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April 9, 2020

Scams, Fraud, and Hackers in the Time of Coronavirus

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With an alarming increase in scams, cybercrimes, and other fraud schemes, we all need to be extra diligent in our actions to protect our businesses, our computers, our children, and ourselves.  Here are some things we need to watch out for and how to stay safe.

Virtual Environment Exploits

A record number of people are working from home, and cybercriminals see this as an opportunity. System vulnerabilities allow criminals to steal your private information by accessing your networks.

The FBI’s Crime Complaint Center has been inundated with grievances about COVID-19 related schemes, including many against health care workers and companies. Businesses with individuals working at home for the first time are particularly vulnerable since workers are learning the software and learning how to set up their VPNs. 

Employers should make sure that the systems they are allowing workers to use meet the security protocols necessary for the type of data the company handles.  For example, if HIPAA-level security is required, make sure the apps workers are using are HIPAA-compliant. 

Employees should rely heavily on their IT departments to make sure they have set their systems up correctly and that they follow the right guidelines when using technology. It might be a great opportunity to offer training so employees can push through any learning curves they have been putting off when it comes to using software.  

Current Threats

Just recently, Zoom meetings were being interrupted by uninvited people that eavesdropped on private meetings.  Zoom changed the software interface and suggested that everyone use meeting passwords to avoid unwanted guests. 

Watch out for fake CDC emails, people trying to sell you miracle cures, and counterfeit equipment.  Especially be on the lookout for emails related to IRS refund checks, charities, airline refunds, and fake testing kits.  All of these are current scams that are happening today. 

Prevention

This advice is timeless:

  • Install anti-virus software on your computer and keep it updated.
  • Don’t use software that you don’t know where it comes from; if the price is too good to be true, it probably is.
  • Keep your passwords very strong and change them often.
  • Use different passwords for each account, especially your banks, payroll systems, and other systems with sensitive data.
  • Use 2-factor authentication when offered.
  • Don’t provide personal information over the phone or via email.
  • Don’t click links in emails from people you don’t know.
  • Know your IT people and only hire reputable companies.
  • Be careful of emails impersonating name brand companies.
  • Be wary of leased or used equipment as it’s not always virus-free.
  • Don’t share meeting links on a public platform.
  • Make sure URLs you enter are correctly spelled.
  • Watch out for schemes that ask you to wire or ACH money to a regular creditor when it is not really them.
  • Raise the alarm when people ask you for last-minute changes or won’t talk to you via phone call.
  • Put procedures in place to monitor children’s online educational and other activities to keep them safe from predators.
  • Perform regular credit monitoring or lock down your account.

If you find out you are the victim of a fraudulent incident, immediately contact your bank or employer to stop funds or freeze your account.  Change your passwords. As soon as possible, file a complaint with the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center at www.ic3.gov or BEC.IC3.gov.

You can also report fraud here: https://www.justice.gov/coronavirus

Let’s stay safe in more ways than one. 

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Accounting and Bookkeeping Services for QuickBooks® Online

Scott Springer, CPA PLLC

402 A West Palm Valley Blvd #182
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If you track transactions by the QBO fields for Class, Location or Project, but this information is missing on relevant transactions, it can result in incomplete or misleading reports. We assign the proper values to those transactions based on information you provide.

We will provide guidance on how to set up, enter and modify budgets in QBO. In addition, for each budget you set up, we will create, customize and share two budget reports in QBO that you may run on demand: Budget Variance Report and Budget Remaining

We will categorize and record your vendor bills and expenses in QBO. We will do so based upon information you provide and our increasing knowledge of your company. We will ask for clarification, as needed, to ensure transactions are recorded properly.

All packages include unlimited support incidents for issues encountered when using the software subscriptions in your package. You also get unlimited consultations with us for advice on ad-hoc accounting matters.

We will create, customize and configure Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable Aging Summary and Detail reports to be emailed to you on a weekly basis. This provides more current information so that you may act more quickly.

