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Home Base Network Marketing Business For Your Retirement

Sorry that I had to start this article in a very grouchy manner, but my friend someone just come to me last week asking me this questions.

“Jason beside the Online business that you can become rich, is there any other way ?”

“This Internet thing is still not right for me.”

Well, i really hate to say this because it sounds like a old broken record, but sometime it really need to be play for someone, who I think their right brain is still in a coma stage.

There is lots of way to become wealthy of course, the quick, easy or lazy way.

Here are just a few:

1. Inherit Wealth

No work, no sweat, no worries.

The problem? It is hard to get adopted by rich and sickly parents. There are not many of these people around, while this method works.

It only works for a few. If you were one of the blessed, well, you wouldn’t be reading this article or finding ways to get rich. You would be cruising in the Caribbean now.

2. Marry someone who is already incredibly rich.

If you are not married now, hey, there is still time for you to find a wealthy spouse. But that’s not the subject of this article, as again, this is a way to wealth that few can do. Talking about Hollywood maybe you can go there and try your luck.

3. Hit it big in the stock market.

Your shares will double and triple in price. However, there is a problem. You have to already be rich to buy lots of stock and yes, there is always a catch in the stock market.But my friend this is a rich man game, high risk, high return, are you game enough to take the risk?

4. Win the lottery

I seen lot’s of people doing that, some even put 10 to 20% of their wages on that. But the math experts already know the truth: “The lottery is a voluntary tax on people who are really bad at math.” You are about 100 times more likely to be struck by lightning than to win the lottery. To put that into perspective, the odds are that you had to be struck by lightning 100 times before winning the lottery.My goodness out of a million numbers there is only one and after struck by lightning for a hundred times do you really feel like going out and having a good time spending your lottery money?

Lottery is entertainment, a reason to watch television or news paper to check if your number won a dollar or two. Play the lottery for fun, don’t use it for your primary investment.

5. Write a hit song or sing a hit song

I can’t sing. In fact, I can barely hum. If you are one of those rare individuals with superstar musical talent….go for it! Use that talent. Go for American idol make a million or two and enjoy. However, this article is not about writing hit songs. So if you are like me and can’t hold a tune, relax. There are plenty of other ways to financial independence.

And how About writing that great romance novel ?

Well, that is also a way to financial wealth, but a very rare way. Very few people are able to take this path.

Well, if these well-known ways to wealth won’t work for most of us, then how do average people become wealthy?

How you can leverage on technology and people for your business.

Ok, listen the first way to increase your income and build your investment fund is to have your money work for you. And, as we have seen, there are several ways to accumulate the money you need to get your investment fund started.

The second way to build your investment fast is through the principle of LEVERAGE on other people’s efforts and technology to help you accumulate and build your investment fund faster.

Here’s how to use people leverage in your business.

As the only employee of your business, you are limited to how many projects you can do in one day with only two hands and 8 hours. If you want to earn more money is by increasing the numbers of projects you can do, then you have to hire worker or helper.

Maybe you decide to pay your employee $20 for every project he or she do. Since you charge your customer $30 for every project, you now make an extra of $10 whenever your employee finished a project for you.

The more people you hire, you have more project in hand and the more money you make. This is what we mean by leveraging your time and effort through other people.

Do you have to hire more employees and use this leverage principle?

This is just another method to build your investment fund. Having extra options and choices are always nice.

Whenever you start a business you can use this people leveraging principle to quickly build your investment fund. However, many people won’t use this means of leveraging because:

1. They don’t want employee headaches

2. They want to keep their business small and manageable.

3. They don’t want to be responsible for overseeing other people.

4. They don’t want the paperwork and insurance headaches, etc.

If this method of people leveraging doesn’t appeal to you, there is yet another way to leverage your efforts.

Most people do network marketing every day, but they just don’t get paid for it.

You see, network marketing is nothing more than recommending and promoting what you like. If you are like most people, you recommend and promote:

Like when you watch a nice movie, will you tell your friend? Or sports team, restaurants, funny joke and the list go on…….

