I recently read this article on walletpop.com that I found interesting relating to finance (http://www.walletpop.com/blog/2009/11/12/debit-card-donts-for-black-friday/). It seems for the first time ever debit card purchases are becoming more widely used then credit card charges. With “Black Friday” and the rest of the holiday shopping season rolling up it appears that consumers are “Trying to keep their credit card balances low.” Purchases in general are not expected to decline at all over this season but even with the economy in its current state people would prefer to pay cash.

Debit Cards do have their advantages to the mind since your payment is made instantly instead of a weight on your shoulders however, experts are recommending that while shopping online it is important to use care while using your debit or credit card. While placing orders it is important to check your cart before paying. Since using your debit card is essentially like wiring cash it makes it that much more difficult to return orders as well as pick up fradulent orders. Your bank does not moniter your spending habits like a credit card company would. It is important to moniter your account and report fraud usage immediately to your bank. It promises to be an exciting holiday season coming up so be smart and do your research and you can treat yourself as well as everyone you are shopping for!

Today I was looking over the website for a growing Affiliate Marketing Software “HitPath.” At first it didn’t really wow me and just seemed like another version of LinkTrust. So as I dug a little deeper into the features I found some great ones that could potentially make my accounting life much easier. The reporting is still very similar in the ways you can filter data by Affiliates, Campaigns, Advertisers, and Categories. What really caught my eye was the customizable accounting reporting that is available with the software. You have the option to finalize month by month numbers to ensure that test/ fraud leads have been removed from the system.

 The best feature that I noticed on the list was the custom export to QuickBooks reporting. The HitPath team will consult with the Accounting Department of your company and create specific reports that the accountants can export and use for their day to day accounting procedures. Seeing that our company uses QuickBooks as our software this would be great to be able to reference and combine everything to one platform! The accounting features that blend with the Tracking Software sound great with this system. Now that we are growing to focus on an International Market more and more we have the need to track revenues and commssions in international currencies. With Hit Path we can trak them in Euro’s, Pounds, etc. This makes it much easier on the accountant not having to convert every international campaigns revenue to get a true report of earnings or payments owed to affiliates. These are just some of the few features that impressed me with this system. You can view all of the features on their website at http://www.hitpath.com/. Have a Happy Halloween!!!

Hello everyone!

 My name is Curtis and I started working at AKMG on June 1st of this year and joined the AKMG Accounting Team. I moved here after I graduated college at Arizona State University (Sorry USC and UCLA fans). I graduated with a degree in Computer Information Systems so I have a slight familiarity with the industry through school. I love being able to combine both of my career interests in Finance and Computers for my day to day job. As fast paced as this industry is I feel that I have learned a lot in the few months that I have been here and will continue to learn more as I spend more time in the industry. Being a social person I like the fact that personal relationships can play such a key role in this industry. I think its great that associates can travel to different trade shows around the country and world to get to know parters on a personal basis instead of just another name on the page. Anyway I look forward to working more with everyone and keeping people posted on things that stick in my head. Until next time peace out ttyl…