Essex and Associates Accounting Services in Dayton,Ohio the Accountants you can count on!

"Essex and Associates is a full-service accounting firm serving Dayton,Ohio and the greater Miami Valley area." Says..

Robert Dowty Senior Accountant for Essex and Associates. 

Essex and Associates offers the business owner, the real estate investor and the individual financial information about their business entity or personal net worth.

We are able to present this financial information in a way that is easily understandable, by the owner, financial officer, potential investor or lending institution.

Our firm prides itself in being able to prepare financial statements that can be read and used in a very practical way. We do this by first communicating and teaching our clients the proper source documents
and information that is needed to be used in financial planning statements.

Our firm uses a variety of accounting statement software’s such as QuickBooks and Peachtree. We even have some clients that
prefer the information to be presented the old-fashioned way, on a green note pad ledger.

We are flexible enough, and skilled enough, to be able to give the client exactly what they need. Because we know and we teach other, if you have good information you can make good decisions.

Our financial statements not only include the basic information found in every other prepared statement of this type but we also go the second mile by including a letter of explanation, plenty of explanatory foot notes and most importantly a list of best practices that particular entity or individual should be engaging.

Preparing financial statements is both a science and an art.

The science piece of the preparation is the technical proficiency that is required to put together the numbers. This technical proficiency is obtained through having well trained accounting professional using sophisticated financial statement preparation software to arrive at the proper number.

The art of financial statement preparation lies in selecting the information that is relevant to the user.

This art is enhanced by our knowledge and ability to ask the right questions so that our firm will produce information that is most desirable and useable.

Many people find it strange that the same accounting information (the source documents) can produce different results. Not only does this happen but it should happen depending on who is reviewing the
information.

Many businesses keep three sets of books.

One set of books is for the potential investor, another set of
books is for the internal operation and thirdly, a set of books that is used for tax preparation.

Obviously, you would want your investor set of books to show the company in its absolute best light. The internal set of books is used to manage the business and the tax set of books is used to minimize your taxes.

All three set of books are perfectly legitimate and should be maintained.

The different bottom line on these three sets of books is obtained by using accepted accounting principles combined with IRS tax
code.

Example: Accepted accounting principles allows you to depreciate a particular asset at one rate whereas the depreciation rate of that very same item may very well be accelerated due to the IRS tax code.

Another Example: Entertainment expenses according to the IRS tax code are limited to 50% of the amount. However, on the internal set of books you would list the expense at 100% due to the fact that is exactly what you spent.

Accountancy is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) as "the profession or duties of an accountant".

Accounting is defined by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) as "the art of recording, classifying, and summarizing in a significant manner and in terms of money, transactions and events which are, in part at least, of financial character, and interpreting the results thereof.

Most accounting firms are good at the science or the technical proficiency side of the business.

However, it takes an experienced accountant to be able to take these numbers and interpret them in the most appropriate way and then be able to present and explain them to all of the appropriate people
involved.

Accounting is thousands of years old; the earliest accounting records, which date back 4,000 years, to right after the creation of man, were found in Mesopotamia (Assyrians).

The people of that time relied on primitive accounting methods to record the growth of crops and herds.

Simple accounting is even mentioned in the Bible, in the Book of Matthew, in the parable of the talents.

Accounting evolved, improving over the years and advancing as business advanced.

Today, the professional accounting firm engages many technologically advanced methods of arriving at the right information.

Accountants today are required to have extensive education, training, knowledge of various software’s and take continuing educational credits on a yearly basis.

Early accountants served mainly to assist the memory of the businessperson and the audience for the accountant was the proprietor or record keeper alone.

Today, however, the accountant is the most trusted advisor to the business owner. He is actively involved in the financial decision that the business owner would require.

It is critical in every successful enterprise that an experienced accountant be involved to obtain their professional advice.

Accountants today are relied upon not only by the business owner but the information they publish is used widely be the investing community. Investors without firsthand knowledge of operations rely on
accountants to provide the requisite information.

Accounting systems are two pronged: one for internal (i.e. management accounting) and the second prong for external (i.e. financial accounting) purposes. A good accountant not only can prepare the internal books of the organization but is able to also prepare books for the outside interested community.

Accounting is called "the language of business" because it is the vehicle for reporting financial information about a business entity to many different groups of people.

Accounting that concentrates on reporting to people inside the business entity is called management accounting and is used to provide information to employees, managers, owner-managers and auditors.

Management accounting is concerned primarily with providing a basis for making management or operating decisions.

Accounting that provides the information to people outside the business entity is called financial accounting and provides information to present and potential shareholders, creditors such as banks or vendors, financial analysts, economists, and government agencies.

Because these users have different needs, the presentation of financial accounts is very structured and subject to many more rules than management accounting.

The body of rules that governs financial accounting in a given jurisdiction is called Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, or GAAP.

Other rules include International Financial Reporting Standards, or IFRS,[8] or US GAAP.

The basic accounting equation is assets = liabilities + stockholders' equity. This is the balance sheet.

The foundation for the balance sheet begins with the income statement, which is revenues – expenses = net income or net loss.

This is followed by the retained earnings statement, which is beginning retained earnings + net income – dividends = ending retained earnings or beginning retained earnings – net loss – dividends = ending retained earnings.

The current ratio is current assets divided by current liabilities.
The debt to total assets ratio is total assets divided by total liabilities.

Yes, in the basic accounting formula 1 =1 =’s 2.

What an good accountant does for you is to be able to tell you exactly what the number two really means.

Isn't it time you started working with the accountant Dayton,Ohio and the Miami Valley turn to for all their accounting and financial needs?

Give them a call today at (937) 432-1040 for questions or to start taking advantage of the accounting services Essex and Associates has to offer.