Author: Laura

The Spirit Filled Life

Posted on | by Laura

The Spirit-filled life means to live in oneness with God, Romans 8:24 says all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. The Bible always stresses a balance between the content of one’s beliefs and the resulting conduct in one’s life. As Christians, believers, and followers of Jesus Christ, we are told to live our lives being led by the spirit.

A good example is found in Ephesians 4:1-3. “I, therefore, the prisoner for the Lord, urge you to live worthily of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace”.

Living a Life Worthy Of Your Calling

Paul admonishes us to live worthy of the calling with which you have been called. He means that we must live a life worthy of our high calling in Christ Jesus.

Our practice should equal the teachings of our doctrine (a belief or set of Bible beliefs held and taught by a Church Leader). We should take great pains to see that our lives are lived in perfect balance. The Biblical principle for living the Christian life is quite simply stated: The believer puts into daily practice the principles of the Word of God by the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.

How can a Christian live a life worthy of the Gospel of Jesus Christ if he does not know what the Christian life is all about?

The Christian life is not the same thing as the culturally accepted norms of today’s society. Anything and everything is going. The world is living in opposition to the Christian way of living. At the same time, we must never detach the importance of putting into practice what we understand to be true.

In 1 John 2:15-17 we are told to 15 not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father[a] is not in them. 16 For everything in the world-the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. 17 The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever!

In order to live a balanced Christian life, there must be good sound Biblical teaching. A mature Christian has a good understanding of the teaching of the Word of God and has a healthy prayer life.

The bible says ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light; 1 Peter 2:9

The New Birth

We were once spiritually bankrupt, emotionally in bondage, and morally corrupt. However, when we were saved or born again God awakened us to a new life and gave us the power to live that new life. We are now spiritually alive in Him!

God, being rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, even though we were dead in transgressions,(sin) He made us alive together with Christ – by grace you are saved! (Eph. 2:5 ) The apostle Paul wrote, Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. (2 Cor 5:17 )

The Spirit-filled believer is a Spirit-controlled person whose purpose and calling is to be more like Jesus. Jesus says take my yoke on you and learn from me because I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls (Matt. 11:29). Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth (Matt. 5:5 ). Meek means to have a gentle and quiet spirit, bearing with one another in love.

Walking in Love

As Spiritually led Christians we are to walk in love, the first call of love is to Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. Mark 12:30.

How we respond to the unloving behavior of other Christians toward us. Paul suggests here, to make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace? (v. 3)Paul is saying the Holy Spirit has already given us this unity when we put our faith in Christ.

We are not called upon to create this unity, but to “keep the unity. Pride destroys this unity in the Spirit. Overpowering self-assertion destroys vital relationships with other believers.

Being short-tempered, rude, and non-extending our love to those who act ugly to us destroys all efforts at keeping this unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.

Paul tells us not to grieve the Holy Spirit through anger. The word grieve means to pain, to hurt, to cause sorrow. When the Christian allows anger and bitterness to infect his life, God is hurt. The indwelling Holy Spirit is affected by the attitude of the Christian. Ephesians 4:29-32

Let’s be determined to walk in this Spiritual Journey in the Spirit of Love and keep ourselves under his control.

How Do You Know if You Are Walking in Love?

Corinthians 13:4-8 says– 4 Love is patient love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8 Love never fails.

How To Change The Accounting Period in GnuCash

Posted on | by Laura
How To Change The Accounting Period in GnuCash

You are required by the IRS to select your accounting period for reporting profit and loss. For IRS purposes, a “tax year” is an annual specified period of time for keeping your business records and reporting income and expenses.

Two methods used for an accounting period and approved by the IRs are.

  • A Calendar year – 12 consecutive months beginning January 1 and ending December 31.
  • A fiscal year’ which does not start on Jan1 and necessarily end on Dec31.

For most small businesses, their accounting period will be based on the calendar year, 12 consecutive months beginning January 1 and ending December 31.

In this tutorial I will show you how to change the accounting period if you need too. By default GnuCash accounting period is set to display your records based on a standard year accounting period, based on the current year you are in.

Tour Of The GnuCash Interface

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GnuCash 5.0: Tour of the GnuCash Interface

In this GnuCash quick start tutorial, you will get a basic tour of the GnuCash interface, so that you can become familiar with the layout, and how things work.

How to Setup The Chart of Accounts

Posted on | by Laura
GnuCash 5.0 How to Setup GnuCash Small Business Accounts

The chart of accounts, or what Gnucash refers to as the Business accounts are what you will use to keep track of your businesses income and expenses. The business accounts setup is a two step process, once you apply the business accounts settings the Save As Dialog screen appears which is where you will name your accounting file and create a folder to hold the files.

