Accounting and Financial Outsourcing

Article Dean Dorton

Every year we receive numerous questions year-end closing in Microsoft Dynamics GP, so we want to help you prepare now for a smooth year-end close process in Dynamics GP! The process for Dynamics GP year-end is not as complicated as it was five years ago, but preparation still helps make your day go better.

The following year-end close resources have been compiled by Massey Consulting so that you do not have to search far and wide for them. Complete the modular closes in the order they are listed below. Please don’t hesitate to contact us for additional help or information.

Dynamics GP Year End Resources

Year-end closing procedures for Inventory Control in Microsoft Dynamics GP

This article discusses how to close the year and how to prepare your inventory records for the new fiscal year in Inventory Control in Microsoft Dynamics GP.

Year-end closing procedures for Receivables Management in Microsoft Dynamics GP

This article contains checklists for the year-end closing process in Receivables Management. It also contains detailed information for each step in the year-end closing process.

Year-end closing procedures for Payables Management in Microsoft Dynamics GP

This article describes the recommended year-end closing procedures for the Payables Management module.

Year-end closing procedures for Fixed Asset Management in Microsoft Dynamics GP

This document outlines the recommended year-end closing procedures for Fixed Asset Management in Microsoft Dynamics. This article includes a checklist of the steps that you must follow to complete these procedures.

Year-end closing Procedures for Analytical Accounting in Microsoft Dynamics GP

There is not a ‘separate’ year-end close procedure for Analytical Accounting. The steps in this article will assist to check your data prior to doing the GL year-end close process to check for AA data that may cause errors during the GL year-end close process. This article will also show you how to set up the AA dimensions to have a Balance Brought Forward entry created in the new year per dimension if desired. Steps are also given on how to move historical data to history.

Year-end closing procedures for General Ledger in Microsoft Dynamics GP
This article outlines the recommended year-end closing procedures for General Ledger. It contains a checklist of steps and detailed instructions for each step.

Year-end closing procedures for US Payroll in Microsoft Dynamics GP
This document outlines the recommended year-end closing procedures for Microsoft Dynamics GP Payroll.

Thank you for reading our post and please contact us if you have any questions!

Article Dean Dorton

Have you ever entertained the idea of having your account payables function enter the 21st century and make all payments electronically (ACH)? Did you attempt to launch the project but were quickly discouraged by all the complexities of the implementation?

Your head probably started spinning when you sat in a meeting and heard…

Your bank talking about the need to start a project to work with your IT on being able to process your ACH payments IT and the bank telling you about the need to create a process to produce NACHA files to send to the bank whenever electronic payments are made—and you thought “do I really need to know this?”

The IT guys saying that they’d have to prepare the system to receive files from the bank and update the payables system with payments that were successfully executed and with those that failed. They probably even talked about having to punch holes in the firewall—and you went “wait…what? holes were?”

Your account payables team complaining about having to do extra work to pay some people with ACH and still cut checks for those vendors that won’t accept electronic payments

Your internal auditors asking about controls to ensure that files are not sent to the bank more than once controls to handle stop payments and controls to reconcile the bank account from which the electronic funds are withdrawn.

Forget about all that. We’ve got some BIG news for you!

Intacct the best in class cloud ERP system and American Express have come together to help you make vendor payments easily. Working together they offer a cost effective, seamless and secure way to pay your vendors. You can pay vendors with direct deposit (ACH), with your American Express corporate card, or even with a printed check. All within Intacct and without having to get your IT and the bank engaged in a long, complex, painful project.

With the integration of Intacct Vendor Payment Services with American Express Vendor Payment Solutions:

  • You have a secure way to do electronic payments using the American Express Global Corporate Payments infrastructure.
  • You can quickly setup the process. Yes, yourself! You activate it from your Intacct subscription page. No need to get IT and the bank involved.
  • You can keep your current bank and you can pay to any bank.
  • All your banking information is verified, including your banking officer, account details, and bank connectivity.
  • The process is easy. Just select the bills to pay, approve them, and relax. Intacct sends the payments to American Express and they automatically route the ACH payment to your vendor’s bank. No need to generate and send ACH files manually.
  • You can automate your payments to be sent as soon as they are approved and to automatically post to the GL.
  • Those vendors that take American Express can be paid with your Amex corporate card.
  • For vendors that prefer to be paid with the good old paper check, Intacct Check Delivery Service will handle the printing and mailing of your checks. This saves you time and money on printers, ink, preprinted checks, and postage.
  • Eliminate all the hassles of paying vendors with the integration that Intacct and American Express offer. Electronically submit your payments from within Intacct and have your vendors be paid in any way they want: check, electronic deposit (ACH) or American Express credit card. Easy, safe and cost effective.

Contact us and we will tell you more about how to streamline your vendor payment process with Intacct and American Express.

Article Dean Dorton

A lot has been said about the new ASC 606 guidance on contract revenue recognition: What the changes are, who is affected, when it takes effect, how to get ready, and more. But not much has been said about the Direct Costs the changes have on the way direct costs are to be accounted for.

