Business Info Help

A few of the best online tools ideal for small businesses:

EchoSign - Provides small businesses and entrepreneurs with an easy and fast way to get electronic contracts signed.

Invotrak - Allows you to track invoices you send clients…for free!

Vebio - An online accounting suite that is designed specifically for freelancers, independent contractors, and self-employed individuals.

Acuity Scheduling - Clients and customers can logon and schedule appointments with you.

Qualtrics - Simple yet sophisticated online survey software that can help you evaluate customer and employee satisfaction, new products, and enterprise feedback.

Huddle - Allows employees to share documents, ideas, schedules and collaborate on projects - all from one interface.

As they say, the business world is a dog eat dog world. You always have to be one step ahead of your competitor or they will get the customer and the profit. One way to step it up is through your website. This is where SEO and internet marketing come into play. Making sure your website is optimized is crucial to ranking on the search engines so that potential customers can find your site easily. So here are a few benefits of search engine optimization:

• More traffic to your website.
• Easier to find on search engines.
• Higher ranking on search engines.
• Those potential customers will be narrowed down to those who are actually interested in your business, services, or products.
• More profits.
• New customers.
• When your site is optimized, it works for you 24 hours a day.
• increases usability.
• Continues to find new customers.
• Gives you a reason to maintain unique and relevant content on your site.

Nowadays, it is common for businesses to have international credit cards—especially larger corporations who travel overseas frequently. One thing that may not be in the forefront of the business’s mind is the transaction fee for using that international credit card. There will also be about two fees per transaction—due to the fee from Visa or MasterCard and the fee from the actual bank or financial institution. IndexCreditCards.com recently (May, 2008) conducted a survey about various fees for an international credit card. Surprisingly enough, the fees aren’t as close on the spectrum as they probably should be. Here are their findings:

·         Capital One has a 0% transaction fee. They do not have their own fee and they pretty much just eat the 1% fee that Visa or MasterCard impose.

·         Discover also has a 0% transaction fee, but, unfortunately very few places outside of North  America accept this card.

·         Washington Mutual imposes a 1% transaction fee.

·         American Express is up to 2%.

·         Bank of America makes the jump to 3%.

·         Chase: 3%

·         Citibank: 3%

·         GE Money: 3%

·         HSBC ranges anywhere from 1-3%, all depending on the type of card you have.

·         U.S. Bank: 3%

·         Wells Fargo: 3%

Just like with businesses with actual storefronts, it is hard to compete because of the volume of other businesses out there–especially online. Because of this online businesses everywhere need to step it up a notch and blow the competition out of the water. Here are just a few tips to help improve your online business and get your profits sky-rocketing:

• Constantly update your virtual storefront.  New information will encourage potential customers to take a look at your new products and information. Updating your storefront will show customers that you put time and energy into maintaining your website and business. It definitely helps your ethos.
• Make it easy to contact you for questions or comments. It can be a little intimidating buying online because you don’t get to interact with the owner in person and you don’t see the product in person. In order to reduce the anxious feelings, you need to make sure to respond quickly and completely to their questions or concerns. Make yourself readily available to be of service–even though you can’t be there physically.
• Make your payment options convenient. Nothing annoys a customer more than having to use a strange form of payment. Give your customers options and make sure you accept online payments, and a large variety at that rate (debit, credit, bank routing, paypal).
• Offer discounts for returning customers. Encourage those that have bought from you in the past to come back and purchase from you again. People loves sales, discounts, and coupons. So use them!
• Free shipping over certain total amounts. Self-explanatory.
• Get and post real feedback and consumer reviews. Nothing speaks louder than those who are willing to leave feedback for others to read–whether that is positive or negative is up to how you run your online business

So how long are you supposed to hold on to those documents anyway?  The following are a CPA’s recommendations on keeping documents. (Note: These recommendations on document retention are general guidelines.  Time documents should be kept according to appropriate laws, IRS and governmental regulations, and third-party requirements.)

Litigation readiness refers to the efficiency of an organization’s or corporation’s e-Discovery process.  When either general or outside counsel receive a discovery request, they need to be able to easily and rapidly select documents  

If you are not prepared, unexpected and lengthy litigation can deplete internal resources, distract employees, and place you and your business in a risky position.  Having a process and tools that allow your business to be litigation ready will enable you to respond quickly and effectively to legal requests, should the occasion arise.  To learn more about Litigation Readiness, visit www.NextPage.com. 

Live Wire Test Labs, Inc.  was founded in 2003 and specializes is locating intermittent faults in electrical and high noise environments—airplanes, for example. Developed by Cynthia Furse and Dr. Paul Smith, this technology attends those faults through arc fault breakers and an electrical circuit test with the assurance of lower maintenance costs.

Some of Live Wire’s customers include:

·         The Federal Aviation Administration

·         Boeing Corporation

·         U.S. Air Force

·         U.S. Navy

·         NASA

·         Sandia National Labs

Online businesses are dramatically increasing  each day.  They seem to be more common than businesses with actual store fronts. Because of this, a new, secure way of payment processing needed to be created and perfected.  The way online payment has morphed and progressed is nothing short of amazing. Now, global payments are common and widely accepted as a trusted way to make payments.

With the ease of paying for merchandise from anywhere in the world, the online business has flourished and will continue to do so as online payments expand and improve.

It doesn’t matter if your business is large or small, booming or needing a little help, there is one thing that every business should have. 360 degree feedback is essential to a growing business because you can gather feedback from customers, general consumers, employees, management, and whoever else you would like to hear from.

• Customers: Through online survey software, you can find out what your customers think of your service. Are they loyal to your company or brand? What makes them purchase from you over and over again? What could you do differently to earn their loyalty?
• Consumers: With research surveys, you will know what your brand name means to a consumer. Is your advertising and marketing strategies effective? Which color logo draws the eye more effectively. What could you do differently to get potential customers to commit to your brand?
• Employees: Are your employees happy with their work environment? Are there issues between co-workers? Management? Through this type of survey, you will be able to find and solve little issues in the workplace before they turn into gigantic problems.

Are you keeping adequate track of the hundreds of documents entering and leaving your company’s computer system daily?  According to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act passed in 2002, businesses are now held accountable for the their ability to show documentation of where their legally sensitive documents are.  Companies nationwide are producing compliance software programs (often priced at $25,000 and above) for companies needing to heighten their document retention strategies up to government standards.   These compliance measures are costing companies billions of dollars, but will ultimately increase investor confidence as well as hold upper-management responsible for the transfer of information within and outside the company.