Since you recommend and promote daily, why not get paid for it, right?

Or you can continue recommending and promoting for free. Free isn’t bad. Charity work makes the world a better place. But if you are tired of working for free and want to join some smart entrepreneurs who get an extra income in their mailbox every month, you will want to check out internet network marketing.

Theses companies will actually pay you for recommending and promoting their goods or services. Instead of spending money on television advertising or newspaper ads, these companies rely on word of mouth promotion.

Think about it. Which long distance services promoted on television by an actor you didn’t like it? Or the long distance service recommended by your mother or your best friend, you felt it’s no good ?

Thousands of different goods and services are promoted through network marketing. Word of mouth advertising is powerful. Traditional media doesn’t stand a chance against a trusted friend’s recommendation.

So how does the people leverage principle fit into network marketing and technology?

Think of network marketing as a family tree or genealogy. Companies that use network marketing to distribute their goods and services not only pay you telling other people, but also when the people you tell go out and tell other people, etc, etc…… In other words, you could tell A who tells B, who tells C, who tells D and so on, and you could earn a monthly bonus check on all of their usage and sales.

That’s people leveraging at work.

And if you can tell the whole world about your product or services, you will be doing business world wide. Let’s say you have a relative who stay in a different states or your brother who is now living in Canada, maybe in Asia. How can you show him or her about your great opportunity and product? You don’t have to travel to them, use your computer.

The Internet.

In every field, from health insurance to electronics, from education to stock trading to home buying, more than 50 percent of American consumers are already going into the Internet, it’s so convenient now that we can call and see each other on the computer or even sent an instant message and picture by hiting on our enter key on our keyboard. Don’t be a “dinosaur” if you read my last article:

The Home Base Business of W=P x T you will know what I’m talking about.

I know of some people who use their network marketing income to accelerate their investment fund. In some cases, their part time network marketing income exceeded the income from their regular job so they decided to make network marketing their full time profession.

Over five million people are already collecting an extra income from their part time network marketing business in the United States alone, but the internet population is bigger than the population of China and India added together.

Since you are already recommending and promoting what you like, shouldn’t you consider getting paid for too?

Internet network marketing is one of the fastest ways to a quick retirement, this is important especially if you are at 45 to 50 years old and don’t have a lot of time for your money to earn compound interest. So if you are no longer young, don’t panic. Network marketing can help you catch up your investment fund in hurry and if you are in your 30’s get ready to retire young and rich.

That’s why I like network marketing.

To the top.

Role of MIS in Business Management

Despite the vast improvements in information technology, computers (on which modern IT is based) cannot as yet take over business management. However, business information systems have transformed the effectiveness, power and efficiency of management.

In an earlier article on business management software, we looked at surface aspects of how modern management information systems help businesses. We saw how computers sped up and improved the quality of operations. We also mentioned the existence of broad categories of business software – office suites, functional software such as accounting and inventory, and industry software such as retail management software. In this article, we seek to look more analytically at the role of information management systems.

Decision Support, Problem Analysis and Overall Control

Business managers often need to make decisions that can affect the business’ fortunes one way or other. For example, a company with sales outlets or distributors spread over a wide geographic area might want to optimize the logistical operations of delivering merchandise to the outlets. The best solution might be affected by numerous factors such as demand patterns, availability of merchandise, distances involved and the option of using external carriers (who can find two way loads and might prove a lesser cost option over long distances) instead of own vehicles.

While it might be possible to use complex mathematical formulas by hand to compute the best solution, computers transform the whole process into a routine task of feeding certain information as input and obtaining suggestions for best solutions as output. The task can typically be done in a few minutes (instead of hours or even days) and it becomes possible to examine several alternatives before deciding upon one that seems most realistic.

Identifying problems and analyzing the factors that cause them also has been transformed by modern computer information systems. In a typical MIS environment, standard reports are generated in a routine manner comparing actual performance against original estimates. The software that generates the report can be instructed to highlight exceptions, i.e. significant variations between original estimates and actual performance. Managers will thus become aware of problem areas in the daily course of their work simply by looking at the reports they receive, without having to do detailed data collection and computations themselves.

Identifying the factors responsible for the problem can also be routinized to some extent by using such tools as variance analysis. Variance analysis is an element of standard costing system that splits deviations from estimates (or standards) into causative factors such as increase in price of materials used, excessive usage of materials, unexpected machine downtimes, etc. With such a detailed report, managers can delve deeper into the problem factor, such as why there was excessive usage of materials.

Control is also exercised through variance analysis. Budgets are prepared for all business operations by concerned managers working in a coordinated fashion. For example, estimated sales volumes will determine the levels of production; production levels will determine raw material purchases; and so on. With good information system management, it then becomes possible to generate timely reports comparing actual sales, production, raw material deliveries, etc against estimated levels.

The reports will help managers to keep a watch on things and take corrective action quickly. For example, the production manager will become aware of falling sales (or rising sales) of particular products and can prepare to make adjustments in production schedules, and purchasing and inventory managers will become quickly aware of any mounting inventories of unused materials. MIS thus enhances the quality of communication all around and can significantly improve the effectiveness of operations control.

Effective MIS Involves Humans and Computers Working together

The major aspect to note is that MIS provides only the information; it is the responsibility of concerned managers to act on the information. It is the synergy between efficient, accurate and speedy equipment and humans with commonsense, intelligence and judgment that really gives power to MIS.

The Forms of Business Risks and Practical Ways of Managing Them

Business risks are the likely dangers that a business enterprise may encounter if preventive measures or safety precautions are not put in place to avoid them. When an enterprise experiences a particular business risk, the entrepreneur should not point finger at witches, ghosts or enemies. They happen as a result of poor planning and failure to set out measures in managing these risks. There are two main types of risks that a business enterprise is likely to face.

These are Direct risks and Indirect Risks.

1. Direct risks- This is a type of business risk that could entirely collapse a business enterprise. They directly affect the enterprise and halts down all of its business activities. Due to the severity of direct risks, entrepreneurs should set out preventive measures of curtailing them. Examples of direct risks include theft, fire, bankruptcy, misuse of capital through irresponsible expenses etc.

2. Indirect risks- This type of business risk slowly causes the collapse of the enterprise. If extreme care is not taken, it can be hidden from entrepreneurs. Like a slow poison, indirect risks if left unchecked can ruin a business enterprise. They are quite difficult to control and account for greater portion of business losses. Examples of indirect risks are lack of sales due to faulty or low quality products, wrong business locations, currency inflation, introduction of new taxes, changes in labour laws etc.

Business risks whether direct or indirect can be managed or controlled. The entrepreneur should be very vigilant and alert in his supervisory role. There should be regular or routine check of stocks and finished products. Only the entrepreneur cannot do this work. An accountant or book keeper should be employed and assigned to check the accounts of the business every month or even daily depending on the size of the enterprise or the rate of purchase of products.

Also, the entrepreneur has to increase vigilance and security by beaming up the security such as employing security personnel and installing security devices. These measures would help minimize or entirely stop the cases of theft.

Most of the fire outbreaks that occur in the enterprises are as a result of faulty electrical connections and appliances. The entrepreneur must employ a qualified electrician to do all the electrical connections or wiring in the enterprise. He has to replace all weak or faulty wires and other electrical appliances to avoid the likelihood of fire outbreak.

Low sales and patronage of the products of an enterprise can be as a result of several factors. Paramount among these is due to the low quality nature of the products and wrong business location. The entrepreneur must undertake training for his staff members while constantly checking for product quality. He has to use quality and durable materials for the manufacture of his products. Furthermore, if wrong business location is causing the drop in sales of products, the entrepreneur should relocate the business to a more promising area where there would be high patronage for his products.

Inflation and constant changes in labour laws can affect the success of a business enterprise. An entrepreneur should be always alert to these changes. He can do this by keeping in touch with the relevant ministries to know what new changes have been planned that may affect one’s business.

It takes a great deal of time and efforts for entrepreneurs to set up enterprises. Owing to this, they must vigilantly guard against any internal or external dangers that might result in their collapse. Identifying and controlling potential threats to businesses is the guaranteed way to succeed.

5 Tips For Starting Your Own Internet Network Marketing Business

It’s powerful. It effective. It can explode your business. So what is an internet network marketing business anyways? The name internet network marketing is a a combination of two industries – internet marketing, a term used for marketing a product or business on the internet and network marketing, a term used for marketing a product or opportunity using word-of-mouth.

If you have been in network marketing for any length of time you have probably had someone in your upline tell you that there is no possible way to build a successful network marketing business online and that they only way to do it is to make a list of everyone you know on planet earth, call them and offer them the chance to partner with you in your business opportunity. Well this is one way to do it but doing it this way also limits your access to pool of resources that can help you build your network marketing business faster and with less rejection if you know how to do it properly!

Now we all know that social media is HOT, HOT, HOT!! I mean smoking HOT! You may be wondering if you can actually build your network marketing business on the internet when all you’ve ever been taught was how to take to your warm market and pass out fliers at the mall.

Well, I am going to show you what it takes to start succeeding in your internet network marketing business, how to do it right, and how to utilize the internet to ATTRACT people who already know about network marketing, want to the the best at it, understand the power of it and are willing to work for it.

Ask yourself this question…Isn’t the best person to recruit into your network marketing business someone who WANTS to succeed?

5 Steps For Starting Your Internet Network Marketing Business

1. Set Up a Blog!

This is the hub, your headquarters online. This is where you craft and distribute all of the content you create online. I highly recommend you use a self-hosted WordPress blog. Why? With a WordPress blog you own your content and since you are in business for yourself don’t you think you should own your own content? I mean you can get a free blogger or WordPress.com blog BUT this means that they can remove your content if you violate any of their terms or policies.

So if you are a serious internet network marketer the best move is to get a domain name from sites like godaddy.com and set up hosting through a webhosting service such as hostgator. It is inexpensive, it’s professional and it is customizable. You can build your blog anyway you like.

A blog is the very best way to get found on Google and the other search engines, it’s the best way to build an interactive community of people who share similar interest and it is easy to integrate with social media which can make your blog VIRAL for even more traffic.

2. Create Quality Content

What do want to learn as a network marketing building your business online? What challenges do you face getting traffic, generating leads or making sales? What strategies and tips have you learned that you know other marketers would love to get their hands on so they can start seeing the results they want? If you can stay in tune to what people need to know and the solutions they are looking for you will become a valuable asset not only to your business but to others as well.

For example, one of the biggest challenges in building an internet network marketing business is how to generate leads. Learn about how to overcome the lack of leads and share what you learn on your blog. By helping other marketers solve this issue you are becoming an authority on the topic and you will begin to ATTRACT people to you who want to learn from you and possibly partner with you in business.

3. Drive Traffic To Your Content

So what do you do with the quality content you create. You SHARE it! Use social media, forums, and other sites to drive traffic to your blog. You can share your links on Facebook, Twitter, social bookmarking sites such a StumbleUpon and Delicious. Start following people within your niche that share your same interests so you can start driving them to your site.

4. Build Your Mailing List

Use autoresponder software, such as AWeber or iContact, to start generating leads for your business. When a person takes the time to put their contact details in to your opt-in box, then you know that they want to learn more (or maybe they just want that free gift). You can continue to send them follow-up emails, tips, and training through your autoresponder to build relationship with them. Take a look at the layout of my blog to see how many opportunities my readers have to opt in to my mailing list if they are interested in learning more about internet network marketing. By building a substantial list you have the chance to recruit people into your business as you continue to build trust with them.

5. Be Consistent

Maybe the most important of them all -BE CONSISTENT. So many times people quit before they really breakthrough in their internet network marketing business because they are not consistent in their daily marketing routine. They don’t see the massive results they expect or “see” others getting so they give up too quickly. When you are consistent you are dedicated to the entire process of building a successful business online, that means that it takes time, hard work and simple implementation. Building an internet network marketing business is not easy but it is simple. Stay the course and the rewards will be more than you could have ever imagined!

