Your Best Investment...You!

Everybody comes online looking to 'make money and start to work full time from home'. This is the dream of so many people in this business and rightfully so, I mean the greatest feeling in the world is getting up and developing your business and your brand. I think of nothing more rewarding that owning your own business, it really is a wonderful thing.

How long does it take? What is that magic number? Days, weeks, months or is it years? I'll give you my opinion on it, it's the latter. Yes, forget all those 'get rich quick' schemes you have read about. All those doublers and randomizers that promised you that you could sit back and let the money come rolling in. They do not exist. Here's the truth, it takes an investment of a few years to get these things going.

Let me say it again, you will NOT get rich from surfing a hit exchange and you probably won't be making a decent income off them for at least 6 months. Why? Simple, you should be trying and are in the process of building a 'business'.

Go offline, try to start a business and the turn around 'number' seems to be between 3 to 5 years, before a new business takes shape and starts earning the owner a profit. Yes, the internet can cut this down but not in the amount of time most 'hype machine' programs promise.

That being said, you have to develop your business and your name online. If you have been surfing a hit exchange for a month, and see no results, try a new splash page, switch up your surfing schedule but never give up. That's the easy road and the way to pin blame on someone or something else. The fact is, this business needs to be constantly attended to and grown into something solid.

Yeah, I'll say it. You need to keep surfing! You need to keep that upgraded membership. You need to pay your membership dues! You need to invest your time! You need to invest money! You need to stay in front of people's face! You need to stay focused!

This is what has worked for me, nothing more and nothing less. I have only been working 'full time' online for only about 12 months in my 6 year career. So for those first 4-5 years I worked my tail off, and did the grunt work. It was not easy and it took a lot of time but you know what, looking back it was worth the investment. The investment in myself and my dreams. Keep going, and don't stop promoting yourself!

Bookkeeping Basics

Most people probably think of bookkeeping and accounting as the same thing, but bookkeeping is really one function of accounting, while accounting encompasses many functions involved in managing the financial affairs of a business. Accountants prepare reports based, in part, on the work of bookkeepers.

Bookkeepers perform all manner of record-keeping tasks. Some of them include the following:

-They prepare what are referred to as source documents for all the operations of a business - the buying, selling, transferring, paying and collecting. The documents include papers such as purchase orders, invoices, credit card slips, time cards, time sheets and expense reports. Bookkeepers also determine and enter in the source documents what are called the financial effects of the transactions and other business events. Those include paying the employees, making sales, borrowing money or buying products or raw materials for production.

-Bookkeepers also make entries of the financial effects into journals and accounts. These are two different things. A journal is the record of transactions in chronological order. An accounts is a separate record, or page for each asset and each liability. One transaction can affect several accounts.

-Bookkeepers prepare reports at the end of specific period of time, such as daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly or annually. To do this, all the accounts need to be up to date. Inventory records must be updated and the reports checked and double-checked to ensure that they're as error-free as possible.

-The bookkeepers also compile complete listings of all accounts. This is called the adjusted trial balance. While a small business may have a hundred or so accounts, very large businesses can have more than 10,000 accounts.

-The final step is for the bookkeeper to close the books, which means bringing all the bookkeeping for a fiscal year to a close and summarized.

Careers

There are many different careers in the field of accounting ranging from entry-level bookkeeping to the Chief Financial Officer of a company. To achieve positions with more responsibility and higher salaries, it's necessary to have a degree in accounting as well as achieve various professional designations.

One of the primary milestones in any accountant's career is to become a Certified Public Accountant or CPA. To become a CPA you have to go to college with a major in accounting. You also have to pass a national CPA exam. There's also some employment experience required in a CPA firm. This is generally one to two years, although this varies from state to state. Once you satisfy all those requirements, you get a certificate that designates you as a CPA and you're allowed to offer your services to the public.

Many CPAs consider this just one stepping stone to their careers. The chief accountant in many offices is called the controller. The controller is in charge of managing the entire accounting system in a business stays on top of accounting and tax laws to keep the company legal and is responsible for preparing the financial statements.

The controller is also in charge of financial planning and budgeting. Some companies have only one accounting professional who's essentially the chief cook and bottle washer and does everything. As a business grows in size and complexity, then additional layers of personnel are required to handle the volume of work that comes from growth. Other areas in the company are also impacted by growth, and it's part of the controller's job to determine just how many more salaries the company can pay for additional people without negatively impacting growth and profits.

The controller also is responsible for preparing tax returns for the business; a much more involved and complex task than completing personal income tax forms! In larger organizations, the controller can report to a vice president of finance who reports to the chief financial officer, who is responsible for the broad objectives for growth and profit and implementing the appropriate strategies to achieve the objectives.

Bookkeeping

So what goes on the accounting and bookkeeping departments? What do these people do on a daily basis?

Well, one thing they do that's terribly important to everyone working there is Payroll. All the salaries and taxes earned and paid by every employee every pay period have to be recorded. The payroll department has to ensure that the appropriate federal, state and local taxes are being deducted. The pay stub attached to your paycheck records these taxes. They usually include income tax, social security taxes pous employment taxes that have to be paid to federal and state government. Other deductions include personal ones, such as for retirement, vacation, sick pay or medical benefits. It's a critical function. Some companies have their own payroll departments; others outsource it to specialists.

The accounting department receives and records any payments or cash received from customers or clients of the business or service. The accounting department has to make sure that the money is sourced accurately and deposited in the appropriate accounts. They also manage where the money goes; how much of it is kept on-hand for areas such as payroll, or how much of it goes out to pay what the company owes its banks, vendors and other obligations. Some should also be invested.

The other side of the receivables business is the payables area, or cash disbursements. A company writes a lot of checks during the course of year to pay for purchases, supplies, salaries, taxes, loans and services. The accounting department prepares all these checks and records to whom they were disbursed, how much and for what. Accounting departments also keep track of purchase orders placed for inventory, such as products that will be sold to customers or clients. They also keep track of assets such as a business's property and equipment. This can include the office building, furniture, computers, even the smallest items such as pencils and pens.