Book Description

YourMoneyYourFuture, is a step-by-step guide to living a financially healthy life. From choosing your first savings account to writing your own will, Mr. Gelfand provides important how-to information on making the right decisions for your long-term prosperity. With a reader-friendly approach and easy-to-follow indexing, this book is a simple but thorough reference guide to the sometimes complicated world of finance. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Excellent book...
Ivan has the amazing ability to boil down the complexities of finance into deliciously simple terms. This is a book that even those people who are frightened of their finances will love. Thank you, Mr. Gelfand!

Fun Financial Facts
You don't have to have a degree in economics to understand money. Ivan Gelfand's "Your Money Your Future" simply explains how to make, keep and grow money. It's an easy read that covers everything from antiques to zero-coupon bonds, with concise explanations that take you from economic basics to estate planning.

The chapters on investing and retirement planning were particularly helpful. Gelfand's writing style helps the reader understand subjects that are sometimes complicated and laborious. I plan on buying more copies of the book for my friends and family, particularly for the younger members of my family. "Your Money Your Future" is what most financial books are not: enjoyable. Ivan Gelfand is somewhat like a financial "Dear Abby". His explanations are entertaining, short, sweet, and to the point. ... Read more

Book Description

Balancing Your Budget God's Way presents Biblical principles for getting out of debt and staying there.This book gets to the point and offers practical steps anybody can take to achieve financial soundness.A must read! ... Read more

Book Description

Drawing on network theory from the organizational sociology literature, this book examines issues related to which organizational factors determine how employees influence the budgeting process.Data were collected from managers who participate in the budgeting process at a major apparel manufacturer.Social network analysis was employed to measure how the structure of the network of managers affects the budgeting process.The results show that budgetary influence is structurally determined and resides with managers holding central positions in the organizational network.Thus, while formal procedures determine which employees are involved in budgeting activities, only centrally positioned managers actually influence budgetary outcomes.

The findings indicate that influence, not involvement, is the key to empowerment in the budgeting process.This research suggests that researchers and practitioners should be aware of an organization's social structure when examining a participative budgeting process.The difference between formal designs and actual influence is indicative of a "rhetoric-reality gap" which can impair the effectiveness of management control systems. ... Read more

Book Description

Knowing the ins and outs of the tax code is vital to the health of every small business. Virtually every decision a business makes has tax consequences that can affect its bottom line --and the IRS is always watching.

Fortunately, Tax Savvy for Small Business provides valuable strategies that will free up your time and money for what counts: running your business, and running it effectively.

Tax Savvy for Small Business explains how to:

*deduct current and capitalized expenses

*write off long-term assets

*write off up to $24,000 of long-term assets each year

*compare the advantages of different legal structures

*take advantage of fringe benefits

*keep records that will head off trouble with the IRS

*get tax breaks from business losses

*pay payroll taxes on time

*deduct home-office expenses

*negotiate payment plans for late taxes

*handle an audit

*get IRS penalties and interest reduced

*maximize retirement funds

*use retirement funds as a tax break

Completely updated, the 6th edition covers the Job Creation and Worker Assistance Act of 2002, which includes depreciation and net operating loss rules that will help your bottom line. The book also provides the latest tax numbers, rules, forms and publications.

Tax Savvy for Small Business is an essential book for entrepreneurs, independent contractors, small-business owners and anyone else making money on their own -- get it today! ... Read more

Reviews (15)

Amazing!
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!!! This book has saved my business thousands of dollars! Amazingly it is both comprehensive and accessible. Daily is hugely knowlegable and a great writer. He lays out strategy after strategy to minimize wasted time and maximize profit. I thought I knew what I was doing before but this book has opened up whole new worlds of opportunity for me. I better learned what I can and can't deduct, how to take advantage of fringe benefits, how to reduce IRS penalties and much more. Tax Savvy for Small Business is literally worth its weight in gold.

