Authored By: CodyWebb, Cody is an accountant in the Logan office of Cook Martin Poulson, PC. He specializes in new business setup, federal and state payroll taxation, workers compensation, QuickBooks consultation, and individual and business taxation.
How do I create an Accountant’s Copy of my QuickBooks? Why should I create an Accountant’s Copy versus a backup or portable copy? These are two common questions that new users of QuickBooks face at periodic times during the year when they need to send a copy of their QuickBooks file for quarterly reports, accounting adjustments, tax projections, or tax return preparation.
An Accountant’s Copy is a version of your company file that we can use to make changes to your data while you continue to work. When we are done adjusting your file, we can send our changes back to you for easy importing into your working company file. All of the adjustments that we have made to your QuickBooks and all of the work that you have continued to do easily incorporate together after we send the changes back to you. These adjustments can only be incorporated automatically back into your QuickBooks if you send us an Accountant’s Copy.
The steps to creating an Accountant’s Copy are as follows:
1. Choose File > Accountant’s Copy > Save File.
2. Confirm you want to create an Accountant’s Copy and click Next.
3. Choose a dividing date.
• You will be able to work with all transactions dated after the dividing date and we will be able to work with transactions prior to that date. For example, for year-end tax preparation purposes you would select December 31 of the prior year as the dividing date. For quarterly reports or periodic accounting adjustments, you would select the last day of the previous month or quarter.
4. Click Next.
5. (Optional) Change the suggested location for the file and the filename that QuickBooks suggests for the Accountant's Copy. The file must have a .qbx extension. You need to choose the desired location of where you will save the Accountant’s Copy. I have often found that it is easiest to save it to your Desktop and then move it to your Cook Martin Poulson Sharefile account or to a CD, flash drive, email attachment, or link that you receive from us.
6. Click Save.
7. Give the Accountant’s Copy transfer file (.qbx) to your accountant and continue to work.
After saving the Accountant’s copy, QuickBooks displays “Accountant’s Changes Pending” in the title bar and will remain there until you incorporate the changes back from the accountant or you remove the restrictions. Be aware that if you remove the restrictions before the accountant sends back the changes, you will no longer be able to incorporate any adjustments made by the accountant automatically into your QuickBooks.
You should be aware that there are some limitations to the things that we can adjust with an Accountant’s Copy file, and thus it may not be suitable for all companies. For example, we cannot add, edit, void or delete payroll, estimates, sales orders, transfers of funds between accounts, or inventory build assemblies.
Your accountant can tell you if they prefer you to upload an Accountant’s Copy or backup file to us but in most cases the Accountant’s Copy will be the preferred option.
If you have additional questions regarding QuickBooks or QuickBooks files, please feel free to contact the professional you work with.
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Marginal Tax Brackets and You
Authored by David Cash, CPA, MAcc. Dave has worked in the Logan and Salt Lake City offices of CMP. He spent 2 years in the Logan office and has been in the Salt Lake City office for over 5 years. Dave specializes in oil and gas taxation, pension administration and reporting, and individual and business tax planning and compliance.
In meeting with clients for over a decade to assist them with various tax related needs I have noticed that one misconception seems to be very common. In this article I would like to discuss that misconception and hopefully shed some light on the issue of the question, “What tax rate am I in?”
When I meet with clients and let them know that their marginal tax rate is at a particular percentage, say 25% for example, they usually will look at me and ask what they can do to get into a lower tax bracket. The ensuing discussion will usually go something like this:
Client: How can I lower my tax bracket?
CPA: You are in the 25% tax bracket but only $12,000 of your taxable income is being taxed at 25%
Client: What do you mean?
CPA: The tax system that we have is a graduated rate system. For the 2013 tax year if someone is Married Filing Joint then the first $17,850 of taxable income is going to be taxed at 10%. The taxable income between $17,851 and $72,500 is going to be taxed at 15%, then if your taxable income falls between $72,501 and $146,400 only the taxable income above $72,500 will be taxed at 25%. You are benefiting from the tax brackets that are lower than your marginal tax bracket. The marginal tax bracket just lets us know what rate the last dollar of taxable income is taxed at.
