Sacramento Accounting

 If you live in Sacramento, California, there are many accountants to choose from. First, there are the "big four" CPA firms, represented by Ernst & Young, Deloitte, KPMG and Pricewaterhouse Coopers which I would suggest using if you have a multi-million dollar business or if your firm is made up of a parent company and several subsidiaries. I would also suggest using the large CPA firms in Sacramento if your business is publicly traded or does business internationally. These large firms have the resource, knowledge and experience with international accounting standards, currency issues, SEC guidelines, and consolidated enterprises that you will need. They also audit publicly traded companies, a service that you may need.

Sacramento also has many medium-sized accounting firms to choose from with several partners running the firm. Many of these specialize in certain areas such as audits of government entities or wine industry taxation. Because Sacramento is the capital of California, there are many government agencies to audit. These medium-sized accounting firms also work with large and medium-sized privately-owned companies to provide them with audit, tax, consulting and other accounting services. Due to their size and reputation, the prices at these medium-sized accounting firms tend to be higher than those at the small Sacramento accounting firms. Fortunately, Sacramento is still a fairly small, friendly community where you can build a strong working relationship with your accountant at a medium-sized accounting firm and then run into him or her at the grocery store or the movies.

Sacramento also has many small accounting firms, often run by just one CPA. These firms provide a wide variety of services to the local for-profit and non-profit small businesses. They often provide bookkeeping, payroll, tax preparation, tax planning and financial statement preparation. Some also specialize in audit and review services. What really sets these small firms apart, besides price, is their ability to build relationships of trust and commitment with the businesses they serve. A small business owner normally tries to focus on his or her area of expertise and needs to be able to turn, sometimes at a moment's notice, to his or her accountant for advice. The owners of these small firms tend to be available to you and willing to drop what they are doing to help out. The relationship of trust that builds is strong and it is really a great feeling when the CPA and the business owner can use each other's services.

The small accounting firms sometimes lack the ability to assist businesses on certain subjects. After all, one accountant can't know everything. However, if the small CPA can't research the answer you need, he or she can always refer you to another firm that offers the service you need.

Whether your business is large or small, public or private, for-profit or not-for-profit accounting services are really essential at all stages of business from the start-up stage through the growth stage and all the way through the selling or closing of a business. If your business is located in Sacramento, California, you have many accountants to choose from. Use one. You'll be glad you did.

Call Accounting Product OptionsBefore considering any particular call accounting product, a potential user should make a short specification detailing in simple terms their telecommunications environment and what management functions must be achieved. Once you have clear idea of your goals or your expected outcomes you can begin to investigate the various offerings.  Call Accounting can be delivered in 3 basic guises.  A Software Package - In this document, I refer to it as stand-alone software. Software installed on a normal local computer, enabled with a software license and connected to the PBX. Prices for stand-alone software vary greatly as do the features they provide. With this type of product, service delivery is a costly issue, normally a technician visits site for even trivial problems.  Standalone packages may run on a standard PC, share a PC used for other office tasks, or may require a powerful and dedicated office server with a proprietary database. The specification you require is determined by the the size of your organization and your management goals.  A Bureau Service is a popular and efficient alternative method of achieving results. The service will collect call records from your office PBX and process them in a central facility. A Bureau Service generally has high level software and facilities, they are accustomed to the Call Accounting process and can do the job very efficiently. Your reports may be delivered electronically or in a paper document. Some of these companies offer consulting services and these can very often be extremely beneficial and cost effective to a client. Consultants can reveal opportunities to reduce expenses and sometimes will work on the basis of a contingency, meaning "if I save you money, I will take a percentage of the saving". Whether you choose to accept a consulting agreement or just the Call Accounting service you can negotiate a Service Level Agreement stating price and outcomes. This approach is especially useful for companies who do not run technology as a core business.  Internet based Call Accounting services are highly recommended by those who already use this type of service. The call accounting engine is in the Internet cloud and employs enterprise level software leveraged to offer clients a high grade service the like of which would be in-affordable for even the largest international organizations. Some of service providers in this category service 10s of thousands of sites https://taxontario.ca..  Web based Call Accounting services are offered as a managed service thereby greatly improving the reliability you can expect over stand alone software. An Internet based service is generally a very low cost offering with little capital expenditure up front. Reliability of these systems is claimed to be in the area of 99.99%. The features offered vary per supplier but are consistent with the very highest level of stand alone software available.  If you have not already done it, before making the final commitment to a call accounting product, investigate web based services, you will be surprised at the value they offer and the return on investment you can leverage from the product.  Mike Guile brings a wealth of experience to bear on a problem many companies have, managing their telephones efficiently. He has more than 30 years experience and offers new Reseller a free trial of the worlds leading call accounting Internet application, for any size site. He gives email support personally to all his customers   Business