Should the costs associated with fulfilling a contract be expensed or capitalized under ASC 606?

The best way to make this determination is by following an easy formula proposed by PwC in their guide Revenue from Contracts with Customers.

First of all, you need to find out if the cost is in the scope of another FASB standard. Some costs such as treatment of inventory, intangibles, property and plant and equipment are in the scope of other standards and ASC 606 does not apply.

Then, for each cost incurred to fulfill a contract that is not in the scope of other standards follow the below formula:

Does the cost relate directly to a contract? If the answer is NO then expensed the cost. If the answer is YES then proceed with question two.

Does the cost generate or enhance resources that will be used to satisfy performance obligations? If the answer is NO then expensed the cost, otherwise proceed to question three.

Is the cost likely to be recovered? If the answer is YES, then you can recognize this cost as an asset and it can be capitalized. If you don’t expect to recover the cost, then you must expense it as it is incurred.

Some costs such as employee wages and supplies used as part of the contract are easy to classify. Other costs such as learning curve costs, setup and mobilization costs and abnormal costs will require more analysis and the application of judgment.

Intacct, the best-in-class ERP, handles all the requirements to comply with ASC 606 and IFRS 15. For instance, it’s important to document your decisions at each stage of the process so auditors have a trail to follow. With Intacct Collaborate, relevant documents that belong to the way a specific cost was classified can be uploaded directly into the corresponding conversation.

Contact us to learn more about how ASC 606 will affect your company and how Intacct can help you to get ready, or attend one of the webinars on the topic.

Article Dean Dorton

With the year-end around the corner, your heart is probably already racing in anticipation of all the tasks ahead. I know you’ll be ok and you’ll finish everything on time, but here are a few things that you can start doing now to make your life easier in January.

Prepare for 1099 Printing

It doesn’t matter when your fiscal year ends, you must print and mail the calendar year 1099 forms by January 31.

You’ll also have to file all 1099s with the IRS. Be aware the filing date changed this year! If you’re filing 1099-Misc with amounts in Box 7: Nonemployee Compensation—and most likely you are–the new filing deadline is January 31. If you don’t have amounts in Box 7, then the deadline is still February 28th for paper filing or March 31 for electronic filing.

To get ahead of the game you can run a preliminary 1099 report and review it to make sure all your 1099 vendors are set up as such in your system and their payable invoices are marked as 1099 transactions.

Prepare for W2 Printing

You also have to print and mail Wage and Tax Statements (W-2 form) to all your employees by January 31st and file the forms with the Social Security Administration by the same date. The new due date of January 31st applies to W2s for both paper and electronic filing.

To prepare for the W2 printing process, make sure you have all your workers classified correctly. Sometimes workers are classified as independent consultants when they are really employees and this is important because employees are issued a W-2 form while independent consultants are issued a 1099 form.

In addition, check your Employee’s Withholding Allowance Certificates (W-4 forms). Make sure you have one on file for each employee and that they show current employee information including marital status, a number of dependents and other tax related information.

Start gathering information for the auditors

Another task that may fall in your lap when you are working on year-end is preparing for the annual audit. To get a jump start ask the auditors for a to-do list so you can gather as many documents as you can now.

One thing the auditors will check is that all the sub ledgers match the trial balance. Check this before you close the books. A mismatch will raise a lot of questions from the auditors and create a ton of additional work for you. Now is the time to reconcile your accounts receivable and accounts payable aging reports against the corresponding balances in your trial balance. Do the same with every sub ledger.
And since the auditors will most likely ask you for testing samples, ask them if you can have the requirements now. If you start pulling invoices and payroll files for months that are already closed, you’ll only have to extract a couple of months’ worth of data in January.

Install and Test Software Updates for Year-End

If you have on-premise accounting or payroll solutions, you should install and test all year-end related software updates as soon as possible. But if you have a cloud accounting solution like Intacct this is not a reason to be concerned. The team of experts at Intacct will make all changes, test them and install them for you.

Also, with Intacct, you have custom fields that allow you to organize and sort transactions for analysis. You can also upload external or complex journal entries. And Intacct dashboards and standard and custom reports reduce the time you spend producing reports and answering questions.

Contact us so we can give you more tips to prepare for year end and show you how Intacct can save you a lot of time in the process.

Article Dean Dorton

With the effective date of ASC 606 and IFRS around the corner, many people are wondering
subscription based about the effect that the new contract revenue recognition guidelines will have on their specific line of business. We have already talked about what the changes are for revenue management and today we’ll discuss how subscription-based companies are affected by the new standard.

Today I want to spend some time talking about how the new contract revenue recognition guidelines under ASC 606 & IFRS 15 subscription-based businesses and what you have to do to be in compliance.
Under the new guidelines:

When subscriptions and contracts change because of add-ons, discounts, upgrades, etc. revenue will have to be reallocated across the contract. To make things a little more complicated this reallocation will have to be made to all periods, including those already closed.

Not only revenue is deferred across the contract, you will have to defer expenses as well. This could be a big reason of concern if you have contracts that will be active when the new guidelines take effect.

