompts you to draw conclusions that can help you create better, more productive experiences in the future.

If you accomplished your goals last year but you sacrificed your peace of mind, try to change that this year. Think about what you could’ve done better, whether thats eating healthier, working shorter hours, or being more available for your clients. Did you know about the tax law changes beforehand, or did you have to scramble to learn about them last minute?

Because of all the changes the IRS has made, you may feel overwhelmed in the upcoming weeks. Remember that your attitude and your perspective are key. If you approach your goals thinking there’s nothing standing in your way from accomplishing them, you will.

On last week’s Facebook Live, Jeff Miller of Jeff Miller Consulting Alliance shared the following equation with MSATP members: Reflection + Perspective + Attitudes + Behavior = Outcomes. To hear more about what this equation means, check out the recording of the Facebook Live on our YouTube channel.

2019 Legislative Session // FB Live Recap

Posted on by Jessie Halvorsen

First, you may or may not know about the shut down going on in the government.

The Internal Revenue Service released notification that despite the government shut down, the IRS confirmed that they will start processing tax returns beginning January 28, 2019, and will begin providing refunds to taxpayers as scheduled. Hopefully, they’ll get started, the shut down will stop, and we’ll be back on track before needing to worry about anything else.

As you know, the first day of the 2019 Maryland Legislative Session was this week.

We have our own insider, James Arnie, sharing information with us from the Legislative Session. Jim is the past director of the MD Department of Revenue. Here’s a bit of information he shared with us after the attending the first day of the 2019 Maryland Legislative Session:

There’s a small window to hear bills during the Session lasting from January until April. Last year, there was a total of 3,301 bills introduced into the Session. That amount was comprised of 1,269 Senate bills and 1,832 House bills. From the bills that were submitted, 855 were enacted into law. That’s about 27-28% of all the bills introduced that became law. Still, a pretty good number for that short of time.

Year after year we see bills on certain topics that pop their little heads up consistently; one of them being the IRAs and Pension Exclusion. We knew we wouldn’t be surprised if we saw something like that again this year by someone.

As if not to disappoint, there were two Senate bills that were pre-filed on the pension exclusion already that appeared.

The first bill was allowing the IRA rollover to be included as an exclusion, subtraction modification. If you had a pension using GM as an example, I got my pension, and they were recommended to roll it over, load it into an IRA. Currently, IRAs cannot be excluded. But, they’re saying that, under this new bill that’s being submitted, a rollover from a real pension can be included. Of course, it had to have been an employer pension provided plan initially.

The second one was basically increasing the pension exclusion amount that you begin with. For example, in 2020, the pension exclusion amount would be $33,000, then you would reduce it by any social security amount. And, each year, that amount for the pension exclusion would increase the following year to about $43,000, the following year was $54,000, $65,000, and topping out at $75,000. But then, there’s a provision written in that if you have pension income that reaches $100,000 or more, you are not entitled to any type of pension exclusion. It would have a sealing on it. You would be $0 pension exclusion.

What is cross-filing and why is that done at times?

A cross-filed bill is when you get a House sponsor and a Senate sponsor and each of them will introduce the same bill. That method enhances your possibility or your probability of getting one of the two bills passed through the General Assembly. Sometimes both bills pass, sometimes just only one, and sometimes neither may make it. It just improves your probability of having success and getting a bill through.

If a bill, even if it’s a single filed bill, passes the house of origin and goes over to the opposite house when they have a hearing, normally they don’t allow additional testimony at the second hearing. They have all the information from the first hearing, and they don’t allow oral testimony at the second hearing. And that is a way to speed up the process.

When you cross-file, you hear testimony on both sides. Initially, at the original house. But then, say if both of them pass, and they cross houses, then there’s no more oral testimony on that bill. The sponsor provides his explanation of the bill, the members of the committee have a chance to ask any questions, but there’s no groups or anything like that that go up and do the oral testimony. If they’ve added an amendment or anything in the bill, at that point, they still do not allow any testimony.

We’re currently looking at a Firm Mobility bill for the CPAs in the state of Maryland that’s going to be put up, and rumor has it a possible ACA bill on the Affordable Care Act as well as some cyber security regulations with the identity theft and everything going on. However, nothing was seen during the first day. There was a cyber-security bill, but not dealing with tax preparation or accountants or anything of that nature.

Hearing from our members, a lot of them would like to hear the General Assembly address the inability to itemize when you don’t itemize on the Federal return. Nothing was seen on that from the initial bills coming out, though. The standard deduction for this year for the 2018 tax season was increased, but it was just a small amount. But, there was a bill in the pre-file list to increase the standard deduction, minimum and maximum.