In order for the modern business to survive, it must accept different forms of electronic payment. Partnering with a financial institution and setting up a merchant account allows businesses an easy, inexpensive way to accept many different kinds of electronic payments. Merchant accounts allow business owners to focus on what they do best-provide their unique goods and services and keep their customers happy.

What is a merchant account?

A merchant account provides businesses with many services such as credit and debit card processing along with credit and debit card processing equipment that is compliant with payment card industry standards. Merchant accounts can also provide 24 hour, 7 day a week client and technical support.

Merchant Account Services

Merchant accounts offer many services to keep your business successful and your customers happy. These include:

-> Credit and Debit Card Processing.

-> Check Acceptance, which allows businesses to accept checks just like credit and debit cards.

-> Fleet Card Acceptance: A fleet card is most commonly used for gasoline, diesel and other fuels at gas stations as well as vehicle maintenance.

-> Wireless Payments, which allow businesses to conduct business from home, at the office or on the road.

-> Gift Card Acceptance: By accepting gift cards, businesses can increase their bottom line through promotion and brand awareness. When your customers purchase gift cards at the amount they wish, they give you money up front and then use the card for themselves or give them as gifts, both of which bring you more business.

-> Loyalty Programs: Similar to gift cards, loyalty programs have many benefits, such as generating repeat customers, allowing businesses to track their customers' spending habits and eliminate problems such as fraud.

-> Online Payments, which allow businesses to take payments over the Internet.

-> Mail/Phone Payments: With mail or phone payments, payment processing can occur without ever having to see the credit card.

-> Business Cash Advances, which give businesses an easy alternative to conventional business loans, allowing you to quickly unlock additional funds within your business to meet current operating obligations or other business needs.

-> ATM Services, which provide easy access to revenue at onsite ATM machines.

-> Free processing equipment: Merchant accounts include free equipment, service and support, and lowest processing rates.

How to Set Up a Merchant Account

After carefully selecting a financial institution partner, you simply apply for a account and receive a quote, which is based on your type of business and payment needs. Then, based on your desired payment options, the financial institution will go over the processing rates and fees involved.

Next you'll fill out an application, which will get you set up with the appropriate type of merchant account. Once signed, your application will be considered for approval-and don't worry: many financial institutions have high approval rates. Most applications are processed within 24 hours. Once approved, your business will receive a Merchant ID for processing.

Getting your Merchant ID

Once you get your Merchant ID, your free equipment will be shipped to you and you'll run a series of test transactions. With your newly set up account, you'll work together with a client support team, which provides 24 hour, 7 day a week assistance and who will follow-up on a routine basis to make sure everything is going smoothly and ensure your payment needs are being met.

Merchant Account Support

Once obtaining an account, your business will have access to account and technical support. Account support includes toll free and online access to statements, settlements, account information and reporting  You will also receive easy options to reorder supplies and equipment. Technical support includes quick equipment reference guides, equipment troubleshooting and support and multiple equipment replacement options. Technical support is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Will a merchant account increase sales?

