CFO Magazine: Robert Rostan What Are Auditors Looking For This Year?

As the prime audit season approaches, big changes in business, the economy, technology, and regulations point to an assortment of red flags for auditors.

Across virtually every sector of the economy, corporations face unprecedented changes in the business environment, driven by global economic trends, technological developments, and regulatory initiatives, among other forces. Ultimately, the impact of these changes will be evident in the companies’ operational and financial performance.

But there is another area that will be affected by the forces of change: the annual audit, as auditors must take these dynamic forces into account in assessing a company’s risk exposure and controls.

Based on my experience as a CPA and CFO, as well as an instructor in financial-statement analysis and accounting, I see several emerging red flags that will be major issues for auditors — and thus for corporate CFOs and audit committees — during the 2017-2018 audit cycle. Specifically, we believe there are eight significant audit issues, falling into three broad categories, that are worthy of attention by financial executives and audit committees.

The Economy and the World We Live In

A number of the emerging audit red flags arise from prevailing global economic and business trends, especially the disruptive (and to some extent unanticipated) impact of technology.

Cybersecurity Threats. The Equifax data breach, along with the news that the SEC’s EDGAR system was hacked, are the most recent dramatic reminders of the cybersecurity threats that plague businesses with great regularity. While cybersecurity breaches pose a threat to corporate risk management and business continuity, they also create an audit challenge: the SEC since 2011 has required public companies to disclose cybersecurity risks and incidents. It is important for companies to be able to demonstrate to their auditors that they have robust plans to respond to and quickly recover from a cyber-threat.

Retail-Sector Turmoil. The retail industry has experienced enormous disruption due to the success of Amazon and other e-commerce outlets, and the resulting seismic shifts in consumer behavior. The result has been the closure of thousands of brick-and-mortar store locations, and high-profile bankruptcies such as Toys “R” Us.

Auditors will be carefully scrutinizing not only retail companies but any business with exposure to retail (such as real estate owners/operators, lenders, suppliers to retailers, transportation providers, and insurers) to assess whether they have properly accounted for the impact of store closures or non-payment of obligations from retailers.

Municipal Exposure. The past year has seen a spate of credit-rating downgrades for states, including Alaska, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Mississippi, and Pennsylvania. Illinois’ rating is just above junk grade. The dire fiscal condition of many states impacts municipalities, most of which are reliant on state funding, as well as the status of projects or facilities funded by states.

From an audit perspective, any company that does business with states, municipalities, or even private enterprises that receive public funds will need to reflect this exposure in its audited financial statements.

Accounting Rule Change

Revenue Recognition. Public companies must adopt new revenue-recognition standards for reporting periods beginning after December 15, 2017, as a result of Accounting Standards Codification (ASC) 606. Simply stated, the new standard affects entities that enter into contracts with customers to transfer goods, services, or nonfinancial assets, and requires that revenue must be recognized in a manner that aligns with the way in which the goods, services or assets are transferred.

ASC 606 will change the top line for many organizations. Auditors will pay close attention to whether the future impact of ASC 606 has been properly disclosed under the requirements of SEC Staff Accounting Bulletin No. 74. Auditors will also assess whether a company’s revenue recognition methodology is reasonable, and challenge controls related to this new GAAP.

Everything Old is New Again

In this final category of audit red flags are several issues that have been of concern for some time, but are receiving continued or renewed attention. For example, the following matters rank among the most frequent subjects of SEC comment letters to public companies.

Non-GAAP Financial Measures. The SEC has continued to focus on companies’ use of non-GAAP measures, such as “adjusted earnings” or “adjusted earnings per share.” While companies may supplement GAAP financial reporting with non-GAAP measures to provide investors or other stakeholders with additional insight, the SEC remains concerned that non-GAAP measures may be emphasized at the expense of the GAAP presentation.

Thus, companies must have procedures to ensure clear and accurate disclosure of non-GAAP measures, proper reconciliation to GAAP, and consistency in the use of non-GAAP measures from year to year.

