Philadelphia probate law and commercial litigation blog

When you first begin to put together your estate plan, your primary goals may have more to do with leaving something to the ones you love than caring for your own needs. Unfortunately, this can cause major problems if you don't include some important documents about your own personal preferences.

Some estate planning documents deal directly with your end-of-life choices and establishing a plan to care for your needs if you suffer a disability or long-term illness. For your own sake and for the sake of those who love you, be sure to include these documents in your plan, so that you don't waste valuable time and resources if you do suffer a serious injury.

For many people, banking seems like a necessary evil. They don't relish the idea of needing to store their money outside their home or pay someone to access it, but the security and convenience of a bank account is almost necessary. While it is possible to get by without a bank account, that usually means that you have to pay a lot of money to cash checks and purchase money orders to pay bills.

The fees and costs associated with a standard bank account may seem reasonable compared with the hassle that people have to go through to avoid opening a bank account. In some cases, however, the bank actually has an abusive or inappropriate policy for fees that ends up having a negative effect on customers.

Part of owning a business is accounting for income and expenses and there is more than one way to do this. For example, you can follow Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) or choose a non-GAAP method such as cash basis accounting. The format you choose is going to affect the net income you report to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the numbers you provide to current and potential investors.

It is important that you choose an accounting method that provides a reasonable level of transparency and reports your business activity in the most accurate way possible. In other words, choosing the wrong accounting method could be misleading. Here are a few things to know about GAAP versus non-GAAP reporting so that you can choose the accounting method that fits your business.

You finally created your estate plan. Sitting down and hashing out all the details was a lot of work, but now that your estate plan is set, you can rest easy knowing you and your family will be taken care of if something should happen.

However, your work is not done yet. While a large part of the work of estate planning is in creating it, you still need to update your plan periodically in order for it to be the most effective.