Jim has been working with the MSATP since his retirement, and done an amazing job!

What does Jim do for the Society during the Legislative Session? How does he keep us informed on what’s going on?

Each day the House and the Senate will introduce bills, they provide a synopsis of those bills. They’re in numerical order by bill assignment. And, it’s just a short overview that shows the sponsor, the primary sponsor, a brief title, and a brief description of what that bill entails. He reviews every bill that is on the synopsis each day for both the House and the Senate. Usually, you can detect if a bill is applicable to a tax type person. For example, an individual tax, it will say “individual income tax” or “corporate sales tax” and so forth.

When you get into health matters and cyber-security issues, it will trigger a thought that it would be applicable but you have to then go into the bill itself and see what the nuts and bolts of that particular bill are. From that, he develops a list of various bills that he feels that the Society should be aware of and those reports are submitted every Friday after the week of introductions have been completed. And, they are each reported separately. All income tax bills on one report, sales tax and the like on another, and those are sent to MSATP.

Then, MSATP forwards them to members that are going to review those bills.

The members decide if they need to get the actual bill on the website and determine if any action should be taken by the Society. And by action, he means do we want to not take any action in terms of supporting or opposing, but just track that bill to see what the outcome is? Or, if we feel strongly that we need to support a bill, we would indicate that. And if so, do we do that in just written testimony or both written and oral testimony at the hearing? Or do we oppose a bill both in writing and/or orally?

As a Society, we do have our pack that does a lot of work. In fact, we tried to narrow it down to specific topics to help: tax property, property tax, tax regulations, professional regulations, etc. This preparation prevents us from looking at something that has to do with childcare or something like that. If we didn’t narrow down, it would be too much with 3000 bills. Especially since it’s all volunteers doing that and looking at this.

We track 7 topic areas as we added cyber-security this year because of the provisions in several other states. They developed a law dealing with cyber-security regarding taxpayer preparation systems. Since that was going on in other states, we now have expanded our watchful eye on these matters.

Interestingly, Jim went back last year to see if there were any cyber-security bills, and there were a lot of cyber-security bills introduced at Maryland General Assembly but they were mostly related to election systems because of all the hacking and so forth. So, you’re likely going to see that category expand greatly.

Now, in addition to that, when we see something that we can help or have some expertise on, we reach out to the senator or the representative and ask if we can help. “This is what we’re seeing. We’re here in the trenches.” We can give them some feedback which is really important. It’s essential that we keep all of our members aware of what’s going on.

Legislative Highlight

We’re going to try to keep our members aware of what’s going on down in Annapolis. One addition we’re implementing is a new section in our e-weekly called “Legislative Highlight.” What we’re going to do is highlight one specific bill that we really feel is a vital issue for not only our members but for their clients. For instance, it could be a cyber-security issue. Maybe something to do with how they’re handling their credit cards. We’re going to do an article on that subject in our e-weekly and then, from there, we’re going to expand that into a blog so we can get some feedback and interaction.

Be sure you follow along on our website at https://www.msatp.org/advocacy/

We may not be able to show the bill in detail, so in that article, we’ll show you where to go to review the full bill. For more details on the bills, go to THIS LINK. If you want to go see the bill in its entirety or learn if it’s cross-filed, all of those factors we mentioned in this article, you can go see those as well.

We just had the election, and there are 60 new members of the General Assembly.

That change may very well make an impact on the Session because that’s ⅓ of the General Assembly. With 181 members in the General Assembly, and 60 of them brand new. That’s amazing. However, some of you may not know who they are to contact them.

People’s voices are powerful and so we’re showing you how to find them. If you don’t know who your legislators are, you can reach out. There is a link right there on the Maryland General Assembly website. Across the top, it has a Legislators button. You click on that (or click here to access) and it will list the senators on one side and the delegates on the right side in alphabetical order, and it shows what district they’re in. It also has a link you can click on the link, enter your address, and it will tell you who your senators and delegates, congressman, representatives are.

You can also learn about the hearings!

In fact, to see how a hearing functions, you can go into the schedule and, let’s say a bill is going to be heard about budget and taxation, you can click on that committee, and then the day and time of the hearing, if it’s 10:30 in the morning, you can click on it and watch it live on your computer. Fair warning, some of them could be very long. Some start at 1:00 and when Jim was a director, he was there at 6 and 7:00 at night still. You never know when the bill that you’re there for is going to be heard. They don’t give you a pre-schedule or itinerary. Some of those hearings, they have a lot of supporters or opposition and a group that will go up 3 or 4 people, and they only get around a minute each. So, they do try to keep it controlled but they can still take a while.