Segment Reporting. Another evergreen issue in audits is segment reporting, which is required for publicly held entities. The SEC wants to ensure that companies provide accurate visibility and transparency with respect to the financial results and position of their operating units. Thus, auditors will be seeking to determine whether a company’s segment reporting truly reflects the way its chief operating decision-makers actually run the business, assess performance, and allocate resources.

Auditors will go beyond the usual audit evidence such as organizational charts and management reporting packages by comparing a company’s segment reporting to its earnings calls and investor presentations.

Income Taxes and Foreign Subsidiaries. The treatment of foreign subsidiaries of U.S. companies for income tax purposes has become a political hot-button issue. From an audit standpoint, it is not simply a matter of whether a business may be sheltering income in overseas subsidiaries, although that is certainly a significant matter. Auditors also will want to gauge the implications of the foreign income on the company’s liquidity position — that is, whether a business would have the ability to repatriate cash if necessary to cover obligations, and what the tax impact would be.

Enhancing the MD&A. While the MD&A of companies’ annual reports is supposed to provide management’s discussion and analysis, the discussion is often rudimentary and the analysis can be lacking in depth.

Rather than “boilerplate” disclosures, companies should make a meaningful attempt to provide transparency in the MD&A — describing the performance of the business in laymen’s terms and providing in-depth analysis, especially in terms of sensitivity to interest rates, economic policies, customer behavior, and other factors. One approach to making the MD&A more useful is to write it from the perspective of users such as investors, equity and credit analysts, etc.

Clearly, this is a starter list of audit red flags, and each sector will have its own industry-specific critical issues. The larger point is to think beyond the “usual suspect” financial-statement and operational issues and to anticipate and prepare for emerging matters of concern to the auditors.

For most companies, with fiscal-year ends fast approaching, now is the time to address critical issues that could affect this year’s audit. to get more information
please visit this site:http:// www.seip-fd.gov.bd

Your Weekly Report on the Discord from Washington, D.C.

In Partnership with the Eris Group

Eris announces strategic alliance with Michele Lieber, BluePoint DC – We started 2018 by welcoming Michele Lieber, President of BluePoint DC, into the Eris family. Michele’s years of expertise in advocacy for financial services, fintech and the automotive industry will prove invaluable to Eris’s clients. She was most recently chief public policy officer of Ally Financial, where she spearheaded coalition-building efforts and oversaw integration between public policy efforts and company business operations. She previously led financial services and policy development efforts for General Motors and Zurich Financial Services Group. Michele holds a law degree from the University of Pittsburgh. We are delighted to have her with us.

House panel collects more testimony on regulatory relief before action this week – Representatives of community bankers, manufactured housing providers, the American Legion and consumer groups appeared before the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit on Tuesday to talk about five bills that would relieve regulatory burden on small lenders and exempt VA-backed medical debt from veterans’ credit reports. Rep. Tom Emmer (R-MN), sponsor of a bill to give community banks more time to comply with HMDA requirements, noted that a third of all counties in the U.S. have no locally-based financial institutions. The full committee will consider these bills and more in a marathon markup scheduled to start this Wednesday (see the calendar for more).

Risk, not rules should drive anti-money laundering efforts – The current government structure for fighting money laundering and related financial crimes misses some offenders by focusing more on rules than on risk, witnesses told the Senate Banking Committee at a hearing on Tuesday. Committee Chairman Mike Crapo (R-ID) noted that the Bank Secrecy Act is almost 50 years old, and while it has evolved with the industry, it may require further reform. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), ranking member of the committee, called for new measures to require “beneficial ownership” information for companies organized in the United States. Clearing House Association President Greg Baer, former regulator Dennis Lormel, and Global Financial Integrity counsel Heather Lowe agreed in principle on the need for this beneficial ownership information. All said that efforts would benefit from greater information-sharing between law enforcement and financial institutions, and that regulators’ focus on compliance can divert banks’ efforts from more effective anti-money laundering measures.

Warren, Warner introduce bill to punish credit report breaches – The Data Breach Prevention and Compensation Act, introduced Wednesday by Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Mark Warner (D-VA), would give the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) new authority to supervise consumer reporting agencies through an Office of Cybersecurity. The bill directs the Office of Cybersecurity to set security standards for these reporting agencies, and to impose penalties for breaches that put sensitive customer information at risk.

