Investors rely on corporate auditors to keep impartial watch on the accounting practices of the companies they invest in. Historically, investors have not been shy about launching litigation when they believed auditors did not do enough to stop their clients from cooking the books or engaging in other financial improprieties.

But new research shows that lawsuits against auditors for accounting violations have fallen over the past 20 years, and it’s not because accountants have become so much better at their craft or companies more honest.

“The number of lawsuits per year has declined, dismissals have increased, and settlements in recent years have declined,” conclude the authors of a new research paper. “Our study asks why.”

The number of lawsuits specifically about Rule 10b-5, the antifraud regulation created under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, dropped from 487 in the year 2001 to 80 in 2014. Another example: Some 70 percent of auditors in 1996 were likely to settle claims with some sort of cash payment. By 2016 the percentage of paid settlements had dropped to a little over 30 percent.

Two Supreme Court decisions, although not the only reasons, appear to have made a difference, according to the researchers. The rulings in Tellabs v. Makor (2007) and Janus v. First Derivative (2011) have effectively narrowed liability standards, requiring plaintiffs such as institutional investors to prove that auditors knew, or should have known, their clients’ financial statements contained errors.

In both decisions, Rule 10b-5 lost its bite. Investors are at a disadvantage.

Companies from around the world seek to list in US capital markets and investors from around the world invest in US listed companies because the US legal regime offers a high level of investor protection. High quality auditing is a big part of this protection. When our investor protections standards go up, our capital markets become more attractive to global investors and companies. It’s a tradeoff, though. You don’t want to impose undue burdens on companies because that will deter one from listing and auditors from doing audits on companies that list in the US. On the other hand, if standards are too low then investors are not protected. There has to be a balance.

That balance is essentially a political and societal balance. The bottom line from our study is that the balance has moved away from investors and toward auditors. We hope our evidence helps provide some of the information we need to strike that balance.

Where is the trend heading? Hard to tell. But if the balance shifts too much away from investor protection it makes for weaker capital markets.

Federal laws are one aspect of our governance system. We can strengthen other aspects. One source of investor protection is the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB). One can make the case that the monitoring of auditors has greatly increased since the PCAOB was created after the Sarbanes Oxley Act of 2002.

There is also evidence that audit committees have improved their ability and willingness to monitor auditors. Investors can ask for and insist on strong audit committees of the board and pay more attention to what an audit committee does.

Investors can also engage with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Congress to espouse their point of view. Lobbying for that through a coalition such as the Council for Institutional Investors (CII) can help.

We are a nation of laws. And we can have individual freedoms because we enforce our laws. If we reduce the impact of laws, we actually might not be improving society, because our individual freedoms are encumbered by laws. Which is exactly the issue here. Companies are free and auditors are free to do whatever they want except violate the laws. So reducing the bite, the risk of litigation, is not necessarily a good thing. There are countries with very lax laws and lax law enforcement, and there is a lot of evidence that their capital markets are some of the weakest in the world. We have some of the strongest capital markets because we have some of the strongest legal enforcement.

Sure, we need a balance. Companies have argued that they are subject to a lot of frivolous litigation. Raising the bar higher is a good thing then, to reduce waste of resources spent in litigation. But just reducing investor protections is a recipe for weakened capital markets.

Investor coalitions and individual large investors themselves understand this goal. Enlightened regulators and corporate leaders realize this as well and strive to strike a balance. Companies are benefited when more investors are in the capital markets. It is not a one-way street. When you improve investor protection, it’s not hurting companies. If you help companies, it’s not hurting investors. You need checks and balances. The trust we have in our system—we shouldn’t weaken it. That actually will end up hurting us.

What does tax time look like for your small business?

Are you calmly organised so that it’s just another date on the calendar? Or, are you running around in mad panic trying to sort out all your paperwork?

It’s no secret that accounting and bookkeeping are some of the most maligned tasks faced by small business owners. Not many people leap out of bed with a cry of, “Bookkeeping, YES!”

Assuming that you’ve probably already set yourself up with a digital-based accounting software, here are some “hacks” to make your business bookkeeping more painless.

Categorize Expenses

Anyone who has spent hours (or paid their accountant several hours) to categorize all business expenses should appreciate this one. Setting up categories in your accounting software ahead of time is a huge time saver (and obviously a money-saver when you’re talking about paying an accountant!).

Most accounting software’s allow you to set up categories in the settings, which means as expenses come in, you simply need to assign them to a category. Much easier than trying to remember something 12 months later!

