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Check this video out - The Battle of the bulge

Transcript:

Hi! My name is Andrew Wall, and I am the Vice President of Chartered Accountants for Information Technologists.

Virgil, the Classical Roman poet, best known for his epic poem “The Aeneid(A-nee-id)”, wrote in the late 1st century BC, “The greatest wealth is health.” I’m sure you’ll agree with me when I say that’s as true today as it was over 2,000 years ago.

And in today’s computer-centric world, where we’re all sitting behind a computer for 8 to 12 hours a day, let’s face it: maintaining a healthy lifestyle requires nothing less than a Herculean effort. I myself am all too familiar with the battle of the bulge - and have personally struggled with my weight for years. While I’ve had some success with different diets and exercise routines, I’m far from being an expert. What I’d like to share with you, however, are my personal goals and strategies by keeping all my Twitter followers posted on my weekly calorie consumption and weigh-ins, as I drop from my current 240 pounds to my target weight of 210 pounds.

Notice that I didn’t say “try to drop from my current weight”: that’s because, as Yoda said to the young Luke Skywalker, “Do… or do not. There is no try” -  that’s exactly what I intend on DOING. That’s right, DOING. In addition to this, I hope to recruit some of my friends in the health and wellness industry to add their much needed professional advice in a few guest blogs.

As I stated earlier my target weight is to reach 210 pounds by January 1, 2011. That’s a goal to lose approximately 1.5 pounds a week. I plan to do it  through a combination of diet and exercise.  However, since I’m currently averaging a 60 to 80 hour work week, most of this will be accomplished by changing my diet.  I’ve download a nice app for my iPhone called “my net diary”, which I’ll use to track my caloric intake as well as calories burned through exercise. The key, I’ve been told, is to ensure that calories consumed are less than - or equal to - calories burned. While this seems pretty cut and dry - and easy as 1 2 3 - somehow I don’t think it’ll be quite that simple. So here’s my plan to ensure my success: 

I’ve decided to approach my weight loss in the same manner as I approached quitting smoking - and that was by making a plan, identifying my triggers, and arming myself with alternatives for when I hit those triggers. Also, I’ve come up with exercise strategies that suit my life: for example, I’ll take my daughter out for morning walks whenever possible to ensure that I’m not put in a position where I had to trade off time with my in exchange for exercise, because time with my daughter would win out every time.  I’ve also made sure that both my office and my home fridges have been purged of all tempting high calorie treats, and are now stacked with low calorie alternatives. In our busy lives it’s all too easy to opt for the fast food alternative and skip that much needed exercise - but with a little careful planning, some will power, and your support, I WILL do - not just  try - to meet and exceed my goals.

Any questions or comments - or words of advice on my personal “battle of the bulge”? Feel free to contact me directly. I’d love to hear from you!

I’m Andrew Wall. See you next time!

For more tax tip videos please vist our Free Tax Tips section

What is Golf and Learn?
Our “Golf and Learn” Program is an enjoyable way to introduce IT recruiters and staffing agencies to Chartered Accountants 4 Information Technologists (CA4IT).  Currently Our Golf and learn program is conducted at Club links Rolling Hills golf and country club. CA4IT will cover the Green fees and cart rentals for up to 3 people.

Who is CA4IT
We are a national association of Canadian accounting firms adding value to over 2,500 independent consultants contracting in the computer and engineering markets. We partner with Canada’s leading placement firms like yours to ensure the financial prosperity of independent contractors. CA4IT offers free consultations for contractors considering the benefits of incorporating.  CA4IT has assisted thousands of IT professionals make the transition from full time employment to independent contracting. The advantages of having CA4IT as a strategic partner of your placement firm are as follows:

• Double your clients after tax income
We utilize the most current strategies available to the IT contractor
• Independent Contractor vs. Employee
CA4IT is the foremost expert on this status issue
• 18% Total Tax
CA4IT’s 2,500 contractors average a total of 18% tax on gross incomes greater than $100K
• Free Seminars
Offer your contractors free information sessions covering issues such as working in the USA, tax minimization, and the advantages of incorporating.

   
Further information
Please note that the summer is almost over and we only have a few “Golf and Learn” spots available.  If you would like to register for a spot please Contact Andrew Wall by email a.wall@ca4it.com or by phone 1-800-465-7532 ext 232

Check this video out - “Should I incorporate?”

