Please see our West Hartford, Connecticut webpage and review the services of your present certified public accountant:  Accountants CPA Hartford, LLC Welcomes Business Owners of West Hartford, Connecticut.

We look forward to serving you and saving you money, time, and headaches.

Thank you,

William Brighenti, Certified Public Accountant, Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor

The Barefoot Accountant

Select the Appropriate Method for Maximum Deferral of Taxes

Have you selected the most appropriate tax accounting methods for your contracting company, maximizing the deferrral of income taxes? During these austere economic times, electing the right tax methods may make all the difference in the chances of your survival in these days of tight money.

Read the article, Tax Accounting Methods for Contractors: Select the Appropriate Method for Maximum Deferral of Taxes, and find out if your certified public accountant elected the correct tax methods for your construction company, given its contracts, conditions, and circumstances.

William Brighenti, Certified Public Accountant, Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor

Accountants CPA Hartford, LLC

William Brighenti and Carole Romatis of Accountants CPA Hartford, LLC Welcome You to Our Blog

If you have questions or comments on any article found on our website, please feel free to post it here under “Comments”.

Please be advised that this blog contains articles of practical information as well as articles strictly for amusement with no offense intended.

For articles dealing strictly on serious issues of accounting, QuickBooks, and taxes, please visit our website:  Accountants CPA Hartford, LLC.

Since I first started in public accounting over thirty years ago, I have witnessed a variety of accounting variations involving the recognition of revenue on long-term construction contracts, even though generally accepted accounting principles is fairly clear and unambiguous regarding its treatment.  I suspect that much of the unsystematic treatment in recognizing revenues on contracts may be the result of a devil-may-care attitude on the part of the contractors themselves.  Understandably, contractors, perhaps out of necessity, are not what I would describe as “effete” or refined.  Many graduated out in the field, in the literal sense of the word, and have often felt a distaste, if not a disdain, for the office side of their business.  

Often their “controllers”, or bookkeepers, more likely, were chosen not for their accounting sophistication but for other criteria, such as familiarity with the prevalent software used in the industry, their subservient attitude and their ability to withstand abuse from their contractor superiors, or their willingness to work for very modest wages.  It is not surprising, then, that they may lack sufficient sophistication to understand the subtle nuances of GAAP regarding long-term construction contracts.  

I have even witnessed certain public accountants lacking sophistication in this specialized area of accounting, even though many of these individuals are certified public accountants.  But construction accounting is a specialized industry, rather unique from all other industries, and, consequently, it is not as shocking to me now as it may have been a number of years ago.  I was raised in a construction family and directed a construction and development company as well as operated as the controller of several construction firms.  Consequently, construction accounting is, so to speak, ”in my blood”. 

For those interested, I have written a number of articles on construction accounting.  For a general understanding of the accounting of long-term construction contracts, its methodology and its conceptual basis, please see the article, The Percentage-of-Completion Method of Accounting for Long-Term Construction Contracts According to ARB No. 45 and SOP 81-1.

I sinerely hope that you find the article worthy of your time.  I welcome your comments.  Thank you.

William Brighenti, Certified Public Accountant, Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor

Accountants CPA Hartford, LLC

Do you wish to save bookkeeping time and expense and minimize errors from erroneously posting entries into QuickBooks?  Then consider setting up online banking in QuickBooks.

Read the article, How to Download Transactions from Your Bank’s Checking Account into QuickBooks, by William Brighenti, Certified Public Accountant and Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor, and learn how to set it up with your financial institution and match bank transactions with those already recorded in Quickbooks as well as record unrecorded expenses and deposits in QuickBooks while connected to online banking.

Apparently an accountant did not write that article.  Probably some liberal arts major—or, even more likely, some marketing major—wrote that piece, since it reads like a blurb, if anything.  Or perhaps some comedy writer on the David Letterman show wrote this originially for the “Top 10″ feature of the show, before being axed.  In any event, whoever wrote the article knows little about accounting and less about accountants.