The categories you use will need to be specific to the tax authority you fall under, so you may want to consult with a qualified accountant in your area first to ensure you capture all relevant expense categories.

Some examples (which work for most places) may include: advertising, business fees, licenses and subscriptions, insurance, office expenses, rent, salaries, and telephone.

Another advantage to categorizing your expenses early is that you can clearly see which categories tend to be attributed with more spending. This can help you to identify early any areas which may be getting out of control.

Store Receipts Immediately

Most business owners tend to be clear on income, especially if you’re running an online business where all payments come in and are credited automatically by your payment software. However, it’s a different story when it comes to monitoring expenses.

If you’re digging through boxes, pockets, wallets, drawers, or vehicles looking for business-related receipts, you should know there is a much better way to keep on top of them.

Accounting software such as Xero or Quick-books allow you to take photos of receipts and immediately attach them to the expenses part of your bookkeeping. This means you can also categorize them immediately.

Another advantage of the photo option is that you don’t run the risk of receipts becoming illegible. Deterioration over time, especially on certain types of paper, can mean that you’re unable to read your older receipts at tax time.

If your accounting software doesn’t have this functionality, there are apps available to help you do this. Usually they also provide you with reporting and some of them will integrate directly with your accounting software if you prefer it.

Connect Bank Accounts and Credit Cards

The secret to more painless business bookkeeping is to automate as many functions as you possibly can. This means you should take advantage of features in your accounting software such as the ability to connect bank accounts and credit cards.

This functionality allows transactions to be pulled through and attributed automatically in your accounting software.

For this to be effective, of course you need to ensure that your business transactions only go through your business accounts and that no personal transactions go through.

Another point to note is that you need to ensure that the type of files your bank provides are compatible with what your accounting software accepts. (Or that you choose an accounting software which accepts the type of file your bank provides). Common file types are CSV, QIF, QFX, QBO and OFX.

Reconcile Weekly

It’s all about getting into good habits really. We know that many business owners procrastinate over bookwork because they’re not very fond of it, but if you set aside a small amount of time each week (even just an hour) to reconcile, it’s not such a big deal at the end of the financial year.

This helps you to pick up any errors as close as possible to the time they happened – it gets much more complicated to untangle that kind of thing if time has passed.

The other thing you should be doing with weekly reconciliations is following up with any late payments if your business works on an invoice basis. As Mark Gandy for Less Accounting says, call people even if they’re one day late. Everyone who is 30+ days late was once one day late. Having a clear follow-up process stops things from spiraling out of control.

Automate Invoicing Requirements

If you’re doing business across borders, the chances are you will come across different invoicing requirements for each country you have customers in.

What is your plan to deal with sales tax, GST or VAT invoicing requirements? What about local rules for what to include on invoices? These are important considerations because you don’t want to end up in a position where you’re being penalized for not following correct procedures.

The easiest solution is to choose a software which automatically deals with those invoicing requirements for you. You don’t want to have to add manual checks to every invoice that goes out.

Final Thoughts

Accounting tasks may not be your favorite business activity, but really they’re only as painful as you make them.

You can streamline your processes and save a lot of time if you put good systems in place and automate as much as possible.

Your system should also include regular time to reconcile your accounts, even if that means hiring a virtual bookkeeper. If you deal with a little, often, it becomes much less of a daunting task later on.

Through college, I got a lot of advice from professors and fellow students on a bunch of study hacks. Some of the study hacks I heard sounded crazy to me. Like the students who stayed up all night reading chapter after chapter in a textbook or writing papers. I like my sleep too much!

Eventually, I found my own way to study, but I was still curious if there are more efficient ways to study than the one I used. I’ve done the research and collected some science-backed study hacks useful for any learner.

1. Learn by “chunking”

If you’ve taken a psychology class, you may already be familiar with the idea of chunking. The theory is that people tend to remember things better when they learn related ideas in small chunks, rather than simply trying to cram all the details of a topic into their heads at once.

It’s all based on the capacity of the working memory and how our brains turn short-term memories into long-term ones. Psychologists have consistently shown that people can easily recall a string of numbers or names that is 5 to 9 objects long. That means the average person can repeat about 7 items back a few seconds after being given a list.

Students who cram may be taking in a lot of information at once, but since their working memories can’t hold all those facts, they tend to forget most of what they learn. One way to overcome knowledge loss by cramming is to chunk topics together. Research has demonstrated that subjects tend to remember more items on a list when they relate certain items on the list with others.

