Smart Stops on the Web

Resources and Reading Materials
www.mfea.com
CPAs providing investment planning advice can find information about assessing risk tolerance, the benefits of mutual funds and emerging markets at the Mutual Fund Education Alliance Web site. Practitioners can have clients fill out a personality profile to pinpoint how aggressive, conservative or moderate an investor they are, as well as find definitions in the site’s glossary.

Get Answers From Experts
www.brill.com
Brill’s Mutual Funds Interactive (MFI) Web site offers a free subscription to two newsletters and guidance from experts—such as certified financial planners—at its Answer Desk section. MFI’s site also has current and past articles such as “Fund Managers to Issuers: More Disclosure, Please” and “Taming the Interest Rate Beast.”

Investment Information for All
www.invest-faq.com
Beginner, intermediate and expert investors and their CPA advisers can get free answers to mutual fund questions, as well as read articles about bonds, derivatives, financial planning and trading at this Web site. Users also can subscribe to its e-mail newsletter gratis.

Guide to Investing
www.investorguide.com
This Web site houses a wealth of information on investing and personal finance including articles, links to news and commentary and a snapshot on the performance of the Dow Jones industrial average and the Nasdaq. CPAs can point clients to the University section with information for all levels of investors—from the beginner to the pro. And the site’s word list links to www.investorwords.com (see below) for definitions.

A Comprehensive Glossary
www.investorwords.com
“With over 6,000 definitions and 20,000 links between related terms,” this is one URL investment brokers and financial planners will want to bookmark. Its home page includes three categories: a main glossary, a word of the day that can be e-mailed directly to the user and a recently added terms section to help frequent visitors narrow their queries.

Not Just for Legal Eagles
www.ilrg.com
For professionals in the field of law as well as any user in need of information, the Internet Legal Resource Guide site offers an archive of legal forms covering consumer loans, demand for payment, consent for drug and alcohol testing, and employee noncompete and nondisclosure agreements. Other sections link to U.S. law associations, firms and schools.

All Aboard the Career Coach
www.tax-talent.com
If you’re looking for a new position in the tax field, then register for free with this Web site to compare salaries, post to the job board, research employers, enroll in the site’s mentoring program and receive job alerts via e-mail. Thinking of moving? Click on the relocation links for city and state Web sites, mortgage calculators, and real estate and temporary housing offices.

Spend Time, Save Money
www.asec.org
The American Savings Education Council Web site offers CPAs in financial planning tools to help their clients get a clearer picture of their financial futures. Such tools include the ballpark estimate worksheet, budget and credit calculators, as well as interactive quizzes to ascertain a client’s retirement personality profile and readiness rating. Visitors also can look up definitions in the savings tools section.

Speechless? Not for Long
www.yourdictionary.com
This company didn’t choose its name and URL arbitrarily: Ten specialty dictionaries—including business, computing, finance and law—and more than 260 language dictionaries personalize this site for each user. Other features include a thesaurus, word of the day and two recent additions: the 100 most often mispronounced and 100 most often misspelled English words.

What Time Is It…and Where?
www.worldtimeserver.com
If time is a factor in your day-to-day business operations between the United States and, for example, France or Madagascar, bookmark this Web site for local times from the Web’s world clocks. Also, download the free Atomic Clock Sync utility to let you synchronize your computer’s clock to the time the National Institute of Standards and Technology keeps—guaranteed to be more accurate than Big Ben.

For CPAs on the Move
www.thinkmobile.com
This Web site bills itself as the “portal for the mobile community” and offers visitors links to articles, events and news about cellular phones, handheld devices, laptops, notebooks and other wireless technologies. Users also can link to sites with consumer reviews, contact information for product retailers and telecommunications service providers.