To prove my point, I will list here the 10 big clues provided by the phantom author, indicating whether one is destined to be an accountant.  Since the blurb appears on a college review website, its obvious intention is to assist those about to enter college and choose a major of study.  The 10 indicators appear in the article as if they were scientifically derived from empirical research and appropriate for an authentic aptitude test.  Of course, being an accountant, I will include my own reactions to the indicators offered, with the intention of illustrating whether or not the 10 big clues do indeed hit the mark or miss the target entirely. 

1. “Nothing really bores you.”  Ridiculous!  I’m an accountant, not a vegetable.  Nothing bores me?  I couldn’t count the number of times that I have been lulled into a narcoleptic snooze during  endless drivel of politicians, CEOs, marketers, talk-show hosts, et al.  On the other hand, I bore everyone on earth, including my spouse and kiddies.  I don’t bore any friends because I’m too boring to have any friends.  Scratch this one off the list.
2. “You’ve always embraced technology.”  This is true.  As a teen/adult/senior I loved Pong, Nintendo, PacMac, and every violent computer game that came on the market.  I was too geeky to have embraced physical sports and members of the opposite sex.  I wished I had embraced the latter before middle age.  I might have had more luck.
3. “You’ve always loved dealing with numbers.”  No, I just sucked at everything else!  I bought Cliff Notes and Monarch Reviews instead of reading all of those books assigned by my teachers.  I still hate writing book reports and that Miss Reilly in 8th grade English.  (My brothers and father had her for English, and they all hated her, too.  But they’re not accountants.  Go figure.)
4. “You have an abnormal passion for tax law.”  Although I have an obscene passion for Susan Dey of L.A. Law, I really struggle with that Swiftian language, “legalese”.  Without sophisticated tax software, I wouldn’t know where to begin in preparing a tax return.  I wished my attorney looked like Susan Dey.
5. “You’ve always sweated the details.”  True, because I couldn’t see the forest from the trees.  I’m anal and myopic…like all accountants.
6. “You’ve always welcomed the challenge of solving a problem.”  Welcoming the challenge of solving a problem and solving the problem are two different things.  Ask PWC about its inability to catch all of those accounting improprieties going on at AIG, some of which may have extended as far back as twenty years.  I don’t welcome the challenge of solving any problem.  I just welcome getting paid, preferably up front, and without doing anything at all, quite frankly.
7. “You’ve always been conservative with your time.”  This is a positive trait?!  Being stingy with one’s time, and rushing through one’s work without giving it much thought at all?!  Perhaps if certain auditors (who shall remain nameless) had spent a wee little more time on certain audit engagements, they wouldn’t be in such big trouble right now.  And although debits and credits is not rocket science, and is not too taxing on our synapses, I’m Italian and I believe that everything—especially work—need not be rushed, but savored, enjoyed, and appreciated to the fullest extent possible.  Slow down and get paid by the hour, I always say.
8. “You’ve always been a people person.”  Right!  And I’m Mother Theresa of Calcutta.  Show me an accountant and I’ll show you a Boris Karloff double.  People persons!  LOL!  Is Barbra Streisand the ghost writer of this article?
9. “You’ve always had a conservative appearance.”  Penguins wear a tux everyday.  So what’s the point here?!  Virtually all corporate and business people have conservative appearances.  This is not a distinguishing trait of us accountants from other business workers and professionals.  It’s just that all of these other business and professional people look much more attractive in their conservative attire than we do.  Let’s admit the truth:  we ain’t attractive;  i.e., look at my picture.  Enough said.
10. “Your integrity has always been of the utmost importance to you.”  And that explains the bunch of accounting scandals widely reported in the media over the past thirty years involving misleading “creative” accounting, financial analysis, bribery, fraud, and including giants like Nugan Hand Bank, Phar-Mor, WorldCom, AIG, Enron…and let us not forget, Arthur Andersen?!  Sure, a large publicly held client pays us on average a $5 million audit fee every year (plus millions in other services), and we are going to issue this company an adverse opinion on its financial statements and jeopardize losing millions every year because of our integrity?!  Who wrote this article?  Mary Poppins?

Now you know why the article was anonymously credited to “admin”.  Admin should do stand up for a living.

