About the Author Yulia Mazur, Partner Head of Accounting   Yulia Mazur holds a degree from the Ryazan State Radio Technical Academy in Accounting, Financial Control, and Business Analysis. She has advised the Ryazan Duma on tax legislation on several occasions.   With more than ten years experience, Yulia has worked as a chief accountant for construction, entertainment, and retail companies. She has been with Alinga for more than five years.   Ms. Mazur is a Certified Professional Accountant.   Follow Alinga:   Also on our Site: Russia's Simplified Taxation IFRS vs. RAS The Post-Merger Integration Process: The "Russia" Factor IFRS For SMEs   Alinga Consulting Group +7 (495) 988-21-91 consult@acg.ru

As the owner or manager of a business, you are actively involved in nearly every aspect of that business – from purchasing to production to sales.

You know where your couriers are going and what the office manager is doing. You effectively manage employees from every department - except perhaps one: accounting.

In an imperfect world, management simply cannot be in every department at once. Many of the most successful managers started on the floor of manufacturing – others in sales – but very, very few ever began in the quiet, conservative, yet diligent accounting department. Perhaps this stems from focused professionalism: being inured in a world of numbers, bookkeepers are left with little time to worry about production processes. Bookkeeping for most managers remains at best a very mysterious process. Yet this process can greatly affect the long term development of a business and in the short term is the main focus of the tax inspection. Tax inspection fines and prosecutions are born solely by the business’s official head which will likely cause you to ask the following questions:

1. Can you insure yourself against errors made in accounting?
2. Can you keep sensitive information such as wages absolutely confidential?
3. Can you rely on the correctness of your accounting information when making administrative decisions?
4. Can you be assured that your financial staff are the best available?

The answer? "Yes!" Alinga Consulting Group can tell you how.

Insuring Against Accounting Errors

Account books are a direct reflection of the business they represent. As no two businesses are alike, we take an individual approach to each client. We start by standardizing the accounts to correspond to accounting and tax legislation. Then we look at the specifics of your business, help you to select the accounts most useful to you and develop one of the most important tools - your accounting policy. On the basis of the Accounting Policy and your financial records, we prepare your accounts and subsequently the financial, tax, and statistical statements required for submission. Under the contract, it becomes our sole responsibility to deliver accurate and timely accounting, tax, and other reports to the tax inspection, social funds, and other appropriate bodies. We can also prepare your records in whatever form and timetable are required by your investors or parent organization.

All necessary accounting operations are conducted at our offices. Your primary documents (invoices, expense reports, bank statements, etc.) are brought from your office to ours by our courier. It is also possible for Alinga to take on part of the process of primary document preparation, freeing up your personnel for other work.

The price of our services is determined based on:

• Your registered taxation system: simplified or traditional.
• Number of financial documents (transactions) generated by your company;
• Number of employees your company has;
• Presence of labor-intensive reporting operations (for example, import/export);
• Frequency of VAT reporting (itself dependent on revenue – up to two million RUR a month, or more);
• Volume of accounting reports. This is dependent on whether the company is Russian legal entity or a representative office of a foreign firm, weather the Russian organization is a classed as a small business, or whether a representative office is conducting commercial activity or only representational functions.

Maintaining Accurate and Confidential Payroll

Perhaps your accounting department already works well but is bogged down with monotonous and routine tasks, creating a bloated work force and inflated salary expenditures. Most problematically, such a large accounting department can more easily leak sensitive information such as pay scales.

Alinga Consulting Group can help you solve these problems with outsourced payroll services. Alinga Consulting Group keeps separate and secure information protocols for each client. Besides issuing monthly salaries, Alinga Consulting Group prepares all necessary reports:

• Unified Social Tax;
• Mandatory Pension Insurance Withholdings (including personal accounts);
• Health and Accident Insurance Withholdings and Sick Leave;
• Income Tax Withholdings.

Alinga Consulting Group bears full responsibility for these reports to the tax inspection and the social funds.

Each client is given pay stubs in a sealed envelope. The salary roster, which must be kept in the company accounts department, is also delivered in a sealed envelope to the responsible person. Pay stubs may also be delivered as password-protected electronic Excel files.

The cost of payroll services is determined according to your:

• Number of employees;
• Pay structure (accounting for bonuses, benefits, etc.);
• Frequency of salary issuance;
• Volume and form of relevant documentation (documents for salary payment, payroll reports);
• Number of separate divisions (branches).

In addition, Alinga Consulting Group offers other HR services, including registration of personnel documents and legal consulting on labor issues.

Ensuring a Sound Administrative Accounting Policy

We also offer consulting services to assist your accounting department in making the best possible decisions for your company in the fields of taxation, financial reporting, and developing your company’s internal Accounting Policy.

Many enterprises neglect their Accounting Policy, despite the fact that a sound internal Accounting Policy can improve efficiency, help regulate and manage business processes, and enable you to fully take advantage of your business rights.

In short, a strong internal Accounting Policy can save you time, energy, and money.

The legislation and regulations surrounding tax payments and financial reporting are complex and contain many options that companies may choose from to maximize their profit and efficiency. However, the choices the business makes must be first declared in a formal policy. A company can change this policy only once a year by a formal decision issued by the board of directors. To prepare an effective policy for a given year, careful consideration of all the latest tax and accounting legislation is necessary. Because of the magnitude of this task, it is best to hire professional consultants which specialize in this.

Alinga Consulting Group can advise your company on its accounting policy. We believe that:

• Internal accounting policy should be as flexible as possible and must reflect the company’s normative documents.
• Internal accounting policy should take full advantage of any rights given by law. We will make sure that you fully understand these rights and can take full advantage of them.
• Internal accounting policy should be based on something, and so we provide references to the normative acts that support our suggestions.

The cost of these consulting services depends on the time and expenses of our experts and will be decided by contract.

Maintaining the Accounting Standards You Need

Russia uses its own set of accounting standards – known as Russian Accounting Standards (RAS). However, in an increasingly globalized economy, more and more Russian companies are electing to additionally maintain records according to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) or Generally Accepted Accounting Practices (GAAP) in order to become a more attractive target for investors.

Alinga has long offered its clients the opportunity to convert or re-state financial statements from RAS to IFRS or GAAP.

And yet, as the pace of business quickens, there is an increasing need have more information continually at hand – not only periodic reporting, but information available at any moment to help make crucial business decisions.

Therefore, Alinga now additionally offers parallel accounting services. Using the most up-to-date software, our specialists can effectively report each transaction simultaneously according to multiple standards – meaning that the information you need is always available to you.

Your accounting information is exactly that – your information. Make the most of this asset with Alinga's professional, globally-minded accounting services!

In the end, every company needs an accountant

Outstaffing is a relatively new business concept, but is a simple and effective way to achieve maximum results in your labor force and to accomplish short-term tasks for long-term goals. The process is simple. First, your employees are re-hired as our employees. We take care of all documentation involved in the transfer and maintain all labor documentation thereafter as well as processes the salary, taxes, withholdings, continuing education and retraining programs, while your employees continues to work for you.

Alinga Consulting Group can:

• Minimize your HR expenses;
• Maximize your staff flexibility and mobility;
• Make HR expenses tax deductible;
• Provide financial professionals for short-term projects without costs in labor documentation and employee search and hire;
• Insure you against many legal obligations presented under the Labor and Tax Codes;
• Minimize administrative risk.

Alinga Consulting Group guarantees all placements for the length of their trial period. The cost of our service is calculated based on the pay offered for the vacancy to be filled.