The TGG Way

Why Established Processes are Important

Posted on May 18, 2012 by TGGPostmaster

Established procedures can save a business from falling into chaos in times of change. Small businesses often have a trusted employee in charge of several tasks ranging from accounting to project management. But what happens when this employee who knows the pulse and course of the business decides to submit his two weeks notice? Is two weeks enough time to find and train an adequate replacement? Often it is not. All business owners have either already faced this situation, or are about to come face to face with a brutal reality; they have no idea how their employees actually perform their tasks. Continue reading →

Posted in Bookkeeping, Jake Cavanagh, Strategic Financial Management, The TGG Team | Tagged Accounts payable process, document proceses, flow charts, how to create processes, protect my business, TGG Accounting, why processes are important | Leave a comment

Importance of the Budget Process

Posted on May 9, 2012 by TGGPostmaster

In order to make effective decisions and coordinate the decisions and actions of the various departments, businesses need to have a plan for profitability. Typically a business creates a budget annually which, once approved, becomes the Annual Plan (or Budget). The Budget serves several purposes:

It is a means for Executive Management to gain consensus on how the year’s resources are going to be allocated towards realization of the companies quantifiable goals for the year.
A Goal Setting Exercise.
Provides a Metric for Assessing Company Performance.
Acts as an Approval Process. Continue reading →

Posted in Balance Sheets, Cash Flow, Nancy Brzezniak, Profit & Loss, Strategic Financial Management, The TGG Team | Tagged how often to budget, how to budget, importance of budgeting, keys to budgeting, TGG Accounting, when to budget | 2 Comments

Account Reconciliations Gone Bad

Posted on May 7, 2012 by TGGPostmaster

Any good accountant and most savvy business people understand the value of frequent account reconciliations. They’re the single best way to ensure the accuracy and completeness of your financial records; especially cash account reconciliations. However, a thorough review of this process should still be performed as there are several mistakes or work-arounds that could have been made and without further review could go unnoticed for quite some time. Continue reading →

Posted in Andrea Murray, Balance Sheets, Bookkeeping, Profit & Loss, The TGG Team | Tagged account reconciliation errors, duplicate entries, fix a reconciliation, how to reconcile, Quickbooks Reconciliations, TGG Accounting | Leave a comment

Direct vs. Indirect Costs

Posted on May 4, 2012 by TGGPostmaster

Allocating costs during a Government Contract may be one of the most important aspects in accounting for that project and will determine whether it will result in a profit or loss. Direct Costs may be charged to the contract, while Indirect Costs may be less obvious but could enable you to break even or make that desired profit in the end. Luckily, most costs are outlined for you in the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) which has been transmitted through the legal regulatory process. The FAR is considered to have the force and effect of law. Here is an outline of Direct Costs versus Indirect Costs and the application of those costs in a Government Contract. Continue reading →

Posted in Bookkeeping, Stephanie Cox, Strategic Financial Management, The TGG Team | Tagged contract costs, Costs for government contracts, Direct vs indirect costs, FAR, government contract costs, TGG Accounting | Leave a comment

Fixed Price Government Contracts

Posted on May 2, 2012 by TGGPostmaster

Fixed-Price Contracts are issued when there is a reasonable degree of certainty that costs and profit can be accurately forecasted; thus utilizing the profit motive in any business. The government favors fixed price contracts because the cost is determinable before the project starts and because a fixed price carries less risk of overspending than cost plus contracts. Fixed price contracts allow the Government to hold the lowest risk whereas the contractor carries the highest performance risk. Fixed price contracts place all of the pressure on the contractor to perform within budget if they wish to realize any profit on the contract. Continue reading →

Posted in Jake Cavanagh, Strategic Financial Management, The TGG Team | Tagged adjustable contracts, conditions for fixed price contracts, contract requirements, fixed price contracts, government contracts, TGG Accounting | 3 Comments

Managing Accounts Receivable in Your Small Business

Posted on April 30, 2012 by TGGPostmaster

Accounts receivable collections are critical for cash flow management. Many business owners consider accounts receivable as cash on hand. This method of thinking can sink a business. Accounts receivable represents revenues earned but not collected and should never be considered as cash in the bank. The collections process is essential to maintaining incoming cash flows.

