Archive for the ‘Accountancy’ Category
Starting a Business Accounting
The following article presents the very latest information on Accountancy. If you have a particular interest in Accountancy, then this informative article is required reading.
Starting a business can be quite trying at times. There are many things you must consider when starting a business. In addition to deciding what type of business you will start up, what the business will sell or what services the business will provide, you must also make sure that your business is in compliance with all local, state, and federal business laws.
In addition to a business license, required by almost all localities in the United States, a new business must file many tax forms at the start of the business. If you are selling a product, your business will need to file for retail sales tax licenses. Depending on the location of your business, you may need to file for a retail sales tax license from your city, county, and/or state. If you are selling a service, and your state or city requires sales tax for services, your business will also need these forms.
Another thing your business will need to file for is a federal tax identification number. This number is used on all tax documents for your business. It may not be required if you will be the only person working for your business. However, if you plan to use subcontractors or employees, you will need a federal tax identification number in order to pay your contractors or employees. This is required by the federal government so that wages paid can be tracked by the IRS for purposes of collecting income taxes.
Most of this information comes straight from the Accountancy pros. Careful reading to the end virtually guarantees that you’ll know what they know.
Some cities require that individuals and businesses pay a local income tax in addition to state and federal income taxes. You should find out if your business will need to pay this type of tax, and what the filing requirements are for your location. Many businesses are required by law to file quarterly federal income taxes. If you are a smaller or home based business, these quarterly tax payments are not necessary by law, but can prevent you from owing taxes at the end of the year. If you are not sure whether or not your business should make quarterly tax payments, you should contact a professional accountant to answer these and any other questions. If your business does need to make quarterly tax payments, you will want to obtain the necessary forms for your business taxes from the IRS prior to starting your business. Become familiar with the forms and the processes, and organize yourself so that your business runs smoothly after start up.
There are many other considerations when starting a business. You need to make sure that your business follows all business laws applicable to your type of business. Some industries and businesses require additional licensing. Other industries require additional insurance to be purchased. Workman’s Compensation insurance is required by federal and most state laws if you have any employees. Some states require a business to carry liability insurance to cut down on law suits, while in other states this type of business insurance is optional.
Make sure you know the legal requirements for starting a business before you actual begin doing business. This way, you will be compliant with all local, state, and federal business laws, thereby cutting down on your risk of running a business as well as cutting out the possibility that your business could be shut down before it has ever truly begun.
I hope that reading the above information was both enjoyable and educational for you. Your learning process should be ongoing–the more you understand about any subject, the more you will be able to share with others.
About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, proud owner of this top ranked web hosting reseller site: GVO
All About Charities
Many people donate to charities in order to take advantage of income tax deductions at the end of the year. However, it is important to understand what charities are eligible for these income tax deductions so that you do not miss out on any income tax deductions that you can take. It is also important to have a knowledge of what documentations you need to have in order to take the income tax deductions from your donations to charitites.
Charities can include things such as school fundraisers, church fundraisers, thrift store donations, donations to homeless shelters, donations to food assistance programs such as Harvesters, and donations to other charities such as hospital programs and women’s shelters all qualify as charities for the purpose of income tax deductions. However, there is documentation you need in order to legally claim donations to these charities as income tax deductions.
Purchases from school fundraisers are usually accompanied by some type of receipt or packing slip. Use this documentation to claim your income tax deduction for these charities. Purchases and contributions to church fundraisers do not typically come with any form of receipt, even though that receipt is necessary in order to claim the donation to the charities as a legal income tax deduction. Your best bet is to ask the church charities to provide you with some type of written record, even on a piece of regular notebook paper, indicated the amount of the donation. If your donation to these charities is in the form of property or items rather than money, you can estimate the reasonable value of the item and include that on the receipts from the charities. This ensures that you have a reasonable and provable amount to deduct from the donations to the charities for your income tax return.
If you base what you do on inaccurate information, you might be unpleasantly surprised by the consequences. Make sure you get the whole Accountancy story from informed sources.
