7 unbeatable tax tips for year’s end

As 2013 wraps up, many of us have our minds on friends and family with the holiday season in full swing. However, a season that may deserve a little of your attention between Thanksgiving turkey and New Year's Eve champagne is tax season, which is lurking around the corner in April. It's never too early to prepare, and the year-end marker can be an important time to get your tax-related affairs in order. The blog Tax Break from TurboTax has come out with a series of posts for improving next year's April woes. Check out these seven pointers for 2013 to make next year's tax returns a little bit easier to handle.

250K business contest extends application deadline

250K business contest extends application deadline The Blue Ocean Enterprises Challenge, a business pitch contest, will extend its application deadline to midnight Dec. 31. The contest pits startup firms and entrepreneurs nationwide against one another for a grand prize of $250,000, strategy and operations support, and a one-year business mentoring program. Fort Collins' Blue Ocean Enterprises and Colorado State University sponsor the event.

Why Proper Accounting Is Important

Whether for business or personal needs, proper accounting is necessary to keep finances in order. Accounting is a written record of any assets and deficits, and creating a complete record of what is going in and out of a company. Finances are necessary to keep any home or business in good, operating condition; therefore a great deal of attention should be paid to accounting. To properly perform accounting, all of the businesses records should be properly kept and filed for availability to company accountants or bookkeepers. Any outgoing or incoming financial transactions should be recorded regularly, so that accounting can be kept up to date and accurate. Depending on the size of the company, the book keeping may be done daily, weekly, or monthly. A regular, consistent bookkeeping schedule should be kept to insure that finances are in order, and that there will be no surprises when attempting to balance the books later. Monitoring assets and deficits can be simple with proper accounting and bookkeeping. For small business and personal budgets, computerized programs accounting software make it easy to keep income, purchases, and payments recorded. Accounting software can be downloaded and shared between a computer network, allowing all employees of the business to opportunity to view, correct, and publish any transactions for the business. For larger businesses, accounting is generally done by a team of accountants, who are employed by the business, or an accounting firm contracted by the company. Accounting firms concentrate on book keeping, budget analysis, and business accounting for a variety of clients. In order to keep up with the finances of a large business, each department has a budget within the overall budget of a the business, and the department heads are charged with the responsibility of keeping track of any expenses and reporting them on a regular basis. Accountants then update the businesses assets and deficits with reports from each department. Some businesses that require effective daily accounting are finance firms, such as payday loans online firms. Payday loans online offer the option for consumers to borrow money over the Internet and pay it back in accordance with the payday lenders terms. Another way you can do this is with cash loans too. Keeping a clear picture of just how much the business is bringing in, and can afford to lend out is crucial for payday loan lenders.

Colorado unemployment rate improves

Colorado's job picture continues to brighten, with numbers for October showing an unemployment rate of 6.8 percent, a rate approaching the low point in 2009, when it registered at 6.7 percent.

Expert: Interest rate hikes, tougher loan standards ahead

BOULDER - Home-loan interest rates will rise, new federal regulations will require more of mortgage lenders, and the demand for housing will increase in the coming year, according to Brad Blackwell with Wells Fargo Bank. Blackwell delivered his predictions in his keynote address, The National Picture: Residential Markets in 2014, on Thursday during the Boulder County Business Report's annual Boulder Valley Real Estate Conference & Forecast held at the Stadium Club on the University of Colorado-Boulder campus.

10 Tax Tips for 2013

Tax season brings confusion and anxiety for most taxpayers, but you can ease the stress with 10 tips. These tips also maximize your tax results and guarantee your financial readiness.

Give Tax Records a Mid-Year Tune-up this Summer

During the summer, you may not think about doing your taxes, but maybe you should. Some of the expenses you’ve paid over the past few months might qualify for money-saving tax credits or deductions come tax time. If you organize your tax records now, you’ll make tax filing easier and faster when you do them next year. It also helps reduce the chance that you’ll lose a receipt or statement that you need.

Tax Preperation Tips

When it comes to tax preparation many people are far from efficient. In fact, most taxpayers are disorganized and unprepared when they begin to file their returns. Of course, you don’t have to make this mistake. The following 5 tax preparation tips can benefit you in a number of ways:

Accounting Benefit

If you are in business, you know that it is important to understand how your business is performing. In order to do that, you need some way to keep track of and interpret the numbers that go along with your business. This is where accounting and financial management come into play. Accounting tools can be used to measure and interpret the financial progress of your business. They can also help you communicate the status of your business to important third parties, such as banks and the government. Here are some of the benefits of accounting and financial management.

Plan Now to Get Full Benefit of Saver’s Credit; Tax Credit Helps Low- and Moderate-Income Workers Save for Retirement

The saver’s credit helps offset part of the first $2,000 workers voluntarily contribute to IRAs and to 401(k) plans and similar workplace retirement programs. Also known as the retirement savings contributions credit, the saver’s credit is available in addition to any other tax savings that apply.