We left the juice mixture to ferment for seven days. During the fermentation process, the juice sank to the bottom and a solid cap of grape skins and pulp rose to the top. The cap was manually “punched down” three times each day to extract the most avor. After a week of fermenting, the mixture was ready for pressing and transfer to an oak barrel. Gravity drew out the juice that had sank to the bottom of the vat. The remaining mixture was scooped into a wine press with buckets, where an interior bladder released the remaining juice. It was amazing to see how much juice the press extracted. These juices joined the others already in the barrel. There, they’ll age until the summer of 2014, when we’ll bottle our custom-crafted Petit Syrah blend.
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GETTING AHEAD Organizing your money
Rosemary Rosencrans has been named an Associate at Alternative Financial Services, the firm’s founder and principal, Lisa Corcoran, announced today. Rosencrans is a certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor. She earned her Certified Bookkeeper (CB) designation through the American Association of Professional Bookkeepers (AIPB) and has more than 25 years of bookkeeping experience in a wide range of industries, including general contracting, commercial and residential construction, law firms, manufacturing, real estate, and retail.
Rosencrans serves as president of the Central New Jersey Chapter of the National Association of Professional Women (NAPW). She was awarded a Human Resources Certificate in 2003 by the Mid-Atlantic Employers Association and has studied office management and principles of project management. Founded in 2003, Alternative Financial Services provides a full range of on-site and remote financial-organizing and QuickBooks services for businesses and individuals. For more information, call 732-269-7809 or visit www.AFS-NJ.com. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW YORK — Income tax ling season is often a trying time for small-business owners, but the Internal Revenue Code is usually not the culprit — tax professionals say it's procrastination and poor record-keeping that causes most of the problems. The owners who are frantic at tax time are often ones with very small companies and few or no employees, so they do everything themselves. They may have the best of intentions, but they just don't get around to inputting income and expense data into the accounting programs in their PCs because they're so busy working with customers or coming up with new products or services. Or, they never bother to learn tax and accounting basics that are critical for keeping their companies healthy. There can be painful consequences when owners don't maintain good records and don't have a rudimentary knowledge of tax law. At the very least, they can miss out on important deductions or tax credits, and end up paying the government more than they need to. Much worse is the very real possibility that their neglect leaves them without cash on hand to pay their tax bills. Computer programs make it easier for an owner to keep a good set of books, but they do require some vigilance. "They have the electronic thing, but they don't use it enough. They don't keep it up to date," said Stephen Fishman, an attorney in San Francisco who writes books about small business and tax law. "You have to input the nancial information, it won't do it itself." For the time-pressed or disorganized owner, the solution is to get some help. "Just outsource the bookkeeping function," said Jerey Berdahl, a certied public accountant with Berdahl & Co. in Center Valley, Pa. "There are a lot of competent bookkeepers out there that you can trust." Many business owners will shy away from the expense of hiring a bookkeeper or bookkeeping service, although as Berdahl pointed out, it's much cheaper than hiring an accountant. And, if a company's books are in chaos or the owner nds there isn't enough cash to pay the government, the business could be losing more money than it would cost to get some outside help. Berdahl also suggested an owner hire an outside rm to customize a standard accounting program so it's more suited to a particular small business. The cost shouldn't be exorbitant, probably several hundred dollars. Owners also need to have some knowledge of tax law — not necessarily as much as a CPA knows, but enough so they don't end up with very big and very unpleasant surprises. "Just understanding how the tax law works is a big issue for a lot of people," said Joseph Maloney, a certied public accountant with Maloney Reed Scarpitti & Co. LLP in Erie, Pa. He noted, for example, that many owners are surprised to learn that although they haven't yet been paid for work done or products delivered, they still owe taxes on the income they've earned. In other words, they're being taxed on their receivables, and if they haven't set aside money for that liability, they could be scrambling for cash to pay the government. Another example from Fishman: "If you're self-employed and you pay estimated tax, if you haven't paid enough you could have a substantial tax bill April 15." Disorganization and poorly kept books are frequently accompanied by poor cash ow and in turn, not enough money for that tax bill. That's a particularly unnerving proposition given the dicult lending environment right now. |
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