Jim works very closely with our group of volunteers, our committee, the Committee on Professional Regulation. These are the people that review the bills after you say, “This might be something you might want to look at.” The committee looked at 310 bills last year out of 3000, 10% is what was reviewed.

The General Assembly has dates set that you have to introduce bills by because after that date it has to go through a rules committee which slows up the process and means that it’s less likely to get passed during that Session. Last year, the cut-off date on the Senate side was February 10th. It was a week earlier for the House. Jim went back and looked, and on February 10th, 97% of the bills that we tracked or looked at for review were filed by February 10th. As it gets near the end of the Session, then budget has to be approved, they may run into differences in areas that can take up a lot of time, and they won’t be having hearings on individual bills. So, there’s a lot that goes on, but it motivates bills to be submitted by that cut-off date.

We have a group of volunteers that do an amazing job doing this, and we’re always looking for other people to help out. If being the eyes and ears of the members of the Society is something that you’re interested in, then we’d love for you to reach out. It is pretty exciting during this time of year. If you have not taken time to go down and listen to a hearing during the Session, it’s a real learning experience to see how elements happen.

If you’re interested in assisting MSATP on legislative issues, email sandy@msatp.org

Final Thoughts on Upcoming Session

Jim thinks it’s going to be interesting for two reasons.

  1. The previously noted 60 new members in the General Assembly. 
  2. As a result of the elections, we have a lot of new committee chairs and vice chairs. It’s going to be interesting to see how they function, how they allow the committees to operate, and so forth. That could come into play this year very much.

A big thank you to Jim for the great job that you’re doing for this Society. We really appreciate it.

Reminders:

Next week, we will be hosting our Federal Tax Update Seminar in Gaithersburg on January 16th. We do still have some space available. If you want to join us, it’s going to be a great opportunity for you to still get all the information you need for you to compare tax returns from 2018. Register HERE.

Also, on January 17th at 5:00 pm, we’ll be hosting our Tax Season Kick-Off Event. Woohoo! We are going to be at the Columbia Office. Come network, have some wine and cheese, and enjoy the presentations we have planned. If you want to partake and join us, we still have space available. RSVP for the event HERE.

Google Applications // FB Live Recap

Posted on by Jessie Halvorsen

2019 marks our 60th anniversary!

To start the year, we are going to be concluding our seminar season with the Tax Season Kick-Off Event on January 17th, at 5:00 pm at our Columbia office. Come relax and network with your fellow members! This will be a great opportunity to talk with them and to learn from them and make those connections. We’re going to have some snacks, drinks, and some wine.

As a special bonus, we are going to have shredding free for all of our members. Clear out all of those old files before tax season starts (probably what you did over the holidays), bring them on over, and we’ll get it shredded for you… for free! So, come and join us. We’d love to see you.

A Few Items to Address:

For many months, we’ve been talking about the student loan debt relief tax credit that everyone had to submit their application for by September 15th.

Well, during the holiday, Maryland Higher Education mailed out the certificates to those who got awarded the credit. So, you might be hearing from your clients on this because they probably got the letter in the mail. If you do get them, don’t be surprised. If you have some questions about the letter, Maryland Higher Education can be reached at 410-767-3301 or by email at studentdebttaxcredit.mhec@maryland.gov Don’t be surprised; if you’re clients actually put in an application for that, they probably got a letter over the holidays in response.

As you know, we do the Maryland Tax Update Seminar four times in the fall.

Well, we sold out all of the webinars each time and have gotten a lot of requests to rebroadcast that webinar. So, we’re going to do that on Monday, January 7th from 1 pm – 3 pm. Amazingly, we already have 40 people signed up! But, we do have space. We can take up to 95 people. If you would like to take and register for that, you can do so online HERE.

So, if you missed the other webinars, this is going to be your final opportunity to attend.

Sadly, we only have three more seminars coming up for the year – Frederick, Hunt Valley (1040 Updates), and Gaithersburg (Federal Tax Update).

Amazing. It just went by so quick. Frederick and Hunt Valley seminars are next week which are 1040 updates. These seminars really go in-depth into 1040 individual issues. And then, we have Gaithersburg on January 16th which is the Federal Tax Update. This seminar really gives you an overview of all the different tax changes through the year from the state, business, corporation, partnership, and individual aspect. The Gaithersburg seminar is for you if you want a down and dirty, real quick dip into all the different legal cases that happened during the season. It’s not too late to register! We still have space in all of them. If you want to grab a seat, you can always go to https://www.msatp.org/seminars/ to get registered.

