The Lazy CPA's Tax Tips

Google Profile Tips for Accounting Professionals

Google Profiles are quickly becoming a popular tool for professionals in diverse fields to market their services and particular areas of expertise.   Google Profiles are free, easy to set up and offer many advantages given the fact that Google is the dominant player in Internet search.  Don’t have a Google Profile? Here are some easy tips on how to get a profile and why you should.

What is a Google Profile?  A Google Profile Page displays when a person searches for your name. So for example if I were to search for our Custom Web Designer Erik Thomsen his profile turns up on page one.

Erik’s profile includes a description and links to different interests. The page can include descriptive text and links to a blog, or other profiles on Linkedln, Facebook and more. There is a huge potential to use this as a marketing tool for your accounting services.  For example, if you have a created a professional profile on your firm’s website, you can create a custom link directly to the page on your Google Profile.

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Be the Master of Your Domain - Avoid These Common Mistakes

A scenario: Jack and Jill Accountants, LLP has a website and email addresses set up at their domain name. As the firm's Principals and employees leave work on a Friday afternoon everything is up and running perfectly. Monday morning, however, the website is down and email isn't working - a disastrous start to the new week. Frantic calls to the ISP and web host finally uncover the cause of the problem - an expired credit card number.

What happened in this fictional situation? A chain of events snowballed to the point where registration for the jackandjillaccountants.com domain name was inadvertently allowed to lapse, leading to an interruption of Internet services (web site hosting and email) associated with the domain name.

Don't let this happen to you
Domain names are simple, inexpensive yet very powerful branding tools that are fundamental to maintaining a presence on the web. This article discusses some of the ins and outs associated with registering and maintaining a domain name while avoiding some common pitfalls and complications, such as the fictional -- but all too real -- scenario described above.

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No April Fools

It's April 2nd, and I've spent the better part of this week at Newport Beach - walking and enjoying being out of the office. I have completed all my tax appointments for the year and have collected all my receivables as well. I'm rested and ready to return home to my family. On April 15th, I'll be on vacation with my family, what will you be doing? If you would like to know how I am able to take time off during tax season, just contact me here.

Add Your Blog Content to Your Facebook Page Via RSS

Does your company maintain a blog? Does your company maintain a page on Facebook? If you answered 'yes' to both these questions -- and there are some pretty compelling reasons why you should -- a third query naturally follows: Have you joined these two highly complimentary properties together so that updated content from your blog automatically to your Facebook page? This article provides a concise set of instructions on how to add your blog's (or any other site supporting RSS -- Really Simple Syndication) feed to your Facebook page using the "Notes" application. This process described works equally well for both personal and company Facebook pages and discusses one common -- though not the only -- method for distributing a blog's RSS feed on Facebook. It is assumed that the reader has a basic familiarity with the concept of RSS feeds.

Originally intended solely for college students but now open to individuals and companies, Facebook is a network made up of individual 'pages'. Each page can have various optional applications (small programs written by third party developers) installed at the discretion of the page owner. Applications range in usefulness from the 'completely frivolous' to the 'must have' and serve to extend the functionality of the core Facebook platform. The "Notes" application can function both as a tool to publish short text articles (i.e., 'notes' -- event promotion, press releases, job postings, product announcements, for example) but can also serve as a RSS import tool to take content from any selected outside source (blog, Twitter stream, Flickr account, YouTube channel, etc.) that can distribute updates via RSS.

Steps in the process:

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4 New And Free Powerful Online Recruiting Tools

Even with the ups and downs of the business cycle, hiring qualified employees is a task faced by all successful businesses.  Your ability to identify, cultivate and recruit top talent often means the difference between success and failure. That's why so many business invest heavily in newspaper ads and top notch recruiting agencies. But these days you don't have to spend a dime to attract top talent by using some free online tools.

Old School: Newspapers, Job Boards, Employee Referrals

In the beginning, there was the employment advertising section of the newspaper. The lack of other viable options meant that newspapers could charge handsomely for their services, and also made the employment adverting section of a local newspaper a natural starting point for many job seekers.

This started to change with the increasing ubiquity of the world wide web: Instead of employment advertising in print, online job sites such as Monster, Hotjobs and Careerbuilder offered a more dynamic, flexible and searchable interface for both employers and job seekers - and these new sites were consequently able to command high fees for their services.

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3 Business Reasons to Blog

Blogging -- Twitter -- Facebook -- Web 2.0 -- Social media: These terms are bandied about these days with great frequency.  As a business person with many and sometimes conflicting responsibilities, you may ask yourself, "What's in this for me?" or think "I'm a business person, not an aspiring blogger/writer/citizen journalist."  This article discusses blogs and blogging and the associated benefits of regularly blogging for small and mid-sized businesses.

What is a blog? Wikipedia defines the term as follows:  "A blog is a type of website usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog."  The larger and more pertinent question that arises from this is "Why blog?"  and "What possible benefits could accrue to your business from blogging?"