In order to have full visibility of the effects on your business of the transition from the old rules into ASC 606 you will need two sets of books. That’s right. You need to book the same revenue and expenses twice, according to each set of rules.

Can all these be accomplished with spreadsheets or without making significant changes to your accounting solution? Definitely not. You need a contract management system that at least gives you the following:

Automatic reallocation of revenue and expenses when a contract changes.

Dual treatment capabilities that apply both sets of rules to each transaction.

Dual reporting so you can see right away and side by side the effect of the new allocation rules on your business.

Intacct, the best-in-class cloud ERP solution, comes out-of-the-box, with a Contract Revenue Management module. This module automatically takes care of all the additional tasks required to be in compliance with the new guidelines. In addition, you have:

No custom code or dependency on your IT resources to make changes to the system so you can have reallocation of revenue and expenses, dual treatment and dual reporting.

Real time visibility over the effect of the revenue and expense allocations on your financial reports, detailed reports and forecast reports.

Board-ready insights that show the effect of the allocations on key subscription business metrics including Churn, Customer Lifetime Value, Committed Monthly Recurring Revenue, Cash and Customer Acquisition Cost.

Control over the configuration so you can setup your contract and revenue policies. You also have flexible templates that you can customize to reflect your current allocation and amortization methods.

In closing, your Intacct solution takes care of your contract expense allocation and the reallocation of revenue and expenses when subscriptions and contracts change. It provides you with dual treatment and reporting that you can control and configure. It gives you deep and broad revenue insights of your orders, contracts and metrics. And all these is available out-of-the box, not code changes, no dependency on it.

Contact us so we can tell you more about the upcoming contract revenue recognition changes and how Intacct takes care of the transition for you.

Article Dean Dorton

It’s an annual tradition for the President of the United States to pardon a turkey at Thanksgiving. Which president started the trend is up for debate, but White House history dates the first turkey clemency to 1865, when Abraham Lincoln’s son took a liking to a bird intended for Christmas dinner.

Repost from Avalara

Since then, dozens of turkeys have been given a reprieve by POTUS. But is America really the land of the free fowl? In Lincoln’s case, it’s lucky the First Family was living in the White House at the time of the pardon. The former president’s home state of Illinois requires breeders who sell animals (including livestock) as pets to collect sales tax. California, Tennessee, New Jersey and several other states have similar laws. So the Lincolns could have been on the hook for consumer use tax since they didn’t eat the bird as intended.

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Had the Lincoln turkey made it to the White House table, tax would have been a non-issue as the District of Columbia does not charge sales tax on livestock, groceries or chef services. Although 14 states do tax groceries and some, including Washington and California, add retail sales tax to home-cooked meals prepared by professional cooks. Georgia even extended that rule to chefs marketing their home cooking services online, requiring sales tax to be charged on the transaction.

What about the Nixon and Reagan era turkeys that were sent to petting zoos? If they spent their final days on display in Louisiana, Oklahoma, or Maryland, it would cost visitors more to get a glimpse of these fortunate fowl. These states, among others, charge sales tax on admissions to certain entertainment or amusement venues, which can include zoos.

And what about Honest and Abe, the two turkeys plucked from the Twittersphere, flown via Turkey One (seriously) from Foster Farms in Modesto, CA to Washington DC and pardoned by President Obama last year? The duo retired to Turkey Hill in Leesburg, Virginia where they will live out the remainder of their lives. Unless they try to make a run for the border together. Canada is cool with Americans bringing one U.S. turkey into the country, but try and get two past customs and the duty increases by 154 percent!

In addition to Honest and Abe, two other (less fortunate) turkeys, also from Foster Farms, were dressed and delivered to the Obamas in 2015 to donate to a DC-area food bank.

How does all this fly from a sales tax perspective? Foster Farms may have owed use tax on the donated birds because they took them out of their inventory. And possibly on their feeding and care. But if only eight Foster Farms birds made the trip to DC from California in the last six years – four being pardoned (Honest and Abe in 2015; Cider and Apple in 2010) and four being charitable donations – it’s likely that the poultry producer was spared from having to register and collect sales tax in the U.S. capital.

But let’s fan this out a bit for fun. In the 17 weeks it took those turkeys to go from farm to table (or farm to capitol to farm, in this case), a whole flock of sales tax nexus-creating scenarios could have cropped up. What if a third-party trekked those toms from California to the Capital instead of a commercial jet? The gobblers’ Hill staffers (the ones who stayed with them at the Willard Hotel, toured them around the Rose Garden and drove their motorcade to the White House) could have considered remote employees (a nexus triggering activity). And the whole social media campaign, complete with plush turkey toys? Well there’s some click-through nexus for you right there.

Having a hard time stuffing all this into your brain? We don’t blame you. Multi-state sales tax nexus is a lot to have on your plate.

While there is no tradition where state auditors grant clemency to companies for tax compliance, here are 10 tips from 4 (former) state tax auditors that could help. And, thankfully, there’s Avalara sales tax automation software to make the job easier.