Transcript:

Hi! I’m Andrew Wall, and I am the Vice President of Chartered Accountants 4 Information Technologists.

“Should I incorporate”- is probably the most commonly asked question that I encounter during a typical initial consultation. So, if you’re not familiar as of yet with the pros and cons of incorporation, allow me to shed some light on it for you: Although most professionals believe that there is a dollar figure or hourly rate above which it makes sense to incorporate, the truth is that there’s no definitive dollar figure above which it makes sense to incorporate. However, while there is a definitive financial advantage to incorporation that’s indirectly related to your hourly rate, it’s actually the non-financial benefits that should impact your decision the most.

When helping a client to decide whether to incorporate or not, we here at CA4IT, always analyze the non-financial benefits first. We determine if the client wants to be a contractor - or if they’re simply working at their present job until a full time position becomes available. The top 3 non financial benefits of incorporation are: Number 1: Having a Be your own Boss lifestyle! Two: Limited Liability, and Three: The Marketing Advantage.

While independent contracting has become a ubiquitous strategy there are still some inherent risks such as the Personal Service Corporation (more on this later). The Limited liability and asset protection go a long way to minimize these risks.In addition since there is greater risks in dealing with sol-proprietors more and more staffing agencies are electing to work solely with incorporated contractors While limited liability and increased marketing are great advantages, the truth is that independent incorporated contracting is first and foremost a lifestyle choice. While independent contracting does bring greater independence, and more control and flexibility in your work, the fact remains that it also requires more networking, marketing and financial skills than being a full time employee.

Let’s have a look at some of the financial benefits of incorporation: One of the benefits result from the significantly lower corporate tax rate. Let me explain: As of today, the corporate tax rate - with the small business deduction - is 15.5 % - and the current personal tax rate can skyrocket to as high as 46%. Clearly there’s a significant difference between these two rates.

Choosing to be incorporated can result in a huge tax savings - if you budget your finances properly. Here’s the key: if your tax savings exceed the cost of the additional accounting fees that are required to become incorporated and file your annual returns, then the choice to incorporate is a no brainer - even if it’s only for a short period of time. However, if you’re spending every dollar you earn - and are not able to use the low corporate tax rate - then the financial benefits may be limited.

On the up side of incorporation, here’s another plus: in addition to the small 15.5% business deduction, there are some hidden financial benefits that we, here at CA4IT, would be happy to tell you about - that in most cases, will cover the marginal self incorporation accounting fees. Such strategies could include home office deductions, borrowing from the corporation along with many others.

For more information on either the financial or non-financial benefits of incorporation, feel free to contact me directly.

 I’m Andrew Wall and I look forward to meeting you personally

For more tax tip videos please vist our Free Tax Tips section

Check this video out - Complete your bookkeeping in minutes (not hours)

Transcript:

Hi, my name is Andrew Wall, and I’m the vice President of Chartered Accountants 4 Information Technologists.

In today’s video I’d like to introduce our online bookkeeping tool. As long as there’ve been taxes, there’ve been issues around bookkeeping. It’s an onerous and often un-rewarding task that most people dislike. As a result, it’s often left until the very last minute, or even delayed beyond filing deadlines.  When it finally gets addressed, you’re facing an overwhelming stack of receipts that can take hours - if not days - to sort through. 

Over the past few years, ca4it has introduced several products whose objective was to address this very issue - and simplify the bookkeeping process. We’ve been working diligently to address exactly what it is that you face when preparing your books. Our goal is develop a system that’s quick, easy and accurate.

Recently we launched our new online tool whose purpose is to do just that. This new system will replace our existing Capturing Revenue and Expense Data manual, or CRED for short. While continuing to support our CRED manual, we’re encouraging our clients to switch to the new online manual, as we believe doing so will dramatically reduce the amount of time you spend preparing your books. 

I’ve personally worked on the development of this tool to ensure it meets your and my own needs. As an independent contractor, I face the same issues as you when preparing my corporate books. Before developing and using this tool I was the king of procrastination when it came to preparing my financials.  And you can guess what always happened: delaying only made the job all the more painful, because now I had even more data to sort through, and it was even harder to remember what all those transactions were about. Not fun. Not fun at all! My goal in developing this product was to make all that bookkeeping quick and painless - so that I could complete the job in minutes - and if possible - even enjoy doing it!