Jones, Moran join Senate Banking Committee – New Senator Doug Jones (D-AL) and second-term Senator Jerry Moran (R-KS) have been named to the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs. Jones was recently elected to fill the unexpired term of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, which ends in 2021; early in his career, he served as staff counsel to Senator Howell Heflin (D-AL) on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Moran, a former banker, served on the Banking Committee in the last Congress.

Treasury plans CRA revisions – Comptroller of the Currency Joseph Otting told the Wall Street Journal that he has “a very strong viewpoint” about how to change the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), and the Treasury plans to introduce changes that would update the law and make it more transparent and consistent. Otting said in December that he plans to circulate a proposal to the other banking agencies within 60 days.

Court denies bid to block Mulvaney at CFPB – “[T]here is a public interest in clarity here, but it is hard to see how granting English an injunction would bring about more of it,” Judge Timothy J. Kelly ruled Wednesday in the case of English v. Trump et al. Leandra English, who became acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau after Richard Cordray’s resignation, had asked for a preliminary injunction to block President Trump’s appointment of OMB Director Mick Mulvaney as interim director. English argued that Dodd-Frank does not allow the President to appoint an acting director, while the President’s attorneys argued that he does have this authority under the Federal Vacancies Act. Judge Kelly did not rule on the underlying case, but said that English had failed “to show a likelihood of success on the merits.”

This Week in Washington:

Today, January 15 is the federal holiday in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Eris’s offices are closed.

January 16
House Rules Committee meets to consider rules on three bills, including H.R. 2954, the Home Mortgage Disclosure Adjustment Act, which would exempt lenders from HMDA requirements if they make no more than 500 closed-end mortgage loans or issue no more than 500 open-ended lines of credit in any two-year

January 18Senate Banking Committee holds a hearing on “CFIUS Reform: Examining the Essential Elements,” with testimony from private sector witnesses. 10:00 a.m., SD-538 Dirksen Senate Office Building.

The Ellis Insight. Jim Ellis reports on political news:

> Senate

Arizona:  Former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio (R), who was defeated for re-election in 2016, announced he is entering the open Senate Republican primary. If he were to be elected at 85 years of age, he would become the oldest freshman Senator in American history. Rep. Martha McSally (R-Tucson) has scheduled a series of appearances around the state for today that Arizona politicos report will become her Senate announcement tour. Rep. McSally and Sheriff Arpaio will join former state Sen. Kelli Ward in the Republican primary. The winner will likely face Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Phoenix) in the general election. Ms. Sinema is becoming the consensus Democratic candidate. Sen. Jeff Flake (R) is not seeking a second term. The Arizona primary is not until August 28th, with candidate filing closing May 30th.

The OH Predictive Insights polling firm conducted a flash interactive voice response poll for Arizona ABC affiliate Channel 15. The survey (1/9; 504 AZ likely Republican primary voters) finds Rep. McSally moving into first place with 31% followed closely by Sheriff Arpaio who captures 29%. Former state Sen. Kelli Ward drops to 25% support.

Missouri:  Remington Research again tested the tight Missouri Senate race with their latest survey (1/3-4; 1,122 MO likely voters), and once more found the challenger leading Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill. Attorney General Josh Hawley (R) continues to maintain a small advantage against the sitting two-term incumbent. On this ballot test, Mr. Hawley holds a 49-45% edge over Ms. McCaskill. The Missouri race has clearly moved into position as the Republicans’ best national conversion opportunity.

Ohio:  State Treasurer Josh Mandel (R), who appeared to have the inside track toward facing Sen. Sherrod Brown (D) in what would be a re-match of their 2012 campaign (Brown: 51-45%), has reversed course. Mr. Mandel announced that he will not be filing as a Senate candidate, saying his wife has been recently diagnosed with a “health situation.” Investment banker Michael Gibbons has been in the race and was expected to battle Mandel for the nomination. He will remain a candidate. Rep. Jim Renacci (R-Wadsworth) announced late last week that he is switching from the gubernatorial race to the Senate campaign with the hope of now challenging two-term incumbent Brown.