 

Small Business Bookkeeping Getting Started

Posted on | by Laura

Small Business Bookkeeping is every aspiring entrepreneur’s sole responsibility! But, it doesn’t have to be a burden, with the right tools you can do it! It doesn’t matter if you are making money in self-employment full or part-time. It doesn’t matter if your business is a sole proprietorship, partnership, or corporation, the success of your business depends on creating and maintaining an effective record-keeping system.

For tax purposes, you are required to keep good accounting records suited to your particular business needs. What it all boils down to, is proper record-keeping for small businesses makes the process easier and keeps you compliant with the law. Good record-keeping is also about understanding your business, now and in the future.

Good records can also show whether your business is improving, which items are selling, or what changes you need to make to increase the likelihood of business success. You don’t need a license, degree, or experience to do your own bookkeeping.

Difference Between An Account And A Bookkeeper

Bookkeeping is the first part of the accounting process, so the work of a bookkeeper and accountant often overlaps. The difference between an Accountant and a Bookkeeper is an accountant is a professional who handles the bookkeeping and prepares financial documents like profit-and-loss statements, balance sheets, etc. They perform audits of your books, prepare reports for tax purposes, and handle all the financial information that’s part of running your business.

Bookkeeping focuses on recording and organizing financial data, while accounting is the interpretation and presentation of that data. With the use of computerized accounting systems, small business owners can do most of the work themselves and produce their own financial documents.

Your record-keeping system should include:

1. Detail Tracking

You are required to track a significant amount of information, such as customers, sales, inventory, and expenses. Without a proper record-keeping system, tracking important details of your business may be impossible and can lead to you paying far more taxes than you should have.

2. Legal Compliance

As an employer, you are required to maintain and report employee payroll for tax purposes.

3. Tax Preparation (Federal, State, and Local)

You need good records of your financial transactions to prepare your tax returns. Your records must support the income, expenses, and any credits you report. Which may be able to save you thousands of dollars.

Supporting documents you will need sales slips, paid bills, invoices, receipts, deposit slips, and canceled checks. Purchases, sales, payroll, and other transactions you have in your business will generate supporting documents.

Generally, these are the same records you use to monitor your business and prepare your financial statements.

The financial statement may include income (profit and loss) statements and balance sheets.

–An income statement shows the income and expenses of the business for a given period of time.

–A balance sheet shows the assets, liabilities, and equity in the business on a given date.

Manual Bookkeeping Vs Computerized Bookkeeping

With manual bookkeeping business accounting records are entered into a notebook or journal. You should have a little basic understanding of the types of small business accounts and then there are the Debits and Credits which are a part of The Accounting Equation. Transactions are entered using debits and credits, debits and credits can be the most confusing part of bookkeeping for beginners. You will also have to decide what accounting method you will use to enter your transactions.

Computerized Bookkeeping

Computer accounting software is ideal for handling your small business bookkeeping quickly and easily. If you are starting your first business, you will quickly find out how important accounting software is to the success of the business. You don’t have to worry about having extensive knowledge of accounting, because computers transfer the right numbers to the right accounts and make sure those numbers get put on the proper side of the account, the debit or the credit side.  

QuickBooks is the industry standard but some small businesses may find it costly when just starting out in business. GnuCash is a free open-source small business accounting software that may not have all the bells and whistles like QuickBooks, but it gets the job done and best of all it’s free.

Make Money Publishing Kindle e-books

Posted on | by Laura

Create and sell Kindle ebooks for amazon kindle and join the hundreds of thousands of writers making money selling kindle books. For fiction and nonfiction authors alike, publishing on Kindle is a valuable opportunity that shouldn’t be overlooked.

You can Self-publish eBooks and paperbacks for free by converting your books into electronic format with the Kindle Direct Publishing self-publishing tool. And you can sell them in the Amazon Kindle store and reach millions of readers on Amazon.

You can get your books to the market quickly and easily. Simply upload your content, enter the sales copy and pricing information, and in less than 5 minutes your book appears on Kindle stores worldwide within 24-48 hours.

And the royalty rates are great, you can earn up to 70% ebook royalties. Only there is one catch The royalty rate you get paid from Amazon for eBooks is 70% of the retail price if the price of your eBook is between $2.99 and $9.99. If your book is priced between $0.01 and $2.98 or greater than $9.99, you get paid 35% royalties.

On the upside according to Amazon’s 2019 review of its Kindle sales, there are thousands of self-published authors taking home royalties of over $50,000, while more than a thousand hit six-figure salaries from their book sales in 2018. What are you waiting for head over to the kindle direct publishing and begin earning money!