Other types of charities typically provide receipts for donations to the charities. If you donate items or property such as clothing, furniture, vehicles, toys, or food you can estimate the value of the donation and receive a receipt from the charities based on that amount that also lists what items were donated, then use that receipt for your income tax deduction. If you purchase something new to donate, you can keep your purchase receipt signed by someone from the charities, and use that as a record of your contribution for your income tax deduction.
Charities can always use your help. Deductions from charities does not get you any extra money on your income tax return above and beyond what you spend. However, these charities can use your valuable help, and with income tax deductions for contributions to charities, you get everything you pay or give to the charities back on your income tax return. So in short, you can give your help to the different charities without it costing you a dime! No risk, you help others, and you aren’t out any money. It’s a win-win situation for you and for the charities!
Donate to your favorite charity today!
About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, proud owner of this top ranked web hosting reseller site: GVO
How CPAs Can Help You
When you’re learning about something new, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the sheer amount of relevant information available. This informative article should help you focus on the central points.
CPAs, or Certified Public Accountants, can help you in your individual or business accounting and tax preparation in many ways. With the laws surrounding accountancy such as generally accepted accounting practices for businesses, and tax laws that change every year for individuals, hiring a CPA to perform your accounting services needs is the best way to ensure that your accounting is error free in case of IRS or other audit.
CPAs are Certified Public Accountants, certified by the Board of Accountancy. These CPAs can perform a variety of services to small businesses, large corporations, or individuals. They are accountable to government agencies for their ethics and business practices, which ensures that you the consumer are protected from fraudulent activity by CPAs, and giving you security in knowing that your accounting is in good hands.
CPAs can perform general accounting, audits, or tax services. CPAs must have a college education in accounting, and an examination prepared by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). A CPA can be self-employed individuals acting on their own behalf and that of the CPA’s clients, or they can be employed within a public accounting firm in tax or audit services.
The best time to learn about Accountancy is before you’re in the thick of things. Wise readers will keep reading to earn some valuable Accountancy experience while it’s still free.
Having a CPA prepare your business or individual income tax return is a great way to avoid errors, not to mention the prying eyes of the IRS and an audit. A CPA must undergo continuing education as accounting and tax laws change from year to year. Therefore, only a CPA can ensure that your tax return is completely accurate. Not only is accuracy important to the IRS and in case of an audit, but it is important to your immediate financial future as well. Because a CPA has intimate knowledge of tax laws and available exemptions, a CPA can make sure you get the largest refund possible.
In the case that you are chosen for audit by the IRS, your best bet to come through the audit cleanly is to have a CPA by your side. A CPA is as familiar with tax law as the IRS representative performing the audit. Because of this, the CPA can negotiate a lower penalty, help you avoid penalties, and help you claim the deductions you deserve. You should contact a CPA as soon as you have received an audit notice from the IRS, because the CPA can help you prepare for your audit and gather the necessary information. Then, the CPA can walk into the audit interview by your side, completely in charge and confident of the outcome of your audit.
If you own a small business, a CPA can also help you determine what business taxes are required by your local, state, and federal government. In addition, the CPA can help you set up a double entry accounting system that includes a journal and ledger. The CPA can also help you to set up a standard chart of accounts for use with your ledger. All of these tools will help you stay organized and ready for tax time and any possible audits. The CPA can also use the information from these tools to create financial statements for your business, which will then help you to make business decisions, make comparisons with competitors, discover industry and company financial trends, and prepare financial reports and business plans for purposes of investors and bank loans.
Whatever the financial service required, a CPA is your best bet. With a CPA, you have the security of a licensed, monitored professional along with the peace of mind that all of your accounting is accurate and ready for any possible audit.
About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his top ranked GVO affiliate site: GVO
When to Use a Certified Public Accountant
This interesting article addresses some of the key issues regarding Accountancy. A careful reading of this material could make a big difference in how you think about Accountancy.
A Certified Public Accountant, or CPA, can help you make sure that your small business accounting or individual taxes are accurate and complete. Some businesses are small enough, such as home based businesses, that a Certified Public Accountant is not needed for most accounting tasks. However, there are times when a business or individual should use a Certified Public Accountant.
If you have a small business, and you have discovered that an error in your bookkeeping exists, it can often be difficult to locate where and when the error was made to correct the mistake. A Certified Public Accountant has special training and education to find these errors through an external audit process. It is vital that these errors be corrected, because the books you use in your business are used to determine taxes and business decisions.