Now, let’s dive into Google Applications and what they can do for you in your business.

Our guest, Matt Lincoln with Lincoln Tax Professionals, took the time out to tell everyone how they came to use Google products, what role they fill in their practice, and kind of give you some highlights about what’s in the Google products Suite, what to take advantage of, if it costs any money, and what alternatives can be found. Here’s what he had to say:

Gmail

The first thing that Google was known for is Gmail. It was a great emailing application; it was one of the first applications to group emails into conversations which is really neat. But, that was a start. A lot of us are probably starting to see Google Calendar, which is the next app in the Suite. That is very common with a lot of vendors that we’re starting to work with. They’ll schedule times for meetings with us using things built on top of Google Calendars. And, that’s a free product that’s integrated with Gmail. One of my favorite things about that is that if someone says, “hey, do you want to meet tomorrow at 2:30?”, you can normally click that right in your email and add it to your calendar right out of your email. So, that’s kind of a nifty feature. On top of calendars, is Google Drive which is the hub for A) storing things on the cloud. So, it’s a cloud storage platform keeping documents, and files, and PDFs, and spreadsheets in the cloud. Then, B) it’s also a place where you can use the next group of Google’s products which is Google Docs, Google Sheets, and Google Slides which is just a document editor, a spreadsheet software, and then a presentation software all of which are basic, designed to work on the web, and easy to implement.

Google Forms

On top of that is one that is under-utilized, we’re just starting to utilize it in our practice, is one called Google Forms which is a way that you can send out quick surveys, could be a quiz, could be a questionnaire, could be like a light organizer to clients. OR you can use that same form and post it on your website. So, you could have a new client landing page on your website and utilize your Google Form for clients to answer 5 or 6 questions, and when they’re done with that form, you can have it automatically emailed to you. Or you can have the contents of their answers pushed directly to a spreadsheet so you can now see in one spreadsheet every answer you get out of that form. So, that’s really powerful. Imagine a tax practice is getting to extension time and they want to get feedback from their clients about filing an extension. They can send them a Google Form or post the form to their website, and every time a client fills out that form, it’s going to automatically populate a spreadsheet where you can then go in and add your notes and decide okay, we’re going to use the spreadsheet to track that we sent the extension or that we had more questions for the clients.

So, the neat thing about all of these things as we go through them is they’re built on the cloud and they’re built to work together. So, you get a lot of basic components from which you can build a lot of interesting solutions to puzzles.

Moving on from Google Forms, there’s Google Draw which is good for little flowcharts and stuff.

Google Sites

Let me take a second and talk about Google Sites. So, there’s a lot of website builders out there and I don’t know that Google Sites is any better or worse than any of them. The interesting thing that we found out about it is that you can build a website that’s not accessible to the outside world or a website that IS accessible to the outside world. So, the advantage is, if you need to build a website for yourself, you can use Google Sites to do that. Maybe you need to build a website for inside your office. An intranet to contain information about office procedures or processes or notes or phone scripts. You want anyone in your office to be able to access it, but it’s not for the outside world. You can use Google Sites to build an intranet of information inside your company. We’ve done that, we call it our Lincoln Tax Wiki; it has become a hub of all kinds of information that we need to touch from time to time but we don’t use every day. So, that’s become really powerful for us. It’s easy to add a page, it’s easy to search the pages, it’s really something worth taking a look at.

We started using Google Sites I’d say two years ago. We actually tried to build an intranet on our own using some software that’s freely available that’s for hosting wikis or sites like that and didn’t get the performance out of it and we found that it wasn’t easy for our staff to edit and add information. Well, the purpose was for any staff member to add to our knowledge base very quickly. When we went to Google Sites, we found that that was a much easier thing to train our staff and to use and to add content on.

Again, the nice thing about Google Sites is that it’s free and it’s easy to approach. There are other commercial solutions out there for this. I think Slack is something which is designed to become like a knowledge base of your practice or whatever, so I don’t want people to think that this is the best solution for that. But for us, it was an instantaneous, free solution that was easy to go with. We may move to a different solution, but that’s what I found about all of these products in the Google Suite is that they allowed us to step in and try something and do something, see how it worked for us. In some cases, we learned what our real needs were, and we went and found a solution outside the Google Suite to meet those needs. In other cases, we’ve been very happy working in it. Google Sites is a great example of that where we haven’t found a need to leave it yet, but maybe we will one day. We’ll just have to see.

