Thursday, March 21, 2013

Forensic Accounting - defining this area of legal expertise

The combined use of accounting skills, auditing proficiency and investigative capability is what can be termed as forensic accounting. The aim is to come up with an accounting analysis that would be presented at a court of law as litigation support evidence in a dispute involving assets.

It's a highly specialized legal field and you need to have a competent forensic accounting professional for the job. What core areas are within this domain? Two major aspects are under forensic accounting - litigation support and investigative accounting. These are interrelated and one complements the other.

Here are some of the categories of cases that the experts of the domain may need to handle.
Criminal Investigations - In these cases the accountant works on the behalf of the law enforcement authorities to come up with evidence to prove the crime related to an economic aspect.

Compensation Claims - These forensic accountants help determine the economic losses of the victims of an accident or a workplace mishap or a medical malpractice and thus come up with the right compensation that needs to be provided.

Fraud Investigations - In employee fraud investigation the task includes finding proof to support its existence, analyzing the type and determining the degree as well as identifying the individual(s) associated with it.

Business Loss Investigations - This includes analyzing contract disputes, product liability claims, losses incurred from patent infringements, construction claims, and so on. The forensic accountant is capable of finding the details of these economic losses.
Marital Property Dispute Investigations - The distribution of marital property post divorce is another issue that requires help from a forensic accountant. It is their job to track all assets and evaluate them.

The chief tasks involved in forensic accounting litigation support are -
* To investigate and analyze the economic data available
* To develop computerized applications that would help analyze the date
* To present the financial evidence in a clear and concise manner
* To assist in legal proceedings (by preparing the evidence or by testifying as an witness with expertise in the field)

It is also the responsibility of the accountant to prepare reports, analysis, and presentations that could be submitted at court to support a claim or to refute one.
In such circumstance, choosing a competent professional is an absolute necessity. The two things to consider are the qualification and experience of the accountant. It is always wise to opt for someone who has handled similar cases in the past.

It is essential that the individual(s) handling forensic accounting has access to all the data regarding the case. Only then would they be able to come up with the correct analysis of the economic situation and help reach a resolution of the dispute.

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

How Accounting Service Outsourcing Can Prove Beneficial for Your Business?

Proper and systematic management of financial records has become crucial for any company as it speaks out the financial stability of that organization. One of the best and popular trends is to get your work accomplished by some outside professionals. The term outside professional implies professionals who work outside your organization. The main objective of this article is to make you aware of the benefits that you can reap by outsourcing accounting services in India.
 
Bookkeeping and Accounting services have become an integral part of every modern business. Bookkeeping service is an important business activity that is comprised of keeping a track of all the business transactions of a company. The term business transactions is a vast term and it covers various aspects such as assets, income, expenditure, liabilities and much more. The records of all the business transactions are kept up to date in books, journals and ledgers. The main area of concern is the time and the expertise involved in maintaining all theses activities. Most of the companies often have an in-house facility for the proper maintenance of their financial accounts or they have the option to outsource these services to other accounting services provider in India and abroad. The main advantages of accounting service outsourcing are as follows:

Improvement in Your Business Specialties: Outsourcing accounting services to an accounting service provider provides you the required time to capitalize on the core areas of your business. In this time you can binge and think upon certain innovative ideas and strategies to boost up your revenue upfront. So build up your core strength and work upon your weaknesses to take your business to new heights.

Addition of an Expert Touch Along With Quality: Meeting deadlines is very important in today's competitive environment. With accounting service outsourcing you can hire the certified accounting professionals who can render greater consistency and accuracy to your business records.

Liberty from Hiring and Administration: When it comes to manage accounting services of your own you need to find an appropriate person and moreover some sort of training too needs to be imparted. In such a scenario you need to posses some patience besides investing a considerable time and money involved in it but that's not the case with accounting service outsourcing.

Easy Resource Management: Accounting service outsourcing facilitates easy resource management in terms of the expenditure involved in maintaining all the needs of a regular accounting staff such as office space, rental expenditure, system requirements and much more.

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Keep your Business on top with Five Competitive Strategies

Business strategy is a game plan that your company uses in its business, gain market share, and perform. This action plan sets out how the company is to satisfy customers and to compete effectively and to implement the objectives of the development strategy should mean that there is management commitment to follow a set of actions that advance the financial market business and increase its profitability.
Michael Porter generate three generic strategies for compete the business:

Cost leadership: Selling product in reasonable price.
Differentiation: Make different product.
Focus: Company tries to find a market in different field in which no competition.

According to him, the value of the separation of leadership from one end and the other end, and if the company has a competitive differentiation and cost leadership, but they are not stuck in the middle of this area, and it will be very difficult for the company to grow, however, some researchers say that there are companies that are successful, even in the midst of this group is the case, if the company can not obtain progress in the competition, they need to focus on one strategy, namely cost leadership or competition or comparison with him that the other companies.

So, how to get a low-cost strategy. This is a great question to answer for any company to make progress than their opponents, there are five basic strategies in this area.
A low-cost provider strategy:
Mix at low cost and high section of the purchaser. for example: Target and Costco.
Broad-Differentiation Strategy:
seeks to differentiate the product offering of opponents and society in a way that will appeal to a wide range of buyers, for example: Apple and Toyota
A best-cost provider strategy:
Includes giving customers more value for their money is good, the attributes of excellent products at a lower cost than its competitors, the goal is to have the lowest (best) costs and prices compared to competitors that offer products with comparable attributes.
Focused Low-Cost Strategy:
Focusing on a narrow segment and buyer rivals competing in cost than its competitors, and thus able to serve niche members at a lower price.
Focused Differentiation Strategy:
Focusing on a narrow segment competitors and buyer competition by offering a place of optional features that suit their tastes and needs better than competing products.

The five generic competitive approaches to stake a market position. The decision on the strategy to use is conceivable the most important strategic commitment to your company to this obligation to conduct strategic actions that your company agrees to, and it sets the tone for everything your looking for a competitive advantage.