This new tool abides by the “kiss” principle and keeps everything super simple. Here are the 4 easy steps it’s based on:

1. Upload bank and Credit card statements;
2. Enter any expenses not on the bank statement;
3. Enter any invoice not on the bank statement, rather accounts receivable; and
4. Use our Integrity checker to allocate transactions on the bank to the appropriate account.

Sound easy? Well it is!

By allowing you to upload your online bank accounts and credit card statements, we’ve eliminated most of the data keying that’s required with other systems like our CRED. Once this was accomplished, we needed to create a way to allocate - en-mass - all the transactions from these statements. Our Integrity Checker tool facilitated this by allowing users to either allocate one item at a time - by selecting from a drop down and clicking submit -or en-mass - by entering a vendor description, a date range and selecting the account you would like the transactions to be allocated too.  

Let me explain a little further: for example, because I can’t get through the morning without my “Timmy’s”, I can enter “Tim Horton’s” as the description of my full year end as the date range - and business promotion as the account. For me this would instantly allocate somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 – 350 transactions, thereby taking a job that would have taken me hours, and completing it in seconds! 

Now what’s left to deal with are items in my bank account statement, and corporate credit card statement, director paid transactions, rather items not on the bank or credit card, and outstanding receivables. These items can be handled in one of two ways:

1. By entering the data into the relevant form or
2. By uploading scanned images to the “EZ-as-Abc” Site and have ca4it process them for you.

Now that I use this system personally, I put every single transaction on either my corporate credit card - or my corporate bank account - and upload them to the online tool each month.  Since I put all my transactions through the bank or my credit card, there are no director paid transactions to enter.  I simply upload the bank and credit card statements, and override the transactions using the online tool. At the end of the year I usually have one outstanding invoice: I enter that invoice, and quick as a flash,  my year end is ready for processing by my team. 

I’m sure you’re going to find this practically unbelieveable, but with this new tool, my bookkeeping has become SO simple and painless, that  a few weeks ago, my wife saw me doing something on my Iphone: I was using the integrity checker tool - and asked me what game I was playing.  When I told her I was doing my bookkeeping, she said it looked like I was having way too much fun to be doing bookkeeping -  and then SHE wanted to try it! It’s the first time in the 11 years that I’ve worked for this firm that I’ve ever heard someone call bookkeeping fun!

Bet you never believed there was a better way to face that daunting pile of paperwork that just never seems to go away! Well, now there IS! If you’d like to find out - just exactly - how easy and how much fun this new product is, please contact our customer service centre at: customer serve @ customerservice@ca4it.com.

Now, I think it’s time for a “Timmy’s”!

I’m Andrew Wall and I Hope you enjoy this product as much as I do! See you next time!

For more tax tip videos please vist our Free Tax Tips section

Congratulations to Mark Roebothan of Veritaaq IT Professional Services. for winning our LinkedIn contest.

Mark won 2 rounds of golf at Rolling Hills golf club (a ClubLink course) by being the first veritaaq employeed to contact me through LinkedIn after our lunch and learn session.

Throughout the summer we will continue to offer more draws and giveaways through our newsletter, linkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Youtube.

Keep your eyes and ears peeled!

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Check this video out — Audit Protection

Hi! I am Andrew Wall, and I am the Vice President of Chartered Accountants 4 Information Technologists.

Do you, like me (and anyone I’ve ever met, frankly), dread the notion of getting personally audited? If so, here’s some really great news! I’m talking about a unique service offering that’s arguably one of the greatest benefits our clients receive. It’s called CA4IT’S Audit Representation Protection. And - the best thing about it is - that if you choose to prepay your accounting service, IT’S ABOSULTELY FREE!

Now, let me explain how this indispensable service works: If you’ve purchased or received free audit protection for a given tax year through CA4IT - and that tax year gets audited - then CA4IT will represent you all the way up until the third and final stages of appeals - at absolutely no cost to you. Why only up to the third stage? Well, those are the rules! The 3^rd stage of appeals is as far as we are allowed to go as a firm of chartered accountants. Beyond the appeals stage is the Tax Court of Canada, and to attend there, you would require a tax attorney. But there’s a slim chance of ending up there, as most cases are resolved during the appeals stages - and only the most complex cases - with significant tax implications actually go to tax court.

