Over the years, calculating the cost to own an airplane is one of the most frequently asked questions I receive. There are a lot of different cost factors that go into owning an airplane. The purchase price is just one piece of the entire cost of the airplane ownership pie. Other pieces include taxes, hangar or tie down costs, fuel, oil, insurance, ramp fees, engine reserves, routine maintenance, inspection items and subscriptions to name a few. The following article will help you determine what costs are involved in owning an airplane and how to plan your finances accordingly. Keep in mind the following article offers a generic estimate on how to calculate the ownership costs of most piston airplanes.

First, we will divide the total cost of ownership into two sections; the first section will be the indirect cost, and second section direct cost.

INDIRECT COSTS

Indirect costs are the costs that you will pay whether or not the airplane flies. These expenses include the purchase price of the airplane (or monthly payments), insurance, tie down or hangar fees, subscription fees, taxes, and tax benefits.

Let’s start with the first indirect cost I mentioned, purchase price or capital cost. This is one of easiest expenses to calculate. If you finance the airplane, get a quote from the bank on the down payment required and interest rate. Currently, rates are approximately 6% with a minimum of 15% down and 20 year financing. As an example, if you put 20% down on a new DA40XLS priced at $350,000, your monthly payment would be just over $2,000 a month over 20 years.

To calculate insurance fees, call your insurance agent and obtain a quote for the airplane you are considering purchasing with your experience level.

Hangar fees and tie downs are self explanatory. Call the airport or FBO where you want to base your airplane and ask what options are available. Usually there are about four choices: tie down (leaving your airplane outside in the elements), covered (airplane is outside in the elements but has a shade covering), hangar in common (airplane is constantly moved around in a large hangar shared with several other airplanes), and finally an individual or T hangar. At many airports hangar space is scarce so don’t be surprised if you end up on a waiting list. Hangar prices vary according to your location. My T hangar in Concord, NC costs just north of $300/month while that same hangar in Fort Lauderdale would cost well over $1,000/month. If you keep your airplane outside, please be sure to at least cover it. It will protect the interior and the avionics. Also, keep in mind that some insurance companies will lower your premium if you can hangar your airplane rather than keep it on tie downs.

Subscription services may not apply to you. If you own a J-3 cub, you can skip to the next paragraph. Almost all aircraft manufactured after the early 1990s offer an IFR GPS. If you have an IFR GPS, you will need to subscribe to a monthly update to keep your database legal to navigate solely by GPS and shoot GPS approaches. If you have XM weather, you will pay around $30/month for the basic subscription or $50/month for the full package. The winds aloft feature on the full package is more than worth the additional cost to get it. XM radio is additional. If you own a glass panel airplane, you may opt for Garmin’s safe taxi charts and/or approach plate services. Visit http://www.mygarmin.com for cost information. Jeppesen also offers approach plates for glass cockpit airplanes. This service requires an initial upfront cost to install and a higher monthly payment, compared to Garmin’s approach plate services.

Unfortunately taxes do not disappear with airplanes, with the exception of tax exempt corporations (see an aviation tax consultant for more information to see if you qualify). Taxes vary from state to state. In Florida, it is 6% of the purchase price. In North Carolina it is a flat tax of $1,500. North Carolina, however, charges property tax which varies by county and by city. Where I live in North Carolina, the airplane property tax rate is around 63 cents per 100 dollars, and I have a city tax of 42 cents per 100 dollars. If you use the airplane for business, you may be able to depreciate the use and cost of the airplane which benefits your estimated cost of ownership. Please consult with an airplane tax specialist to determine your individual situation.

DIRECT OPERATING COSTS

Calculating the direct operating costs is a little trickier. There are different ways of calculating what it will cost you each hour to fly. My method is just one method, but it works. Here you need to decide on how many hours you plan on flying a year to establish an annual base budget.

Let’s start with the basics. Most pistons engines will require an oil change every 50 hours. Depending on where you live, a standard oil change will cost between $150 to $300. Call the local mechanic on the field and find out what he charges. If you plan on flying 100 hours a year, the math is simple.