Client: So not all of my income is being taxed at 25%?
CPA: No, not all of your taxable income is taxed at 25%. It is similar to having a bucket for each tax bracket. You start by filling up your 10% bucket with income, then filling up your 15% bucket, then the remaining taxable income starts to fill your 25% bucket. Once the last of your taxable income is in one of 3 buckets, either 10%, 15%, or 25% then we are able to let you know that you are in the 25% marginal tax bracket.
Just in this past filing season, I had variations of this discussion with no fewer than 7 new clients. At Cook Martin Poulson, we strive to help you keep what you earn. Part of what we hope to do for our clients is to help them have a better understanding of the tax system and how it works. A key component to this is to try to take some of the mystery out of the tax system, such as the misconception that exists that just because you may be in the new 39.6% tax bracket for the 2013 tax year, doesn’t mean that all of your income is taxed at that rate.
For those of you who may be interested the 25% bracket includes taxable income from $72,501 through $146,400. The next bracket is at 28% and that has taxable income from $146,401 to $223,050. The 33% tax bracket is taxable income from $223,051 to $398,350. The 35% tax bracket is taxable income from $398,351 to $450,000 (yes that tax bracket only includes about $52,000 of taxable income). Those with taxable income over $450,000 gets that excess taxed at 39.6%. These tax brackets are for those that are Married Filing Joint tax returns. The other filing statuses have different tax bracket floors and ceilings, but the concept is the same.
In meeting with clients for over a decade to assist them with various tax related needs I have noticed that one misconception seems to be very common. In this article I would like to discuss that misconception and hopefully shed some light on the issue of the question, “What tax rate am I in?”
When I meet with clients and let them know that their marginal tax rate is at a particular percentage, say 25% for example, they usually will look at me and ask what they can do to get into a lower tax bracket. The ensuing discussion will usually go something like this:
Client: How can I lower my tax bracket?
CPA: You are in the 25% tax bracket but only $12,000 of your taxable income is being taxed at 25%
Client: What do you mean?
CPA: The tax system that we have is a graduated rate system. For the 2013 tax year if someone is Married Filing Joint then the first $17,850 of taxable income is going to be taxed at 10%. The taxable income between $17,851 and $72,500 is going to be taxed at 15%, then if your taxable income falls between $72,501 and $146,400 only the taxable income above $72,500 will be taxed at 25%. You are benefiting from the tax brackets that are lower than your marginal tax bracket. The marginal tax bracket just lets us know what rate the last dollar of taxable income is taxed at.
Client: So not all of my income is being taxed at 25%?
CPA: No, not all of your taxable income is taxed at 25%. It is similar to having a bucket for each tax bracket. You start by filling up your 10% bucket with income, then filling up your 15% bucket, then the remaining taxable income starts to fill your 25% bucket. Once the last of your taxable income is in one of 3 buckets, either 10%, 15%, or 25% then we are able to let you know that you are in the 25% marginal tax bracket.
Just in this past filing season, I had variations of this discussion with no fewer than 7 new clients. At Cook Martin Poulson, we strive to help you keep what you earn. Part of what we hope to do for our clients is to help them have a better understanding of the tax system and how it works. A key component to this is to try to take some of the mystery out of the tax system, such as the misconception that exists that just because you may be in the new 39.6% tax bracket for the 2013 tax year, doesn’t mean that all of your income is taxed at that rate.
For those of you who may be interested the 25% bracket includes taxable income from $72,501 through $146,400. The next bracket is at 28% and that has taxable income from $146,401 to $223,050. The 33% tax bracket is taxable income from $223,051 to $398,350. The 35% tax bracket is taxable income from $398,351 to $450,000 (yes that tax bracket only includes about $52,000 of taxable income). Those with taxable income over $450,000 gets that excess taxed at 39.6%. These tax brackets are for those that are Married Filing Joint tax returns. The other filing statuses have different tax bracket floors and ceilings, but the concept is the same.
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