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Cool Tech Tools: Customer Portals

June 25, 2015 by Leave a Comment

file-shareIf you have a business where you have to send documents of any kind to your customers, then you may benefit from a portal. You can save time on customer service and possibly postage and labor. You will also look most professional while increasing service delivery.

What Is a Portal?

A portal is software in the cloud that allows users to upload and download files from a secure space that only they have access to.   For each client you have, you can set up a private virtual filing cabinet where only you and the client will have the key. Your client will have their own user ID and password into their area of the portal. There, they can upload and download documents. Some portals also have secure signature capability to help you take the paperwork out of obtaining signatures.

How Can I Use a Portal?

Think of all the paperwork that occurs between you and your customer, and that will give you several ideas about how to use a portal. If your business is data-intensive, you will definitely benefit from a portal; imagine moving all of those documents out of email and into a clean, private filing folder in the cloud.

Businesses that would benefit the most include:

  • Any small business with remote employees: a portal can be where they pick up and drop off work.
  • Mortgage companies where the loan officers are collecting a great deal of information for the underwriters.
  • Construction companies: each subcontractor could access the schedule, estimates, material details, invoices, and certificates of insurance.
  • Real estate agents to collect the details of home purchases and sales
  • Accountants, attorneys, consultants, coaches, and other professionals who deal with private customer information.
  • Web design, ad agency, and marketing companies

Types of documents and files you can upload and download from portals include:

  • Contracts, estimates, and legal documents
  • Invoices and credit card authorizations
  • Instructions and training materials and aids
  • Company policies and procedures
  • Brochures and marketing materials
  • Reports and spreadsheets
  • Forms and applications, blank and completed
  • Graphics, drawings, and photos

You don’t necessarily have to set up a portal for every client; perhaps it’s cost-effective to use a portal on your largest customers or vendors.

Where Can I Find a Portal?

One of the leading vendors in the portal space is Citrix Sharefile. You can find them here: http://www.sharefile.com/. Your industry may have specific solutions for you as well, especially if you have regulations such as HIPAA that you need to follow.

You may also have heard of DropBox and Box.net. These companies offer file transfer and don’t have a dedicated user area, so they are useful, but a bit different than a portal. 

Look for software that provides each user with their own unique login, and that will distinguish the software as a true portal.

If you decide to implement portals for your business, you can private-label them with your logo and place a direct link to your portal login page for easy client access.

Using portals will keep your inbox cleaner, save time looking for lost emails and documents, and help you look professional in the eyes of your clients.

Filed Under: Blog, Technology Tagged With:

Ten Excuses to Have a Sale

June 11, 2015 by Leave a Comment

calendarIf you need cash fast, there’s nothing like having a sale to increase your bank account quickly. Here are ten excuses you can use to tell your customers you’re having a sale.

1. It’s Your Birthday (or Your Business’s Birthday)

We all feel generous on our birthday, so why not have a sale on your special day. You can even tie to discount amount to your day of birth. For example, if you were born on the 14th, then you can offer customers 14% off.

Similarly, you can hold an anniversary sale on your business’s anniversary date. It’s a good way to let customers know how long you’ve been in business.

2. Your Partner Is on Vacation

If you have a business partner, you can use the excuse, “When the cat’s away, the mice will play.” You can pretend that your partner knows nothing about the sale, but has left you in charge and you’re going to have this sale. The customers will enjoy the reason and feel like they are getting away with something fun.

3. Holidays

Most stores have holiday sales, and you can too. There are so many unusual holidays that you can tap into just in case the holidays are at an inconvenient time. Here’s a website that will give you a list of special days, weeks, and holidays: http://www.holidayinsights.com/moreholidays/

4. The Full Moon

Why not? It might be the best sale you’ve ever had. The next full moon is July 2, 2015, and you’re in luck because July has a blue moon (when two full moons occur on one month) on July 31, 2015.

5. Small Business Saturday

November 28, 2015 is Small Business Saturday. It’s one day after Black Friday and the Saturday before Cyber Monday. Small Business Saturday is relatively new, but has been gaining momentum in the past few years.

