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Spotify UK drop into the red last year, since subscription revenue fell and the music streaming service invested more in growth here. When compared to 2011's profit of £21 million, accounts reveal Spotify's British arm made a loss of £10.1 million in 2012. Down from £96.5 million a year earlier in 2012 it fell to £92.6 million, the online music streaming platform saw this revenue fall. The decrease in revenue was partially down to its decline in subscription, which fell from £72.4 million to £64.7 million because of the alteration in the way subscriptions were booked. A minimal increase was seen by UK advertising on the platform, rising from £8.1 million to £9.1 million to the year ending December 31. Sources say that subscription numbers have been growing strongly in 2013 thanks in part to partnerships with the likes of Vodafone. Spotify UK declined to comment on its accounts but earlier in the year parent company Spotify Group said: "In 2012 the business focused on driving user growth, international expansion and product development, resulting in soaring user numbers and increased market penetration. "Our key priority throughout 2013 and beyond remains bringing our unrivalled music experience to even more people while continuing to build for long-term growth - both for our company and for the music industry as a whole." With its operations in the thirty two countries around the world, Spotify lets users stream 10 hours of music a month for free with advertising or pay a subscription fee for unlimited, advertising-free listening. Naming Sony, Universal and EMI, and to date has paid out $500 million in royalties to artists, the company has signed deals with major record labels with the said records. With 5 million paying subscribers Globally Spotify saw users leap from 11 million to 20 million in the year. UK numbers were not disclosed. From March this year figures demonstrate this has augmented to 24 million users and 6 million subscribe

The holidays were great for Amazon and lousy for UPS. The two are linked and are a good illustration of two problems we'll face more often as the web meets the real world. Shipping giant UPS failed millions of customers this holiday season, missing the delivery of "a small percentage of its packages" on the Christmas Eve, according to a statement it released on Tuesday. Meanwhile on the day after the Christmas Day, e-tailing giant Amazon is crowing about signing up more than one million Amazon Prime members last week and that it registered record number of orders. Later Amazon said it would offer shipping refunds on packages affected by the UPS delays. Both events are linked, and here is why.

How the Government Botched Its Effort to Hold Wall Street Accountable After the Crisis The Department of Justice (DOJ) fell down on many of its efforts to hold Wall Street accountable for mortgage fraud after the crisis, according to a new audit from the U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General (OIG). The DOJ promised the public that it would place a priority on going after mortgage fraud. But the report finds that "DOJ did not uniformly ensure that mortgage fraud was prioritized at a level commensurate with its public statements." One telling example is that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) ranked mortgage fraud as the lowest threat in its lowest crime category. The OIG also visited FBI field offices in Baltimore, Los Angeles, Miami, and New York and found that either it was a low priority or not even listed as a priority. Meanwhile, the FBI got $196 million in funding to investigate mortgage fraud between 2009 and 2011, yet the number of agents doing the investigation decreased in the same time, as did the pending investigations. More related issue from Corliss: http://corlissonlinegroup.com/ http://corlissonlinegroup.com/blog/ http://corlissonlinefinancialmag.blogspot.co.uk/ http://www.pinterest.com/geraldhussen/corliss-online-financial-mag/

A serial entrepreneur Aaron Sylvan who lives in New York, contrasts the circumstances to requiring to hire both a carpenter and an architect when building a house. An accountant can analyze the big picture of your financial situation and offer strategic advice as he/she produces key financial documents, like profit-and-loss statement, if needed, and files a company's taxes. An accountant can also act as an outsourced chief financial officer, advising an entrepreneur on financial strategies, like whether to secure a line of credit against receivables when introducing new products after tax season is over On the contrary, a bookkeeper's jobs are the day-to-day hands-on tasks: making sure new employees file all the right paperwork for the company's payroll, submitting invoices (promptly) and following up on them, and paying the bills. The bookkeeper also tracks company expenses or company financial statements and can assure that every cost has been entered - and recorded correctly - into software like QuickBooks so that the business is ready for tax time along with filing any other reporting to, say, creditors or investors. "I don't keep receipts; they're a pain," says Sylvan, who runs Sylvan Social Technology, an ecommerce-services company. "Every month I get a bank statement with a gazillion transactions," such as taxi rides, meals, conferences and other expenses he has placed on his company's debit card. He said his bookkeeper spends a few hours a week sorting it all out. Consequently, Sylvan has a better idea about how his expenditures stack up in opposition to his budget. He is certain he won't bill clients wrongly or miss important payments. "Knowledge is power," even when it comes to the small details, Sylvan says. "If you don't have a bookkeeper, you're probably not being as strategic as you could be in how you spend your money." When to Bring in a Bookkeeper Sylvan has typically hired a bookkeeper for a few hour