Google Keep

Google Keep is a really nice, simple like note software. I use this a lot when I’m at seminars. I’ll open the little notepad, I can do it on my phone or my tablet, and I’ll make notes about different issues. And then, people back at the office can in real time see me adding all those notes. Like, I might be saying, “hey, pull Michael Smith’s file and put it on my desk.” and they can just see that live as it’s going on. Then, when I get back from the conference, I can pull up my notes and work on Michael Smith’s file. So, that’s a really neat tool.

Google Hangouts/Google Meet

I need to pause for a second here. Google is trying to develop two tiers of products. One that’s a consumer product, and one that’s a business class product. Hangouts is a free, consumer product which you can use like Facetime to video chat with people. But, they also have a business class product, Meet, which is designed so that I can host a meeting with maybe multiple clients at a time and host my own mini-webinar or something like that for my clients. Or maybe I want to talk to the husband and wife, but I have a lot of clients that aren’t always in the same place. I can meet them on the phone and we can have a three-way video conversation.

Google’s doing a lot of innovation in this space. They’re also designing and killing apps. So, they had a product called Duo, but they’re kind of going to get rid of it. So, I think we’ll see Google Hangouts and Google Meet become these really easily integrative ways that we may be able to chat with our clients and even screen share with our clients. For Google Meet, no Gmail account is needed. For Google Hangouts, I think they do have to establish at least a basic Google account — which a good thing is that they’re free. But, Meet’s designed as a business class product, so they don’t want there to be a barrier for your clients to interact with you so they do not have to have a membership.

Google Plus

Google Plus was originally trying to be Facebook. They were trying to get into that social media space or the social networking space. They had some success, and in some areas of the world, it’s a big platform. It didn’t take off that way in the US. I’ve recently in the course of reading through this, they’re trying to turn Google Plus into more inner-group social networking. For example, maybe my office will have a Google Plus account and we’ll use it as the social media in the office to maybe have little messaging groups, maybe post about birthdays to each other, so it’s a social network but on a smaller basis. I haven’t used this yet, I haven’t explored it, but I found some of the content I saw about where Google was pushing the product to be really interesting. So, we’ll see where this goes.

Google Business

The last one, and I think that this is absolutely essential. It’s part of the Suite, it’s almost a stand-alone thing, and that’s Google Business. Visit www.google.com/business. Anybody who has a practice HAS to go to Google My Business and manage the profile of their business. When you go to the page, you see a big Manage Now button. If you click on that, it’s going to say “hey, well, tell us what your business is because we probably already know it’s on the internet. Let’s determine if you’re really the person that’s in control of this business.”

Now, you want to do this because when someone goes to Google, they enter say “Lincoln Tax”, Google is going to provide a bunch of information that they think is correct about your business not that they know is correct. You can go in, say that it is your business (you go through a verification process so that not any yahoo can take your business), and then you can control a LOT of information that the public sees about you. When you’re open, what your phone number is, what services you offer, what’s your website, photos, content, and you get to start being involved in the review process which is something that I don’t think you’d want to NOT be involved in.

As you scroll through this page, there’re links about how it works at the top. When you click on the how it works link, it has a couple of different articles about what you can do with Google Business and what content is available. I think any business owner should go to this page, should take half an hour and a cup of coffee, and make their way through the various tabs.

If you scroll down, you’ll see some more content here about keeping your business profile up to date. They give you a lot of recommendations for what you should do, they show you the dashboard for the product, and they talk about how you can use this to market. I think it’s good for us as people who are guiding our clients in this digital age, to maybe be talking about this with our clients that have businesses. You know, how is it they can take control of the web presence of the business because Google’s the largest search engine and when people search it, the number one thing they’re going to see is the information that Google has about your business.

This is a great resource to take advantage of, you should really take a look at that as you move along.

Let me take a second now and step back and talk about in all of these Suites of product, there’s a free version of the product and then there’s a paid version. Why would you want one or the other?

Our practice started with a free version, we had an email address patricelincolnsoffice@gmail.com, so @gmail means you’re part of the free version. At some point in time, we realized after years of being on the platform that I wanted to have separate email addresses for each person in my office, I wanted to be able to have @lincolntax be our email addresses. We decided that the time was right for us to step up to a paid version because, with a paid version of the software, you get that hosting it under your web address and you can have them host your email for multiple users.

You also get some controls over document storage, you get 24/7 phone support with the paid version (which you do not get any real support, you get some internet only support with the free version), you get a lot more storage on a per account basis, and you get the ability to do some more syncing with Google and with Outlook (they have some powerful search tools so if you’re using Outlook, the paid version allows some better searching in there). And so, we stepped up to the version that was $5 per month per user.

