
Medlin Software, Dennis
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Medlin Software, Dennis started following Whew! - I was right, but it took some time , Thank you, and good night , CREDIT CARD VS STORE CARD and 5 others
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Seems like I have outlasted my welcome. Not my sandbox, I get the hints. I appreciate all of the banter over the years, best wishes to all going forward. Those that have interacted with me in the past know how to reach me, if anyone wants to discuss payroll or accounting. I don't do any returns other than my own now, but I deal with many in other ways.
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How would one know that? Different merchant accounts have different payment timing. Or the merchant may not even close the transaction right away. I doubt a merchant is going to look up their funding dates and send reports. So I order on dec 30. Most merchants would close the 30th, but not all get paid the 30th, the 31st, or even Jan 1. Many will get funded the next day, most by the second day. It would be interesting to see how a dec 31 deduction holds up of the finding was actually Jan 1. At least in my world, it is a non issue. Why? I look at things early in Dec and if desired, load up on expenses before Dec 20 and pay or prepay them by Dec 24.
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You lost me for a moment. "so the deduction is when the charge occurs, not when the payment is made to the credit card company." and "The deduction is taken in the year the payment to the payee occurs." cannot both be the "rule". There are two rules, for cash basis, when the payment is made, such as the check date or ACH date. For accrual basis, when the obligation occurs. For tax prep, I suppose there can be differences than "accounting", just as payroll accounting is always calendar year, even if the company itself is on a non-calendar (tax/accounting) year.
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Are you saying, even for cash accounting, one MUST account for charge purchases before the cash is spent? I see "may" in your rule mention, not "must". I know of many cash accounting who use cards to delay expenses, and hold checks to delay income, all which have passed audit, and at least one, a very detailed examination. Cards can also be used to hurry up expenses, in a cash system, as one can place orders Dec 31, and make a payment the same date. I see things like this often, not considering some use cash accounting.
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Interesting topic. We just cancelled a store card because they sold/hired it out to one of the affinity visa/mc issuers. For certain things, we prefer store cards as we let the store take the risk if the card gets hacked or lost (no balance, so their obscene interest is of no concern). For business use, and really personal, it is derelict to not be using a rewards card, which also makes store cards, sans rewards, useless to me.
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BOI & 5th Circuit Court of Appeals
Medlin Software, Dennis replied to Terry D EA's topic in General Chat
The reluctance on a personal level is puzzling to me. I get it, some argue the merits of the legal aspect, great, argue away, I might agree. But standing on privacy is pointless as there are provisions to keep all but the names private. My own worry, the address of others (I assume mine can be found with even a novice effort), is resolved via a Brown PMB. Managing the data of others, is resolved by requiring each to register personally, and giving me their number (so I have no idea or responsibility for the address or information they enter). And to be clear, I have been threatened by a nut, who is spending the rest of their days at a federal facility, and said nut was able to find my personal information, even though it was not on any company documentation at the time. Privacy is as gone as the one income family with three kids, two cars, and a paid off home. -
While my backup "game" was likely more detailed than 99.99% of the world, I stepped it up again this week. I added a NAS to my gadgets. As I discover and prove I am comfortable with what the NAS can do, I will be able to rid/repurpose a few gadgets. With proper encryption, you can leave your data on your front porch or even hand out USB sticks to your local hacker, and it will remain safe (maybe not against a group with national type resources and time, but those are not my concern at all). I doubt the IRS investigates or would want to take on an entity like Google by making a statement prohibiting using gDrive for storage. Few, if any, hacking groups are after the data you or I have, since what you have, even if it was 5000 clients, is worth their time. For me, I keep no card information, so hacking me would be a waste of time too. My concern is being able to get back to work in as short of time possible.
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Your client has made his choice and will pay for it. Really, other than needing to know the spouse is not present to sign and is never coming back, it is not something I would be concerned with. Your client has made his choice, any cost is not your concern.
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I have never been caught rolling the stop sign on my street. Point is most PDF readers will shrink to fit on page by default. Some will sub in different fonts. Someone could use a dot matrix printer. The penalty for submitting a tax form which cannot be scanned is significant and can blow back on the software vendor too. Try scanning that PDF and printed elsewhere check at a grocery or check cashing store and see how well that goes. Worse yet, deal with the employee who could not get timely paid because the check was not accepted. There are options, such as cloud printing (direct from the device, not from a PDF).
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Make sure when saving and printing to/from PDF, to not shrink/stretch/skew. This mainly applies to any form you may eventually mail (for scanning), but it is a good idea at all times. I get this question daily; can I save paychecks or tax forms to PDF and have someone else print them? The answer is always no because of shrink/stretch/skew/resolution issues. I use paper copies of things I am required or want to keep. They are kept in folders/drawers/containers CLEARLY labeled with a "destroyable" date. I also track and delete electronic records via a "destroyable" date as well. Nuttin' you were not required to have can be used again' you.
