ca4it

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

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!

Facebook

Linked In View George Wall’s Profile View Andrew Wall’s Profile

Twitter

Congratulations to Gwyn Price for winning our first Surprise Giveaway.

Gwyn won a pair of  Toronto Blue Jays tickets (9 rows from the field on the first base line).

Our next giveaway will be offered at out Client appreciation BBQ (http://ca4itbbq.eventbrite.com/)

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

Keep your eyes and ears peeled!

Facebook

·         Linked In View George Wall’s Profile View Andrew Wall’s Profile

·         Twitter

CA4IT Customer Appreciation Day

We want to make a special point of saying what we feel all year long –

“Thanks a million for your support and loyalty.”

CA4IT cordially invites you and your family to a Summer Solstice BBQ

Please drop by for a burger or hot dog and refreshments and give us a chance to say

“Thank you, from your Accounting Firm!” in person.

Monday, June 21, 2010 (Weather permitting)

CA4IT Parking Lot – 34 Huntley Street

11:30AM - 5:30PM

Alternate Rain Date Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Please RSVP by June 15, 2010

CA4IT is proud to announce that you can now attend our live seminars from anywhere in the world through virtual meeting software GoToMeeting.

As many of you already know, we host many financial seminars at our Toronto office throughout the year.  These seminars cover topics ranging from investing to financial planning to bookkeeping and are provided free of charge by CA4IT staff.  However, for those who are unable to attend a seminar in person, we now offer “virtual attendance” through GoToMeeting.  With GoToMeeting, you will be able to see and hear all of the action from the seminar and can even communicate with CA4IT staff during the seminar.

To learn more about our live seminars, and view dates and times of upcoming seminars, please visit our seminars page. If you can’t be there in person for a seminar, but would like to attend a seminar from a remote location, please email us at CustomerService@ca4it.com with the name of the seminar you would like to attend virtually. CA4IT will then send you a GoToMeeting invitation to the seminar via email. Once you receive the email invitation, follow the instructions in the email and enjoy the seminar!

Calling all Independent Contractors!

Learn the secrets to Marketing YOU successfully
and how to achieve the Perfect Interview and get hired every time!

CA4IT’s Marketing YOU is a free weekly online video program that shows you how to
market yourself effectively in today’s competitive business environment and offers valuable tips on interviewing strategies that will help you land your dream job!

A message from George Wall, President, CA4IT

Over the past 25 years, and especially recently, a surprising number of our independent contractors
have expressed a great deal of frustration over two aspects of their industry: the interviewing process and the inevitability of having to continually procure new contracts.

In order to address these issues, CA4IT is pleased to announce the launch of a new series of videos on our website, entitled CA4IT’s Marketing YOU.

We’ve retained Renata Duma, one of Canada’s most successful interview coaches, to provide invaluable educational content on interviewing and Marketing YOU through her on-line videos and interactive blog.

For more information on Renata Duma, Interview Coach, please visit www.interviewcoach.ca.

Throughout this one year campaign, CA4IT’s Marketing YOU free online videos will show you how to expand your business and be more successful in the workplace. And you’ll learn interviewing secrets that have landed many of Renata’s clients their dream job!

Tune in weekly, starting December 14, 2009, for another free video in the series of CA4IT’s Marketing YOU!

At CA4IT, our goal is to assist all independent contractors. We hope you enjoy and can get the most out of this exciting and informative new initiative!

Go to CA4IT’s Marketing YOU Videos…

Each referral form received by ca4it will be entered into a monthly draw for 2 rounds of golf at Rolling Hills.
Draws will be held June 30, 2009 , July 31, 2009 and August 31, 2009

This PDF includes 2 coupons to be provided to applicants of staffing agency’s. Recruiters can enter there name and agency in the form and save it to their computer.

Download PDF here

We’re happy to present the new site design. Powered by Wordpress, the site has been redesigned with help of Spark Internet Marketing, web agency based in Toronto.
New site has all of the old site’s features including new, improved user interface. We hope that it will be even easier for you to browse the content and find the info that you’ve been looking for. For all site design feedback as well as any other comment contact us using the form on our contact page. Thank you!