Fuel consumption varies according to different aircraft. You can usually visit a manufacturer’s website or consult the POH to get the cruise fuel burn. If you are flying an aircraft with a worn out engine, consider the published fuel burn to be the best case scenario (which often is not the case). Find out what avgas costs at your local airport and do the math. Keep in mind avgas prices vary

Engine and propeller reserves are calculated into the equation even if you own a low time or new airplane that you plan on selling long before overhaul. You can usually get a quote from a local FAA engine repair station on the cost of overhauling your engine or on the cost of installing a factory remanufactured engine. Take that price and divide it by the hours remaining till TBO and you will get an idea of how much you need to put away each hour. If you plan on buying a twin, double the fuel, engine and propeller costs.

Scheduled maintenance is another cost worth planning for. Every year your airplane will be due for an inspection. Again, prices will vary depending on where you do your inspection. Shop rates in South Florida average $95/hour, while in North Carolina they are around $70/hour. Call a service center familiar with your airplane and see what they charge for a standard annual inspection. Keep in mind that the price they quote you doesn’t include squawk items, airworthiness directives, service bulletins or regulatory replacement items. These are extra costs. If your airplane is still under warranty, then you shouldn’t expect any surprise repair bills when you pick your airplane up. A safe bet for budgeting additional expenses for an airplane out of warranty is to double the price of the annual inspection fee; this budgeting will cover almost any unexpected surprises that may occur during the year. You may also consider a reserve for paint, interior, and avionics upgrades in which case you will want to put away a little extra.

Finally, you will need to determine what your airplane will be worth if and when it comes time to sell it. Airplanes typically stop depreciating after 5 years. Like cars, their depreciation rates vary. Companies such as Vref and Aircraft Bluebook offer retail pricing and trade-in pricing.

The social media revolution has brought in significant changes to online marketing strategies. Today, the social media and the mobile media play an important role in ad campaigns. Surprisingly, email marketing is still the best marketing strategy that businesses cannot ignore. Today, there are different email marketing services available for businesses. It is not an easy task to choose the best one. Each product is good in its own way. Here is a comparison between Aweber, MailChimp and Constant Contact email marketing services.

MailChimp

With 12,000 free emails per month, 2000 email subscriptions and unlimited trial period, MailChimp offers powerful email marketing solutions for small businesses. At the same time, paid subscription starts at $10 per month for 500 subscribers. You need to pay $5 per month as you add 100-200 subscribers. You can take advantage of the pay-as-you-go pricing model. NGOs get a 15% discount as well. This tool offers numerous features like customizable email templates, intuitive interface, powerful editor and unlimited storage. Social media integration and text messaging is good. The reporting feature enables you to track and analyze the performance of your email campaigns. Deliverability rates are very high. You can add unsubscribers to your list. Integrating this system with CRM, ERP and blogging platforms is easy and effective. Customer service is very good. The site has useful online resources. For free accounts, you can use the email and chat support. Phone support is available for paid accounts.

Constant Contact

Constant Contact comes at a slightly higher price. This program offers a 60-day free trial wherein you can send unlimited emails but for 100 contacts. The paid version starts at $15 per month for 500 contacts and increases as you add contacts. You can avail 15% discount for prepaid accounts. Constant Contact offers more or less the same innovative features like MailChimp. There are more versatile email templates. Storage is free for 5 files but you can access unlimited free stock images. Reporting, social media integration and mobile marketing is good. Customer support is very good but works on week days. Email support is available on weekends. In addition, the website offers helpful resources, forums, video tutorials to optimize your email marketing strategies. The deliverability rate is pretty good. Constant Contact is strict on spam policies and you cannot add unsubscribers back to your list.

Aweber

Aweber starts at $1 for the first month and you need to pay $19 for 500 subscribers from the next month. The pricing increases as you add more subscribers. Deliverability rates are pretty good. The site offers intuitive email templates and signup forms that are easy to customize. The good thing with Aweber is that it pulls 2 latest blogs from your RSS feeds and pushes them out as the newsletter. There are regular webinars to learn how to use the program. Customer service is excellent. You can avail live phone support for 12 hours during business hours and 8 hours per day on weekends. Autoresponder service is good. You can easily integrate it with social media and other platforms. You can include affiliate links in your emails.

