It’s been a while since we’ve talked about anything, but there’s good reason there too.

Currently in the development chain that should be coming to a dashboard soon: recurrence. It’s something that has been personally bugging us, so we’re doing something about it. This is one of the features that hasn’t been requested but has been on our radar for some time. There are a few other fun things that are coming down the line.

We’ve also been working on a joint venture with another business. For now, we’ll just leave it at that. Let’s just say that there’s some expansion into other areas going on -hint hint-.

In other news, we have just gone through an audit and passed it with much nail-biting. We currently have a contract in that will have ongoing reviews on these to make sure that you’re protected and your financial records are up-to-date.

We would like to say that we wouldn’t be here without our wonderful customer base, and so this shout out is to you! You guys are the best and you make this application what it is today. We strive to answer all of your questions and feature requests as quickly as possible as a small firm and we believe that we make that absolutely transparent to you.

If you have questions, problems, or whatever else, feel free to contact us.

A. Usually.

Because software is usually used for many years, it actually depreciates over time as far as the initial cost is concerned. But if there are annual fees or some sort of time-based licensing subscriptions, then the renewals themselves are considered as current assets. If however you’re using a SaaS service such as Merchant’s Mirror, then the product subscription would actually be an expense since you don’t technically own the software and the moment you quit subscribing, you no longer have access much like a subscription to a magazine or newspaper.

Definition(s):
Fixed asset, also known as a non-current asset or as property, plant, and equipment (PP&E), is a term used in accounting for assets and property which cannot easily be converted into cash. This can be compared with current assets such as cash or bank accounts, which are described as liquid assets. In most cases, only tangible assets are referred to as fixed.

In accounting, a current asset is an asset on the balance sheet which is expected to be sold or otherwise used up in the near future, usually within one year, or one operating cycle whichever is longer. Typical current assets include cash, cash equivalents, accounts receivable, inventory, the portion of prepaid accounts which will be used within a year, and short-term investments.

A. It depends.

It depends on your company policy. Generally, corporations set a capitalization policy where a minimum threshold must be reached to consider a computer a fixed asset since some things depreciate so quickly, it’s better to treat them as an expense. Consult with your accountant on what a generally accepted threshold lies. We can tell you that if your threshold happens to be $500USD, then netbooks, and even some computers and laptops could be considered either an expense or fixed asset depending on what side the price fell.

Definition:
Fixed asset, also known as a non-current asset or as property, plant, and equipment (PP&E), is a term used in accounting for assets and property which cannot easily be converted into cash. This can be compared with current assets such as cash or bank accounts, which are described as liquid assets. In most cases, only tangible assets are referred to as fixed.

Image by dannyman via Flickr

In spite of people like us, whom look to provide a web based accounting product easier to use and simplifying many processes, at the end of the day the responsibility of the bookkeeping for your small business still relies on YOU.

That’s right. It’s amazing that in this business, we find that there are some businesses out there that still manage to go all year without entering a single entry until the end of the fiscal year where then there’s a mad scramble to fill in whatever entries there were for the entire year. Call us crazy, but that’s just nuts.

So with the New Year, perhaps one of your new resolutions for this fiscal year is to:

• Schedule out a set time slot every month to manage your books.
• Hold that schedule unless there isn’t any accounting to be done.

It sounds strange, but no matter how boring it sounds, or how difficult it may be to put in a few hours in the middle or at the end of the month, you’ll thank us later. Because nothing drives a person mad than trying to figure out whether or not the receipt from last January was part of a project expense or just a petty cash purchase.

Image via CrunchBase

In an effort to create more transparent support, and to just make it easier to answer questions about Merchant’s Mirror, we’ve decided to use Get Satisfaction as our support area. Get Satisfaction puts all of your support needs in an area where the power of the community weighs in. And since there are things coming down the pipeline that have to deal with community… (we won’t get into it here today although we can already here the half-hearted and playful boos), we decided that this was a good shift for us.

When you get right down to it, all small business is people powered, community driven, and the web 2.0 era has re-proven that fact. This allows both the corporate side to show that they’re listening, and not have to be repetitive with question answering which helps users find what they need, (maybe throw in some praise), and move on. The worst that can happen is when we hear about how some business shelled out hundreds if not thousands of dollars on accounting software to find that the company behind it never replies to emails or phone calls.

So if you have questions, comments, or whatever, just head over there and find out what you want to know. If you want to keep it private? There’s a place for that too.