6. Tax Holidays

In some states the sales tax authority provides exemptions for a few days on selected categories of items. For example, in August, Texas allows one weekend where sales tax does not have to be paid or collected on school supplies. You may not even have to mark down your items to generate a crowd for sales tax holidays. Here’s a Wikipedia page on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_holiday

7. Old Inventory Items or Overstock Conditions

A great reason to have a sale is when you have old inventory items you need to clear out. Similarly, if you’re overstocked on certain items, a sale will help them move.

8. Your Kid’s College Tuition Is Due

You can have a lot of fun by advertising that you simply need to make your tuition payments. Customers will get a smile out of helping you out and relating to a familiar need.

9. The Stock Market

If the stock market goes up or down, you can have a sale based on its performance.

10. Seasonal Dates

Dates such as the first day of summer, Spring Equinox, or even April 15th, tax day (in the U.S.) can be potential sales days for your business. Think about seasonal dates related to your industry.

Try these ten ideas to get your sale noticed.

Filed Under: Blog, Business Tips, Money Tagged With:

Understanding How Teams Grow

May 28, 2015 by Leave a Comment

teamDo you have employees who need to work together as a team? Or perhaps you need to work as a team with your customers and vendors. When people of different backgrounds get together for a common goal, there are often four stages they go through before they become a true team or family.

Four Stages of Teams

In 1965, Bruce Tuckman noted that there are four stages in which teams evolve: forming, storming, norming, and performing. Two goals are crucial for teams:

  1. To reach the optimal stage, performing.
  2. To build trust, respect, and open communication during all four stages of the process.

Forming

In the forming stage, team members begin to get to know each other and what their goals are. This is a good time for the team to set ground rules that cover how often the team should meet, how they should communicate, and what their objectives will be. This is an ideal time for the team to assess their strengths and challenges.

Storming: Team Conflict

In the storming stage, conflict begins. The diverse points of view of each team member present as team conflict. Team members need some tools in this stage to avoid clashing egos and turf wars. Have team members actively listen to other team members’ viewpoints to better negotiate through the problem-solving the group needs to perform in order to get their goals met.

Don’t let a team get stuck in this stage because emotions that simmer under the surface will blow up.

Both active listening and assertiveness training are great tools to help teams learn how to manage the conflict and work through the issues that come up during the storming stage. Employees also need to learn how to deliver feedback and bad news in an effective, non-threatening way.

Norming: Becoming Complacent

The third stage of teambuilding is norming. In this stage, team members can become complacent and agree with the group to avoid conflict. The leader must challenge the group not to fall into this type of groupthink, which results in terrible decisions.

Performing: The Optimal Stage

In the final stage of teambuilding, performing, the group has found their synergy. They perform at their highest productivity and quality. They have built trust among team members to get the job done constructively and without personal conflict.

Which stage is your team in? Knowing the natural stages will help you move your team to the optimal stage, performing.

Filed Under: Blog, Business Development, Business Tips Tagged With:

Five Modern Marketing Methods You May Not Know About

April 30, 2015 by Leave a Comment

online-marketingOlder marketing methods like direct mail and cold calling just don’t work as effectively as they did a few decades ago. There are two reasons for that:

  1. The trust level between people has dropped more than 20 percentage points in the last few years; people are more skeptical and untrusting of each other than ever before.
  2. The amount of marketing messages we receive on a daily basis has increased exponentially, to the point where most everything is simply treated as white noise.

What is there to do if you still need more clients? Sharpen your marketing skills and try out these newer ideas from the 21st century:

Website Landing Pages

A landing page is a web page that is not listed in your website menu.   It’s a hidden page that advertises something very specific, such as a free report, a service, a niche, or a sale item. The landing page includes a description of an offer and a call to action, such as a Buy Now button, or a signup form where you enter your name, email, and possibly phone numbers.

You can drive traffic to your landing page through social media, online ads, or email notices. Once someone has taken action, a sale team often follows up with a phone call or an email to encourage further action.

Free Trials or Samples

Although there is nothing new about free trials, they are certainly popular and they still work very well. You might think they are only for magazines and software companies, but it doesn’t have to be that way.