There is a more premium version than that that’s $10 per month per user, none of those features apply to most of the practices that I deal with. They’re normally about data retention, storage policies, or searching documents, and for legal searches and stuff like that. Look at that if that’s something you’re concerned with. Maybe if you have a lot of larger practices or larger business clients if that’s a concern for you. But for us, it wasn’t a big deal.

All of these applications you can use for free. You only have to step up to a paid version if you need more storage space or you want to use your own branding, for us, it was @lincolntax.com, as you move forward.

Google Grow

Google, really in the last year, has said “okay, we’ve been playing around making these Suite of products and testing and using it with people. Now, it’s ready for the big time. This is ready for major companies and minor companies alike to use this Suite.” So, they have been flushing out behind the scenes, a huge toolset, education set to help businesses that would like to use the software, learn how to use it. Grow with Google.com, as you scroll through it, they have lots of resources for becoming a certified Google professional. There’re links to training and certification.

As you scroll down further, there are schools. All of my kids now have Google accounts through their schools, and they’re learning all of this at their school. They have a whole page designed for teachers because they want the next generation of workers to be using Google as their background.

As you keep going, this next section is great and links to some of the stuff we’ve already talked about. It talks about local businesses, how do you integrate it, and how do you build your website. I want to point out the personal recommendations section. Receive personal recommendations to make your website faster on mobile devices. This is really important. A lot of people build a website, and then it doesn’t behave very well on mobile. And yet, most of your clients will access your website from a mobile device whether it be a tablet or a cell phone.

Google has tools now to say “okay, what does your website look like on a mobile device? How fast does a page load?” We tested this a little while ago, and Google anticipates because of our website loading speed, that we will lose 24% of people that click on a link to our site because it didn’t load fast enough. Some web pages lose as many as 50% of visitors because they’re not patient enough for the load. So, we’re working on optimizing our website to get faster load times so that it’s very mobile friendly. That’s a really powerful set of tools in there to look at.

A lot of resources to sit down and walk through and to really see what is in this Google-verse of stuff whether you’re using Google Apps or you just want to manage how the world sees you through Google, I think you have to take some time and get involved with/in Google’s product Suite.

GSuites Learning Center

One more item which is the learning center is another resource where Google has organized by user type a bunch of help and information. You can see at the top of the learning center that you can learn and search by product. Maybe you want to learn about Google Sites. You can just go there and learn about that. Maybe you want to learn about the spreadsheets, and you’re like, “hey, I like this idea of having a spreadsheet that I can use on my cell phone or that I can use on my desktop or my tablet.” They’ve concentrated help articles and videos. I love the videos. All into one place here.

These products in Google are really working hard to get us and to get the next generation of consumers and small businesses to use their products and they’re designed hopefully to be easy to adopt. And that’s what we found. We never intended to use Google, it just happened because it was easy to use. It’s been a neat process.

We all use Google, but we’re not using Google as an actual business tool. You can now take this great information and start implementing!

Reminder:

Don’t forget that your 1099s are due by January 31st this year. That’s to the IRS and the recipient.

#TechTips: Don’t Worry, There’s an App For That!

Posted on by Jessie Halvorsen

By Jonathan Rivlin

It’s been said that when your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. For decades we shoehorned our clients into whatever accounting system (usually QuickBooks desktop) we had.

Our clients are like little snowflakes; each uniquely different and equally complex. Yet somehow we expected to fit these oddly shaped pegs into the “round hole” of QB.

By now, we’ve covered the parts of the cloud that should be in most clients’ tech stack. The true power and potential of this new way of doing business is that there are so many apps out there, and new ones are coming out all the time, that you no longer have to jam a client into something that doesn’t quite fit.

In this post, we’ll take a high-level summary of a couple of industry-specific apps: Clio & Workshop

For those clients that are auto mechanics, there’s an app based out of Australia called “Workshop”. Workshop bridges both the receivables and payables function in a single interface. (No this doesn’t violate internal control because policies can be set and enforced by both us and our client’s managers).

As an aside, two principals of working in the cloud are that every user’s action is logged and documented and that nothing gets deleted. Ever.

Workshop starts by helping the auto shop generate an invoice for the client. From that invoice, the app pulls sales price, parts codes, and sets up whether a particular item on the invoice is subject to sales tax all from a centrally maintained data file.

Once the estimate is confirmed and work is authorized, the invoice forms the basis for the parts order – flowing to the payables side. (In today’s Just In Time environment, the client doesn’t really hold an inventory anymore.)