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I have likely spouted this before. AV programs are all similar in finding known items. So the free solution which comes with Windows is good, no need for others. It also is more likely to be kept updated (which is daily). The systems which use Wild Rear Guesses (Heuristics) have their place, but not at consumer level. Those guesses are what creates the false positives, costing you time any money. The false positives also can fool you to believe the solution is doing "something", so you keep renewing. So, the Microsoft solution wins again. Windows also has very good hardening settings, which are more than enough for consumer use, and do MORE than your consumer level AV solution. As a software dev, I deal with the false positive issue every single you know what day. The false positives not only cost me customers, but they are also a huge time suck for me and my customers/potential customers. A dev can simply send an email to certain AV companies, and they will whitelist my file (not really secure it is?). I can change one item in my code, even something as simple as one letter from upcase to lcase, and the recompiled exe will not trigger the current foals positive. I can change the compression level in my setup, which will also stop a false positive. (See a theme? How simple it is to fool a "security" system.) The old adage, from even the "good" days when Peter Norton was writing AV software, was TURN OFF the AV software during app installation, still applies, and proves how pointless these third party systems are. Even McAfee (who is off his rocker now) admitted his products are snake oil, no different than Old "Doc" Smith selling elixir off his medicine wagon. Ironically, there is a free scanning tool which actually does use the latest signature files from more than 50 vendors, and I have yet to be listed by them as nefarious - so the real issue is not even the sloppy (if not outright on purpose) false positives, it is consumers not keeping their software current, coupled with either badly created or on purpose created false positive causing software. I have yet to see a class action suit for false positives, as there is little to no lawyer money to be made, so the issue lives on. With the above spouted, I do let the MS AV app run, and it rarely gives me any issue (meaning no false positives of note). It needs no exclusions (nor should any good AV solution) and couples well with the other MS security settings.
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If the software vendor elects to force something (such as use of a cell phone for their security purposes), then the software vendor is sating, yes, you must have a cell phone. If this is an issue, contact the software vendor directly. As I have likely spouted several times, using SMS or authenticator apps for MFA/security compliance is not required by the FTC, they allow several compliance options. But the FTC rules to not mean SMS for MFA is bad (there are better means) or authenticator apps are bad, or that it is unreasonable for software designed for tax pros comes with requirements such as being able to use SMS or authenticator apps for MFA. I actually answer similar messages routinely, similar to "I am too old to X", and I have to be sincere and honest when I say if they feel this way, maybe it is time to have someone else do what they are doing. We all have to face this. I have the experience and skills to do many things I elect not to do to keep SWMBO happy, to increase the odds I keep getting older, etc. Although, if our granddaughter elects to be a racer, I will likely strap up at least one more time to be on track with her, to help her learn (and honestly, I miss it too).
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For me, no online source is safe as is. What I mean is unless I have the ability to, and actually do, encrypt first, before the online source does their upload/storage, I do not consider it safe. IOW, I do not trust an online source to provide security, I assume my data will get compromised, so I have to secure it before posting. With the above said, I can then use ANY online source, as I only permit them to store data I have already secured. I have used many tools over the years, and storage locations. For online, at present, I sue my own servers, as well as AWS. The KEY is the software I use for file transfer, and the security method., I found Cobian Software meets my needs for automation and security. If one wants to also use a backup service, first spin the data through Cobian, then let the online service's software backup only the encrypted files you encrypted using Cobian. As a software dev, the trend is for each software to provide backup/storage, as it is much easier to support (rather than having to try to help those whose IT "expert" helped, or who paid a geek type company for "help"). Plus, the software dev knows what needs to be backed up, and will not skip something important. Remember, any security requirements apply to the DATA, not to the place you drop the data. And, MFA does not mean some sort of authenticator is required, just that an auth is one option.
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Whew! - I was right, but it took some time
Medlin Software, Dennis replied to BulldogTom's topic in General Chat
Indeed, the IRS is human operated and thus imperfect. Despite many in my business saying it cannot happen, it is absolutely true things get lost, and mistakes made. Their system read one of my Q3 941's as being for Q2 and ADDED it to Q2. So I got an underpay for Q2, and for Q3. The "experts" say the IRS rejects and 941 after the first, which I can say is not always the case. There was one year where a significant number of my customers at one 941 processing centers reported the IRS had no record of their returns. Clearly, there was a data loss, which was later also shared by industry insiders to me.- 1 reply
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