Have a tax or an accounting question?  Please feel free to submit it under “Comments” at Accounting, QuickBooks, and Taxes by the Barefoot Accountant.  For information and assistance on any tax and accounting issue, please visit our website:  Accountants CPA Hartford, LLC.

Are you eligible to exclude most, if not all, of your foreign earned income?   Please see chart below:

Many individuals fail to employ the physical presence test in the manner maximizing their exclusion of foreign earned income in the years of arrival to and departure from the foreign country.  Such failure to maximize the exclusion of their foreign earned income can result in thousands of dollars of additional taxes being paid needlessly.

Read the article on how to apply the physical presence test correctly in order to maximize the exclusion of foreign earned income in order to save thousands of dollars in income taxes:  Maximize Your Exclusion of Foreign Earned Income Under the Physical Presence Test.

William Brighenti, Certified Public Accountant

Accountants CPA Hartford, LLC

The Way to a Client’s Wallet is through his Stomach!

Carole Romatis, besides being the QuickBooks Guru at Accountants CPA Hartford, LLC, is also the Gourmet Accountant at our firm. (By the term, “gourmet accountant”, I am not in any way implying that she cooks the books as our resident bookkeeper.)  It is Carole’s contention that accounting does not have to be a bland subject; rather, she presents a very compelling case that we accountants can spice it up, making it palatable even to the most quantitatively averse souls. And by “spice it up”, I mean that literally because at our firm, Carole, a true epicurean, prefers to discuss accounting, QuickBooks, taxes, and business over a gourmet meal prepared by her and a glass of vino.  Let’s face it, tax season is long and arduous, trying for the most Spartan of accountants.  And Carole has cooked up a recipe to survive this season of drudgery, as well as the other three seasons, by eating and living well every day, accounting for the extra pounds I added since we teamed up. 

Today Carole served a very special client of ours “Shrimp Magazine”, named after the street on which the restaurant featuring this dish is located in New Orleans. If you have never eaten Shrimp Magazine, frankly, you have never lived.  This seafood dish is even decadent by New Orleans standards.  It is butterflied shrimp sauteed deliciously in a lavish garlicky butter sauce with artichokes, ham, basil, and green onions, served over cappellini.  The rich butter sauce is what makes the dish so sumptuous; however, if you cannot handle the cholesterol, then salivate and drool as I recount Carole’s recipe to those less inclined to be so timid and cowardly…at least, you can savor it voyeuristically. 

Take three-quarter of a cup of flour.   

Season with kosher salt, black pepper, granulated garlic.  Mix.  

Peel and butterfly a pound of extra large shrimp, and dredge in the seasoned flour.  

Add one stick of butter to a 10? saute pan and heat over medium temperature. 

Add the floured shrimp to the pan.  

Saute the shrimp for a few minutes and then turn them over.  

Add a cup of chopped artichoke hearts and a half of a cup of diced ham.  

Add a third of a cup of white wine and (2) tablespoons of  Worchestershire sauce. 

Sprinkle with granulated garlic, black pepper, and kosher salt. 

Add (2) tablespoons of fresh chiffonade basil and (3) tablespoons of green onions.  

Add (2) cloves of minced garlic.  (Do you know the difference between chiffonade and minced?  I do:  Carole just explained and demonstrated it to me.  She also recommends having all of the ingredients ready before you cook, referred to in French as, mise en place.  Carole is such a show off!)

Stir it all up.  

When the shrimp is done (be careful not to overcook the shrimp, otherwise they will taste rubbery), serve immediately over angel hair pasta.  

Sprinkle with parmigiano reggiano cheese freshly grated.  

Hmmmmmmmmmm.  Mangia! 

Now allow us to ask you:  do you enjoy a gourmet meal with a glass of vino while you review financial statements or tax returns with your clients?  Or do you settle for chips, snacks, and other crud?  Life can be very, very good, if you choose to live it in style.  Carole and I heartily recommend wooing and seducing your clients with a gourmet meal and a glass of vino.  Hey, we’re Italian!  Everything can be an occasion to eat, enjoy, and celebrate life to the fullest.  It works for us:  we have clients drooling at our doors, opening their hearts and their wallets.  More importantly, we relish it as well.  As Carole always says, la dolce vita!  I cannot but agree.  