Top 10 Tips to Create A Business Plan! (For People Who Hate Business Plans)

One of the key challenges for any business is to remain focused and invest resources for maximum pay-off. It’s said that 80% of a business’s activity accounts for only 20% of total profits. In plain language, most of the work we do is unfocused, poorly designed and ineffective. In today’s competitive world, no business, whether it’s an individual professional or a large manufacturing operation, can survive with that much lost time and wasted effort. A business plan can help, but most small business owners (and some managers/supervisors) hate doing them! In the spirit that any map is better than no map, here are my top ten keys to creating your own map to success:

1. Have a dream. This sounds simple and obvious, but answering the questions: “Why am I doing this? What’s the big picture?” can lead to profound changes in many organizations. Too often in the daily grind, we forget to think about where we want to go, or why we started the business or took the job in the first place.

2. Make the dream bigger. What if the whole world bought your products or loved your service? What would it mean if your profits, or your personal income were 10 times greater? How about 100, or 1000 times greater? What shifts in focus would that require? Would your daily routine change? Would you spend your time and energy on different problems, attend to different priorities? Why wait?

3. Make the dream clearer. Have a precise description of exactly what you want and hang it in your office, in the employee lunch room, in the restrooms, and on the dash of your car. Use key words, phrases, a photograph of your future office building or whatever symbol will crystallize the dream and make it real for you and for every member of your team

4. List 100 obstacles that will get in your way. Enlist staff, friends, competitors to help. Ask your customers to join with you in looking for the roadblocks, blindspots and bottlenecks that prevent you from growing. Make it a matter of personal pride to never have a problem pop up that you haven’t already considered.

5. List 1000 solutions, 10 for each potential problem. The key here is creativity, flexibility, and responding instantly when the unexpected happens. Expect the unexpected, and have a file of alternative solutions at your finger tips. It’s called contingency planning. Do it!

6. Get tons of advice. Have your accountant, your attorney, your insurance agent, your spouse and your cousin take a look at this. If you can’t explain it to them, will you be able to explain it to your staff? If these people don’t understand and support your plan, will you be able to maintain your own enthusiasm over the long haul?

7. Get GOOD advice. After explaining your dream and your plan to lots of people, sit down with a handful of those you trust the most, and pay them to give you their best feedback. Lots of people can give you technical advice, expert advice, and even friendly advice. Wisdom is more important, and harder to find.

8. Create the path of least resistance. Using the dream as your goal, and knowing the obstacles that could get in your way, begin mapping your way through the wilderness to your destination. What’s the easiest, most direct, route? What’s the safest route? Which combination of activities and priorities makes the most sense?

9. Take action. Once you know where you want to go and have a path to get there, start walking! Too many managers put their business plan into a nice file folder that is never looked at because they are too busy working “hard.” Instead, use your efforts and your plan together so that your effort is focused, productive and smart!

10. Re-assess often. Just as someone hiking across barren territory needs to periodically stop and check their map and compass to avoid walking in circles, business owners and managers need to check their direction and their priorities. Conditions change. Opportunities pop up or disappear, new problems arrive or the nature of the dream changes. All of these things will happen. Plan for it! Regularly step outside your business to re-assess and redefine your most important tasks. You can’t afford to spend 80% of your effort in busywork and unprofitable distractions. Re-assess and stay on course.

Vending Machine Business Record Keeping Basics

Keeping good records of the status of each of your vending machines when you service them is both a critical and very easy practice. Even for those who strongly dislike record keeping and struggle with the practice, the process is not overly taxing. The benefits, after all, far outweigh the small inconvenience that it presents. After all, by keeping records, you will be able to see how you are doing over time so you will know exactly which machines are offering the best performance, how many of what product is being sold, and what profits you can anticipate in the weeks and months to come.