We will allocate revenue and/or expense by a single segment (QBO Class, Location or Project) using either fixed or variable percentages depending on your needs.

To help ensure your accrual-basis reporting is even more accurate and meaningful, we will periodically record the following entries:

  • Income accruals – used to record income that has been earned but not invoiced or collected yet
  • Expense accruals – used to record expense that has been incurred but not billed or paid yet
  • Income deferrals – used to record customer payments received before the income has been earned
  • Expense prepayments – used to record vendor payments made before the expense has been incurred
  • Allowance for doubtful accounts – used to recognize bad debt expense and to reflect the current net realizable value of Accounts Receivable

For clients with construction projects that have binding contracts with enforceable rights, we also offer contract accounting using the Completed Contract Method (CCM) or Percentage of Completion Method (PCM).

After calendar year-end, we will prepare and e-file your federal Forms 1099-NEC and 1099-MISC.

Rewind automatically backs up your QBO file, providing the ability to restore your entire QBO file or individual transactions and items.

We will reconcile your payroll tax liabilities as well as other liability accounts such as cafeteria plan withholdings and garnishments where applicable.

We will assist you with setting up your QBO Payroll subscription so that you will be ready for your first payroll. Our assistance includes an online working session where we will walk through the setup steps together including:

  • adding employees
  • adding pay types, deduction types and tax information
  • connecting your bank
  • setting up tax payments and filings
  • entering tax payments already made this year, if applicable

Our assistance doesn’t end with the initial setup. The unlimited ad-hoc support and advice extends to your payroll subscription as well. Need help setting up a new employee? Not sure how to properly record an employee advance? How to record tax value of a gift card provided? How to record an employee bonus? We’re here to help.

QBO Payroll is a full-service payroll subscription. You specify how much and when to pay your employees. Payroll calculations, tax deposits, payroll tax returns and W-2 filing are all done for you. Pay employees by check or direct deposit. Employees have an online portal to view pay stubs, W-2s and more. We will help you select the specific edition that best meets your needs.

We will prepare your Balance Sheet and Income Statement. These are key reports to help you understand your company’s financial position as well as the amount of revenue and profit you’ve made for the period. We will also provide Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable Aging Summary reports to help you better understand who owes you and who you owe.

We will compare your statement balances and transactions with the ones in QBO and make corrections as needed. Reconciliations help ensure your account balances are correct by identifying missing, duplicate or incorrect transactions. We will also alert you regarding any old, uncleared items that may need your attention.

We will perform ongoing, limited review of your transaction entry to look for anything out of the ordinary or likely incorrect.

We will categorize and record your fixed asset acquisitions, depreciation, and disposals in QBO. We will do so based upon information you provide and our increasing knowledge of your company. We will ask for clarification, as needed, to ensure transactions are recorded properly.

We will categorize and record your bank, digital wallet, and credit card transactions in QBO. We will do so based upon information you provide and our increasing knowledge of your company. We will ask for clarification, as needed, to ensure transactions are recorded properly.

Go paperless! We provide a subscription to receipt capture software using optical character recognition (OCR), and we integrate it with QBO. The allows you to easily and securely capture and store supporting documentation for your expenses and vendor bills in the cloud.

QBO is the cloud accounting software we use with all our clients. We will help you select the specific edition that best meets your needs.

If a customer is not assigned to a sales receipt or refund receipt, it can result in incomplete or misleading customer reports. We assign customers to those transactions based on information you provide.

If a vendor is not assigned to a check or expense transaction, it can result in incomplete or misleading customer reports as well as incorrect totals for Form 1099. We assign the proper vendors to those transactions based on information you provide.

We will prepare your Balance Sheet and Income Statement. These are key reports to help you understand your company’s financial position as well as the amount of revenue and profit you’ve made for the period.