You can offer free food samples or free servings if you own a restaurant, catering or other food service company. If you own a training or consulting company, you can offer a free course or a free consulting hour. Physicians often offer free pharmaceuticals, and dentists offer free toothbrushes. Think about how free trials or samples can be used in your business to attract new clients.

Webinars

The online equivalent of a class or lecture is a webinar. If your company sells a product or service that requires a lot of client education, you can deliver this information via a webinar. The benefits to offering a webinar are that people do not have to get dressed up to go anywhere, you can have people from all over the world attend, and people will be able to get to know you and how you think so they can make a decision about whether they want to do business with you.

To offer webinars, you’ll need webinar software such as Citrix GoToWebinar or WebEx. You could also use Google Hangouts for free, but the number of people attending is limited. Invite people you know via email announcements or social media. You can make a sales offer during the webinar as well.

Email

Email is a great way to make sales offers to people, especially if you have a list of people who have given you permission to send emails to them. If you send out a monthly newsletter, include a Product of the Month or a Deal of the Month. It’s much less expensive than direct mail, and often there is a much better response rate.

Online Ads

If placing ads in newspapers and magazines is not working in your industry any more, then try placing online ads. There are lots of choices. You can go with Google AdWords and Facebook Ads. Twitter and LinkedIn have ads as well.

You can also try banner ads. There is a special type of banner ad called retargeting. Have you ever been on a company’s website, then left it and started seeing advertisements for that company on the websites you visited later? That’s called retargeting and it’s very popular.

Before you create your marketing plans for next quarter, give these ideas some consideration. You may get more bang for your marketing dollar.

Filed Under: Blog, Business Development, Business Tips Tagged With:

Cool Tech Tools: Google Drive

April 16, 2015 by Leave a Comment

googledrive Google Drive, which used to be called Google Docs, is a great way to collaborate with team members and stakeholders that are in a different location than you are. Here’s a quick introduction (or refresher) on how to use this powerful collaboration tool.

Google Drive is a browser-based application that allows you to create documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and other documents that reside in the cloud. They can easily be shared with others, and both of you can see and edit the document at the same time.

Using Google Drive

To get started, you’ll need to have (or set up) a Google account. If you have a gmail account, you can use it. Log in to your gmail or Google account, and at the top right corner of your screen, you will see a square made up of nine small squares. You can click on it and select Google Drive.   Alternately, you can go to drive.google.com.

Time to Create

Once you’re on the Google Drive main page, you’ll see a large red CREATE button on the top left. Click it to create your first Google document. Select among the choices of spreadsheet, document, presentation, and more. Give the document a title, and start editing. The commands are very similar to Microsoft Office®, so there’s no learning curve.

Time to Share

When you are viewing a document, you’ll see a blue SHARE button on the top right side of your screen. Click it to enter the email address of a person you’d like to have see and/or edit the document.

You can tell who else is viewing the document at the same time you are because you’ll see a colored box and perhaps their picture on the top right side. You can also tell where their cursor is in the document; it will show up in another color.

As you create documents, you will see your list growing under My Drive. If someone else created the document and shared it with you, you’ll see it under Shared With Me.

So Many Uses

Here are a couple of ideas on how you can use Google Drive.

  • As a bulletin board for your employees or customers
  • For status reports on projects
  • As a to-do list when multiple team members are involved – they can check off the items as they go
  • As a collaborative note-taker when you’re brainstorming with another person
  • With a client when you need to explain part of a document – you can copy and paste from Word or Excel to Google Drive (but check to make sure everything came over)

Google Drive is great for productivity and makes communications easier. Try it and let us know how you use it.

Filed Under: Blog, Business Tips, Favorites, Technology Tagged With:

Does Your Accounting Department Have Holes in It?

April 2, 2015 by Leave a Comment

holes-leakYou’ve got someone to do your federal and state income tax returns, and you have a bookkeeper. So that’s all that a small business needs when it comes to having an accounting department, right? 

Wrong. 

Large companies have many functions in their accounting departments, and small and mid-sized businesses need many of the same functions as well. They just won’t need as many staff to handle them. Many of these functions will fall on the CEO, but a smart CEO will find a way to delegate some of the accounting duties to free their time up.