Fred Daily's Book Saved Me [money]
The material contained in Daily's "Stand Up to the IRS" helped to save me [money] this past year! Now, I just got my copy of "Tax Savvy For Small Business" and here's what I like about it:

I'm not a tax professional. I am a small businessman. I can't always call my CPA with every little question. That would cost a fortune. But for instance, this morning I'm looking at Daily's treatment of "independent contractor" status, a problem that keeps coming back to me time and time again. Is this temp secretary an employee or can I save a few bucks and call her an independent contractor? How about the guy I hire to wash the windows out front every week? The cybergeek kid next door who earns a few extra bucks working on my computers for me?

I do not want to bother my CPA with those questions. But I see here in Chapter 5 an easy to read list of factors I should consider in risking it. I like that. It's easy and I need easy. And there's a hundred other subjects simply covered as well.

I don't want to be a tax pro, that's what my CPA is for. I just want to know enough to talk to my CPA and, at the same time, not always need to call him.

One thing that bugs me about a lot of self-help financial books is you can't find what you're looking for. This book has a good index. That's important to save me time and help me find what I'm looking for. Good index. Good book.

A Great Buy
I am fan of the nolo.com website and I am a bigger fan of the Nolo Books. We started our software company as and LLC and turned it into a corporation a couple of years ago. I didn't buy this book before that point, but wish I did. Either way it is great that I have the book now. The book is well organized and I read through it cover to cover originaly. Tax Savvy now sits on my desk and I can use it as a quick reference. I am the kind of person that likes to know the "what, how and why" before I talk to our accountants or our lawyers, and this book enables me to do that. Bottom line... a must have

Excellent overview - concise and to the point.
This guide is different from the many tax guides out there from big names like Ernst & Young, etc. because it is more focussed on small businesses and you get the most relevant information in the most concise fashion. There in lies the limitation of this great book. You may have to refer to the other tax guides if your particular situation is too unique.

But the conciseness and focussed approach was extremely helpful in clarifying a lot of points for me. I had tried reading several of the bigger guides (with three times as many pages as this book) and gotten confused because it was too much information. So when I saw the Nolo guide, I was pleasantly surprised that every topic in the book was relevant to me as a small business owner! It was perfect for my needs. I now started understanding the very same topics I had so much difficulty following in the other books. For example - I was trying to research the differences between S Corporations and LLCs. When I opened this Nolo guide, I went straight to the chapter on LLCs and read the section - Comparing LLCs with Other Entities. In one sentence I knew the difference between these two entities! According to the book, the basic difference being that you can allocate income and expenses disproportionately (to share ownership) in an LLC but not in a S Corporation! Wow! I liked the speed with which I could find this critical piece of information I was researching.

The book is divided into 6 parts - The Basics (Business Income and Tax Deductible Expenses, Recordkeeping and Accounting, etc.), The Form of Your Business (Sole Proprietorships, Partnerships, S Corporations, etc.), Thinking Small (Family Businesses, Microbusinesses and Home-Based Businesses), Fringe Benefits (Retirement Plans etc.), Buying or Selling a Business, and Dealing with the IRS. There isn't a single page that is irrelevant.

If you have very advanced questions, you are better off looking through a bigger book but you would benefit tremendously by reading this book first. It will give you a firm grounding in the basics across the board. Good luck!

Good ways to save tax dollars
This book not only explains deductions but offers good ideas for saving tax dollars. Highly recommended for folks that have some accounting or tax knowledge. Excellent reference if you're thinking of starting a business, or you already have. ... Read more

Book Description

"Umapathy, in conjunction with the National Association of Accountants, surveyed over 400 companies nationwide to compile a profile of budgeting practices and budget manager qualifications. He also sought to determine whether there are significant variations in practices in different industries, different management philosophies and between financially successful and unsuccessful companies. In the last two chapters he provides a number of suggestions for improving budgetary practices by examining those used by successful companies and exploring the implications of the research for managers and academics. He briefly describes a model of effective planning and control systems taht combines the perspectives of accounting, organizational beharior, and strategic policy. Accountants in industry will find this an interesting work with a lot of useful information to help appraise the relative state of their companies' budgetary practices. Academic accountants will encounter much interesting data and a good syntheses of recent research on the subject." Journal of Accountancy ... Read more

Reviews (7)

Compelling and Frightening, and thoroughly entertaining
I enjoyed this book so much, I just ordered a dozen for my friends and clients...need I say more! You will too...it is so well written and documented...no wonder Forbes and Wall St. Journal wanted Flanagan amongst their ranks...incredible book.

