Accounting is at the heart of business operations. Regardless of the type, size or industry of your business, accurate and transparent accounting processes and documents are required to operate effectively.
Your accounting systems, documents, and reports help you gain access to capital through lending and investing. They help you gauge your business’s performance and compare it to past results. Most importantly, they help you make informed business decisions based on facts, not speculation.
Solid accounting work isn’t something that can simply be done as needed. It’s an ongoing process that requires regular reviews, audits and fine-tuning. More than anything, it requires a strong accounting services partner. That’s where Smolin Lupin comes in.
For more than 60 years, Smolin Lupin has helped businesses maintain clear and accurate accounting records. Our team of professionals is highly experienced and knowledgeable in all facets of accounting, from bookkeeping to statement compilation to auditing.
We work with our clients as an extension of their team. We get to know their business inside and out so that we can look at their accounting records and processes through the lens of their unique needs and goals. We provide recommendations to not only help them be compliant, but also to strengthen their business overall.
Effective accounting procedures start with bookkeeping. We help you implement processes that allow you to record transactions seamlessly and accurately the first time. We may recommend that you use different software or that you delegate tasks differently. We may recommend that you let us handle the bookkeeping altogether.
Once you have a transparent and accurate bookkeeping process in place, we help you build and maintain your necessary accounting documents. Those can include financial statements, tax returns, cash flow projections, budgets, financials for business plans and anything else you may require to make decisions, obtain financing and operate your business.
The external audit tests the core of your accounting functions. It’s an opportunity to review your processes and identify areas of strength and areas for improvement. We analyze your bookkeeping process to make sure transactions are being recorded properly. We test your internal controls to look for areas of vulnerability. We go back and look through past tax records to see if you may have any lingering tax obligations.
In short, we test and analyze every facet of your financial and accounting process. That kind of thorough examination allows us to find areas for improvement. We present recommendations that will increase the integrity of your financial results and help you implement the solutions that are identified as priorities. Most of our larger clients have regular audits as a way to enhance the credibility of their financial reports and strengthen and spot-check their accounting processes and controls.
Your ERISA plans are likely a valuable benefit for you and your employees. While ERISA plans have many attractive features, they also come with a tangled web of rules and regulations. Failure to comply with those regulations could result in penalties from ERISA or the Department of Labor.
We conduct audits on our clients’ ERISA plans to help them stay in compliance. We don’t just view ERISA audits as compliance exercises. We view them as opportunities to strengthen the plan for its participants.
We test how you handle contributions, how you identify participants who are eligible and how decisions are documented. We also review your summary plan document and identify areas where the document and the plan’s operation aren’t consistent. We keep you compliant so you’re prepared should the Department of Labor decide to conduct an audit. More importantly, we help you maintain a better plan to your employees.
The output of all your accounting processes takes shape in the form of your financial statements. The balance sheet, income statement and statement of cash flows all serve unique and important purposes of the users.
The balance sheet provides a snapshot of your financial health and allows you to see how your company and its assets are financed. The income statement tells you how your company performed over a period of time and provides the bottom line on whether or not you were profitable. The statement of cash flows tells you where your cash is coming from and where it’s going.
These documents work together to paint a comprehensive and complete picture of your company’s financial stability. Banks use them to decide whether you’re credit worthy. Investors use them to see if your business meets their criteria. And you should use them to make fact-based decisions. We help you compile and present those reports.
Your internal controls are the systems that prevent your business from suffering unnecessary loss due to things like unintentional errors, fraud, inventory shrinkage, etc.. Examples of internal controls include strategic separation and delegation of tasks, locks and cameras, and password protections on computers and important data.
We do a thorough analysis of all of your controls, from processes to virtual safeguards to physical controls. We test them to see if they operate effectively. If so, we recommend solutions to make them stronger and we help you implement those solutions.
A knowledgeable and experienced accounting services partner is an invaluable asset. We strive to be a critical partner in your business’s success. Our accounting team is well-versed in a wide variety of industries and stays up-to-speed on all changes to regulatory requirements. We’re happy to consult with you on your needs for an accounting services partner.