All three email marketing services stand pretty equal. When it comes to pricing, MailChimp is economical. Moreover, it is easy to integrate it with different platforms. Customization of templates is easy. While using affiliate links in MailChimp mails, you need to make sure that the links do not lead to blacklisted sites. Constant Contact has a slight edge on deliverability and support. Features are more or less the same.

The fun of building a website quickly diminishes once you realize that you are only getting a few visitors each day and they are only ones you have told about your website. The truly sad news is that some of these people fall by the wayside as well and you are left with even less visitors. Keeping visitors coming to your website and gaining more traffic is dependent on what you put into promoting as much as how often and how interesting your information is to your readers. You should be sure to upload new content regularly and be sure to stick to your theme.

RSS feeds are a wonderful way to keep your readers informed while bringing in more traffic. With an RSS feed, your readers do not have to bookmark the page and come back all the time to see if you have uploaded new content. They will have a subscription to your feed that will be sent to their reader so they can read the headlines and short blurbs of your posts. If they are interested in reading more, they will click the link to visit your website.

All you have to do is provide the RSS feed and a subscription button. Nothing could be easier. Now, when your readers see that you are having a sale, introduced a new product, an event, or even a newsworthy article, they will know it as soon as you publish in real time.

Of course, just by adding an RSS feed will not be a miracle solution as you will still have to get the word out regarding your RSS feed. There are various ways you can announce your new feed such as newsletters, guest posts on blogs, and by submitting your feed in RSS directories.

The major advantage is that your readers will automatically know when you have updated your website or blog. One other advantage is that once you get your feed recognized on the net, you will begin to get more traffic, which will be interested in your topic.

There are several companies using RSS feeds today for blogs, forums, articles, discounts, sales, schedules, events, and more. The use of feeds will help your business or organization keep your readers up to date on important information whether you are having a sale, event, or providing local news. With an RSS feed you will have the tool you need to provide real time content to those interested without the need of emailing each subscriber.

Ebay lets you have as many accounts as you like, as long as your not breaking any of their rules. They also let you combine 2 or more of those accounts. There could be a few reasons you want to combine your accounts.

Do you have an old eBay account that you don’t use anymore? If you have an old eBay account, you can merge it with your current eBay account. Maybe you have a buyer and a seller account. You might have started a separate buyer account so your seller account is not shown. If you started an eBay account to build up feedback, you can add it to your old or current account to add more feedback to it. When you combine your eBay accounts, all your feedback rating goes with it. So you can actually double your feedback rating on ebay. Your combined eBay accounts will show your combined feedback rating, reviews and guides, and your helpfulness ratings.

There are some security rules you have to follow in order to combine accounts.

• You must provide proof that you are the owner of both accounts. For example, the contact information on both accounts must match.
• The secondary account must remain inactive (no bidding or listing activity) for at least 60 days prior to the merge to the primary account. Note: You can continue to use the primary account as you normally would during that time.
• You must owe no seller fees (that is, you must have a balance of $0.00) on the secondary account.
• You’ll need to cancel any subscriptions on the secondary account, such as subscriptions to eBay’s selling tools.
• If you have an eBay Store, make sure you associate your Stores inventory with your new merged account.

If you meet these security requirements, you can combine your eBay accounts. eBay just wants to make sure you are the real owner of the accounts you are claiming. Keep in mind how the account information will be combined.

• Your merged account’s member since date will be date of your older account.
• Your merged account will combine the feedback from both accounts so that the feedback score will reflect the total feedback earned on both accounts.
• Your merged feedback comments may not appear in chronological order.
• The reviews and guides you have written for both accounts will be added together. If both accounts have written a review for the same product, only the review created by your primary account will be retained.
• The helpfulness ratings (for reviews and guides) for both accounts will be added together. The helpfulness rating will reflect the total rating earned on both accounts.

You may want to combine your eBay accounts for many reasons. Just go to my eBay under management options if you want to merge your accounts. I hope this helps some of you combine your eBay accounts. It’s very helpful especially for combining your feedback rating.