As the client pays the invoice upon completion of the job, the payment gets recorded into Workshop – and all flow seamlessly into Xero; where it waits for the bank feed to pick up the deposit to complete the cycle. And when the bill comes in from the vendor, the parts ordered for this given job can be tagged and matched to the bill and closed out with a vendor payment (via Bill.com of course!)

This app is billed at about $50-60/month as a flat fee.

On the law firm side, there’s an app called “Clio”. Clio was created specifically for attorneys. It functions as a CRM and matters management app. Your law firm clients can enter their clients into Clio, along with their specific matters, and all sync to Xero seamlessly.

Clio (the version that includes syncing) is billed at $59/mo / user. This can get expensive for larger firms, but considering the range of features you get, it’s a compelling argument.

Clio syncs with an escrow specific app called “Trustbooks” – an app specifically and solely focused on managing compliance for IOLTA accounts. (We’ll go deeper into Trustbooks in a future post). Clio also syncs with Xero.

Now, when your attorney clients incur expenses on contingency, you can use Clio to track when they become deductible versus when they still need to be accrued. When clients receive funds on trust into their escrow accounts, an additional layer of compliance can be maintained – something that just isn’t possible with a generalized general ledger (that would be both QuickBooks and Xero – the difference is that Xero doesn’t pretend to be all things to all parties).

There are other apps, some of which we’ll detail in their own posts (specifically for contractors and builders). Further, the apps we’re using today aren’t necessarily the apps we’ll be using 5 years from now. While I hope we don’t have to change every app every year, the reality is that we need to embrace change as our constant. Dynamism and adaptability is our fixed north star.

The key take away from this particular post, after going through all the other parts of our tech stack, is that we should be proactive in looking for – actually seeking out – apps specifically tailored to our clients’ unique businesses. Let’s be the advisor that our clients expect us to be.

We’d like to hear from you! Please submit your own tech tips to us! We will award a free subscription to The Tax Book to the person who submits the best tip. Please submit your tips to this email address: techtips@msatp.org

Thanks, and catch you next time!

TT

Social Security Administration Online Access // FB Live Recap

Posted on by Jessie Halvorsen

One update we had to mention is Franchot announced the BPW approval of a $160 million contract to replace the state tax processing system. Some of the areas covered: adjusting fraud prevention, increase ability of taxpayers to match their account via an online self-service application, best practice for security standards, audit collection reporting and estimating functionality, and security. Security tends to be a hot topic at all times due to enhancements in the field, tightening the reins, and increasing protection where possible.

Talking about security…

Let’s switch gears into Social Security. Chuck Liptz agreed to come down and talk to our members and our followers about what’s going on in Social Security and how we can benefit from what services they have to offer. Bonus, these services are online. Yay!

Chuck used to be the director of employer wage reporting and relation staff, so he not only has an understanding of the wage reporting process but also you as their customer base. Everything he had to share with us happens to be FREE. As a service provider, what you choose to charge your client is up to you, but all the services that the Social Security Administration has to offer are free.

A few reminders you’ll need to know for 2018:

  • SS tax rate is 7.65%
  • Self-employment rate is 15.3%
  • And the max for SS Earnings is $128,400
  • There’s no maximum for Medicare Taxes

You must give W2’s to employees by January 31st. Same due date applies, whether paper or electronic, to submit your W2’s to the Social Security Administration. If you fail to comply, you could be penalized by the IRS after that date.

All numbers are the same for 2019 except SS Earnings goes up to $132,900.

Up to 90% of all the W2’s received by the Social Security Administration comes in electronically. Remember, all services are free, so filing your W2s electronically is also free! Take advantage of that assistance if you aren’t already.

Visit https://www.ssa.gov/employer/ and register for a username and password to access handbooks, tutorials, videos, among other resources. Simply register as an individual on behalf of the company rather than registering for each company separately. Theoretically, you could register on the 30th and have your w-2’s sent in on time on the 31st (but we recommend registering with a wider window of time). Most cases provide immediate usage upon signing up so long as you meet all of the requirements. Security is our middle name, so we set up a process to make the verification procedure as secure as possible.

After 90 days, your password goes into a hole. The next time you come in after (be it 90 days or 120 days or longer), we tell you to put in your old password and change it to a new password. This step means you don’t have to check in every 90 days.

Electronic Wage Reporting Online

If your software creates a file, you tell us where on your computer it is, you hit upload, we get it, and then you receive confirmation as well as the “receipt” with a code for the file that you sent. Applying this into your activities will save you a bit of hassle. Being able to upload and send to the Social Security Administration with relative ease and having a way to keep track of the trail in a simpler manner. Information at your fingertips.