Have a tasty recipe for Carole?  Have a tax or an accounting question?  Please feel free to submit it under “Comments” at Accounting, QuickBooks, and Taxes by the Barefoot Accountant.  For information and assistance on any tax and accounting issue, please visit our website:  Accountants CPA Hartford, LLC.  

If you are a CPA, then you must have noticed by now—or perhaps a significant other has brought it to your attention at least 1,001 times, if not more—that you are “peculiar” or “eccentric” (the polite English terms for the American phrase, “being completely off one’s rocker”).  It is possible that your “condition” involves you doing things primarily for the sake of doing them, without any real purpose, as if you were a high priest or priestess performing some sort of mumble-jumble ritualistic rite.  Although you may think that you have very plausible excuses for doing these things, they are only plausible to you since no one else finds them credible at all.

For instance, perhaps you wash your hands every fifteen minutes at the office, justifying such behavior as necessary because your keyboard is full of germs and you do not want to catch a cold.

Or you run to the restroom on the hour every hour you are in the office to brush your teeth, fearing that the artificial lightener in your coffee will rot your teeth.

Or you clutter your desk with everything imaginable under the sun since you began working at this public accounting office, unable to throw anything out, afraid, for instance, that you might need that one worksheet you prepared fifteen years ago for a former client, in the event that that very same client may someday return again as a client and that one particular ripped and coffee-spotted worksheet may prove invaluable after all.

Or you insist on arranging your pencils, rulers, erasers, paper clips, loose staples, elastic bands, thumb tacks, index cards, stickies, labels, tape, etc., in the same exact manner that you have placed them for the past fifteen or twenty years, convinced that unless you do so, you will be unable to find anything. 

Or every five minutes you bellow out a ghastly “ahem” sound, startling everyone within earshot and aggravating the hell out of them, fearing that unless you repeatedly clear your bronchial tubes that you will ultimately suffocate from your self-diagnosed and supposed sinus condition.

Or every five minutes you make a mad dash to the bathroom, convinced that you have a chronic bladder infection, a yeast infection, an enlarged prostate, IBS, lactose intolerance, c difficile, or all of the above conditions.

Whatever erratic behavior you indulge in ritualistically is your own business, and we do not wish to pry (unless, of course, it’s sexual in nature…then by all means, pray tell with all of the filthy, disgusting, sordid and evil details).  We realize that denial typically accompanies a psychiatric disorder, and that any repeated and fervent denial on your part of indulging in such ritualistic behavior merely adds further suspicion that you are, indeed, a certifiable nut case.  The truth is that, without even knowing it, you may be suffering from OCD:  an obsessive-compulsive disorder.  Or, in more simple, everyday, layman terms—language friends or spouses have previously used to characterize you and your behavior—you are “anal”.  And unless you determine how severe it is right now at this very minute without any further delay, you may end up losing not only your job as a CPA—and your trophy wife, because she probably only married you for your W-2 anyway—but also any remaining vestige of sanity, assuming it is not too late, which, in all likelihood, it probably is already.

So if you wish to know how nuts you really are in order to prevent the man with a butterfly net from dragging you off to Happy Dale, answer the following questions right now before it is too late.

How frequently do you park in the same spot in the parking lot outside the office?

1. Hardly at all.  You select a different space every day because you crave variety.
2. Usually if it is available.
3. You come to work early to ensure that it is available.
4. Always, even if it requires honking your horn incessantly and driving around the lot for hours until it becomes available.

 How often do you wash your hands at work?

1. Never.
2. Only when they are full of grease, butter, and layers of food, and are attracting flies.
3. So frequently that your boss has already spoken to a plumber about installing a sink at your desk.

If your boss had a candy jar full of M & M’s and offered you some, would you:

1. Grab a handful, and then another, and another, making a complete pig of yourself.
2. Take only one or two and say “thank you”.
3. First smell each piece, then blow it thoroughly on all sides, and microscopically inspect its entire surface area before ingesting.
4. Only take one but only if you had sterilized the candy dish before personally opening the bag of M & M’s, and only if you were the first individual to place your hand in the dish for the candies.  Otherwise, refuse to take any, offering a lame excuse that you are trying to lose weight or are suffering from diabetes and fear lapsing into an irreversible coma.

