Accounting Resources
The demands on accounting departments are challenging and there has been an increase in businesses seeking to streamline processes and drive efficiencies. Smith Schafer offers customizable accounting, bookkeeping, and payroll solutions to meet your business needs.
CONTENTS
Common Accounting Challenges
Is your business ready to outsource your accounting department?
Ways outsourced accounting can benefit your business
Reasons to use QuickBooks
Tips for recordkeeping
Cost Accounting Basics
What's new for 1099 reporting?
Revenue recognition case studies
Year-end Payroll Guide
Common challenges for Accounting Departments
Books take too long to close
Difficulty hiring, training, and retaining employees with the necessary skillset
Applying new changes in tax laws
Cybersecurity
Accurate financial forecasting
Process changes and automation
Is Your Business Ready to Outsource Your Accounting Department?
Approximately 40% of small businesses use outsourcing to handle at least one of their business process. And accounting makes up 37% of all outsourced jobs.
Download this Infographic to help determine if you are ready to outsource your accounting department.

Ways Outsourced Accounting can Benefit Your Business
If your business has never outsourced accounting before, you may have some questions. What exactly is outsourced accounting? What are the benefits of outsourcing? How much does outsourcing typically cost? We will discuss the answers to these questions in this article.
3 Reasons to Use Quickbooks
Do You Use Quickbooks In your Business?
QuickBooks is an accounting software program businesses use to manage expenses, sales and daily transactions. It can be used to invoice customers, pay bills, generate reports for planning, tax filing and much more.
Watch our short 4-minute video to learn the benefits of using QuickBooks for your business.

Tips for business recordkeeping
Recordkeeping is one of your most important responsibilities as a business owner, and success depends on creating and maintaining an effective system. Recordkeeping systems range from simple folder filing to complex online electronic software. Whether simple or complex, a recordkeeping system must be easy to use and suited to your particular business needs. The type, size, and complexity of your business, as well as available resources, will help to determine the recordkeeping system best suited to your business.
Cost Accounting Basics
Cost accounting aims to capture a company’s total production cost by assessing the variable costs of each step of production. It is a process of gathering, examining, summarizing, and evaluating various alternative courses of action. The goal is to provide management with improvements based on efficiency and capability.
This article lays out four things you should know about cost accounting to help make better management decisions.
What’s new for 1099 reporting?
FORMS 1099-MISC AND 1099-NEC
- Electronic Filing of Returns
- Deadlines
- Access to Forms
- NEC Form Layout
- Specific Clarification for NEC vs. MISC
- Corrections
- Continuous-use Form & Instructions

Revenue Recognition Case Studies
HERE ARE THREE THINGS COMPANY’S SHOULD BE DOING WHEN ASSESSING THEIR REVENUE RECOGNITION
- Identify all revenue streams. Create a list of how and why money is coming into the company.
- Identify all types of contracts within those revenue streams. Many companies have a standard contract that is used across all customers, others allow for differences in payment terms, discounts, price, and concessions. Company’s need to accumulate all deviations of contracts to fully understand the effect ASC 606 will have on their financial statements.
- Evaluate the contract through the five-step approach and determine if a change in recognition will occur.
Our experts have created the case studies below to assist in understanding these changes. Below are industry-specific examples of how revenue recognition is treated under ASC 606: