How well acquainted are you with your financials prepared by your CPA? Do you get a compilation, review or audit? Do you ever find yourself thinking, “That number sounds familiar but I don’t really know what it is.” If so, you may be overlooking a critical part of the CPA – Client relationship.
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INCREASED DOMESTIC AND GLOBAL COMPETITION STILL MOST PREDOMINANT CHALLENGES
CHICAGO – Amid improving expectations for revenue growth, technology CFOs point to a steadying economy and increased consumer demand as key drivers of growth in 2013. According to a new study from BDO USA, LLP, a leading accounting and consulting organization, over one-third of CFOs (37 percent) polled believe that economic improvement in the United States will once again be the most important factor for industry growth this year. Despite economic challenges abroad, more CFOs (23 percent vs. 13 percent in 2012) believe that growth in the global marketplace will “make or break” U.S. companies’ ability to reach their growth targets in 2013. In addition, 28 percent of CFOs expect that consumer demand for innovative personal technologies will be another top driver of industry growth this year. Continue reading
This was a week of discipline. After the rush of busy tax season, the few days afterwards can seem to meander. However, some really important meetings were shifted until after the deadline and I just knew they needed to go ahead and happen. Boy was I glad they did! One meeting was a simple financial statement review meeting with clients who had already looked at their year-end financials from the CFO in January and approved the audited financials to be given to the bank. But, I was surprised by what I saw. Continue reading
For many months, I have been thinking about how the economy is picking up and about all of the positive signs I am seeing with my clients in general. When I consider all of the industries represented and look for signs of recovery, my attention is really drawn to seven individuals who own businesses that have gone through some severe hardships. This blog is to show my admiration for survivors, innovators and the people that persevere regardless of everything thrown at them. Continue reading
For the 6th year in a row, Abacus IT Solutions – BMSS sister company, will provide the telephone systems for the Bruno Event Team to use during the Regions Tradition Golf Tournament.
Abacus IT Solutions provides cable for voice and data connectivity and installs a telephone system enabling the Bruno Event Team to communicate with their corporate headquarters, as well as players, vendors and volunteers onsite during the tournament.
Let Abacus IT Solutions do a review of your business’ current IT infrastructure and telephone system. They can report on your current operating systems and applications, determine possible threats, formulate a hardware replacement timeline, and determine if there are ways you can save money. Abacus IT Solutions can integrate a telephone system using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), paging and intercom systems, call center management, call recording and logging and enterprise messaging solutions.
Contact me at technology@bmss.com if you would like me to introduce you to Abacus IT Solutions.
As the end of tax season approaches, I start thinking about getting out of the office and enjoying a road trip anywhere. I would like to share a few of my favorite apps that have turned my road trips into very enjoyable adventures. These are all tested and worthy of using on every trip. I have them listed in order of usage. I guess it helps to know that I am running these apps on an Iphone 5. I created a Travel folder on my Iphone and collected the following applications:
BDO Tech – The Newsletter of the BDO Technology & Life Sciences Practice Winter 2013
By Chris Bard, Matthew Dyment, Maureen McGetrick, Marla Miller and Robert C. Pedersen
With all of the business challenges life sciences startup companies are faced with, it is little wonder that the tax function often remains at the back of the line. However, there are many reasons why a life sciences company should assign focus to the tax side of the business sooner rather than later. By reprioritizing the tax function now, companies can avoid significant consulting fees and reduce stress on already strained internal resources down the road. The tax function has so many significant moving parts that it is highly possible that indifference, or a “wait and see” approach, can often trigger or possibly increase a company’s tax exposure. Continue reading
This is a review of Brewster, a new app for the Iphone. I have seen a couple of references for this app on twitter and Facebook. It seems like I have every app that I need in order to be efficient at work and it is hard to imagine that anything could bring a new level of ease to my daily work life, but this app is intriguing. It pulls all of your contacts into one centralized personalized address book.
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Congratulations to the City of Trussville and Mayor Melton for their Grand Opening of the new Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) station today! All three local TV stations were present for the coverage. As many of you know, I have been an avid fan of CNG since 2009. Today is the end of a three-year effort and partnership by city government and private companies to make this fuel available at 
Gunter Oil Co/Happy Hollow Chevron on Deerfoot Parkway.
My first client from back in 1991 is Mark McConville and his business, The Airport Express. Mark uses CNG as the exclusive fuel for his business. Mark and I were the first to cross Route 66 in his Compressed Natural Gas powered 1966 Red GTO. You can read our story at www.route66goatgas.com The GTO is very popular in the CNG industry and is well known. Today I was honored to drive the GTO to Trussville to attend the Grand Opening. Continue reading
The CPA profession has the reputation of being a stressful job during the tax filing season. Our hours go up considerably and we compress a large percentage of our annual workload into a three-month period. Deadlines create a pass or fail expectation that add to the pressure. So, how do seasoned CPAs learn to handle the stress and what lessons can a startup company learn about dealing with stress from veterans of deadline environments?
Here is a quick bullet point list of my observations on how the most relaxed CPAs make it: Continue reading