The newspapers were hardly getting used to the news being telecast on the television, when all of a sudden the advent of the internet brought a crucial blow to the newspaper industry. Most of the newspapers have not been able to withstand the onslaught of the internet and have been forced into closure. Let us first see the basic difference between the newspapers and e-news.

Pros of the online news

The advantages of online news are mainly for the readers. Some of these advantages are as follows.

The e-news is much faster than the newspapers. The moment something happens in any part of the world it gets published on the internet within seconds. In case of newspapers there is a specific time limit for any news to be reported in any particular newspaper. Suppose the newspaper goes for printing at midnight, anything that happens after midnight is going to most probably get published the next day. In these sorts of situation the newspaper offers stale news to the readers who have already accessed the online news.

Any newspaper get published once, twice or maximum thrice a day. On the other hand e-news usually gets updated several times in 24 hours.

If one has accesses to the internet, one does not have to wait for the delivery man to deliver the newspaper.

E-news is considered to save paper and help at conservation of nature.

Cons of the online news

The online news has some disadvantages but those are mainly for the newspaper publishers. The rates of subscriptions and advertisements are greatly reduced in case of online news. This implies that as the number of readers of online news increases the revenue generation of the newspaper publisher is falling drastically.

Ways for the newspapers to survive

There are only a few ways that the newspapers can resort to for surviving the blow of the e-news. Some of the newspapers charge subscription to the readers that like to read more than what is offered for free. There is just a link for “more” which can be activated and operational after paying some subscription charges. If you do not pay the subscription the “more” link cannot be activated.

Most of the newspaper publishers have realized that if they want the newspaper to survive they have to publish the newspaper in print as well as online on the internet.

The iPad from Apple has brought some hope for the newspapers. There are applications that allow the iPad user to access the internet and the newspapers too.

Nowadays it becomes necessary for the newspaper to make a unique offering to its readers.

The other way for the newspaper publishers to survive is through blogging. There are chances that levying subscription can reduce the revenue generated but at the same it is also seen that unique blogs can bring a lot of business to the newspaper publisher.

Copyright © 2011

Here I’ll explain what a favorites list is and how it’ll enhance your experience.

What are Favorites Lists?

These are lineups of your favorite channels. You can create and change the lists, adding and removing channels as you wish. Your channels can be grouped into up to four lists.

• When using a Favorites List, the Program Guide and Browse Banner display only the channels in the Favorites List. When you use the remote control UP or DOWN ARROW to change channels, the receiver skips channels that are not listed.
• The All Chan list contains all the channels including channels not in your current subscription. You cannot make any changes to the All Chan.
• The All Sub list contains all the channels in your subscription. You cannot make any change to the All Sub, except by changing your subscription.
• The All HD list contains all of the HD channels in your subscription, as well as over-the-air digital channels if your receiver is connected to an over-the-air antenna.
• Each has a unique color in the Program Guide. You can also give each list a name. The four lists are named List 1, 2, 3, and 4, until you change the list name. The list are empty until you add channels to them.
• If you choose a program using Themes or by entering a channel number using the remote controls, the receiver tunes to the channel for that program whether or not that channel is active.
• You can include over-the-air channels in your List if an over-the-air antenna is connected to the receiver.

Creating or Changing Favorite Lists

• You can create, add channels to, and remove channels. When you use only those channels in your list are shown in the Program Guide and Browse Banner.
• Press MENU on your remote control. Select Preferences, and then Favorites.
• Select the list that you want to change
• Select Modify List
• Using the SELECT button, add or delete channels from the list.
• Select Done

Naming Favorites

You can name your Favorites whatever you want, up to eight characters long.

1. Press Menu on your remote control. Select Preferences, and then select favorites.
2. Select the list that you want to rename.
3. Select Edit Name
4. Enter the name you want
5. Select Done

Using Favorites Lists

Press GUIDE to open the Program Guide. Press GUIDE again to select the next Favorites List. Press GUIDE repeatedly to scan through all the available.

Note: GUIDE only works in this manner if the Guide button is selected under MENU, Preferences, Favorites, and Guide Options.