Here are just a few of the things you’ll want to make sure that you have covered in your small business accounting department:

Accounting Software Expertise

Who do you have on your team that can identify opportunities for making your accounting function run more efficiently? The solutions could include training on your current system or could be more comprehensive such as identifying a new accounting system that will save a tremendous amount of time and money.

Let your accountant get to know your processes because they may know of some software applications that can do what you need faster, better, and cheaper. Manual data entry is a hot spot of potential; today, you can find software, scanners, and even smartphones and tablets that can automate the data entry, even if all you have is paperwork to enter.

Business Performance Advice

Are you getting accounting reports that tie to the areas where you have challenges and issues? If not, let your accountant know where those areas are. They may be able to suggest some reports that will provide you with insight and enlightenment.

If you are receiving reports with lots of numbers that you’re not quite sure how to interpret, ask your accountant for help. They can not only help you interpret the numbers, but they can also put the report into a graphical format so that it’s more visual for you.

It’s All About the Revenue

The number one challenge of most small businesses is to attract more business and generate more revenue. Your accountant can help you study your revenue patterns by presenting “what if” tools that can help you see what happens when you change price, impact mix, or adjust volume.

Keeping the Cash Flowing

If your business seems to stampede through cash, you’re not alone. A cash flow forecasting report is in order so you can plan ahead and be ready for the valleys and hills.

Beyond Compliance

If your accounting department focuses on compliance work alone, such as taxes and recordkeeping, you’ll miss out on allowing it to become a profit center of sorts. With these added functions, you’ll discover new actions to take in your business to drive profitability. You’ll have clarity about decisions like price changes, and you’ll know your accounting function is efficient and not wasting time and money.

Take a look at your accounting department, and let us know if we can help you plug any of the holes.

Filed Under: Blog, Business Tips Tagged With: , ,

The Entrepreneur’s Paycheck

February 5, 2013 by Leave a Comment

checkAs business owners, we may be so busy making sure the bills get paid and the product gets out the door that we may not be quite as proactive about our own compensation. To pay themselves, many new business owners take what’s left after employees and vendors have been paid, and that ends up being their paycheck.

I’d like to propose a whole new way: entrepreneurs should be paid three times, once for what they do, second for the risk they take, and third for the going concern they’ve built. If you’re not getting paid three times, here’s how it can work.

First: Your Services

Just like the employees and contractors we work with, we should get paid for the actual work we perform in our business. Most of us wear many hats in our business, and we should get paid for all those hats!

As your business grows, the tasks you initially performed will be delegated to employees. They would never go without a paycheck, and you shouldn’t either.

The amount you pay yourself should be similar to the market rate you would have to pay someone if you hired someone else to do the jobs you are doing. As your company grows, you will be going up the management ladder and your salary should increase accordingly.

Here’s an aha for some new business owners just starting out: If you have cash flow problems paying yourself or others, then you might have one of two problems: The goods and services you sell may not be priced correctly, or the number of clients you have may need to increase so that you reach an acceptable volume in your business.

Second: Your Risk

After you’ve paid yourself for the jobs you are doing in your own company, there should be something left over: profit. As a business owner, you have earned that profit; it’s your reward for taking the risks that go with business ownership.

If there’s no profit left over, then there could be a number of problems. This is where accounting professionals can help you review the revenues and expenses in your business and see where things are not adding up.

So far, your paycheck and your profits get you paid twice as an entrepreneur, and that’s the way it should be. But there’s also a third way.

Third: Your Going Concern

A third way to get paid is when you sell your business. There are many things you can do throughout the years to boost your business valuation, and the more you can do that, the higher the proceeds will be from your business.

Financial Success

One of the factors that can increase all three forms of compensation is your financial skillset. Building your financial skills by working with accounting professionals can help you price your goods and services accurately, improve your cash flow, hire employees at the right pay rates, and implement many more financial success factors in your business.

When you’re ready to review your entrepreneur’s paycheck, feel free to call on us for expert financial assistance. 