As a business owner, this is information that you need. With even the most basic record keeping, you will have a much more thorough understanding of your business and how it is doing from one machine to the next. This allows you to continue what you are doing right with some machines, and consider the relocation of other machines that just aren’t performing as they should be.

That being said, you will also greatly appreciate your efforts to keep accurate records when tax time comes around. Nothing is more painful than trying to scrounge together exact numbers from records that are either sketchy or non-existent.

The two kinds of records that you will want to consistently maintain within your vending machine business are a basic ledger and a report of all of the locations on your route. The basic ledger is essentially your general bookkeeping. It should document all of the income and expenses totaled from all of the locations on your route. You can do this on paper, but it is much easier and faster if you use a simple bookkeeping program on your computer. If you save all of your receipts and keep a good route report, you will be able to update your ledger quickly and easily each time you complete a service route.

While on your service route, you should keep a record of the status of all of your machines at each location. Each machine should have its own page where you take notes from each servicing. This way, you will be able to flip to the page for any given machine to observe its performance including expenses, income, the placement of products, and the popularity of each of the products.

When your business is still small enough for you to do all of the routes yourself, you will be responsible for all of the record keeping for both the ledger and the route. However, once your business gets large enough that you need to hire someone to run some or all of your routes for you, you will need to make sure that that individual is also keeping the detailed, accurate records that you need to make all the difference in understanding the success of your business.

The same thing goes if you wish to hire a bookkeeper to keep track of all of the income, expenses, and other data collected by the people running your service routes for you. The trick is to make sure that these records never fall behind, that they are always complete, and that they are always accurate.

Do not forget to actually use the information that you have collected. Keeping records is only a practical process when you examine and analyze the data that has been collected. Keep a close eye on the performance of each of your machines so that you always know where attention is needed.

The 5 Essential Financial Reports You Should Be Asking For in Your Business

A question I often get asked from my business owner clients is “what reports should I be asking for so that I can keep my finger on the pulse on my business”.

Now this does differ slightly from business to business. For example, if you are a retail shop, then you’re going to automatically have daily figures available to you as part of your normal process. However most businesses should be asking for weekly, monthly and quarterly reports.

WHY I NEED TO READ REPORTS!

Before I go through the reports in detail, I know that a lot of people don’t like looking at the figures in their business. And usually this is because they don’t know what it is that they’re looking for. So usually then their accountant or bookkeeper (or receptionist!) gives them a monthly report, they glance at while holding their breath, and then either breathe a sigh of relief if it shows a profit, or they grimace and swear when it shows a loss. But usually by the time they’ve got this report, it’s already too late. The financial status of your business should be at the forefront of your mind every day- not something that you look at once or twice a year when you run out of cash.

REPORT FREQUENCY

The first thing to decide is how frequently you need to see reports. I suggest a minimum of monthly, if not weekly. This can sometimes depend on whether you have a full time accounts person, or whether they only come in once a month.

TOP TIP: DO A YEAR END EACH MONTH

To help you know what’s going on in your business, one of the first things to implement into your business is a culture of having a year end every month. By that I mean… you want to ensure that every revenue figure and expense if recorded according to the month that it’s incurred. If you insist on this type of culture, you will start to receive accurate figures. So think end of year each month and close off all financial data for each month. That way you know that your reports fully reflect the state of your business and you get accurate profit and loss reporting and it can help you to identify trends in your cash flow.

With regards to reporting, if you have a full time person looking after your reports, you should be having a weekly meeting with them to review reports. To make this process easy for you, refer to the ‘Essential Financial Management Templates’ workbook which you can purchase from our website. This workbook has a standard financial meeting agenda that will help you to guide your meeting so that it’s both effective and efficient.

When you are meeting with your accounts person, you want to ensure that you have all the reports up front -before your meeting – so that you have time to go through them and highlight any discrepancies that you can then address during the meeting.