If you’ve never been audited, allow me to shed some light on the process: Audits can be long and drawn out processes that can be draining both emotionally and financially. Likewise, to go through an audit without a team of advisors in your corner, can be extremely costly on all levels.

CA4IT has dealt with hundreds of cases - and are familiar with all of the typical Canada Revenue Agency’s - tactics and jargon that would normally stammer a lay man. Without adequate representation it’s very likely that a contractor may not get a fair shake from the CRA. Or even worse - I’ve heard stories about contractors who say something during their audit that seems perfectly harmless - but in actuality ends up costing them their entire case.

With CA4IT’s Audit Representation Protection, you’ll have a professional accounting firm - with an impeccable record of service - there, by your side, making sure you get to keep every deduction you’re entitled to - so that if you’re ever audited, simply tell the auditor that you’ve hired an accountant who handles your financial matters - and we’ll take care of the rest.

We actually wanted to call our Audit Representation service “Peace of Mind” - but we figured that was a no-brainer! So, if you want to sleep peacefully at night knowing that should the Canada Revenue Agency ever audit you, reassess your expenses, or deem you to be a personal service Corporation - you’ll have a professional in your corner who’ll go the distance with Rev Can - at absolutely no cost to you.

If you’d like more information on our Audit Representation Protection service, feel free to contact me directly.

I’m Andrew Wall, and I look forward to meeting you personally.

Check this video out — Choosing the right bookkeeping method.

Transcript:

Hi! I’m Andrew Wall, and I’m the Vice President of Chartered Accountants 4 Information Technologists.

In today’s video I’ll provide some tips and insight into the bookkeeping process.

As a firm of chartered accountants, ca4it accepts a client’s books in absolutely any format whatsoever. And you should see some of the books we receive! NOT pretty! However, keep in mind one vital factor: the more organized your books are when they arrive at our office, the less time we’ll have to spend on them, which means, of course - you got it  - your final bill will be significantly lower. Let me give you a few important tips to help you avoid that situation so you can save yourself some hard-earned cash! Here goes:

One of the biggest factors affecting your final accounting bill is the method you choose for bookkeeping - and the accuracy of your work. It’s best to prepare your books in one of four ways: ONE: Use a General ledger system like Quickbooks, Simply accounting, or AccPac; TWO: Use a spreadsheet; THREE: Use CA4IT’s online tool; or FOUR: Have the work done by a bookkeeper.

Now here’s some pro’s and con’s: The advantage of using a general ledger system is the variety of timely reports that can be produced. For business managing inventory, or for aging either receivables or payables, these reports can be integral to the business’s success. Now here’s the disadvantage: While most people are under the false impression that using a general ledger system will reduce their accounting fees, it’s virtually inevitable that doing so will lead to higher accounting costs. Also, this method requires a greater time investment by the business owner/bookkeeper. Why’s that?

I’ll tell you: for the most part, it’s due to the necessity of managing opening and closing balances. Once you endeavor to use a general ledger system, you’ll need to ensure that your accountant provides you with any adjusting entries they’ve made.  If you don’t add these to your records, your next year’s opening balance won’t match your financial statements, and your books will become a mess very quickly.

While a spreadsheet doesn’t have all the bells and whistles of a General ledger system, it usually works well enough for most independent contractors.  Since most contactors have very few balance sheet items, it’s usually easier to simply enter all transactions into a spreadsheet and have the accountant convert the entries into debits and credits. Most accountants will have their own sample spreadsheet that their clients can use. At ca4it, ours is called the CRED Manual, which stands for Capturing Revenue and Expenses data. 

If your accountant does provide a sample spreadsheet, it’s recommend you use that - rather than create your own - as they’ll be more familiar with their own methods, and spend less time on your books when you use their template. Finally, one of greatest advantages of using a spreadsheet is that there’s no software for you to buy and very little training required.

