In your firm today, an increasing number of staff members – from the partner level to the administrative staff - are experiencing burnout, low productivity, dissatisfaction and stress related illnesses…due in large part to a lack of balance between their work and personal lives. It is time for your firm to look at how it can create greater balance between work and personal lives of the number one asset in your firm – its people.

Certified Public Accountants (CPAs) looking for information that can help them, and their firms, become more successful, have until mid-May to access members-only content from the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants’ (AICPA’s) Private Companies Practice Section (PCPS), even if their firms are not PCPS members. The normally restricted content, from noted professionals in the field, is free to all, for a limited time.Content in the PCPS membership section draws on the experience of more than 83,000 CPAs from 6,000 local and regional firms across the country.

It is sometimes helpful to have the use of an employer-provided vehicle in the course of doing business. In many cases, personal use is also allowed but personal use is a taxable fringe benefit, according to Payroll-Taxes.com. Withholding taxes for this non-cash benefit is the responsibility of the employer. This withholding process is complicated with the FMV of the vehicle not being determined by the actual cost of the vehicle, according to Payroll-Taxes.com. The FMV is calculated based on what an employee would pay for leasing a comparable vehicle.

"Busy season" is the best time of year to take advantage of marketing opportunities you won't find at other times.

Electronic net media such as e-mail and instant messages have changed business to business transactions. The bulk of important business transactions such as contract negotiations, order issuance and acceptance, corporate communications and marketing programs, supply chain management, service and support, and investor relations are now done primarily using the Internet and these electronic media.

According to a new study a “solid percentage of IT managers don’t understand archiving, so many are failing to do it properly,” enterpriseitplanet.com reports.

This month, business guru David Maister launches the first in a series of unique, marketing podcasts for professional services firms. The first four of 14 podcasts will be available, free, on his web site, at www.davidmaister.com, beginning January 23.

End-of-year bonuses on Wall Street amounted to a total of $21.5 billion, a 16 percent increase and an all-time high.New York State Comptroller Alan Hevesi predicted in Time magazine that the extra income would bring $1.5 billion in tax revenue to the state. Bankers and traders got the biggest bonuses, of $1 million and up. The average Wall Street bonus is $125,500. Most people expect far less, if anything. American workers who responded to a Salary.com 2005 Holiday Spending Survey said they expected to receive a bonus of about $800 and would use some of it to buy gifts.

Environmental Management Accounting (EMA) is a cover title used to describe different aspects of this burgeoning field of accounting. The focus of EMA is as a management accounting tool used to make internal business decisions, especially for proactive environmental management activities.EMA was developed to recognize some limitations of conventional management accounting approaches to environmental costs, consequences, and impacts. For example, overhead accounts were the destination of many environmental costs in the past.