If you require historical reports, then it’s important to resolve issues that affect your Income Statement as well. It’s not uncommon for us to find numerous issues, but not all of them necessarily need to be resolved. We let you decide how extensive you want the cleanup to be based on your needs. How do we do this? By separately identifying:

  • issues that affect section subtotals (such as total income, total cost of sales, total operating expenses)
  • issues that do not affect section subtotals but are not categorized properly within a section

If you require historical reports, then it’s important to resolve issues that affect your Income Statement as well. It’s not uncommon for us to find numerous issues, but not all of them necessarily need to be resolved. We let you decide how extensive you want the cleanup to be based on your needs. How do we do this? By separately identifying:

  • issues that affect section subtotals (such as total income, total cost of sales, total operating expenses)
  • issues that do not affect section subtotals but are not categorized properly within a section

Issues affecting your balance sheet account balances (assets, liabilities, equity) should always be resolved even if you don’t need historical reports. That’s because you need accurate balances as a starting point going forward.

If your bank and credit card reconciliations have not been done or are done but need to be fixed, we will take care of it for you. Reconciliations help ensure your account balances are correct by identifying missing, duplicate or incorrect transactions.

If your diagnostic review revealed that your QBO file has unprocessed bank feed items or there are missing transactions (based on bank or credit card statements), we will record those for you. We will ask for clarification, as needed, to ensure transactions are categorized properly.

If your diagnostic review revealed that some of the QBO “products” and “services” are assigned to incorrect income accounts, we will make the proper adjustments to prevent invoices from continuing to be incorrectly categorized.

We will design your new chart of accounts, tailored to your company’s needs, based on information gathered during the diagnostic review as well as other discussions with you. We will then implement the new design in QBO for you. This includes carefully mapping existing accounts to the new ones.

We will prepare your Balance Sheet and Income Statement. These are key reports to help you understand your company’s financial position as well as the amount of revenue and profit you’ve made for the period.

We will set up the open Accounts Receivable invoice balances for each customer, and we will set up the open Accounts Payable bill balances for each vendor. For each customer or vendor, you have the option of having us set up the balance for each individual unpaid invoice/bill OR you may combine the open invoice/bill balances for each customer or vendor.

We will meet with you in a screen sharing session and walk you, step-by-step, through creating your QuickBooks Payments account and connecting it to QBO. If you already have a payment account with Inuit, we will walk you through connecting it to QBO.

If you want financial statements for additional historical periods, we will prepare your Balance Sheet and Income Statement for those periods.

We will reconcile bank, digital wallet, credit card, line of credit and loan accounts. This means we will compare your statement balances and transactions with the ones in QBO, and we will make any necessary adjustments. We will alert you regarding any uncleared items that may need your attention.

We will categorize and record the following transactions to QBO. We will ask for clarification, as needed, to ensure transactions are recorded properly.

  • bank, digital wallet, and credit card transactions
  • vendor bills and expenses
  • fixed asset acquisitions, depreciation, and disposals
  • payroll journals for non-integrated payroll, if applicable

We will set up your budget(s) in QBO using information you provide.

“Products” and “Services” are used in QBO to record customer invoices, sales receipts and credit memos. We will set them up for your use in QBO and map them to the correct income accounts.

If you want to track income and costs by specific projects, we will set up your client projects in QBO using the information you provide.

We will set up your customers/clients and vendors in QBO using the information you provide.

You provide your general ledger account balances to us from your previous accounting system or tax return. We will provide guidance if you’re not sure how to get the information we need. We will set up your account balances in QBO.

For each of your financial accounts supported by QBO, we will either set up the bank feeds for you or we will meet with you and walk you, step-by-step, through setting it up.

We will design your chart of accounts, tailored to your company’s needs, based on information gathered during the planning meeting. We will then implement the new design in QBO for you.

We will configure your QBO settings optimally for your company based on information collected during the planning meeting. We will explain the types of QBO user permissions available, and we will set up your users and permissions based on a list of users that you provide.

We will set up your QBO subscription on your behalf after the planning meeting.

The planning meeting is critically important because we will ask you questions about your company processes and accounts. This information will help us properly plan your implementation.