Westward Group for Tax and Estate Planning Advisors Tokyo News: The 5 biggest blunders The 5 biggest estate-planning blunders You've worked hard for what you have. You funded your retirement plan, paid off your home and amassed enough savings to cover future expenses, plus leave a financial legacy to your loved ones. Too bad your ex-spouse--and his or her kids--will inherit it all. Indeed, estate-planning blunders are costly and common, even among the fiscally prudent. Any number of oversights can leave you vulnerable in the event you become incapacitated. Others can seriously compromise the amount your heirs will inherit when you die. "I could tell you horror story after horror story," said estate-planning attorney Sandra Clapp, of Sandra L. Clapp & Associates in Eagle, Idaho. One of her clients, she said, made the critical mistake of giving his girlfriend partial control of his assets during his lifetime. Unbeknownst to him, she had promptly transferred ownership of a significant portion of his estate to herself. The man's will named his children as beneficiaries, but there was little left to distribute when he died. "Once it's discovered, it's usually too late if the assets are already spent or transferred out of jurisdiction," Clapp said. Read More: http://www.cnbc.com/id/101573018 Check This Out: http://westwardadvisors.com https://foursquare.com/item/53570e6d498e1dd5d4aa372b http://www.pinterest.com/monickatwell/westward-advisors-group http://westwardadvisors.blogspot.com read more

Westward Group for Tax and Estate Planning Advisors Tokyo Paris Review: Top 5 Tips to Get Your Company Funding Fit Are you funding ready? Top 5 tips to get your company funding fit 2015's a hair's breadth away. As you start next year's planning, here are 5 things you can do to give yourself the best chance of securing new investors in your business - either debt or equity. 1. Have your financials in order The first thing any investor is going to ask for is your historic financials, so you should have them ready and in a useable format. At Lighter Capital, we like to see 24 months of historic financials for both the P&L and the Balance Sheet. Some investors may require less, but at the minimum, I would suggest having the quarterly financials for the last 12 months ready. You should know that any institutional lending source is going to require that you produce monthly financials so this is something to think about as you head to market. - The easiest way to determine if your financials are ready to be seen by an outside financing source is to have someone with an accounting background take a quick look at them. This can be as simple as asking your tax accountant to review, and now is a good time to ask them before they get slammed by year-end tax returns. They'll let you know if you are doing anything blatantly wrong from an accounting prospective. I won't sweat the small mistakes but if you have negative revenue or assets that could be a liability, they can help you make those changes easily. If you run into bigger issues, you might want to consider getting outside help from a CPA or controller, like our friends at Early Growth Financials. - There are a few different types of accounting methodologies: cash, accrual, and modified accrual. It's good to understand the pros and cons of accrual and cash accounting of each methodology before choosing one to implement. For example, a common error we see with accrual accounting is that many entrepreneurs only make adjustments at year-end, where this methodology actually requires monthly adjustments. This makes for a confusing P&L. For small business, it's easier to just do cash accounting if you can understand it, and it helps you become very familiar with your company's cash situation. Don't feel that you have to use accrual accounting because that is GAAP standard. Lots of investors deal with different types of accounting methodologies, so they can read whatever statements you give them as long as they are accurate. 2. Projections - know where you're headed As we enter the New Year, it's good to have a sense for where you're going and projections help you get there. The most helpful projections are not the ones that just take a growth percentage and apply it on a monthly or quarterly basis, but the ones that are based on your pipeline and historic performance. - Things to keep in mind include seasonality: are you a seasonal business, and if so, do your projections reflect it? Do you have some big customer wins projected over the next 12 months and when do you expect them? Do you have big payments to vendors or debt sources? Be sure to include them in the projections, including any adjustments needed to reach these goals and how they'll be layered in over the next year (i.e. additional employees, larger commissions for sales, advertising and technology spend, and product development plans, etc.). - As if that wasn't enough to consider in your projections, you might want to think about having two sets -- a tortoise and a hare. Your 'hare' scenario is a high growth shoot-to-the-moon scenario for equity investors and the 'tortoise' is a more stable, plodding scenario for debt investors. - If this seems like a lot, a basic set using growth percentages and margins works well and at least gives your investors a place to start when evaluating the outlook for the next year. 3. Explain your customer base Everyone will want to know something about your customers. If you put together a basic chart (like the one below) for your top 10 customers, you'll help fend off 90% of potential questions. If you have customers that represent more than 10% of your annual revenue, expect some type of follow-up questions from interested investors who might ask to see copies of the contract, request reference checks, and review historic churn in your customer base. Continue reading: http://venturebeat.com/2014/12/10/are-you-funding-ready-top-5-tips-to-get-your-company-funding-fit/ For more reviews from Westward Group for Tax and Estate Planning Advisors Tokyo Paris, visit: http://westwardadvisors.com http://westwardadvisors.tumblr.com read more

Westward Group for Tax and Estate Planning Advisors Tokyo Paris Review: Money-saving Tax Tips http://insurancenewsnet.com/oarticle/2014/12/27/money-saving-tax-tips-a-581565.html#.VKDSil4CME It may seem a little early to think about filing taxes, but doing a few quick things now can make it easier when April rolls around. Tiffany Crawford, tax supervisor at Rea and Associates, Inc., said it's important that people start tax planning in the last few days of the year, if they haven't already. "We begin tax planning as soon as April 16th for many of our clients," Crawford said in an email. "There are many reasons for this, but the most important one is having enough time to implement the tax savings opportunities that make sense." SAVE MONEY There's still time before the New Year to save money when paying taxes later. Crawford said each taxpayer's situation is different, but "there are many ways to save tax dollars available to taxpayers each year." Contributing to a retirement plan, making a charitable donation or making sure you have health insurance may save some bucks in the long run, said Randy Kaup, Certified Public Accountant with Moorman, Harting and Co., in Coldwater. People can contribute up to $5,500 to an IRA, which is tax deductible, he said, or maximize a contribution to an employer's retirement account. Contributing to a retirement plan or making a charitable contribution before the clock strikes midnight on Dec. 31 can reduce the amount of income that's taxable, Kaup said. The new health insurance law also requires people to indicate whether or not they have health insurance on their tax forms or pay a fine of $95 or 1 percent of household income, Kaup said. Crawford recommends talking to a professional (visit: http://westwardadvisors.com ) about the best way to "make certain that you are taking advantage of every deduction and tax credit available to you." She added that reviewing the prior year's return can help as well. STAY ORGANIZED Another important tip Crawford offered is staying organized. "A lot of my clients have a filing system of some sort," she said. "It doesn't need to be anything complicated; I see a lot of manila file folders labeled '20XX Taxes' each year." Bob Sielschott, Certified Public Accountant and senior partner at Sielschott, Walsh, Keifer & Regula CPAs, Inc. in Lima, emphasizes good record keeping when it comes to taxes. "Capture the material during the year, so you can compile it when it's time," he said. The "material" to capture is tax documents from employers. Crawford said it's important to know which ones to expect from your employer, though they are usually the same type as the year before, she said. "One of the major things they need to do is be very, very careful about watching their mail in January and early February," Sielschott said. Important documents such as 1099s, Social Security forms, mortgage forms and more come in the mail, and sometimes people can misplace them, he said. Those aren't the only documents to keep track of, he said. There are also receipts from charitable donations, mileage logs and child care information, Sielschott said. The hope is that preparing now, before the new year, will help save time and money when people begin the process of filing taxes. "It's all about record keeping," Sielschott said. Read more: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Westward-Advisors-Group/400137506784910 http://westwardadvisors.tumblr.com/ read more