Finance Guide

What business & personal finance advice do you wish had been taught to you when you were at school? Isn’t the purpose of education to prepare children for the real world?

I believe that all children should learn basic business & personal finance skills from the age of twelve to sixteen years. Why not teach children how mortgages and pensions work. Everybody needs a place to live and if they have a long life they will need to retire one day.

Schools should teach their students how to manage credit card debts. They should be taught how credit card companies make their money by charging extortionate amounts of interest far higher than a personal loan to people that pay late.

Students should learn how to negotiate and barter. After all they are going to be doing this every day for the rest of their lives. What about learning the difference between mark up and profit margin?

Learning how to handle money would be the best compulsory course at school. If you add a class like “Business & Personal Finance” and make it standard for all children then what subject would you remove or do less off?

I had a period a day of Latin. This has been pretty much useless in my life. Has anybody benefited from learning Latin? I read about the Greek gods, translated old books and I have to admit that after doing it for over 4 years, I only remember a handful of phrases now.

How many of you remember sweating over stuff like Algebra and Trigonometry? Has this been useful to you in life? Surely this does not need to be taught in such detail to every child & only needs to be taught to budding scientists and mathematicians?

I had art classes. Where they really necessary? I was also taught how to knit and dance? What was the point of that? What about religious education? Shouldn’t this type of stuff be taught in Sunday school? Should this subject really be taught in school at all?

I am not advocating that we remove these subjects completely. As you can see it would be really easy to teach slightly less of some other subjects to make space for one period a day of Business & Personal Finance for all older children.

Would this benefit the UK economy? I am sure it would. Imagine students leaving school having basic understanding of fixed and variable interest rate mortgages. They would have learnt how to manage their bank account and check their bank statements. Wouldn’t it be great if they knew how to calculate gross / nett profit margins and compare one investment with another?

Many people will make the argument that this information should be taught by parents and not by school teachers. The problem is that many parents themselves do not understand basic concepts of personal finance! Some view their own personal finances as a private matter that should not even be discussed in front of the children.

What subjects do you think they should teach more of and which subjects should they teach less of to make room?

Dean Forster asked:




Personal finance software is also known as home finance software. This is because it is simply personal finance software that you use in your home. You can use different applications under the category for different purposes.

Some of the applications cater to money management and accounting, whereas others concentrate on expense, income, and investment tracking. You can also use some of the applications for calculating mortgage payments, loan rescheduling, and loan prepayments. This you can do because the applications are equipped with a built-in mortgage calculator.

You can also use home finance software applications for budgeting purposes. They can help you prepare the monthly budget based on calculations involving the family’s income and the expected monthly expenses. The software will churn out a budget report at the click of a mouse. The important advantage of budgeting using home finance software is that you do not need to manually track your monthly budget.

Home finance applications maintain accurate account balances. However, for this you need to enter all purchases, credits, and payments in the application’s database through the checking account built into the application’s user interface. You are spared the hassle of making calculations as the application does this for you.

This is why reconciling of your personal finance accounts becomes easy with the burden of doing the math without making any errors whatsoever is taken over by the software. This keeps your mind relaxed and then you are able to concentrate on other important tasks that require your immediate attention.

Tax tracking becomes easier if you are in the habit of using home finance software. This is because tax categories are part of the software. Even if some of the tax categories are not included, all you have to do is to set them up. Such categorization of tax transactions helps you in saving time when the time comes for filing your annual tax returns. A decision on whether you need to make adjustment of tax with holdings can be done throughout the whole year through such categorization.

Some of the sophisticated home finance software packages allow you the facility of downloading data and transactions from banks. This helps integrate your checking account with those maintained by your bank. This convenient feature also helps you avoid manual data entry to a significant extent and thereby saves time.

Online bill payments become very much possible through most home finance applications. Although you may have to pay a nominal fee to access the service, it is still worth the convenience.

Another advantage of using personal finance applications in homes is that you can track all your investment transactions through online updates. This helps keep your investment account balances always updated.

All in all home finance software is a boon to families. The greatest advantage of using it is the sense of mental relaxation that you get by being fully dependent on it to make your finances become systematic.

Create a video blog

Mike Ashley asked:




Assets with finite lives lose their value over time. Land is the only asset that is not finite. For all other assets, firms depreciate their value, that is, they attribute the historical cost of the asset over its useful life (the number of years that the asset will be used).

At the end of each fiscal year, firms subtract depreciation claimed to that date from the historical cost of the asset, which results in the asset’s current book value or market value. At the end of the useful life of the asset, the portion left that has not been depreciated is the salvage value of the asset if it were to be sold.