> House

CA-39: Veteran California Congressman Ed Royce (R-Yorba Linda/Fullerton), who was first elected in 1992 after spending ten years in the California Senate, declared his intention to retire last Thursday despite holding $3.5 million in his campaign account. Up until now, it appeared Mr. Royce was preparing for what was promising to be a highly competitive campaign in a district that is moving leftward and undergoing drastic demographic changes.

Rep. Royce, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, is the seventh committee chairman to announce his retirement. Five of the seven are ending their allotted tenure on their respective policy panels. Unlike most of the Republican open seats, this southern California district will provide the Democrats with a prime conversion opportunity. Hillary Clinton carried the seat by a 51-43% spread. Already six Democrats had announced their candidacies, and others are now expected to jump into the race now that the seat is open.

On the Republican side, Rep. Royce announced that he will be supporting former Assemblyman Young Kim as his replacement. Earlier, Ms. Kim was a member of the Congressman’s staff. Former state Senate Minority Leader Bob Huff (R-Diamond Bar), Orange County Supervisor and former Fullerton Mayor Shawn Nelson, and La Mirada City Councilman Andrew Sarega also declared their candidacies.

CA-49:  California Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista) announced last week that he will not run for a tenth term later this year. Mr. Issa becomes the 48th House member who will not return to the House for the succeeding Congress, although he would apparently consider running in adjacent District 50 should embattled Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Alpine) be forced to resign. Rep. Issa scored the closest re-election of any incumbent in 2016, winning the race with only a 50.3% margin. Several Democrats have been running for months, including retired Marine Corps Col. Doug Applegate, the man who came close to upsetting Mr. Issa in the last election.

We can continue to expect a highly competitive 2018 campaign in a San Diego/Orange County coastal district that typically votes Republican but switched to Hillary Clinton in the presidential race and came close to sending a Democrat to the House. In addition to the three-person Democratic field that has already formed, Republican Board of Equalization member Diane Harkey, a former Orange County state legislator, and state Assemblyman Rocky Chavez (R-Oceanside) became Republican candidates. Rep. Issa then quickly endorsed Ms. Harkey as his successor.

IL-4:  When Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Chicago) announced his retirement earlier in the year, he said it was only because Cook County Commissioner Jesus “Chuy” Garcia had agreed to run to succeed him. With the blessing of the local Democratic machine, Commissioner Garcia obviously became the man to beat, but the early endorsements didn’t stop Chicago Alderman Carlos Ramirez-Rosa from joining the Democratic primary battle. Yet, the Alderman’s campaign proved short-lived. Late last week, he dropped his congressional effort, thus making Mr. Garcia’s nomination, and therefore election, a virtual certainty. In fact, as part of his announcement, Mr. Ramirez-Rosa even endorsed Commissioner Garcia. Four other Democrats remain in the race, including two other Chicago Aldermen, but Mr. Ramirez-Rosa appeared to be the most serious challenger.

North Carolina:  A Tar Heel State federal judge again ruled the North Carolina congressional lines unconstitutional, though whether the map will again be re-drawn is unclear. Should the US Supreme Court uphold the Wisconsin map in the political gerrymandering case that the Justices are currently reviewing, this North Carolina ruling will become moot.

OH-12:  With Rep. Pat Tiberi (R-Galena/Franklin County) announcing that he will leave the House on January 15th, Gov. John Kasich (R) has set the replacement election schedule. According to the public timeline, the special primary election will run concurrently with the regular primary schedule. This means a nomination election on May 8th. The special general will then follow on August 7th, with the winner serving the balance of the current term.

State Sens. Kevin Bacon (R-Blendon Township) and Troy Balderson (R-Zanesville), along with Delaware County prosecutor Carol O’Brien, appear to be the leading Republican candidates. Former Franklin County Sheriff Zach Scott and ex-Ashley Mayor Doug Wilson are the top Democrats. Others still have a month to enter the race. The eventual GOP nominee will be favored to hold what was designed to be a safely Republican seat. President Trump scored a 53-42% win over Hillary Clinton here in 2016.

