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December 17, 2020

The Power of Listening

Scott Springer Blog, Personal Development

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Now, more than ever before, the act of listening is important. Not only is it important to listen to someone, but to effectively listen to them. Sure, we all know that in order to understand individuals, to connect with them and understand their wants and needs, we need to be alert, focused, and mindful. After all, the power of listening—effective listening—will help you get more information from clients, increase their trust and commitment in you, and reduce conflict and misunderstanding.

Below, we’ve included more information on the power of listening, and tips on how to be a better listener.

What It Means To Listen

We don’t need to give you a textbook definition of listening; you already know what it means. However, it is necessary to point out that the act of listening and actually comprehending what a person is saying can lead to strong, healthy, and thriving relationships—all very important qualities in any type of relationships, specifically a business one.

If you don’t believe us, think about the last time you were having a conversation with someone and felt as if you weren’t being heard. How did that make you feel? How did that affect the relationship? Did it make you feel valued?

According to Dr. Carl Rogers, a psychologist, active listening is a specific communication skill. Giving free and undivided attention to a speaker through active listening is the most effective way to achieve individual change and group development.

Isn’t that the ultimate goal? Whether the relationship is professional or personal, don’t you want to establish a solid, mutual ground of respect? It’s the only way for both parties to succeed.

If your listening skills are in need of a little tune up, don’t worry—we’ve got you covered! We’ve put together a list of different ways to help you become a better listener.

Tips On Becoming A Better Listener

If you truly want to become a better listener, then consider implementing these tips into your daily life.

Understand The Benefits

First, it’s imperative to understand that listening to someone is beneficial to both the person doing the talking and you. Nothing bad or negative comes from listening to another person speak, but the complete opposite. Remember, if you thoroughly listen to an individual, it’s more likely that same individual will listen to you when it becomes your turn to speak. The partnership the two of you are hoping to grow can only be successful with mutual listening.

Make Eye Contact

Next, when someone is speaking to you, always make eye contact. This tactic not only shows respect, but it will also help you focus on the other person’s words, what he or she is saying and how they feel.

No Distractions

When sharing a conversation with someone, make sure there are no distractions. Obviously, this means you need to put down your phone and give the speaker your full attention. Don’t worry about what’s going on around you; don’t think about your next meeting or what you plan to have for lunch. Listen, engage, and show the person talking that you care.

Ask Questions

One of the best ways to show the speaker that you are really listening to them, is to ask them questions. Make sure you fully understand what they’re saying by verifying their wants, needs, and/or concerns with specific questions.

Remember, nothing bad comes from listening—only good. The next time someone is speaking, consider opening up your eyes, ears, and mind just a little bit more. In doing so, you will gain the full benefits of the power of listening.

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Accounting and Bookkeeping Services for QuickBooks® Online

Scott Springer, CPA PLLC

402 A West Palm Valley Blvd #182
Round Rock, TX 78664

(737) 471-4272
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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.

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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:

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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:

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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 you track income and expense transactions by the QBO fields for Class, Location or Project, but this information is missing on transactions, it can result in incomplete or misleading reports. We assign the proper values to those transactions based on information you provide.

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)
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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.