There are two common methods used for determining the value of depreciated assets: the straight-line method and the declining balance method. The straight-line method assumes that the asset loses an equal percentage in value during each year of its useful life. The declining balance method assumes that the asset loses more value (depreciates) during the earlier years of the asset’s useful life by assuming the asset loses an equal percentage of its value every year. An example using both methods is shown below for a $10,000 asset that’s expected to be used for 10 years and then salvaged for $1000.

NOTE: For the table of depreciation value, kindly refer to the page here tradingsphere.com/depreciation

From the table it is easy to see that the straight-line method results in the same deduction every year while the declining-balance yields much higher deductions during the earlier years. An implication of the declining-balance method is that the asset can be sold for a higher value before it is due to be salvaged and pose a greater tax gain for the firm.

Website content

Francisco Segura asked:




Finance is the general term applied to the commercial service of providing funds and capital. This is part of the area of economics that focuses on the strategies and methods of looking after money and other financial assets. A more general and accepted definition is the control of business plus public sector assets and money. People that look after or manage the arranging of finance are called finance managers.

Managing this involves dealing with the optimization and allocation of funds to various areas either by borrowing or by using those available from internal resources. The term optimization is used to explain the procedure whereby finance is maximized by reducing costs and increasing the return. Poor finance management is caused when managers neglect the rules and a deterioration occurs affecting markets around the world. It is for this very reason that finance managers are very careful with finance they agree too and where it is funded from.

Finance managers can be very short sighted, only looking at the initial cost involved and not the future return capability of the project. Finance managers are people who always like to see where they have been and do not look towards the future in the same way that a sales manager does. Many small business owners forget that the business loan they have arranged is not for personal use; a distinction which gets blurred regularly. Managers are rarely impressed with this situation as they believe they have aright to know what their money is being used for.

This may cause some concern amongst small business owners but they should train themselves to be more focused on their business which should in turn create a better frame of mind for the future. An important area for businesses to receive finance is their own bank or failing that good friends or even relatives. The simple trick is for finance managers to arrange loans using outside lenders thereby protecting their own assets whilst maximizing their own profit simultaneously. Bob Hope once said that you can only get a loan from a bank if you can prove to them you have absolutely no need for it; advice which could not be more true.

Kansieo.com

In today’s era, taking the help of an outsourcing firm can give a business house an edge over others. Outsourcing combines various supreme benefits and offers the clients with an expert and cost effective way to manage the finances. Outsourcing helps in organizing the tasks in a proper manner. Financial and accounting tasks must not be taken lightly. Thus it is always a sensible decision to manage the task by handing it to Finance accounting outsourcing firm. With the help of outsourcing services, the business house can focus better on its core competencies. The reputation of the business house can be affected very badly if there remains any flaw or ignorance in the accounting task. Finance accounting outsourcing manages the task in such a way that there remains no mistake or error.

Finance accounting outsourcing takes into account that there is no occurrence of any mistake, which can hamper the corporate relationships, crucial financial decisions and final statement of the concerned business. Maintaining accounts is a crucial task for any business whether big or small. Not only a sapling business needs help but also a well established business also needs help of accounting outsourcing services. Extra financial and human resources are needed to manage the books of accounts. This is because in-house employees need to be given high salaries and other allowances. This can prove to be costly affair. Thus, it is better to get the task done from an outside firm.

With the help of financial accounting services, the business owner can get a well maintained accounting system just by spending a few bucks every month. This helps in maintaining cost effectiveness of the task concerned. Finance accounting outsourcing helps in reducing the financial burden of the business organization. The business owner can invest same amount of efforts and money in some other area which can help in reaping benefits. Thus there is no need to maintain a separate accounting department.

Accounting is the most crucial aspect of any business. It is a bit monotonous task and requires the help of professionals and experts who can manage the books of accounts. Accounting is one such pillar that decides the future and success of any business. Thus, entrusting the task in the hands of a good finance accounting outsourcing firm is a suitable option. One must take into consideration the reliability of the firm before handing over the task to it. This is because the business house has to provide various types of information which can include some confidential one, so it must be sure that the information is not misused by anybody. Finance accounting outsourcing makes use of high tech procedures and up to date technology. Finance accounting outsourcing professional is fully updated about the changing accounting laws and maintains books of accounts according to that environment. A business house never has to worry about these updates as the finance accounting outsourcing professionals have the experience of handling this situation.