These records also allow investors to see how well your business is doing so that you can get more backing to help your business grow. A Certified Public Accountant can find and correct any errors in your bookkeeping, and help you organize your bookkeeping so that you or the Certified Public Accountant can easily generate financial statements and reports. These financial statements and reports prepared by a Certified Public Accountant are the documents that most banks and investors want to see before making any financing decisions.
Now that we’ve covered those aspects of Accountancy, let’s turn to some of the other factors that need to be considered.
If you are starting up a home based or small business, you should seek the guidance of a Certified Public Accountant. The Certified Public Accountant can help you set up a double entry method of accounting with a journal and ledger, as well as a chart of accounts to help you use these tools effectively in your business. The Certified Public Accountant can also advise you as to what taxes you will be responsible for paying throughout the year. Quarterly taxes are often required of businesses and self-employed individuals. To avoid penalties, late fees, and a large tax bill at the end of the year, you should contact a Certified Public Accountant for this information.
Any individual that is self-employed should seek out the services of a Certified Public Accountant when it is time for tax return preparation. Tax laws change every year, and a Certified Public Accountant can help you make sure that you are receiving all of the deductions you have available as a self-employed individual.
Any individual with children, who is separated or newly divorced, or who may wish to itemize deductions based on mortgages, medical expenses, and charitable contributions should also seek out a Certified Public Accountant for assistance in income tax preparation. This is because the tax laws are very complex, and change often. If you make a mistake and claim a deduction that you could not legally claim, the IRS may audit your return and cause you to pay back the refund amount, with penalties. Additionally, if you make a mistake and do not claim a deduction that you could legally claim, the IRS will not attempt to correct the mistake, causing you to receive a smaller refund. Either way, you lose money. The best way to avoid these and other errors is to have a Certified Public Accountant prepare your income tax return.
About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his top ranked GVO affiliate site: GVO
All About Securities
The following article covers a topic that has recently moved to center stage–at least it seems that way. If you’ve been thinking you need to know more about it, here’s your opportunity.
Investing in securities is a great way to plan for your financial future. There are a variety of securities available to invest in. But before you invest your money into securities, there are several things you should know about investing in securities, including the laws surrounding securities exchanges, where to go for information about securities, and the agencies that regulate securities exchanges.
The U.S. Securities Exchange Commission regulates all securities exchanges. Many of the laws regarding investing in securities were placed into effect by the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission, making their website the best place to get information about investing in securities. On the website, you will find information that will help you determine how best to invest your money in securities, as well as information on the laws surrounding securities exchanges. You will also find a warning on the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission website that admonishes investors that investing in securities has no guarantees, and is not a “spectator sport.”
Laws governing the investments in securities are vital to consumer protection. This is because the securities have no value except for what the companies portray. If the companies are not regulated, they could make false claims and misleading statements to get people to invest in their securities, which the investors would then lose with the securities proved not to be valuable.
Is everything making sense so far? If not, I’m sure that with just a little more reading, all the facts will fall into place.
Probably the best resource for those wanting to invest in securities is the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association. The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association provides news, publications, and information to those wanting information on investing in securities markets. On the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association website, you will find a directory of securities, information about the securities industry, information about government news related to securities, recent media related to securities, current regulations on securities, research and surveys to help you choose securities to invest in, last minute news that affects your investments in securities, and a wealth of other securities resources.
Securities are typically purchased through a securities broker. To choose a securities broker, you should carefully select the most trustworthy of financial investment advisors to assist you in investing your money in securities. You want to make sure that your securities broker has a proven track record of success, and stays constantly up to date on their securities information. This is vital to your securities investment, because it is only through your broker that you can know when to sell your securities to avoid losing money, or when to buy other securities in order to make money. The value of securities can change drastically very quickly, and it takes a good broker to keep you from losing out on your securities investment money.
When in doubt, you should always check the securities broker you plan to use for your securities investment through local government agencies, as well as the Better Business Bureau. These sources can let you know if there have been any complaints against the securities broker you plan to use for your securities investment.
So now you know a little bit about Accountancy. Even if you don’t know everything, you’ve done something worthwhile: you’ve expanded your knowledge.
