The Many Hats of Self Employment

Being self employed comes with many benefits.  You can sleep in, work in your pyjamas and go shopping in the middle of the day.  You no longer have to report to a boss who doesn't really understand what you do or deal with mindless workplace politics.  It all sounds wonderful, but unfortunately there are also many challenges.  Small business owners have to deal with uncertainty and risk.  They need to be disciplined and deal with the many demands that being self employed can impose upon us.  In the early stages of self employment, most of us have to take on the responsiblity of fulfilling the administrative functions that you find in a more established business. Some of the skills that you need to develop are:

Click to read more ...

Small Business Jobs and Credit Bill: Key Provisions

The US senate passed the Small Business Jobs and Credit Act, introduced on May 13, 2010, by a vote of 62 to 38.  The vote included the support of two republicans - George Voinovich of Ohio and George LeMieux of Florida.  The bill will go back to the House of Representatives where democrats are hoping it will be approved without delay.  Some of the key provisions of the bill are as follows:

Click to read more ...

9 Factors that Affect the Value of Your Business

Blood, toils, tears and sweat go into building our businesse; however their values are very rarely a direct product of our efforts.  A recent bidding war between HP and Dell pushed the stock price of 3Par from $10.00 to $33.00 over a two week period.  The company ultimately sold for $2Billion.  It seemed that both HP and Dell decided that they needed a company that sold storage servers and were ready to pay far more than an independent valuation would have gotten 3 Par (the market had valued it at $700 million).  Of course most businesses are not 3Par, and most business owners need to take numerous factors into account when determining the value of their business.  Some of these are discussed below:

Click to read more ...

Noteworthy - Sept 12, 2010: Rule of 20 for Retirement Savings, Tips for Saving on Hotel Rooms, Will Drafting Software Reviewed

• How much do you need to retire? The Rule of 20.

This article at Canadian Finance reveals how for every dollar of desired retirement income you need to have $20 of savings in your retirement account.  Desired retirement income calculations should deduct estimated government pension income (assuming that we still have a pension fund) and apply a factor of 20.

• How To Save Money on Hotel Rooms

Boomer and Echo discuss 5 ways to save money when getting a hotel room, including calling the hotel directly after identifying discounts with online travel sites like Expedia.  Since hotels have to pay a fairly high fee to these sites, they are often happy to extend a discount directly to the customer as it ends up costing  them less.

• Using Software to Write a Will

The NYT looks at 4 software options for writing a will and concludes that it is still useful to have a lawyer at least review it.  Any will drafting software has inherent limitations and does not provide for situation specific advice and guidance. 

Click to read more ...

Small Business Confidence Declines in August

According to CFIB's Business Barometer^® Index , small business confidence for August fell for the third consecutive month to 64.9 last month, down from 65.7 in July.  The 2010 peak was reached in March when the index was at 69.9.  An index result that exceeds 50 indicates that owners expect their business to grow in the following year.  The figure is significantly higher that it was at the end of 2008, when it was below 40.

Click to read more ...

What is your Net Worth?

There comes a point in many people's lives when they want to find out what they are worth.  This is much more difficult to quantify on a metaphysical level; however on a tangible level most people can figure out how much wealth they have created over time.  The definition of net worth is, very simply, the total of all your assets (what you own) less your liabilities (what you owe).

Click to read more ...

20 Tips to Improve Small Business Cash Flow

Managing cash flow can be challlenging for many startups and small businesses.  Cash flow issues arise for many different reasons and can have a significant impact on the health of a business.  Below are 20 tips to help improve cash flow in the short term: 

Click to read more ...

Breakeven Analysis for Small Business

When planning to start a new business, one of the first questions you ask yourself (and hopefully your accountant) is at what point are you going to start making money.  One  simple way to determine this is to calculate the breakeven point, which is the point at which your sales (revenues) equal your expenses.

How is it calculated?

Click to read more ...

Noteworthy - Sept 3, 2010: Richest People of ALL Time,Dogs in the Workplace, Accountant Scalps US Open Tickets,

• Top 20 Richest People of ALL Time

Includes some of the usual suspects - Warrent Buffett, Sam Walton, Rockefeller, Carnegie.  The list also includes the founder of the first department store , a gold speculator and regent to Richard II. 

• Dogs in the workplace  increase productivity:

Researchers at Central Michigan University found that the presence of dogs in the workplace were likely to lead to colleagues being perceived more positively on measures of trust, intimacy etc.  Also, their presence, made employees less likely to snitch. (The answer to world peace? Dogs!)

• Accountant arrested for scalping US Open tickets

Martin Scheffer, a long island accountant 339 tickets for the US Open in his possession when he was arrested. Perhaps this was not his first time:

"A search of Schaffer's BMW turned up 20 United States Tennis Association parking permits, as well as 28 permits for New York Jets games."

3 Online Accounting Software Options for Small Business

As cloud computing gains in popularity, the availability of online accounting software continues to grow.  Many small business owners want a software that has an intuitive and easy-to-use interface  that allows them to bill customers, enter expenses and check their bank balances,.  We also want to be able to access from anywhere (you never know when the desire to do your accounting, strikes!)  I have looked at 3 cost effective, multi functional alternatives below:

Click to read more ...