So if you find yourself in the (non-ideal) situation where you got to remember a large amount of information in a small amount of time, try to group facts together based on their characteristics. Or, find a pattern in the information that is meaningful to you to connect seemingly unrelated ideas.

2. Don’t fall victim to the Forgetting Curve

You’ve heard of learning curves, but have you ever heard the Forgetting Curve? Research shows that people are much more likely to be able to recall information from a one hour lecture when they review what they learned later on. And, not surprisingly, the more times one turns the information over in their mind, the longer they’ll remember it.

Like chunking, this hack is based on the functioning of the working memory. People take in an astounding amount of sensory information each day. Since not all of this information is important, the brain must decide what to hold on to and what to forget. One way the brain decides what takes priority is by paying more attention to information that it has processed multiple times.

You’re more likely to remember information from your lectures if you review what you’ve learned every day for a small amount of time everyday rather than cramming. If you don’t have time to review everything you’ve learned in a class everyday at least try to make sure you’ve looked at and actively processed a topic several times before a test.

One way to do this is to actively read the relevant material from your textbook before your lecture, take notes, and then review those notes that night before you go to sleep. Obviously, it’s helpful to look over your notes again before a test, and the more time you can find to review, the less you’ll be re-learning before your test. It can actually help save you time in the long run!

3. Exercise before you study (and consistently!)

Exercise has both long and short-term effects on cognition. When you exercise, your body interprets the physical stress as you fighting or fleeing an enemy and activates your sympathetic nervous system. In response, your brain is flooded with extra blood, rich in oxygen and nutrients, to make what it thinks could be life-saving decisions. It’s even been demonstrated that exercise can lead to neurogenesis, or the creation of new brain cells–a process previously thought impossible.

In addition, a brain structure called the hippo campus is stimulated during exercise. Research has shown that the hippo campus is important for reasoning and memory. Besides short-term boosts in cognition, regular exercise can actually slow down age-related shrinkage of the hippo-campus.

Another benefit of exercise is its role as a stress-reducer. Stress can be a huge hindrance to focus and memory formation (thanks to the hormone cortisol), and unfortunately, college can be extremely stressful. Luckily, exercise is a cheap and easy way to curb some of the stress associated with day-to-day life, ensuring you can focus on learning what you need to for your classes.

The Department of Health and Human Services recommends 150 minutes of moderate exercise each week to maximize benefits. Small lifestyle changes, like walking or biking to class or work, are an easy way to get those minutes in. To get the immediate benefits of exercise before a study session, try doing 20 minutes of moderate cardio before hitting the books.

4. Study before you go to sleep

A collaborative study published by researchers from Notre Dame and Harvard found that research subjects tended to remember unrelated word pairs better if they had learned them shortly before a good night’s sleep, rather than in the morning before 12 hours of being awake.

It has long been theorized that sleep helps to stabilize the memories we form throughout the day. Interestingly, it seems that being awake does the exact opposite–creating interference in our memories and causing us to forget some of what we’ve learned.

Cloudways is a hosting company located in Malta. They are bridging the gap between the big cloud platforms that are still technical and the needs of small businesses. Cloudways is helping SMBs take advantage of what cloud hosting has to offer. For example, it tackles the complexity of configuring and setting up platforms like AWS and Google Cloud.

They want to make it so you don’t need to have a systems administrator on hand to take advantage of what these bigger platforms have to offer.

Cloudways for Small Businesses

Small Business Trends contacted Pere Hospital, the founder for more information. He started out explaining more about what the product does.

“Cloudways is a managed cloud hosting platform that emphasizes simplicity, choice, and freedom,” he writes.  “The Platform is built to facilitate businesses in deploying and scaling their online assets without worrying about the underlying hosting solution.”

One of the things that will attract small businesses are the options.

“There’s a choice of five industry-leading IaaS providers and it’s easy to deploy almost all PHP powered applications. Cloudways provides choices so that the Platform remains a great fit for a very broad set of businesses.”

Meeting Challenges

Here’s why small businesses need a hand setting up and configuring the cloud hosting on platforms like Google Cloud and AWS for small businesses.

First off, they need to understand AWS and Google Cloud are industry leaders that offer a very broad lineup of very powerful tools and services.

“All this power comes at a cost,” Hospital says adding it takes time and effort to harness it into profitable business operations.

Keeping Pace

He says these mid-level players such as SMBs and digital agencies need AWS or Google Cloud to keep pace. Many don’t have the skilled team members to manage and maintain a server positioned on these cloud providers.