Since it is Friday and close to the end of the month of August, 2016, we thought it would be a great time to share what we feel are the best accounting blog posts from across the internet for this month. Hopefully you will find a treasure trove of great information in the following blog posts from our fellow accounting bloggers:
The 3 Best Accounting Blog Posts for August 2016
The Intuit blog always has a wealth of information on their blogs. One post we found particularly informative is this one, 5 Tips to Streamline Your Expense Reporting Process by Karine Woodman. Here is the beginning of the post with the first two tips:
As an accountant, you know that expense report processing is vital to your clients’ business. An inefficient and overly complicated process can not only make your life a nightmare, but also cost your clients time and money. Help them avoid the hassles that come with an outdated and clunky travel and expense (T&E) policy by spending time up front creating and implementing a clear process. To help them adopt a successful policy for their small business, here are five tips:
1. Involve Employees
Have clients generate greater employee buy-in by involving those who will be responsible for the policy’s implementation. This includes staff who will be submitting and processing reports. You’ll find that employees who are affected by the policies can use their first-hand knowledge to help identify potential problems and suggest solutions.
2. Make the Process Simple
Many companies fail when creating an easy to understand travel and expense policy (T&E). The more straightforward your clients’ expense process is, the fewer mistakes they will be make in its implementation. If the process is overly complex and time consuming, there is a greater chance for error.
Ensure the approval and reimbursement process is transparent, so that your clients’ employees understand how long they can expect to wait for payment. Likewise, employees need to understand how they should book travel (through an agent, on their own, etc.), what expenses are allowed and at what rates they will be approved.
MORE THAN JUST A CALCULATOR: SPOTLIGHT ON ACCOUNTANTS
The above link is to an August 2016 blog post at Accounting Principles. It highlights the personal attributes of accountants, and should make all you accounting people out there feel pretty good about yourselves. Below is the first portion of the article:
You’ve probably seen the stereotypical accountant in movies or TV shows: uptight, focused on numbers, few social skills, structured to the point of rigidity. But accountants are so much more. Accountants fill a wide range of roles in a variety of industries, but most of them have certain traits in common that go far beyond the number-crunching cliche.
Personable and friendly, yet focused
Nobody wants to be seen as just a number or a file. For accountants, it’s not enough to have a knack for figures. Accountants need to work well with co-workers, clients, shareholders, and regulatory authorities.
Accountants proactively support the goals of their clients and the organizations they work with, all while interpreting complicated industry concepts and turning them into useful ideas – a role that requires serious communication skills.
Trustworthy
Accountants deal with a lot of information that is confidential in nature. From salary information to social security numbers to sensitive financial data, accountants are ethically bound to keep sensitive information secure. Beyond the ethical requirements, having integrity just makes good business sense, since accountants who develop a reputation for trustworthiness are in greater demand.
FOR INTANGIBLE ASSETS, IS INTEGRATED REPORTING THE ANSWER?
Last but certainly not least is this post from Bloomberg BNA's accounting blog. Very timely and helpful information concerning a panel discussion at American Accounting Association conference in New York Aug. 8.
Here is the first portion of the blog post:
Financial reporting of intangible assets hasn’t kept up with their trillion dollar market value growth, according to a panel discussion at American Accounting Association conference in New York Aug. 8.
Loosely put, intangible assets range from intellectual property, customer relationships, and brand names to other “non-hard” assets, that add value to a company.
Much of the value of intangible assets however isn’t included in corporate balance sheets and there is no consensus that they should be, the panel discussion indicated.
One panelist, Bob Laux, a senior executive at Microsoft Corp., raised as a potential financial reporting solution: integrated reporting and disclosure whereby a company talks about its strategy and what resources they have in those strategies.
Laux pointed to the steady trending up of such assets in market value. In 1975, 17 percent of the market value of Standard & Poor’s 500 companies was made up of intangible assets said Laux, citing an Ocean Tomo study. In 2015, the same study found 84 percent of market value was made up of intangible assets, he said.
That concludes our August 2016 roundup of the best accounting blog posts. If you have a post you feel is worthy of this list, don't hesitate to comment below and share it!
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