Tips

• Two lists cannot have the same name
• Pressing GUIDE to switch Favorites Lists functions only if you have added channels to the Favorites, pressing GUIDE switches to the Favorites List. If you have not created a Favorites List, pressing GUIDE switches the receiver between the All Chan, All Sub, and All HD.

Questions

Why are channels missing from the Program Guide?

• You might have a List that does not contain those channels. Press GUIDE until the All Chan or All Sub displays.
• You might have channels locked and hidden.

These hints will help enhance the user experience by allowing users to search find what he or she is looking for any time of the day.

Before you commit to any buying any type of real estate software for your website, you should begin by determining the needs of your business and the features of software that is on the market.

Answer and then print out the checklist below of the features that you need before you begin your browsing.

Real Estate Software Features

You may know exactly what you are looking for, or perhaps you are new to software for your website and are confused where to get started. Regardless of your knowledge of real estate software, it is important to understand certain features that are available on the market.

Questions to ask yourself

* What is the main purpose of adding real estate software onto your website?

If you are a Realtor, then the main function is likely to show your properties on your website to your possible buyers and make it simple for them to find what they are looking for. If you are a web entrepreneur, then your purpose may be to create a real estate listing website in South America and then allow other people who are selling their homes to add it to their website. Your purpose may be to create a website that generates income through advertising and subscription sales.

* Will this be your personal Realtor site or an entrepreneurial web venture?

If it is your personal site, then you will be the only person adding your property listings. Some software also allows you to sell subscriptions so that other people can list their properties on your site as well. For this option, you do not have be a Realtor, but instead a web entrepreneur who sees the benefit of a property listing website in a certain area that someone selling their home or other Realtors can add their properties to.

* If you allow other people listings, will it be a free or paid listing site?

If you offer a free-listing site, then you have the opportunity for a high amount of users listing their properties (which means high traffic), and a good chance that you could create income by selling advertising space on your site. The second option is to offer a basic free option, and then upgrade package (that costs more) that would allow users to upload images, receive higher ranking and so on.

* How computer savvy are you?

If you are familiar with PHP and HTML, then it would be ideal to find open-source software that allows you to make any sort of modifications needed as they come along so that your software can grow as your business does. If you have no idea what PHP or HTML are, then it is important to have software that is ready to go and easy to use immediately after download. Ideally, you would like to install the software onto your site and begin adding your property listings all in the same day.

* What is your budget for your website?

If you are just starting out, you are probably finding that there are a variety of costs to get going with your website. You can certainly find high-quality software with excellent features for around $ 50.00.

Stockholder transactions and related transactions of small business owner(s) between the owner and the business are very common in the day to day activities of every small business. This article will briefly explain these types of stockholder/business owner transactions and show you how to set up the chart of accounts for QuickBooks Online. The logic and general classification will be similar for QuickBooks Pro, Premier or just about any other accounting software program.

Capital Investment

When the corporation or partnership is formed, the owner or owners invest money or assets into the business. This account is set up as an equity type, generally as common stock, in the chart of accounts. In return for their investment, the shareholders are issued shares of the company or in a partnership their investment is effectively a capital contribution. Upon the business receiving cash for the issuance of the stock common (or preferred stock), you would record the par value of the stock (# of shares issued times the par value) and record the excess of the par value over the amount received by your business as additional paid-in capital in the equity section. Generally, capital accounts are not reduced unless the shareholders sell their shares back to the company. Issuances of preferred stock are complex financial instruments and are outside the scope of this analysis.

Stockholder Advances

Stockholders, owners or partners frequently borrow funds from their businesses on a temporary basis in the form of “temporary ” advances because of personal cash flow needs, with the expectation of payback in the short-term. Sometimes, in order to pay personal expenses using the profits earned in the business, the owner sets aside a determined amount “owner’s draw” and pays him/herself monthly or weekly draw. Short term loans and advances are recorded as current assets in the chart of accounts, when there is a cash outflow.