W-2 Online

Clients need to give papers to their employees. The online form to fill out looks like the paper version, so you can do up to 50 of these via the website at one time for free. You can also put in the state information, but it doesn’t go TO the state. All the information will be stored there, but you still have to deal with that aspect separately.

When you finish entering information, you need a W3, and the website will generate that for you. All the math is done for you, and the math will be correct if no errors were made. So, you want to match it to the 941s, but it will all be there for you with a confirmation to click “yes” it all correlates.

You can print out all the appropriate copies and just save the PDF’s rather than keeping the paper copies somewhere. This measure allows you to have the PDF readily available. Save the file to a folder, and you can give it to your client right then and there when they need it.

How do I know you did this?

When you inevitably get asked that question, you can print out the confirmation with the number, provide the assurance that they got it on time to prevent late penalties, etc. There’s an earlier version when filing in which you can print out information and ensure everything is correct or check for any changes that need to be applied.

W-2C

The website offers a free service to print out paper copy after entering this information online, as well.

SSNVS (Social Security Number Verification Service)

An important note: this application only ensures that the names and numbers match the Social Security Administration records. When someone gets hired, look them up right then and there. Before you send in W2’s or do payrolls, you want to check the numbers and names. People change their names (married, divorced, etc.) and sometimes forget to report those alterations.

The information will not be shared with anyone else. The correct name or number will also not be given, so you can try various combinations in case they forgot something or mixed up letters or numbers. We all have those moments.

The verification codes will say the name, number, they match or don’t match, date of birth may not match, or there’s another problem that says they need to go into the local Social Security office to handle. If something doesn’t match, check for typos and correct information, ask to see the cards (you can’t demand, but you can ask to see the card), or ask them to check with the local Social Security Office.

You can also perform this process on behalf of your clients. Just put in their EIN to begin checking information for them. Up to 250,000 Social Security Numbers per file can be analyzed, and you get a response by the next business day! How amazing is that?

Employer Correction Request Notices (EDCOR)

This year, starting around the end of March or early April, any W2 file that you send to the Social Security Administration (SSA) that has a name or Social Security Number mismatch will have a letter sent to the employer – not to you as the third party but to the employer – that states the name and number does not match. For that reason of receiving that notification, you want to use the verification service. You can take a look at the examples of what to expect in the notice online. In the memo, the employer is informed about the issue and what to do to try to fix the problem.

MySocial Security (www.ssa.gov/myaccount)

Signing up for a mySocial Security account gives you access to a plethora of information about the benefits whether you currently collect or not. Say you didn’t get or can’t find your 1099 information. With a mySocial Security account, you can look up that data and print it out. The account is very easy, very efficient, and simple to use to get all the information you need.

If you don’t receive Social Security Benefits, you can:

Request a replacement Social Security (SS) card if you meet certain requirements, check the status of your application or appeal, get your SS statement to estimate your future benefits or verify your earnings or view the estimated SS and Medicare taxes you’ve paid, and get a benefit verification letter.

If you receive benefits or have Medicare, you can:

Request a replacement SS card if you meet certain requirements, report your wages if you work and receive SS Disability Insurance (SSDI) and/or Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits, get your benefit verification letter, check your benefit and payment information, change your address and phone number, start or change direct deposit of your benefit payment, request a replacement Medicare card

Tip:

If you want to visit a field office, make an appointment ahead of time. You don’t want to sit in the office for hours on end to file for benefits. So, call ahead and prevent that wait. However, pretty much anything you need is on the website which is always available.

Let’s use their services as we’ll be getting into our busy season for W2 preparation. E-filing the W2 and W3 will be a big timesaver.

All of these changes will have no impact on the 2019 tax season. This is a process and will take several years to build the entire thing. Smooth sailing!

SSA Helpful Resources:

www.ssa.gov/employer (wage reporting, employer tax information, etc.)
General Wage Reporting Questions – 1-800-772-6270 or by email at employerinfo@ssa.gov
BSO technical Help 1-888-772-2970 or by email at bso.support@ssa.gov
Employer Services Liaison Officers (ESLO) 8 of them nationwide
Social Security Administration Website – www.ssa.gov
1-800-772-1213

Pre-Tax Season Kick Off

On January 17th, a Thursday, we will be celebrating here in the office. We invite you to come for a little wine and cheese, talking about what’s going to be happening, commiserating all together, and toasting into the next wonderful filing season. Plus, free shredding! Bring some items to shred and we’ll shred those for you for free. We hope to see you there.

Happy New Year!

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