> Governor

California:  Former Congressman Doug Ose (R-Sacramento), who served three terms in the House before departing in 2004 because he self term-limited, announced that he will become a gubernatorial candidate. He is the first credible Republican to enter the open statewide campaign. Though the Governor’s race looks to be a suicide run for any Republican in heavily Democratic California, his chances of coalescing the GOP vote to send him into the general election from the jungle primary may be quite good. Having a Republican on the ballot for the general election, thus avoiding a double-Democratic November campaign should help generate GOP turnout for the down ballot races. This could be a significant plus for the targeted seven Republican House incumbents.

Florida:  Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-Palm Coast/Daytona Beach) had long been considered a likely gubernatorial candidate and has now officially joined the race. An outside PAC has already raised enough to put $2 million in an account to help elect the three-term Congressman to statewide office. But, he starts out considerably behind the top Republican fundraiser, Agriculture Commissioner and former Congressman Adam Putnam (R-Lakeland). The latest Florida financial disclosure reports find Mr. Putnam holding more than $15 million in a connected PAC. But, a new poll from the Florida Chamber of Commerce (1/2-5; 600 FL likely and newly registered voters; 235 Democratic primary voters; 259 Republican primary voters), only slots him five points behind Mr. Putnam, 23-18%. For the Democrats, ex-US Rep. Gwen Graham (D-Tallahassee) places first, but with only 14% voter preference.

Maryland:  Gonzales Research & Media Services, a Maryland-based survey research firm, last Thursday released the results of their year-end Democratic gubernatorial primary poll (12/27-1/5; 501 MD likely Democratic primary voters) and found Prince George’s County Executive Rushern Baker jumping out to an early advantage. According to the Gonzales data, Mr. Baker would capture 24% support, followed by Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenetz and ex-NAACP national president Ben Jealous with 14% apiece, while state Sen. Rich Madaleno (D-Montgomery County) tallies five percent. Four minor candidates all recorded support factors of less than two percent. The eventual Democratic nominee will face incumbent Gov. Larry Hogan (R) in the fall election.

Ohio:  Just after former Congressman and Cleveland Mayor Dennis Kucinich joined the Democratic gubernatorial primary former Attorney General Richard Cordray and ex-US Rep. Betty Sutton have agreed to form a Democratic ticket. Ms. Sutton will now drop her gubernatorial campaign and file for Lt. Governor. The move prompted Dayton Mayor Nan Whatley to schedule an announcement for last Friday in which she will also drop out of the Governor’s race and endorse the new Cordray-Sutton ticket. State Sen. Joe Schiavoni (D-Mahoning Valley), state Supreme Court judge Bill O’Neill, and ex-state Rep. Connie Pillich (D-Cincinnati) remain in the race along with ex-Rep. Kucinich.

The Democrats’ move is similar to one Republicans made in late November. There, Secretary of State Jon Husted dropped his gubernatorial effort to run as Attorney General and former US Senator Mike DeWine’s running mate. That move now isolates Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor as DeWine’s only primary opponent, since Rep. Jim Renacci (R-Wadsworth) has bolted for the Senate race.

> State Legislature

Virginia:  The Virginia House of Delegates’ majority looks finally to be settled as the members were sworn into office last week. After Republican Delegate David Yancey (R-Newport News), won the lottery pick after he and Democrat Shelly Simonds ended in a tied result, his opponent decided to end the race by not asking for a further recount or filing further legal challenges. Ms. Simonds did pledge to run again in the 2019 House of Delegates election. This result, plus the Republicans receiving a favorable court ruling in another contested outcome, gives the GOP a 51-49 majority in the new House of Delegates and ends one of the closest political scenarios in American electoral history. to get more information please visit:seip-fd.gov.bd

how to earn money in online

ways to make money online

1. No-risk matched betting. Hands down the quickest way to make a lot of money (well, without breaking the law). ...
2. Online surveys. ...
3. Paid for searching the web. ...
4. Online market trading. ...
5. Start your own website. ...
6. Review websites & apps for cash. ...
7. The 'Disney Vault' secret. ...
8. 'Get Paid To' sites
9. No-risk matched betting

No-risk matched betting

Hands down the quickest way to make a lot of money (well, without breaking the law). Lots of students have genuinely made £100s from this technique. It's completely legal, risk free, tax free, and anyone can do it.