Draws

A draw is often the payment of wages or commission before it has been earned. When earned the draw is repaid it often becomes wages or commission expense. To record an owner’s draw, set up in the chart of accounts as a current asset account with name or initials of the owner. The advantage of maintaining the owner draws in a separate account is that it makes it easier to see much money you or your partners or co-shareholders have taken out your business. Generally, the owner’s draw account will increase.

Loans to the business

When the business is having short term cash flow problems and needs to pay its expenses using the owners’ money, the owner frequently transfers the amount needed into the business as an “owner’s investment” or if its temporary, the owner makes a short- term advance. The short term advance is set up as a current liability when there is a cash inflow(as contrasted to cash outflow as described above for stockholder advances) from the business owner.

If a shareholder lends cash to his/her business and the advance is not temporary or is not given additional shares in the business in return for the cash, then the business owes the shareholder the amount which has been loaned. This is recorded as a shareholder or stockholder or partner loan. To record a loan, set up a liability account (if there are several shareholders, you could set up one for each of them) with the name or initials of the shareholder and, within QuickBooks the account type is called “Other Current Liability”. This illustration assumes a loan that is expected to be repaid in less than 12 months. Otherwise, the loan would be called a long-term loan and not set up as a current liability. It would be set up as a long-term loan.

Dividends

Dividends are a method by which profits are distributed to its shareholders (owners). Dividends are set up as an equity type account called “Dividends”. If Dividends are declared at one time but paid after they are declared you need to first set up a dividends payable account “Dividends Payable” in the chart of accounts, as a current liability. When you pay the dividend you reduce the liability account.

Stock Subscriptions

A stockholder may agree to purchase a specified number of shares of stock and pay for the stock at future date. Such agreements, are called as stock subscriptions, and normally are recorded by debiting subscriptions receivable and crediting either stock subscribed or common (or preferred) stock issued and additional paid-in capital in the equity section. The account type in QuickBooks is equity. Stock subscriptions may be formal or informal, and stock may be issued in advance of collection of the proceeds from the issuance of the stock. And remember, this amount is a receivable,that is owed to the business and is recorded as such, in the equity accounts. You may see that the amount is negative, and that is correct because it’s an asset, the stock subscription, is therefore shown as a contra account in the equity section of the balance sheet.

This article is intended to make you aware of certain topics in QuickBooks Online that may be of interest to you when maintaining your QuickBooks Online. However, there is no assurance that the information is comprehensive in its coverage or is suitable in dealing with an your particular situation. Accordingly, the information provided should not be relied upon as a substitute for independent analysis and research. No accounting, tax, legal or other professional advice for private or public entities is being rendered nor is there any responsibility to update the information. There is no warranty that the material in the in this article is accurate or completely free of errors. You should take steps to verify these statements before relying on them.

While moving over from the analogue signal to the digital signal may have been a real pain for many people, it has been worth the move as there are many benefits to digital TV. Now there is a lot more choice than just the five channels that people without subscriptions to satellite TV can get. This is just one of the benefits but what others are there?

The Range of Channels and Options

As mentioned above one of the biggest changes to the way we watch TV through Freeview is the numerous amounts of channels that residents can now get and they don't have to pay out a monthly subscription. Before we went digital if you wanted more than the five standard channels then you had to take out a monthly subscription to one of the satellite TV services. This meant the installation of Virgin cable TV or Sky satellite TV, two of the most popular choices.

Things changed for the good with Freeview as it brought with it access to around 50 channels and music stations and with nothing to pay after the installation. Residents of homes around the UK can typically get access to comedy, documentaries, film, sports, news, reality TV and children's TV. There is something to suit the needs of everyone in the family. Another option to get access to even more channels is Freesat. With Freesat you have a satellite dish installed and once you have paid for the installation there is nothing else to pay out to get access to hundreds of channels and music stations.

Different Options for Set-Top Boxes

Whether you prefer to have Freesat, Freeview, Sky or YouView installed to watch digital TV you have a choice when it comes to the set-top box you want. If you don't want to do anything but choose what to watch the standard no frills set top box can be chosen. This offers a basic TV guide so that you can check what's on and tune into channels. Of course in the case of Freeview this is also built into many of the modern TVs that you buy now, so you don't need to get an additional set-top box unless you want to watch in another room.