It reads like a superb novel!
We all heard the "news on speed" sensationalist hype about Enron, et al. Mr Flanagan tells the real stories that the hype came from. And he kept my interest all the way through, which surprised me no end. His skillful literary references, the "interviews with Mr. B," and the sheer storytelling make this business book as readable as any good novel. I wish all of Wall Street would read it!

MUST Read for anyone who owns stock
This the most compelling work I have ever read on this topic. Flanagan builds the characters like in a novel, reports the facts like a top notch reporter, and provides incredible insights into the rotten world of big businss. He is remarkably witty and keeps you begging for more. It is a real education and an enjoyable reading journey, like none I have read in a long time. I thought I'd o.d.'d on business topics but this one makes you hope Flangan is writing the next version!! Every shareholder and Board member needs to read this and soon!

Save Your Time And Money
Author makes some points that are rather obvious and then proposes solutions that you may or may not agree with. Overall, I found this book mediocre at best - just another financial journalist trying to make a buck with a provocative title.

Save your time. Save your money.

Setting the record straight
Dear Sirs:

I am the author of Dirty Rotten CEOs, and I must point out a serious error in the review posted by the anonymous reader from Mount Kisco, N.Y. He states that the highest paid executive in 2001 was Michael Dell, not Larry Ellison, and takes me to task for that mistake. But it is the reader who is dead wrong. The top earner in 2001 was indeed Larry Ellison, whose total compensation for 2001 was $ 706.1 million. (Michael Dell was a distant second in 2001, at $201.3 million.) Those figures come from Forbes magazine, May 13, 2002, p 116, and were reprinted in my book on page 25.

In view of that drastic error, I would like to request that his review be removed . Yes, there were some regrettable but minor errors in my book (corrected in the subsequent edition). But the reader committed a whopper, using figures from the wrong year! I would suggest you kill that review, or print my reply immediately after it.

Sincerely,

William G. Flanagan ... Read more

Book Description

The budget is the nonprofit industry’s most commonly prepared and widely accepted financial instrument. Yet few nonprofits use the budget to its fullest advantage. Today’s reality calls for a more considered approach to budgeting. As funds get tighter and competition stiffer, savvy nonprofits need solid financial know-how to adjust to market realities and ensure program sustainability.

Budgeting Your Way to Financial Stability provides nonprofit managers and board members the tools they need to understand and strengthen their budgeting practices.

This hands-on workbook will show you:

· How to approach budgeting

· What type of budget will work best for your organization

· How to adopt an income-based approach to budgeting

· How to better understand and fund your indirect costs

· How to segregate program costs from one another

· How to use the budget to set pricing and develop unit costs

· How to use the budget to establish cash reserves

This practical guide is written especially for small and mid-size nonprofits. Numerous examples and timesaving worksheets are included throughout the text, in addition to a companion CD. ... Read more

Book Description

As the study of public administration becomes more theoretically aware, researchers need to understand the strengths and weaknesses of different theoretical perspectives. This volume examines seven theoretical perspectives of public budgeting: incrementalism, the budget process model, the organizational process model, the median voter model, the "greedy bureaucrat" model, a post-modern model, and the transaction cost model. Major research from each perspective is examined and critically reviewed. The development of each model is examined in detail, its strengths and weaknesses identified, and the potential for future research discussed, allowing the reader to understand the place of the model and its applicability to their own research. This volume will be a vital resource for researchers in public budgeting, public finance, public administration, and political science. ... Read more

Book Description

In this text, a leading hospitality educator and industry consultant gives readers the means to ensure customer satisfaction and produce acceptable profit margins. Two new chapters review different methods of cost control strategy and operations, including information systems and computerized cost control. ... Read more