About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his top ranked GVO affiliate site: GVO
All About Tax Planning
When you think about Accountancy, what do you think of first? Which aspects of Accountancy are important, which are essential, and which ones can you take or leave? You be the judge.
Tax planning is very important if you want to make sure that your income tax return is filed quickly, effectively, accurately, and painlessly. Through careful tax planning, you can have everything you need to file your income tax return at your fingertips whenever you are ready to file. Tax planning is also helpful in the case that your income tax return is brought up for audit by the Internal Revenue Service.
Tax planning is essentially tracking your income tax deductible items as they come up, and keeping records organized and handy in case they are needed. The most important tool for tax planning is a small filing cabinet. You can use this filing cabinet to file your tax planning documents and receipts, as well as keep track of previous tax returns filed and other important documents such as birth certificates and social security cards. The file cabinet you get to use for your tax planning should be fire proof and have a lock. That way your tax planning documents are safe in almost any disaster, and other people cannot easily gain access to your tax planning and other important documents.
Part of tax planning is making sure that you are aware of what expenses are tax deductible. You cannot engage in tax planning and track tax deductible expenses if you don’t know what you should be tracking! The Internal Revenue Service offers many publications on this subject. However, if you have any questions about income tax deductible items you should contact a qualified, certified, and licensed tax professional.
So far, we’ve uncovered some interesting facts about Accountancy. You may decide that the following information is even more interesting.
Once you know what tax deductible expenses you will need to track for the coming tax year, you need to set up tax planning record keeping system. This can be a simple receipt book, expanding file, index cards, envelopes, or any other method that makes sense to you. Keep in mind, however, as you engage in tax planning, that your tax planning record keeping system should not only make sense to you, but also make sense to your income tax preparer and the Internal Revenue Service if necessary.
At the end of each month, you can add up the totals for the different types of income tax deductible expenses you recorded in your tax planning records for that month. This way, all you have to do to discover your tax deductible amount is add up the totals for each month. The other records you collect and track through your tax planning are simply for proof that you can claim these income tax deductions, and are not really needed for preparing your income tax return if you have all of your totals in order.
On the surface, income tax planning may seem complicated and difficult. But with proper organization, tax planning is really quite easy. Not only that, but when you engage in income tax planning, you better your chances for that larger income tax refund that you need and deserve. If you have any questions about tax planning, you should contact a tax planning professional tax accountant today!
So now you know a little bit about Accountancy. Even if you don’t know everything, you’ve done something worthwhile: you’ve expanded your knowledge.
About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his top ranked GVO affiliate site: GVO
How To Choose Accountancy Software For Your Business
Accountancy software is a very important tool which helps a business tremendously. With all of the accountancy software on the market, it is hard to know what type of accountancy software you should buy. Choosing the right accountancy software for your business, is just as important if not more important then making other critical decisions for your business. The reason why is because the accountancy software will be the database for storing all of your businesses crucial business information which will impact future decisions regarding your business, as well as keeping track of your financial status. Here are some tip to help you choose the best accountancy software for your business.
The first part of choosing accountancy software for your business, is to find out what type of accountancy software will fit best to work with your businesses industry. There are some accountancy software programs that are customized to fit different businesses in specific industries. Regardless of what type of accountancy software you come across, they all have multiple strengths and weaknesses that will be useful or not as useful to certain businesses. There is no such thing as a accountancy software package that will fit multiple types of businesses in different industries the same.
Sometimes the most important aspects of a subject are not immediately obvious. Keep reading to get the complete picture.
Another factor in accountancy software that you must consider is the after costs involved with the software. After costs include such things as multiple licenses to run the software on more then one computer or within a businesses network as well as the costs involved for training your employees to use that specific type of software. You must always consider these costs when searching for accountancy software.
You must know what type of accountancy software you can operate on your computer systems. This also plays a large role in what type of software you can obtain. If you decide to utilize accountancy software that you cannot operate on your current computer systems, then you must factor in if it would be worth the cost to upgrade your systems.
