Tony Novak CPA

Author: Tony Novak

  • QuickBooks professional education today

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    Tony Novak
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    After a technology-plagued day of QuickBooks webinar presentations yesterday, I am hoping for a better experience today. Intuit is using 6connex.com technology that is apparently suffering from bandwidth issues at the source of the presenter’s location. The end result is that the presentation freezes and the viewer must log out and then log in again.…

  • Clinton Foundation vs. Trump Foundation

    Clinton Foundation vs. Trump Foundation

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    Tony Novak
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    Recent news reports about the Clinton Foundation and Trump Foundation allow us to draw sharp distinctions between the two organizations. Starting with the basics, the Clinton Foundation is a properly registered charity that is actually active in attempts to do good in the world. The Clinton Foundation completes required filings and audits. Some transactions reported in this election…

  • More on the education divide in the U.S.

    More on the education divide in the U.S.

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    Tony Novak
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    I’ve written in an earlier bog post about the unprecedented ‘education divide’ where the level of formal education is now the most highly correlated indicator of a person’s political beliefs. Yesterday The Wall Street Journal ran a story about that same phenomenon with a series of findings by the Bowling Green State University National Center for Family…

  • Use an honest marketing system

    Use an honest marketing system

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    Tony Novak
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    Stop using “sales tricks”. The words you use matter. I recently blasted a recruiter of a financial services firm for using an email template that started with a statement that simply was not true.  I pointed out how received the same false email generated from exactly the same sales template from several other firms that week…

  • My Jesus theory debunked

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    Tony Novak
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    I posted two days ago that an otherwise routine and dry business blog post received a much higher number of readers than usual. The only explanation I could come up with was the use of the name ‘Jesus’in the title. I theorized that the word Jesus was a draw in this unusual context. So yesterday I posted another…

  • Invoking the name of Jesus in a business publication

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    Tony Novak
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    A blog post that I put out yesterday titled “The Accountant’s ‘Come to Jesus Moment’” had the 2nd highest number of views on its first day of publication.  I did not do anything different to promote it. In fact, yesterday I had less time than usual to cross post in the usual media (LinkedIn, G+,…

  • QuickBooks security risk

    QuickBooks security risk

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    Tony Novak
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    9/17/2016 Update – Apparently the only reported successful attacks are in Australia. Security experts reported a new scam yesterday (9/15/2016) targeting users of the desktop version of QuickBooks small business accounting software. The scam uses a virus attached to an email. When a user opens the email, the virus attacks QuickBooks and reportedly sends out…

  • The Accountant’s ‘Come to Jesus Moment’

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    Tony Novak
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    “We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are” – a Talmudic saying attributed to Rabbi Shemuel ben Nachmani who lived 1600 years ago. I read an online discussion thread last night among accountants describing a series of talks they are having this week with some of their small business clients. Some…

  • New Jersey health insurance exchange choices disappear

    New Jersey health insurance exchange choices disappear

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    Tony Novak
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    The New Jersey individual health insurance exchange appears to be on the verge of collapse as one after another insurance companies pull out of the state. The latest is Health Republic. Earlier drop-outs include UnitedHealthcare’s Oxford plans and Oscar. An observer quoted in NJ.com commented “The collapse of the Health Republic Insurance of New Jersey…

  • Health care crisis management

    Health care crisis management

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    Tony Novak
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    Our health care finance and delivery system was a state of national crisis when I left Wall Street and entered the small business advisory field in the 1980s. This was a huge concern for my first clients who were mostly building contractors.  The connection between successful management of health care costs and overall financial success in…