Making collection phone calls to past due customers is an unpleasant task most employees choose to ignore. However, the consequences of ignoring past due invoices can be catastrophic. Continue reading →

Posted in Bookkeeping, Cash Flow, Jake Cavanagh, Strategic Financial Management, The TGG Team | Tagged accounts receivable, AR Aging, cash flow, collection phone calls, how to approach collections, how to make collection calls, how to manage accounts receivable, manage receivables, TGG Accounting | 2 Comments

Process Docs: The More Detailed, the Better

Posted on April 27, 2012 by TGGPostmaster

For every business activity, there is a process for completing that activity. It is important to have documents that detail all of these processes. If one person gets sick or goes on vacation, or even leaves the company, there should be a process that anyone can follow to get the work done that has been left. Business doesn’t stop when one person isn’t there. However, the process should be as detailed as possible to completely lay out all the steps for anyone to complete that task. For example, what if a payroll process only said: Continue reading →

Posted in Ashley Peth, Bookkeeping, The TGG Team | Tagged creating procedures, creating processes, how to create procedure manuals, How to create process docs, how to create process manuals, payroll process document, TGG Accounting, why process docs are important | Leave a comment

Independent Consulting vs. The Team Approach

Posted on April 23, 2012 by TGGPostmaster

Until recently, I was an independent consultant, and before that I had my own consulting business. I’ve spent a few years offering accounting services to a wide variety of clients across several different industries. There are several differences to being an independent contractor versus the team approach as practiced at TGG Accounting.

As an independent, I had to be all things to my client. If a client wanted work done I offered the “soup to nuts” approach. This meant that regardless of the size of the job I inevitably spent time doing everything from entering journal entries, cleaning up the chart of accounts, reconciling accounts, entering payroll, and creating financial statements. The amount of time I was able to devote to advising the client to make good business decisions was reduced by the size of their budget and the amount of time the preparation consumed. At TGG, we have the luxury of being able to maximize a client’s budget by assigning work across a wider range of people at varying levels of experience and bill rates. Continue reading →

Posted in Bookkeeping, Nancy Brzezniak, Strategic Financial Management, The TGG Team | Tagged benefits of consulting, benefits of outsourced accounting, independent consulting, independent consulting vs team approach, negatives of consulting, negatives of outsourced accounting, outsourced accounting, team approach, TGG Accounting | Leave a comment

Peachtree vs. QuickBooks

Posted on April 20, 2012 by TGGPostmaster

In working with different clients’ software, I’ve found that both Peachtree and QuickBooks are quite user friendly. If you are trying to determine which accounting software is right for your company or maybe you work in both software’s and want to know the equivalent of certain tasks in each one, this blog will point out some similarities and differences that may help guide your decision. Continue reading →

Posted in Andrea Murray, Bookkeeping, The TGG Team | Tagged accounting software, choosing an accounting software, peachtree, quickbooks, quickbooks vs peachtree, TGG Accounting | Leave a comment

Importance of Maintaining Sub-Schedules

Posted on April 18, 2012 by TGGPostmaster

I have previously written about the necessity of performing monthly reconciliations of all balance sheet accounts. I did not, however, express the importance of having, maintaining, and using sub-schedules to perform those reconciliations. So, I want to explain how to effectively create and use sub-schedules.

First of all, What is a sub-schedule? In a big accounting system, each account is summarized at the reporting level and the detail is stored in a sub-ledger that basically acts like a large database. Smaller systems, like QuickBooks, don’t have an organized sub-ledger system. Continue reading →

Posted in Accrual Accounting, Ashley Peth, Balance Sheets, Bookkeeping, Profit & Loss, Strategic Financial Management, The TGG Team | Tagged deferred account, fixed asset schedule, how to make a sub-schedule, monthly reconciliations, prepaid schedule, sub-ledger schedule, sub-schedules, TGG Accounting | 1 Comment