Yes. Reports from VISA show that businesses that accept credit cards see a jump in sales by 20-30%. Facts are facts. Consumer credit card usage far surpasses the use of cash and personal checks, especially online. Today's consumers desire quick and easy transactions that only the use of a credit card allows.

How Merchant Accounts Give your Business a Competitive Edge

People do not carry paper money the way they once did, thanks in part to the ease and ubiquity of credit cards and debit cards. What's more, most consumers find it much easier and faster to use a card rather than cash not only because of the danger of loss and theft, but because banks provide security in such instances.

There is no such thing as making business too convenient for consumers. By setting up a merchant account, your business won't lose many sales opportunities, but will contrarily increase sales and transaction speed, leaving customers happier than ever.

Method Writing

When I was a kid in high school, I read a short story from an English Lit textbook that deeply impressed me. The story concerned an account of an innocent black man in the Deep South, circa 1930s, being lynched by a mob for rape. I can't recall the title now, but I had thought it was entitled "The Sheriff," though I cannot find a reference to it on search engines. What impressed me so much about the story was that it was told from the point-of-view of the town's sheriff, and not entirely unsympathetically. The character is portrayed as more craven than evil, and the reader is privy to his thoughts as he rationalizes away his inaction, though it is clear he is not at all comfortable with the impending violence and injustice. He does have a conscience, but he's not willing to risk his office or worse for the victim's sake.

What so impressed me about the story was that it was written by an African-American author and convincingly so!

I saw a television movie about the early years of the AIDS epidemic. The plot revolves around a group of homosexual friends from NYC. One of them is a writer for a soap opera. While watching an episode while vacationing on Fire Island, the writer laments, "They always give me the queer scenes to write." When one of his friends notes, "That's only natural," the man retorts [something like], "If I can't write a convincing old lady in a nursing home, then I'm not worth my salt as a writer."

At that, I thought to myself, "Hear! Hear!" Now there's a man with some professional pride in his craft; a pride that transcends who or what he is.

In Herman Wouk's epics *The Winds of War* and its sequel *War and Remembrance*, interspersed within the plot are the memoirs of a fictional German field marshal during WW II. Wouk--who is of Jewish heritage--effectively writes this character, from his point of view, and how this Prussian aristocrat rationalizes away the unmitigated evil of the Third Reich and even the Holocaust in a convincing manner-in the character's mind. I often wondered if writing this was distasteful for Mr. Wouk. If or if not, he is a professional with the rare capacity to put his mind into that of another's and faithfully report the character's motivations, thought processes and extenuations for his actions.

Satirists have long delighted in deriding "method acting," which teaches that an actor should try to "become" his character. That is, try to think, feel and respond as the character would. Nevertheless, Lee Strasberg's The Actors Studio has produced such celebrated actors as Al Pacino, Rod Steiger and Robert De Niro. Strasberg himself, after an absence of over thirty years from acting, rendered an extremely good and convincing performance as Hyman Roth in *The Godfather, Part II*.

Many of the writers I admire most, Shakespeare, Puzo, Graves and Wouk, to name a few salient examples, all seemed to have that rare gift of being able to fully understand another person, regardless how alien the character's nature might be to that of the writer's. I often wondered if such an apparent gift is simply a talent natural to such people from early childhood, or rather whether anyone can train himself or herself through some form of "method writing" to do likewise.

Are most writers doomed to strictly follow the oldest admonition to writers in the book: "Write what you know about," or can we heed the advice of an English teacher in a movie I once saw who retorted rhetorically: "What did Shakespeare know about Venetian Moors?"

My opinion on the subject follows.

I'm not qualified to teach a course in creative writing. Aside from lacking credentials, I'm simply not very creative. Nevertheless, on a hypothetical basis if I were to teach such a course, I think on the first day of class I would ask--without explaining why--all those present who favor legalized abortion to raise their hands. I would then instruct, as my first assignment, all those with their hands raised to write an argumentative paper concerning the subject from the opposite point-of-view; i.e., the "pro-life" side. I would then tell the remainder to write an argumentative paper from the perspective of a typical "pro-choice" adherent.