These are quite open-ended questions, and some answers to these questions include:

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Using Facebook and How It Can Benefit Your Accounting Firm

We recently wrote about using Twitter with your accounting firm’s website. The benefits of using Twitter can be leveraged further by creating a Facebook account for your firm.

As with Twitter, using Facebook can help towards improving your companies online image and attract new clients. The more information and ways you have for people to find and view your online presence, the more potential clients you can reach and current clients you can retain.

Once you create an account with Twitter there are many different ways to use it. The following are only a few suggestions to get started.

Start a group or fan page.
As with Twitter you can update on what your accounting firm is doing. The difference with Facebook is you can supply a lot more information.

Photos, events, video and more can be leveraged to give not only information but also your firms online image. This work can create trust in users or in potential clients.

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10 Free Steps to Improve Your Firm’s Marketing

Here are some simple, cost-free steps you can take to transform your approach to marketing your accounting firm.

Quick Background. Accounting firms operate in an increasingly competitive marketplace. Gone are the days when ‘marketing’ meant a plaque on the door and perhaps a Yellow Pages ad. Now even small sole practitioners are setting up organized marketing campaigns, and extravagant CPA website design is a virtual requirement for success.

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Accounting Websites: What’s the Big Deal About Meta Tags?

That’s actually a pretty long answer, but the short answer is…

“Meta tags aren’t a big deal.”

In 1995 having well organized Meta Tags could skyrocket a site right into the number one spot on Google even for highly competitive keywords. Those days are gone. When I started specializing in CPA Website Design in 2002 Meta tags were already the fading stars of SEO.

What META Tags Are

Generically the word “meta” is used in technology as “data that describes other data.” In web design, be it an accounting website or a family home page, a Meta Tag is an HTML tag that identifies the contents of a Web page for the search engines.

Meta tags are hidden on the page, but they (as well as all the HTML code on a page) can be viewed by selecting View/Source or View/Page Source from the browser menu. Meta tags contain a general description of the page, keywords and copyright information.

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Frustrated with printing from a website? Print only what you need from any webpage

Since the days of cavemen there has a real desire to take what you see, print it, and share with others. Here is an easy way to print what you need from any website.

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Need an Effective Project Management Tool? Take a Look at Basecamp

Getting things done effectively during the day can be challenge, whole books have been written on the subject.  Add in the complexity that comes with having multiple simultaneous projects to manage, each with multiple team members, and the possibilities for confusion start to multiply rapidly.  A project management/collaboration tool can help you stay on track and complete tasks on schedule while tracking time and resource allocation.

One such project management tool is the Basecamp application.  Here is a small breakdown on how Basecamp works (see the Basecamp website for more)  and a description of some of the application’s benefits.

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Leverage Intuit Online Payroll for Accounting Professionals for Extra Income

Payroll services can be another source of income for your accounting firm with only a minimal investment of time. You can do this by using Intuit Online Payroll for Accounting Professionals (fomerly Paycyle) to do the work for you. Here are some highlights to what the service offers and how it integrates within any accounting website hosted by CPA Site Solutions.

Automatically withholds appropriate taxes. You can just enter the number of hours worked and the service withholds the right amount of taxes. This is done with the most up to date tax tables.

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Using Video to Promote Your Accounting Website - Part 1

It is becoming increasingly common to use video to enhance CPA web sites. You can easily use this technique to increase your CPA Website Design Search Engine Presence and keep your clients informed about your services.

We’re going to start out by showing you how to make your video for your firm’s website.

This can get pricey if you do it wrong so let’s skip the high priced director, expensive cameras and actors. We don’t need to make a commercial here. We just need a video for your firm’s web site.

Get a Screen Capture Video Utility.  The trick to making this into a video is using a screen capture video utility. Camtasia works really well, but the price tag is pretty high.  I found an easy to use screen capture utility on download.com called Easy Screen Capture Video for 10 bucks.

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Anywhere, Anytime Virtual Quickbooks Access with Online Accounting

Access to a powerful and fully featured online accounting system is offered to any accounting firm that hosts a website with CPA Site Solutions. There is an extra cost involved for access to the service but the integration couldn’t be easier and the system provides some great benefits.

Here is a breakdown of how online accounting works and why you should take a closer look.

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Your domain name is a vital asset, are you sure you own it?

Your domain name is a vital asset of your firm, however, do you, in fact, own your domain? If you tried to move your website hosting could you take your domain name with you? What if right now you had to give up your domain because it was owned by the hosting company instead of you?

Don’t let this happen to you. Many web hosts will offer to reserve the domain name for your accounting firm, then turn around and reserve the domain in their own name in an account that your firm can’t access.

Don’t think that dealing with a large company is any protection! There are some large companies that actually charge accountants a $50 fee when they leave if they want to take the domain name with them!

When allowing a host to purchase your accounting firm’s domain name, ask some screening questions:

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