Due the constant development and upgrades of accountancy software, there will always be a better version of accountancy software in the near future. However since businesses do not want to have to upgrade every time a new version of accountancy software comes out, you must determine if the accountancy software will serve your business needs for about the next four years or so. You want to buy accountancy software that can last you some time while still fulfilling your businesses needs. This will prevent overspending for upgrades to new accountancy software and computer systems.
There are many types of accountancy software that are accredited by accounting agencies and organizations. These are the types of accountancy software that you want to invest in for your business, because you know you will be using a professional standard version of accountancy software.
There are many things to consider when reviewing accountancy software. By following these simple suggestions, you will find professional accountancy software that will fulfill your business needs for at least several years, while maintaining a low overhead for the investment itself.
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About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his top ranked GVO affiliate site: GVO
The Role And Benefits Of Accountancy
This interesting article addresses some of the key issues regarding Accountancy. A careful reading of this material could make a big difference in how you think about Accountancy.
When you hear the word accountancy, it makes you wonder what accountancy really means. Many people come to a quick conclusion that accountancy is just a word or term to go with accounting. Many people do not realize however, that accountancy is the life of any thriving business and is a necessity within any establishment. Once you understand what accountancy is, then you will realize how important of a role it plays in how we run and operate our business finances. We will go over some of the basic aspects of accountancy.
The core of accountancy is maintaining extremely accurate records of any and all aspects of a business and how it earns and spends money. You must maintain multiple types of records to account for every aspect of your business, which is why accountancy can become a very complicated process but is necessary. Different parts of these separate records are your accounts receivable and payable, your current inventory, all of your sales orders for your current tax period as well as an accurate database of your past sales records and your purchase orders. You must also maintain a accurate account of your bank statements and a backup record to cross reference all of your records to make sure they are accurate and up to date. This is only one part of accountancy.
If you don’t have accurate details regarding Accountancy, then you might make a bad choice on the subject. Don’t let that happen: keep reading.
There is another aspect of accountancy which involves knowing what to list each transaction as. Now in accountancy you need to be able to define what are your assets, knowing how to identify your liabilities, being able to show your expenses as well as you positive income. In order to do this properly, you must know how to define these different terms and what they do and do not apply to. This can make what some would view a simple task of maintaining proper records even more complicated.
These two parts of accountancy are extremely important, not only for tax purposes, but also for banking reasons as well as audits that can arise form businesses that you interact with. Accountancy also provides several benefits to businesses that use accountancy properly.
The biggest and most obvious benefit of accountancy is being able to pay your taxes accurately and on time. However, this is a small benefit compared to other vital benefits that accountancy brings. Accountancy can help you keep a accurate spending balance for your bank accounts, as well as give detailed reports of of all of your expenses and cash flow which is necessary for audits. One benefit that you can gain from accountancy, is maintaining accurate expenses and being able to reflect that in your products prices. If you do not accurately maintain records of your costs, then you could accidentally under price your products and actually lose money. Accountancy will give you a detailed projection of your costs and accurately show you your profit margin that you can compare with your labor and other expenses.
Many businesses suffer financially because they do not keep accurate records for every aspect of their business, which is why accountancy plays a very strong and important role in a business. Without accountancy, a business would suffer and eventually fail as it would have no records or projections to help it progress.
About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his top ranked GVO affiliate site: GVO
Why Choose A Career In Accounting?
In today’s world, it seems that almost any topic is open for debate. While I was gathering facts for this article, I was quite surprised to find some of the issues I thought were settled are actually still being openly discussed.
I trust that what you’ve read so far has been informative. The following section should go a long way toward clearing up any uncertainty that may remain.
Accounting is a great career that offers many benefits. In fact, accounting is in high demand just like other professional careers in other industries such as health care and electronics. Accounting offers many job options and some great opportunities to work, such as major corporations and the government. We will go over some of the major key benefits and show you why so many people are choosing a career in accounting.
One of the biggest key benefits that you can obtain form accounting is the experience you can gain from working in the accounting field. With accounting, you learn how businesses work and operate in a ever evolving field. This is very important experience that you can gain, that will not only help you in the field of accounting, but this experience will also help you know how to organize and run your own business. It is a fact that many successful business people in the world today, were at one time involved in the field of accounting. The knowledge they gained form accounting helped them build their own professional establishment. Even if you eventually leave a career in accounting to pursue a career somewhere else, your experiences from accounting will still become useful and beneficial.