It works by taking advantage of free bets regularly offered by betting sites through 'matching' them at a betting exchange. Matched betting eliminates the risk (you are betting both for and against a certain outcome

Online surveys

An increasingly popular way for students to make money is to fill out online surveys in their spare time. Research companies are always recruiting new members to answer surveys and test new products.

For a few minutes of form filling, you can make a couple of quid which is paid as cash or rewards. You can bag up to £3 ($5) for some surveys!

Paid for searching the web

Interested in earning cash for doing what you already do online? This has to be one of the easiest methods of making money online without really any effort or change in your behavior.

This innovative idea by Qmee.com rewards you for searching in Google, Bing or Yahoo. You just install a simple add-on to your browser and when you conduct a search there may be a few sponsored results alongside your normal search.

Online market trading

The historically hard-to-break world of investing in stock markets and currencies has been cracked wide open. Today there is no need to be a fat cat or fund the yachts of Wolf of Wall Street style stock brokers. You can do it all yourself with the help of online market trading platforms.

Having spent many hours researching this new opportunity, I've been experimenting with the two biggest platforms: Plus500 and eToro.com.

Both offer free practice accounts, and Plus500 also give you a £20 signup bonus (without depositing, terms apply) for their CFD service which is worth taking up. Overall I prefer eTorowith over 4.5 million users worldwide. It was recently featured in the BBC 2 documentary "Traders: Millions by the Minute" and the Financial Times

Start your own website

Interested in generating passive income? You need a website. It's THE way to make money while you sleep.

Starting a website with Bluehost takes less than 20 minutes, costs hardly anything and can be done by an 82 year-old. It only takes a bit of plugging on social media to get your first visitors, and there are plenty of ways to monetise your site.

'Get Paid To' sites

Similar to making money from online surveys, GPT sites reward you in cash and vouchers for completing various offers or activities online.

how to find freelance jobs

How can I do freelance work?

In Freelancer, if a "buyer" (employer) posts a project you like, you, the "seller" of a service (freelancer), would have to bid on it so you can get paid to work on it. Name your price and the amount of days it would take you to complete the project. Some pieces of advice: Employers don't always hire the lowest bidder.

Use Social Search to Find Companies Who Need You

Twitter has one of the best social search engines that you can use to find freelance job opportunities. Simply type in some of the following search queries in the search box at the top of the screen. Replace writer with your specialty.

• “freelance writer wanted”
• “freelance writers wanted”
• “freelance writer needed”
• “freelance writers needed”

The Best Freelance Websites to Find Jobs

Whether you’re looking for another way to pay the bills, seeking more professional development opportunities or just love the freedom that freelancing offers, there’s no question that millions of people have discovered the benefits of professional freelancing. As trends like the digital nomad lifestyle grow in popularity, the number of freelance resources out there has increased as well.

There are plenty of guides for striking out on your own, but as a freelancer, getting higher-paying gigs isn’t just a matter of signing up on popular platforms. You’ll have to branch out, establish a great portfolio of past work and maybe even prove yourself through tests that showcase your skills. Here’s a list of the 15 best sites to find work as a freelancer.

Upwork

With over 1.5 million clients, Upwork (previously oDesk) offers something for every type of freelancer. It accommodates both short- and long-term projects, hourly or per-project work and expert-level and entry-level engagements. Regardless of where you are in your career, Upwork is likely to have something for you.

 Toptal

With a distinctly different approach than the other services on this list, Toptal is for seasoned, talented freelancers. Passing Toptal's screening process gives you unparalleled access to meaningful projects with great clients (JP Morgan, Zen desk, Airbnb, etc.) and fair compensation (no low-bid contests). You’ll also be able to join the Toptal community for frequent meetups and tech events.

Elance

Elance removes a lot of the hassle that comes with freelancing. You’ll be able to make a profile right away without jumping through any hoops, enjoy payment protection to ensure you’re always paid for the hours you work and more.

Freelancer

Unlike most other platforms, in addition to offering millions of projects, Freelancer allows you to compete with other freelancers in contests to prove your skills. If you’re competitive and confident in your expertise, it’s a great way to showcase your abilities and attract more clients.

