Should You Upgrade Your Financial Software?

The end of the year is always a good time to do an assessment of the tools you use in your business. One of those key tools is the program you use to manage your financials.

There are a few of them on the market, but my tool of choice for the last 10 years has been QuickBooks. It has served me well over time. I’ve used both the desktop and online versions.

One of the things I really like about QuickBooks is that they have a family of products to serve different maturity levels of business from their Simple Start version to Premier.

Recently I had an opportunity for a briefing on the new QuickBooks 2011. They’ve added some pretty neat (well pretty neat for financial software!) new features that will help you manage and track the money side of your business.

Three new features that will really be a time saver for small business are:

  • Customer Snapshot — this is a widgetized screen that shows you all the important pieces of information about your customer like how much they owe, what they buy, and how long they take to pay. This is very cool! You can make informed decisions about what and when to sell to each customer just from looking at the snapshot page.
  • Batch Invoice Processing — talk about easy. You can group customers by class, like those who make recurring payments to you and in a few keyboard strokes send all of them an invoice via email. This will save a ton of time.
  • Collections Center — I hope you never have to use this function, but if you do it will show you who owes money, how much they owe and when the payment is due. If the payment is overdue, it will show that too.

There are some other tweaks in the new version that will make your life as a small business owner easier. If you’d like more information, take a look at my comprehensive review of QuickBooks 2011 along with screen shots and detailed information.

Do you have this new version? I’d love to discuss it with you. Please leave a comment.

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How Your Business Credit Card Can Help You Prepare Taxes

Enjoy this guest article from Jud Hogan of Business Credit Card Source.

It’s getting to be that time of year. When the weather begins to warm, flowers begin to bloom and the IRS comes to collect from you. Yes, it’s tax time… again. But it’s not all doom and gloom. In fact, your business credit card can make preparing your taxes easier than ever.

So before April 15 rolls around here are a few ways to use your credit card to help you prepare and file your 2008 taxes.

Check Out Your Statements
If you’re like most business owners, most of your business related purchases go on your credit cards. Who needs receipts when you have credit card statements that document every single purchase? So if you need to write off a business lunch from August and your gas from traveling to see clients, all your purchases are documented through your statements.

Get The Year In Review
What’s better than a monthly statement? A year end one. More and more cards companies are providing their members with year end statements that list all of your purchases throughout the year and categorize them accordingly. Completely convenient and a huge time saver, they can even be exported directly to your money management or tax software for immediate use.

Go Paperless
Speaking of your statements… have you gone paperless? Not only does it save trees, postage and space in your filing cabinet, but online statements give you instant access to what you spent last week, last month and even last year. Many credit card companies even give you the opportunity to export your statements to your money management software making the process of preparing your taxes that much easier.

Let Technology Do Your Taxes
Well almost at least. As previously mentioned, many companies allow you to export your statements to computer software programs. Use software like Turbotax or Quicken? Exporting your statements will save you precious time and energy. By exporting your statements into the program, the software automatically inputs the necessary information. No need to manually enter transactions that you want to write off. How easy is that?

You can find information on the most popular business credit cards at http://www.businesscreditcardsource.com. Exclusively focused on business credit cards, entrepreneurs and business owners can browse reviews, compare cards and apply online.

What do you think?

Photo Credit: Paalia

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Selling On Credit Is Risky Business

How many times have you heard me say your small business is not a bank? Plenty I’m sure. :)

And although I encourage you not to sell to your customers on credit, I’m a realist and do understand it’s a must for many small business owners.

So I tapped into Ted Shalek, CFO of Smart Online, a company that specializes in technology based solutions for small business owners, who believes that the risks associated with selling on credit can be greatly reduced if the proper steps are followed.

“Since we do not all have the luxury of knowing and trusting each customer, we must take precautions to protect the cash flow of our small business,” said Shalek, an authority on small business. “If you do not know the customer, make sure that you obtain solid and confirmable information about the prospective customer by identifying their name, address, phone number, email address and business/credit references, credit card numbers if appropriate.”

Here are a few simple steps he recommends you take to significantly decrease the likelihood of future collections nightmares

>> Reminder Notice:

Send out 7 days before the original, agreed upon payment date, if you have not received payment.

>> Read Receipts:

In the email, let your customer know that you had an agreement, you provided the service or product on a timely basis and it is customer’s obligation to provide you with payment.

>> Stay Professional:

Place a professional call to the buyer and/or the point person at your customer’s office. During the call, be firm and remember to state the facts and identify specific payment terms and times.

>> Appointments:

If the amount owed is significant, make an appointment with the buyer to come by and collect the funds, and if they say the funds are not immediately available, keep the appointment and discuss specific payment terms and times.

>> Dramatic Impact:

If the customer/buyer refuses to accept your calls and does not reply to emails requesting an appointment, stop by the customer’s office unexpectedly and tell them that you are prepared to wait on their premises until you receive payment or have a meeting with the owner, buyer or financial officer.

>> Collection Agency:

Unfortunately, if the customer does not provide any positive feedback and refuses to acknowledge your communication, contact a reputable collection agency that will represent your company in a professional manner (remember that the collection company will retain a portion of the funds that collected from the customer).

Take care when selling on credit — and don’t forget you are not a bank. If it truly is necessary for your small business to grow, make sure you use proper care so you don’t set yourself up with collection problems down the road.

What do you think?

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