Nonprofit Blog

February 2, 2015: Georgia’s Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) — a reading of economic activity in the state’s manufacturing sector — increased 6.1 points during January. The Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) Report is underwritten by the Manufacturing and Distribution Group of Smith & Howard, a top Atlanta CPA firm with a focus on serving manufacturing businesses, and is produced monthly by the Econometric Center at Kennesaw State University.

Many software businesses may be able to take advantage of the Section 199 Deductions for Domestic Production Activities but are not doing so. 

An investment in commercial real estate, as with any investment, is a bet on future events and circumstances. Since the value of the acquired property can change if its location's demographics and economy shift over time. That's why it is critical to determine at the start of your search how much and where to invest in order to hedge your real estate bet.  There are certain basic factors that real estate investors generally consider when assessing the viability of an investment in a specific property or region. A proper assessment of these factors will result in a determination of where to invest and what type of property to invest in. 

The clouds are finally starting to lift on the U.S. construction industry. Or so say economists from three large U.S. construction and building trade associations during a joint meeting this past August. We are definitely seeing an increase in cranes throughout Atlanta, which is always a positive sign.

For ambitious contractors, sureties can be difficult to please. You want to expand your bonding capacity to take on bigger, more risk-intensive jobs. But your surety, perhaps understandably, keeps tightening its underwriting standards and slowing you down.

Labor costs can make or break a project. Recently, the owner of a midsize commercial construction company learned that the right human resources (HR) management software can go a long way toward tracking and reducing these mission-critical expenses.

Construction companies have long relied on a mishmash of GAAP and industry-specific guidance for reporting revenues. Yet doing so often produced inconsistent financial statements that confused and frustrated key stakeholders such as banks and sureties. The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) recently issued Accounting Standards Update (ASU) No. 2014-09, Revenue from Contracts with Customers (Topic 606). This Standard Update addresses revenue recognition under U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) and attempts to standardize and simplify the revenue recognition process for customer contracts across different industries and geographic locations.

The recession contributed to declines in many areas within our economy, with the independent (private) school industry particularly hard hit. According to First Industry Research, “Enrollment at US private schools in fall 2014 was the lowest in nearly 60 years, and the decline is expected to continue for at least five more years.” All is not gloom and doom, however. The Georgia independent school sector appears to be doing very well. In an article recently published by the Atlanta Business Chronicle, current enrollment levels for independent school students were shown at 74,767, which is less than a 2% decrease from enrollment levels prior to the recession. 

We recently attended the Georgia Independent School Association (GISA) Annual Conference in Atlanta and had the distinct pleasure of hearing educational consultant, John Littleford, speak about board composition in independent schools and the importance of head of school tenure.

Your donors will be gearing up for tax-filing season soon. It’s not too late to make sure that your organization is following the IRS donation “substantiation rules” so that your benefactors have the proof they need to deduct financial gifts. Proper documentation is also crucial so that your donors don’t have any future problems with the IRS.