 Guru

This site lets you easily showcase your past work experience and offers a daily job-matching feature to make sure you don’t miss out on any good opportunities. The Guru Work Room lets you easily manage all your work.

99designs

A platform for freelance designers, 99designs lets you compete in design contests and get feedback as clients choose the best ones. It’s a great way for talented designers to prove their talents.

Peopleperhour

This is a great platform, focusing on freelancing for web projects. If you’re a designer, web developer, SEO specialist, etc., peopleperhour is definitely worth checking out.

Freelance Writing Gigs

Whether you’re a writer, editor, blogger, publisher or any combination of those, Freelance Writing Gigs is a great option for freelancers who have a way with words

Demand Media

Demand Media is a platform for creative types, including writers, filmmakers, producers, photographers and more. You work with the site to create unique content, engage audiences and promote your talents.

GetACoder

This site is for freelance writers, web designers and programmers -- exactly what small businesses need to get a website idea off the ground. GetACoder offers millions of smaller-scale projects to choose from.

 iFreelance

This platform accommodates some of the usual suspects of the freelancing world (writers, editors, coders, etc.) but also features freelance marketers as well. Unlike other sites, iFreelance lets you keep 100 percent of your earnings.

 Project4hire

With hundreds of project categories, Project4hire makes it easy to identify jobs that suit your skillset, without scanning through large volumes of posts. It’s great for coders, consultants, designers and more.

to get more information

please visit:http://freelancergp.blogspot.com

How to prepare your self to be a good free lancer

Try Freelancing First.

1. Have a vision. ...
2. Decide on a form of business. ...
3. Create marketing materials. ...
4. Prepare a portfolio. ...
5. Set up financial processes. ...
6. Secure a few clients. ...
7. Believe in yourself.

Things You Should Expect If You Start Freelancing and How to Prepare Yourself

There's no better way to scrape up a few bucks in this economy or free yourself from a boss you dislike, or makes you sick with stress than doing some freelancing or starting your own business on the side. If you're thinking about taking the plunge, here are some things you should look out for, and some tips to help prepare before you take the first step.

What You Should Be Ready For

If you have a job that pays the bills now, that's great, and you definitely shouldn't quit to start your side business or start freelancing, but walking the line between full-time employee at one place and working for yourself on the other hand presents some challenges you'll need to be ready for before you do it. It may sound like the easy way out since you can work on your business without risking a steady paycheck, but here are a few things you should be ready for.

Be ready to make your passion "work." They call it "work" for a reason, and speaking from experience, I know how it is to start freelancing on the side, working on the thing you love, and suddenly realizing sometimes that your passion, that thing you could never get enough of, is starting to wear on you a bit. 

• Be ready to firmly manage and maintain your boundaries. Many of us work in jobs that require us to be on call sometimes, travel, or work late. If you're planning on doing side work, even if it's managable and you set your own deadlines, you'll need to make sure your full-time job doesn't encroach on your side gig, and vice versa. You'll have to be ready to tell you boss "sorry, I've got plans tonight," if they ask you if you're available after hours, especially if you really do have something related to your freelancing planned.
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Nine SEO tips to get your website to the top of Google search

Back when we first published an SEO tips guide on how to top Google search, the world of organic and paid search was a vastly different place.

In 2013, to get to the top of Google it was merely a manner of doing some killer keyword research, ensuring your site had a good and clear structure and making sure you had a ton of high authority backlinks coming your way.

And although these are all still very relevant SEO tips today, we also now have to contend with these brand new factors too…

Nine SEO tips to get to the top of Google

1) Optimist for Rank Brain

RankBrain is Google’s machine-learning AI system, which has been revealed by Google to one of the top three ranking signals in its vast array of contributing factors.

Google uses RankBrain to handle ambiguous or unique questions that have never been asked before. Brand new queries make up to 15% of all searches a day – and as Google processes 3bn searches daily – this means that 450m searches a day are entirely unique.

Machine learning is clearly necessary to cope with this huge demand, and for search marketers it may be difficult to truly optimise for.