The next day if I received back papers (as I expect I would) like: "I oppose legalized abortion because I am a Bible-totin', Bible-quotin' religious fanatic of a Neanderthal who favors a patriarchal society, and forcing women to bear unwanted children is an effective way to keep them downtrodden and dependent upon and subservient to men;" and conversely, "I favor legalized abortion because I am an immoral, hedonistic atheist, or crypto-atheist, who cares nothing about anyone but myself and my own pleasures and interests; who would snuff out the life of an unborn child within the womb if convenient with no more compunction than I would have stepping upon an insect," then I would mark all such papers with an "F."

I would write, "You are telling me what you think about your opponents on this issue, not what they think, which is what I asked for. Now please try again."

I am not suggesting that a writer must be strictly objective about matters, or that a novelist cannot write a novel with either a "pro-choice" or a "pro-life" message, anymore than I would suggest that Harriet Beecher Stowe could not have written a very effective, immensely influential anti-slavery book. However, before doing so I would suggest that any such writer read over *Uncle Tom's Cabin* as an example of good (i.e., effective) propaganda. (I use the word "propaganda" in its original sense, before the word acquired a sinister connotation as the result of twentieth century political events. It simply means putting forth a point of view in an attempt to persuade.) As with any other endeavor in life, if you want to be a propagandist, then be a good propagandist. Mrs. Stowe had been an exceptionally good one.

Mrs. Stowe's landmark novel was so effective precisely because she did exhibit the ability to understand how others felt about matters, including those who disagreed with her. She was too shrewd (and I suspect too honest) to caricature all slaveholders as demonic. If she had painted all slaveholders as she did the villainous Simon Legree, the book would have lost much of its effectiveness as people would have known from personal experience and from having heard from others that such was simply not true, and the author would have lost much of her credibility along with that of her book.

There were indeed Simon Legree types, but there were also many slaveholders who treated their slaves kindly, which she acknowledged in the book, and even that there were many slaves apprehensive and ambivalent about the idea of freedom-and then effectively countered that argument in favor of slavery by recounting a real incident in the book's afterwards.

(If you want a prime example of bad (ineffective) propaganda, then I'd suggest you watch the movie *Reefer Madness*, which I understand has become a sort of cult favorite among "potheads" who delight in getting "high" while laughing their way through it.)

This is not a political article, and I want no notes addressed to me regarding views about abortion. I have not expressed any here, nor shall I. I use this particular example because it is such an emotional and volatile issue revolving around the status of a fetus. The two conflicting and emotionally-charged points of view regarding this issue are simply irreconcilable. As with all such emotional issues, we tend to attribute base "ulterior" motivations to our opponents because we are so firmly convinced of the correctness of our own position that we must conclude that any who will not accept our arguments must be unwilling to do so out of some mendacious and malevolent ulterior motive.

If you wish to feel this way about those who do not agree with your views concerning abortion, then I'd suggest you become a political activist. However, if you are willing to try to fully understand why those holding the opposite viewpoint so do and accurately represent it in fiction, then I believe you will make a first class writer!

If you are wondering what Bitcoin is and if you should invest in it, then this article is for you. In 2010, the value of one Bitcoin was only 5 cents. Fast forward in 2017 and its value touched $20,000. Again, the price dropped to $8,000 within the next 24 hours, thus causing a huge loss to the currency holders.

If you have been trying to find out more about Bitcoin, this read can help you. According to statistics, around 24% of the Americans know what this thing is https://www.mediasnet.net/.. However, the currency still has a value of over $152 billion. That is the one of the most common reasons behind the popularity of this thing. Let's know what it is and whether you should invest in it.

What Is Bitcoin?

In simple terms, Bitcoin is one of the digital currencies. A digital currency is known as cryptocurrency. The term was invented by an anonymous person in the financial crisis in 2008.