The skills required in accounting are not high except in two areas being, analytical and computer skills. When compared to many of the different professional careers out there, almost any skill requires you to have some type of attention to detail as well as computer technology skills. However, accounting differs from the rest in other areas. In accounting you do not have to socialize with many people, you work in a self pressure environment only, and you do not need a high amount of initiative. This separates accounting from many other different professions, making accounting a much easier career to develop the necessary skills to become an accountant. The best feature of a career in accounting, is that anyone can learn to become an accountant. There are no specific skills or talents that cannot be learned and developed in the field of accounting.
The other major benefit of a career in accounting is the great pay. In fact, in your first year of accounting you can make as much as fifty-five thousand dollars a year. Within ten years or less of your career in accounting, you should be making over six figures. This can be obtained quicker by furthering your degree in accounting which you can reach as high as an MBA. There are many careers that take much longer to receive accreditation for that do not allow you to earn that type of income so quickly. Along with all the other benefits of accounting, it is no surprise that accounting is a very popular field that many people are working to get into.
You can see for yourself that accounting has many professional and career benefits that are appealing to anyone. From being able to work in a professional setting either for a large corporation, the government or yourself, accounting offers some key features and benefits that cnanot be found in other professional careers.
Knowing enough about Accountancy to make solid, informed choices cuts down on the fear factor. If you apply what you’ve just learned about Accountancy, you should have nothing to worry about.
About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his new GVO affiliate site: GVO
How to Become a CPA
Imagine the next time you join a discussion about Accountancy. When you start sharing the fascinating Accountancy facts below, your friends will be absolutely amazed.
Becoming a CPA, or Certified Public Accountant, is not a simple feat. There is a lot of education and training, as well as testing that an accountant must undergo in order to become a CPA. Logically, the first step in becoming a CPA is to have a desire to go into accounting. The next step is to ensure that you have the aptitude to be a CPA; that is, you must have an aptitude for math and numbers, as well as organization. A CPA candidate should also have a good sense of moral values and business ethics.
Once you have determined that you are a good candidate for an accounting career, you need to determine if becoming a CPA is the right accounting career for you. To do this, you must understand what a CPA does. A CPA can be employed individually or within a public accounting firm in tax or audit services. A CPA is, of course, a public accountant. That means that the CPA provides services on a fee basis, basically meaning that the CPA works for the public in general rather than a specific corporation or company. This can translate into variety in your CPA career.
CPAs make an average of $36,625 per year as a starting salary within local firms. Within national firms, a CPA can have a starting salary of around $44,375 per year. These figures may not seem fantastic, but for starting salaries they are very competitive. A CPA can easily start out making enough money to be considered middle-class income level, which is not a bad place to start in today’s society.
If you find yourself confused by what you’ve read to this point, don’t despair. Everything should be crystal clear by the time you finish.
Once you have decided that you want to become a CPA, you must attend a college or university to obtain a Bachelor’s Degree in Accounting. All states within the United States of America have a Board of Accountancy or similar department or agency that lays down the requirements for an accountant to become a certified CPA. These requirements will tell you how many credit hours of your education must be in accounting related courses in order to become a CPA.
Once you have completed your degree, the Board of Accountancy will want you to undergo testing to see if you can become a certified CPA. This testing may include ethics examinations as well as examinations to test your knowledge of generally accepted accounting principles, accounting laws, and accounting regulations for your state, as well as tax law and principles.
Once you have passed all CPA examinations, some Boards of Accountancy may require you to provide them with references. These references should be people that can attest to your work ethic and moral character. These aspects of a CPA are very important, because CPAs have a lot of opportunity to commit fraud and embezzlement crimes. Therefore, only CPAs who have demonstrated good moral character and a sense of ethics is allowed to receive a CPA license.
Once all requirements are met, your state will issue you a license to practice as a CPA. You can then take this license to any firm and apply for a position as a CPA. If you prefer, you could start your own small firm and practice as a CPA alone. For more information about becoming a CPA, you should contact your Board of Accountancy or local college or university today!
About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his new GVO affiliate site: GVO