However according to our recent post on how to optimist  content for RankBrain, you can do so in a number of ways, the most important being… Create content that answers unique queries that are particularly relevant to your audience personas.

This will take time, research and a little trial & error, but with enough references and supporting information in your clearly formatted, long-form content, you may start to see more visibility for relevant queries.

2) Optimise for ‘near me’ search queries

According to Google, ’micro-moments’ are the “critical touch points within today’s consumer journey, and when added together, they ultimately determine how that journey ends.”

This basically points to mobile as being the key driver for local search, and how essentially you should be optimising for exactly that.

As Chris Lake mentions in his post on optimising for micro-moments, mobile searchers are a) very active and b) not brand loyal, so there’s a huge opportunity, especially as many businesses are lagging behind due to poor mobile user experiences.

The advice here is to be all about anticipation, relevance and ease of use…

3) Optimise your local presence

Following on from the last point, it’s no good optimising for ‘near me’ search queries if you’re not actually ‘there’. So you need to sort out your local SEO.

You can do this by optimising your Google My Business page. Among many others things, you’ll need to make sure you have the following features…

• A long and unique description of your business.
• Choose the right categories.
• Key information on opening times.
• Lots of imagery.
• Regular updates.
• A local phone number and business address.

And one of the other major local SEO factors is making sure you have lots of visible  which as Graham Charlton states are “vital for local businesses, whether or not they sell online, thanks to their sheer prominence in local search results.”

4) Answer a question

Following on from optimizing for natural language is being able to directly answer questions with your content.

Google scrapes third party websites in order to present searchers with a clear on-SERP answer to their more ‘knowledge-based queries’ (when is Kanye West’s birthday? etc). Although Wikipedia used to be the dominant site in these answer boxes, this is becoming less so as Google recognises that more quality expert content is coming from other publishers.

So find out what questions your site can answer and create content that does exactly that. It will help if you’re as succinct as possible, you phrase the question in the headline and you answer the question as soon in the article as possible.

5) Pay for it

Some things are still very much a truism now as they were in 2013… You can just ignore all of these tips just by paying your way to the top with PPC ads.

Although you will still need quality ad copy, relevant landing pages and high customer rated products (especially if your entering into the Product Listing Ads space), but yes, you can still throw money at the problem.

6) Get in Top Stories, implement AMP

Getting your site into Google News has always been a sure fire way to drive short-term traffic to your content.

It’s not great for evergreen appeal, but if you can be hot off the presses with good quality news stories than it can also be great for other sites linking to you as a source.

Top Stories is the mobile equivalent of the desktop In the News section, and right now this section is filling up with Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP). AMP is Google’s open-source program that allows webmasters the ability to create super-quick, stripped-down, instantly loading versions of web-pages for mobile users.

AMP isn’t a ranking signal yet, but if you’re appearing in Top Stories than having AMP pages will help improve user experience. Here’s a tutorial on how to implement AMP successfully.

Also note that AMP results will be appearing throughout the mobile SERP by the end of the year.

7) Be mobile optimised

You should have this nailed by now. Although three years ago many of you didn’t, and back then it wasn’t a ranking signal. It is now though!

But to help you out, we’ve published this massive and comprehensive guide to testing the mobile usability of your site. You’re welcome.

8) Speed to top  your website

As I mentioned earlier, AMP is certainly helping to speed up the mobile web. Although it is controversial in nature, and isn’t necessarily the best solution to improving the speed of websites in general as it just feels like a ‘quick fix’.

You do still need to prioritise the speed of your actual site, not just grafting on Google-owned patches. Site speed is a ranking factor, but there are many ways you can improve performance.

First, check your site speed using this tool and then you can access a report breaking-down where you can improve.

You can also make a huge difference in reducing page load by following these image optimisation SEO tips for site speed.

10) Optimise your Twitter presence

Although this may be the final tip in this list, it’s obviously not the last thing you can optimise to get to the top of Google. However one major change to the SERP in the last few years has been the introduction of tweets.

Last year, thanks to a deal between Twitter and Google, tweets are now indexed on SERPs. So if you search for a brand, publisher or personality, you will now see a live timeline of their latest tweets.

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