A digital currency account is a like your checking account that you can view online. In other words, it's a digital currency that can be viewed but can't be touched. In case of Bitcoin, you have no physical representation either. All the money exists in the digital form only. No one is there to regulate this type of currency. In the same way, the network is not managed by any entity and the tokens are exchanged between individuals through a complex software system. Instead, the whole thing is decentralized, and is run by a network of computers.

It's important to note that you can't use these tokens to pay for everything that you want to buy. In fact, you can use it to buy only from some sellers or stores online. But it can be sold for traditional currency or money. However, more and more companies are beginning to accept Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. For instance, Expedia and Over-stock accept it from users. One of the main features of this type of money is that the transaction is completely private and untraceable. That's one of the many reasons most people prefer this digital form of money.

Should You Put Money In Bitcoin?

Remember: before you choose to invest in Bitcoin or any other digital currency, make sure you understand the risks associated with this system. Volatility is one of the major risks. It means that the value of your money can fluctuate significantly in 24 hours. In fact, the rise or fall in the value can be as much as 30%. Another problem is that most of the digital currencies that can be seen today will lose their value within 5 years, according to most experts.

To be on the safe side, we suggest that you invest only that you can afford to lose. For instance, if you have $1,000, you can invest $10. And if you lose that amount, it won't create any financial issues for you.

Hopefully, now, you know what Bitcoin is and whether you should invest your hard-earned money in. Remember: you shouldn't invest a good deal of money or you may get into serious financial trouble down the road.

The world is on the cusp of a digital revolution, with innovation disrupting the way we do everything, from using appliances and gadgets to performing financial transactions.

New Asset Classes

The digital economy is growing at a fast rate all over the world. The current digital economy is characterized by the creation of new asset classes and digitization of traditional assets. Emerging technologies, such as the blockchain, artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT) and 3D printing, are playing a pivotal rule in fueling this growth.

The new technologies feature assets that have the potential to dominate the global economy in the future. For instance, the blockchain has virtual coins and tokens whose popularity has grown exponentially in a short time period.

Big Players Entering the Game

The blockchain enables users to perform transactions securely and much quicker than traditional methods. The features of the blockchain have attracted many prominent technology and financial companies, including IBM, Oracle, JP Morgan Chase and Boeing. For instance, IBM recently teamed up with Stronghold, a financial technology company, to launch a dollar-backed cryptocurrency called Stronghold USD. This virtual currency is an example of how consumer confidence in a traditional asset (fiat-currency USD in this case) is used to support a digital asset.

There are also examples where companies are combining two new technologies to provide solutions for the future. Aerospace giant Boeing recently announced a collaboration with artificial intelligence company SparkCognition to develop blockchain-using traffic management solutions for unmanned air vehicles.

The Game Changer

The tokenization of assets isn't limited to traditional assets such as currencies. The new market can utilize the intrinsic value of a wide variety of assets to provide security tokens. The blockchain can be a differentiating factor between security tokens and traditional securities. The use of smart contracts on the blockchain eliminates the need for a middleman, thus reducing transfer costs. This usability of the blockchain has the potential to significantly affect the traditional banking system. It may also eliminate the need for money as a medium exchange, as all assets are liquid, instantly available and divisible.

Automation and artificial intelligence have already made their mark in many markets. Trading algorithms have overtaken human traders. In the manufacturing sector, machines have taken many of the jobs previously performed by humans.

Need for a New Framework

In this rapidly changing economy, it's no longer feasible to rely on traditional models and methods of making decisions  To keep up with new developments, such as DAO, AI, VR, P2P and M2M, it's imperative that we develop a new framework. In other words, we need to move beyond the Munger's Mental Models and focus on digital models, such as network theories and exponential growth models.

The digitization of our economy is taking place at a rapid pace. With time, we will get a clearer picture of which developments will dominate this new web 3.0 economy, but it's clear that this economic revolution is taking place on a global scale.