Filed Under: Blog, Business Development Tagged With: , ,

Planning for an Awesome 2013

January 22, 2013 by Leave a Comment

deskcalendarFor businesses with fiscal years that coincide with the calendar year, the slate of revenues and expenses will be wiped clean on New Year’s Day. Starting with a clean slate gives us a chance to reflect on our 2012 results before we enter 2013 and experience the hope that comes with a new year.

Hindsight is always valuable, and we can learn important lessons from our past challenges that we can now more objectively look back on. We can take those lessons and incorporate them into our plans for the new year so that we can continue to learn, grow, and prosper.

To create your plans for an awesome 2013, here is a list of questions and documents to consider in your business.

Revenue Plan

We can make budgeting more fun by looking at the revenue side first.

  • Are you happy with your 2012 revenue levels?
  • What new product or service lines can you roll out in 2013?
  • Are there any product or service lines you should close in 2013?
  • Should you raise prices?

A revenue plan is useful because it can feed into your annual budget as well as drive your marketing plans.

Staffing Plan

Business is more fun when you have the right team to support your vision.

  • Is your current team sufficient to support your business goals for 2013?
  • In what areas do you need more help? Should you hire or outsource?
  • Are there any team members that are not pulling their weight?
  • Was there a turnover that you would have rather not had? How can you retain your best talent?

Master Budget

Your revenue plan and staffing plan can feed into your master budget, which can be loaded into your accounting system. Tracking actuals against plan and prior year numbers will help you determine how you’re staying on track throughout the year.

Special Projects Plan

What special projects should you consider for 2013? This might include a move, new fixed assets, or replacing systems and processes that you are outgrowing.

Disaster Recovery Plan

Each year, we watch the news and see people and businesses that were affected by extreme weather events, fires, theft, or other disaster. Are you protected?

  • Is all of your data backed up to a remote location that is away from your local area?
  • Do you have the necessary insurance coverage for all areas of your business?
  • Are you comfortable with the risks you are taking in business and are you prepared for the worst-case consequences of those risks? If not, take action to reduce your risks.

Planning for Awesome

Planning helps you become more successful, and it reduces the risks of doing business. There are many more types of plans, and it’s up to you to decide which ones will benefit your business. If we can help out in any way, please reach out and give us a call.

Filed Under: Blog, Business Development

Seven Year-End Adjustments to Make to Your Books

December 26, 2012 by Leave a Comment

accountingspreadsheetYear-end is coming up for many businesses, and it’d be nice to know what your final revenue and profit numbers will be for the year. Before we can calculate these key numbers, there are year-end adjustments that may need to be made to your books that will change the numbers. Here are seven common ones.

Bonuses

It’s great to give bonuses to employees at year-end, but it’s not so great to forget about the tax part of it. Bonus checks should always be run through payroll, but often are not, which requires an adjustment after the fact.

Retirement Plan Contributions

If cash is available at year-end, it’s a great idea to maximize the allowable deductions for the retirement plan you qualify for. One example is a SEP IRA. You can deduct up to 25% of your or your employee’s salary (up to $50,000 deduction maximum per employee for 2012, but please check with us for numerous exceptions and rules.

Withholding

If you are both the owner and an employee of your company and have not made enough tax payments throughout the year to account for all that money you’ve earned in 2012, you can adjust your last few paychecks to withhold the amount you need. Sometimes, this also reduces or eliminates the penalty for underpayment of estimated taxes. To find out more, please check with us.

Depreciation

If you have assets that will last longer than one year, such as factory equipment or a fleet of automobiles, an adjustment may need to be made to reduce the value of those assets. This adjustment will reduce your profit and will also reduce your tax bill.

Amortization

If you have a loan of any type, the payment consists of both principal and interest. Each time you make a payment, the principal and interest amounts can vary. At the beginning of the loan, you pay more interest and less principal. At the end of a loan, it’s reversed. Each payment is different, and if they haven’t been recorded correctly each month, it’s time to make the adjustment so that the loan balance is correct.

New Acquisitions or Obligations

If you’ve made a significant acquisition, such as real estate, buildings, large equipment, or another company, and somehow the transaction did not get properly recorded on your books, then now is the time. Similarly, if you’ve taken on new debt, the new liability needs to be put on the books.