Now here’s some important news: Recently, CA4IT launched our new online tool intended to replace our CRED manual in excel format.  While we will continue to support our CRED manual, we encourage clients to switch to our new online manual, as we believe it’ll dramatically reduce the amount of time you spend preparing your books.  This new tool sticks to the kiss principle and has 4 super simple steps: ONE: Upload your bank and Credit card statements;  TWO: Enter any expenses not found on your bank statement; THREE: Enter any invoice not found on your bank statement; and FOUR: Use ca4it’s Integrity checker to allocate transactions not found on your bank statement to the appropriate account. 

Let me tell you… our “Integrity Checker” is a ground-breaking achievement! It allows you to allocate a group of transactions by simply entering a search criteria or vendor description, date range and the account you would like the transactions to be allocated too - and voila! What used to take hours and hours of tedious inputting is all done in seconds.

However, even if this seems too tedious for you then outsourcing just may be the answer. Hiring a bookkeeper will reduce your level of stress, and free up much of your time so you can spend it doing more productive things. While hiring a bookkeeper can cost as much as $50 an hour, CA4IT has developed a unique and highly cost effective bookkeeping service: Simply file your receipt document in an envelope and mail it to us. We’ll take care of the rest: We’ll scan it, put it on a secure server, and link your financial statements back to that source document. If you’re wondering about just how cost effective this service is, I’ll tell you: This unique service is priced per volume of transactions rather than an hourly rate, which comes out to being roughly half the cost of a traditional bookkeeper. Now if that’s not good news, I don’t know what is!

So unless you absolutely LOVE bookkeeping and can’t imagine your life without it - NOT!!! - ca4it’s got what you’ve been looking for. And after all, don’t you feel your time would be better spent on the golf course - or spent enjoying quality time with your family? Or perhaps you feel it would be better spent working on your business.

Bookkeeping - or getting the numbers right - is the first step in completing your corporate year end.  Common sense tells us that this step is truly critical:  The bottom line is - the better organized and prepared your financial information, the lower your accounting fees will be. Here’s another important tip: No matter which bookkeeping method you choose, make sure you take the time to make sure your information is accurate - and that you’ve tracked every dollar you have spent. Sounds like a GOOD THING to lose to me!

Finally, for more information on what expenses to record, please see my earlier video entitled “What’s deductible?”, and for more information about ca4it’s on-line Integrity Checker service, please see our video entitled “Online Bookkeeping”.

I’m Andrew Wall, I’ll see you soon!

Check out week 2 of my video blog — Minimize taxes by maximizing expenses.

Transcript:

Hi, my name is Andrew Wall, and I am the vice President of Chartered Accountants 4 Information Technologists. In today’s video I would like to discuss some strategies to help increase your bottom line without changing your spending or your billing.  In almost every review meeting I conduct I am able to find hundreds if not thousands of dollars worth of unclaimed expenses.  Before we, as accountants, even consider any tax planning strategies it is paramount that we maximize all eligible deductions.  Every dollar that can be expensed is dollar that for the most part will not be taxed.  Therefore any expense that can be converted from non deductible to deductible will reduce your taxes and increase your bottom line. There are three common reasons for under allocated expenses:

1. Lack of knowledge of what is deductable
2. Poor record keeping  or
3. Fear of Revenue Canada.

To combat these common pitfalls ca4it has developed some unique proprietor tools.  In particular

* Our benchmarking tool.
* Our online bookkeeping tool, and
* Our audit representation protection.

These tools which will be featured in their own videos help our clients to understand what their peers are deducting; help them to keep track of every dollar they are spending quickly and efficiently and finally to provide them with the comfort and knowledge that if they are audited they will be represented by us at no additional cost.

In addition to these un-paralleled tools ca4it goes above and beyond for its clients by providing what we refer to as “full option accounting”. With full option accounting we layout all the options from conservative to aggressive, along with the risks and allow you the client to make the final decision.  While some other firms believe it is their responsibility to play the role of CRA and tell you what you can’t deduct, we are the complete opposite.  We encourage our clients to deduct every dollar they are entitled to deduct and to challenge their own notions of what a deductible expense is.

The income tax act is a very lengthy and complex document that can be simplified into two very basic guidelines that every layman should know.

1. If expenses are specifically disallowed by the income act you cannot deduct it no matter how legitimate you believe them to be.  Examples include golf green fees, club memberships, life insurance and your primary home telephone line.
2. If the items are not specifically disallowed and they were incurred with the intent to earn income in the future the expense is deductable. This is exceptionally vague (as most of the act is) and offers a lot of room for interpretation.