Then there is the Plus set-top box and this is more expensive but it can be worth the outlay. With the Plus set-top box you can record TV programs and watch them at a time to suit you. Not only can you record with a single press of a button but you can also get the set-top box to record a whole series of your favorite program so you don't miss an episode.

With the Plus set-top box you can also pause and rewind live TV if you are watching it through the set-top box. For instance you might tune into the latest episode of a soap that you watch and then someone comes to visit. In this case just press the pause button and the rest of the show will be waiting for you to start watching from where you left off when you press play. If you missed something that was said or there is a funny moment you want to see again you can press the rewind button and watch it again.

Multi-Room Digital TV

You might want to watch TV in other rooms in the house through Freesat, Freeview, Sky or YouView and this is possible thanks to multi-room installation. You can ask for multi-room installation when you book your installation with your TV aerial company.

Multi-room means that you can have set-top boxes set up in other rooms of the house and just have the one satellite dish in the case of Freesat or Sky. With multi-room installation those living in your house can choose to watch what they want to watch in different rooms. This can come in handy if you have teenagers who like to watch reality TV and music channels. You can have multi-room installed in the bedroom to watch digital TV in bed, in the kitchen or anywhere else you want to watch TV.

So while it might have been a hassle during the move over from the analogue signal to the digital signal, you have to agree that it has been well worth the move thanks to the numerous advantages the digital signal has brought.

An income and expenditure account is the profit and loss account of a not-trading concern. It contains only revenue items, being debited with all expenditure, and credited with all income of a period, weather or not it has actually being paid or received within that period. The final balance of and income and expenditure account represents the excess of income over expenditure, or the excess of expenditure over income, as the case may be, for then period. This balance is similar to the net profit or loss of a trading concern.

Receipts and payments accounts and income and expenditure accounts are used commonly by such not-trading concerns as social clubs, societies for the purpose presenting their financial position to their members. A receipts and payments account is no substitute for an income and expenditure account as the letter is prepared on an accruals basis.

Contrast with receipts and payments accounts

The main differences between the two accounts are:

Receipts and payments cash transactions only, indicates capital payments, balance represents cash in hand, bank balance, or bank overdraft. Income and expenditure includes accruals and prepayments, excludes capital receipts and capital payments, balance represents surplus/deficiency of income over expenditure for a given period.

Basis of preparation

In order to prepare an income and expenditure account Receipts and payments accounts, post all revenue items appearing in the Receipts and payments accounts to the opposite sides of the income and expenditure account, and make adjustments for accruals and prepayments at the beginning and the end of the period.

Such items as subscriptions, entrance fees, income from investments like that. Which have been received in cash and debited to the receipts and payments account, must be credited to the income and expenditure account, whilst expenditure such as rent, wages, repairs like that appearing on the credit side of the receipts and payments account must be debited to the income and expenditure account. Capital items appearing in the receipts and payments account will be posted to the debit or credit, as the case may be, of the relevant asset or liability accounts, and will not affect the income and expenditure account.

The balance sheet of a not-trading concern is prepared in the usual way, and contains particulars of all the assets and liabilities at the date as at which it is made up. The excess of the assets over the liabilities is similar to the capital of a trader, but is usually called the accumulated fund, or generally fund since it is normally made up of the excess of income over expenditure which has been accumulated within the concern.

Separate accounts should be kept for funds raised for special purposes, for example building appeal funds and election funds.

Two problems on the solutions of which accountants are divided are:

1. Should club entrance fees be credited in the income and expenditure account or be shown on the balance sheet of the club as an addition to the accumulated fund? Provided entrance fees are consistently treated, either method is correct; although it can be argued that revenue might be destroyed if there were a large number of entrance fees in any one period, the benefit of which is to be spread over a number of accounting periods.

2. Should club subscriptions in arrear be shown as debtors at the balance sheet date? A large number of club subscriptions in arrear are never received and the balance sheet could be destroyed by a fictitious asset of debtors should club subscriptions in arrear be included on the balance sheet and never received. In practice, subscriptions in arrear are often excluded from the balance sheet on prudence grounds.