Noncash Transactions

It’s easy to overlook transactions that do not require a cash outlay, but these need to be recorded as well. For example, if you performed consulting services in exchange for a spa gift certificate, this transaction should be reflected in the proper revenue and expense accounts.

Year-End Profit

Once your books are adjusted for all of these changes, you’ll have all the information you need to find out how your business performed for 2012. You can then use your 2012 revenue and profit numbers to set new goals for 2013. 

Filed Under: Blog, Tax Tagged With: ,

Is Your Business Missing an Accounting Skillset?

December 11, 2012 by Leave a Comment

In a small business, the owner ends up wearing many hats to get the product or service delivered, the customers served, and the accounts settled. Within each functional area of a small business, there are even more hats. Although the accounting function might be considered one big hat, there are actually a number of skills that make up “the accounting department” in a small business. Here’s a list to help you understand how it all works together. As you read through it ask yourself how you are covering these functions in your workplace.

Data Entry Clerk

A data entry clerk typically knows how to do a few types of transactions that are routine. Perhaps this is posting timesheets from source documents, inventory transactions, or keying in transactions from one report or system to another. The data entry clerk usually has little or no knowledge of accounting or bookkeeping, and this person will need help when there are exceptions to the routine.

Bookkeeper

The main function of a bookkeeper is to post the transactions and reconcile the accounts of the business. This can include a number of functions and areas:

  1. Invoicing and receipts in the accounts receivable area
  2. Checks and bills in the accounts payable area
  3. Payroll
  4. Inventory
  5. Cash – bank reconciliations and necessary corrections and adjustments
  6. Account analysis
  7. Report preparation, but only to the extent that it rolls up the transactions

Good bookkeepers will know how to work seamlessly with the CPA who is doing the taxes for the small business so that the books are in compliance with regulatory requirements.

Controller

A controller brings in advanced skills beyond bookkeeping, including financial statement preparation and analysis, budgeting and planning, cost control, risk assessment, internal control, segregation of duties, and industry knowledge. A controller can bring valuable financial skills to a small business, and often do so by way of an outsourced part-time controller arrangement.

CFO (Chief Financial Officer)

The CFO is the highest level of accounting executive and is needed for complex strategies such as IPOs and financing for the larger company. A small firm might need CFO-level skills in high growth situations to manage cash flow, debt ratios, and financing options.

Technical Accountant or CPA

Typically, an accountant will have a 4-year degree or a CPA or both. In many states, the word “accountant” is reserved for CPAs. Accountants have both education and experience in a wide variety of specialties, including taxes, auditing, cost accounting, bank financing, financial statement preparation, and more.

Tax Preparer, CPA, or EA (Enrolled Agent)

Typically a tax preparer offers tax planning, preparation, and filing in any or all of these areas:

  1. Federal and state corporate, partnership, nonprofit, or individual tax preparation, filing, and planning
  2. Sales tax compliance and filing
  3. Franchise tax
  4. Payroll tax (although a good bookkeeper, controller, or accountant will know how to do this, too) and year-end requirements (W-2s and 1099s)

Management Advisory Consultant

One of the most overlooked roles an accountant can play in small business is in making process improvements in the way the staff and owner work in their business. Often a management advisory consultant can review how a process is being performed, such as invoicing, and make suggestions on how to speed the process, bill more frequently, or other opportunities that significantly improve the cash condition. The specialized skills of accounting, process knowledge, and software skills enable a management advisory consultant to save money for the business owner in many cases.

Accounting Software Consultant

An accounting software consultant has deep knowledge of one or more accounting software packages and can analyze the needs of the company to match them with the right accounting software.

Accounting Software Trainer

Just like any software package, and perhaps especially with accounting software, it’s not a good idea to guess how to use the software. A software trainer will have in-depth knowledge of the tips and tricks inside the package that will save your bookkeeper (or you) time and money.

Adding Up the Value

The more of these roles you have covered in your business, the more your business will benefit. If you have gaps, it’s likely you’re feeling the missing skillset and having issues around that area.

If we can help you fill any of these gaps, please let us know. We’re at your service. 

Filed Under: Blog, Business Development Tagged With: , ,
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