Often time clients (who have usually come from full time positions) believe that if they were incurring an expense as employee that is not deductible, that there is no way that same expense could be deductible as a contractor.  This is simply not the case.  Examples of such deductible expenses include

* home office
* automobile
* internet
* and business promotion

While home office and automobile are usually the largest of these expenses the most commonly overlooked is business promotion. At CA4IT we believe that most meals eaten with colleagues friends and family members are deductable business promotion expenses.  Many people are shocked by this interpretation until we provide them with our “six degrees of separation philosophy”.  This philosophy asserts that as an independent contractor you get your contracts by building relationship and networks and not by advertising on billboards or  in magazines.  Therefore, we believe that by spending the time to network with their friend’s colleagues and co-workers, contractors are increasing their potential to get a contract and earn income in the future. 

At ca4it we believe that most clients leave a lot of money on the table by narrowly interpreting what is deductable and we want to help them to increase their bottom line by simply challenging their interpretation.  As a client your account manager will use our Benchmarking tool to identify and analyze every expenses category to pinpoint areas where you may be using a narrow interpretation.    If you are not already a client please contact our customer service department for a free no obligation consultation.
I’m Andrew Wall and I look forward to meeting you personally!

Today we are launching a new video blog that will discuss issues in technology, business and accounting.  This blog will be hosted by Andrew Wall and will be posted on a weekly basis.  if you have any suggestions for content or would like to appear on the blog, please contact Andrew @ a.wall@ca4it.com.

My name is Andrew Wall, and I am the vice President of Chartered Accountants 4 Information Technologists.  My Father and mentor, George Wall, founded this National Association of Chartered Accountants in 1984. It’s my pleasure to announce that at this time, it’s both our wish that I assume an even greater role in our company, while continuing to serve our growing client base.

 For those of you that do not know me personally, I have worked full time in our family business since 1999, when I graduated from the University Of Western Ontario with A Bachelor of Arts degree. Shortly after graduation, I had an opportunity to further my education and assist in the development of a very unique bookkeeping product.  In order to play an active role in this project I had to return to upgrade my B.A.  from a “Bugger All” to something more applicable! So I enrolled and subsequently graduated from the Information Technology Institute with a degree in Applied Information Technology. I then began working with David Bolivar to develop what is now known as ca4it’s “Easy-as-Abc”  product.  The Accounting knowledge garnered during the development of this product gave me my first taste of the expertise my father has acquired over decades of working with small business. Likewise, over the past several years, I have significantly expanded on my base knowledge by working in as many facets of the family business as I could:  From marketing - to initial consultations - to file production - to review meetings - and everything in-between.

While working for ca4it, I  learned how to reduce income tax for our clients by maximizing what can be considered as business expenses, using some unique tax approaches, and by being able to benchmark or analyze each clients expenses versus our large database of client expenses.
 I have learned that the primary responsibility of a value added accountant is to be my clients “net worth manager” and to measure my success by how much I have helped my client increase their personal net worth. And most importantly I have learned that there is nothing more rewarding than helping a small business man or woman to establish, grow and maximize the financial rewards of being self employed.

 As I move closer to completing my CMA designation and taking over my father’s legacy, I know that my success will depend largely on my ability to blend my accounting knowledge, my technical expertise and the invaluable business skills handed down to me from my father.  My personal goal is to ensure that the ca4it brand remains synonymous with comfort, knowledge, integrity and value. CA4it has developed  a variety of tools that facilitate these goals including our custom bookkeeping apps, Our Audit representation protection, and our benchmarking application. I plan to utilize and improve on these great tools to ensure our clients expectations are not only met, but exceeded.

 
I look forward to meeting you personally.
I’m Andrew Wall. See you then!

Congratulations to Kevin Dee of Eagle Professional Resources Inc. for winning our LinkedIn contest.

Kevin won 2 rounds of golf at Rolling Hills golf club (a ClubLink course) by responding to a LinkedIn status update.

Throughout the summer we will continue to offer more draws and giveaways through our newsletter, linkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Youtube.

Keep your eyes and ears peeled!

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