If a peer or subordinate was having difficulty with his or her computer and needed your assistance, would you

1. Sit down at his or her computer and attempt to resolve the problem.
2. Ask him or her to wait, hoping someone else will assist him or her after a few hours.
3. Assist him or her only after putting on a surgical mask and latex gloves hermetically sealed, and after emptying a container of disinfectant on his or her keyboard.
4. Feign sudden, complete deafness and pretend you don’t hear her or him.

 If a client had a hair on his or her suit, would you

1. Ignore it.
2. Suggest the need for a valet.
3. Stare at it until he or she removed it.
4. Pick it off yourself or attempt to blow it off, without suggesting anything sexual.
5. Scream hysterically, bolt for your car, drive off, and immediately call the police.

When you commit an error, do you

1. Laugh and say, “No one is perfect….”
2. Swear and curse.
3. Kick the computer, your desk, and anyone nearby, and then hobble out of the office in excruciating pain.
4. Remove your tanto from the bottom drawer on the right hand side of your desk and announce to all samurais present that you are about to perform the sacred ritual of seppuku.

When you are offered constructive criticism, do you

1. Nod your head, and thank the individual in appreciation.
2. Make excuses, blaming your wife, children, or mother-in-law.
3. Debate the observation for endless hours, if not days, until a retraction and an apology is made.
4. Call the offeror a moron, kick him or her in the groin, and offer back some constructive criticism of your own:  namely, that he or she should go commit an unnatural act (or words to that effect).

If you accidentally hit your hand against a door knob or file cabinet while walking down the office corridor, do you

1. Rub it and forget about it.
2. Ice it down for thirty minutes.
3. Test the severity of the injury by trying countless exercises on your computer keyboard, until you do, in fact, strain or injure a tendon or ligament in your hand.
4. Go to the emergency room, have x-rays taken, wear a brace or a cast, take a leave of absence for four to six weeks, hire an ambulance chasing attorney, submit a workers compensation claim, and sue your employer for millions. 

If you discover that the height of your chair needs adjustment, do you

1. Tolerate it until you gain or lose a few pounds on your derriere.
2. Adjust it until it feels comfortable.
3. Use a tape measure to adjust it precisely to the level prescribed by Architectural Graphic Standards.
4. Play around with it, going up and down like a roller coaster, refusing to quit even though everyone nearby has been begging you for the past few hours to do so and you are about to vomit because of motion sickness. 

How often do you suffer from panic attacks?

1. Never.
2. Only when you go to bed at night with your spouse.
3. Whenever you see your boss. 
4. Whenever you interact with a homo sapien.

The measure of the severity of an obsessive-compulsive disorder can be found by the following algorithm:

OCD_I = f(x_i)dx

Which can be approximated by the following equation:

OCD_~I = Σ x_i

where OCD_I represents “obsessive-compulsive disorder index”,

and where x_i  is the value of the number before the individual answer selected from the preceding test.

Summing up all of these numbers gives you the calculated value of the severity of your obsessive-compulsive disorder.  The higher the index, the sicker you are.

If you scored from 15 or under, you are perfectly normal and do not suffer from OCD.

If you scored between 16 and 27, you do suffer from OCD, the condition being all the more noticeable and counter-productive the higher its value.

If you scored between 28 and 40, you have a severe OCD condition.  If it is close to 39, it’s a wonder that you are not serving time or practicing public accounting at Happy Dale.

This article is provided for informational purposes and is not intended to be construed as legal, accounting, or other professional advice.  For further information, please consult appropriate professional advice from your attorney and certified public accountant.  

Have a tax or an accounting question?  Please feel free to submit it under “Comments” at Accounting, QuickBooks, and Taxes by the Barefoot Accountant.  For information and assistance on any tax and accounting issue, please visit our website:  Accountants CPA Hartford, LLC.