YOUR WEEKLY REPORT PACK

So what information do you need to know if your business is doing well or not? Well your weekly report pack should consist of the following five reports (by the way, a sample copy of each of these reports is also included in the workbook that I mentioned before):

1) A Profit and Loss – this should be provided weekly (if you’re meeting weekly) as well as a Month to Date and a Year to Date report. So that’s actually three reports in total!

2) From there, you would request a copy of your Aged Payables. This report shows a list of all the people that you owe money to, and when it’s due – or if its overdue. If there are any amounts that exceed your suppliers trading terms, you want to know why. If it’s because of cash flow, you then look at your cash flow analysis report to see when they will be paid. To maintain a great relationship with your supplier, you then need to communicate this with them.

3) Another essential report is your Aged Receivables. This is where you can clearly see who owes you money and if they have any amounts outstanding to you. This allows you to follow up on collections way before it becomes overdue. As part of your financial management systems, you should have a standard follow up system. For example – if a client has exceeded their trading terms by 7 days, what happens – do you follow up with a quick phone call to check that they’ve received the invoice. If its 14 days – what happens – and so on.

If you refer to the ‘Essential Financial Management Templates’ workbook that I mentioned before, there’s also a list of demand letters designed to help you when you need to be a little more serious about collecting. But once again, Aged Receivables is essential because you need to see when your money is coming in – so that you can pay your suppliers and employees their wages without having to dip into your own personal cash reserves.

4) This brings me to the next report – a Cash flow analysis. This report should be put together by your bookkeeper and outlines when money is coming in and when it is going out. You can then see if there are any shortfalls so that you can make plans in advance to get this covered. It may be that you need to transfer monies from another account – or it may be that you chase outstanding payments. What you don’t want is to find out when you go to transfer the money is that there’s nothing in the account!

Believe it or not, this is often the most under-utilized financial report – and yet it’s the most important. You wouldn’t believe how many bookkeepers or accounts people don’t do them either. It’s not so much that it’s difficult to produce, but it’s a working document which means that it needs to be regularly updated. But persist with this one, even if your accounts people try a mini revolt over it, because it’s a life saver for your business.

The ‘Essential Financial Management Templates’ workbook that I referred to previously that’s found on our website contains a fantastic cash flow analysis report that will save you and your team a lot of time.

5) The other essential report to have is the Bank Reconciliation. If your bookkeeper is full time, then they can do this weekly by using the online reports from your bank. If its monthly, then they will need to wait for the bank statement to arrive from the bank before they can finalise. However, keep on top of them for this – this report shows that the necessary process has been done to ensure that the month end has been closed off and that the cash in bank and any other payments or receipts are accounted for. Basically a bank reconciliation is done so that its guaranteed that your amounts coming into and out of your bank account are accurately reflected in your accounting software package.

WORKING WITH YOUR ACCOUNTANT

I would also recommend requesting that your financial controller automatically sends a copy of your monthly reports to your accountant. This way your accountant can see where you’re headed from month to month. Depending on the size of your business, you could then establish regular meetings with your accountant – whether it’s monthly or quarterly – to discuss those reports and your financial plans for the coming month.

Once you are receiving these reports regularly, you will find that you become much more empowered in your business and your finger is never far from the pulse!

Are There Any Differences Between An Entrepreneur And A Small Business Owner?

We use the terms entrepreneur and small business owner interchangeably. Are they the same or are there any differences? I decided to do some research to get answers to these questions. My findings say an entrepreneur and a small business owner (SBO) are not the same; therefore, we cannot use the titles synonymously.

Although you start out as a small business owner, somewhere along the way you either remain a SBO or you become an entrepreneur. If you are contented with earning enough profits to live a comfortable life and keep your business afloat, chances are you are a small business owner. This type of income replaces your income stream, which you earned from traditional employment. You really are not interested in growing or expanding your business. More than likely you will keep the business in your family.

Maybe you are not satisfied with the status quo, and you are very ambitious and have the drive to go beyond just surviving. You would fit the definition of an entrepreneur. You will take more risks. Entrepreneurs enjoy learning through growing and expanding their businesses. Some establish businesses for the purpose of resale after realizing a certain amount of wealth. It may take a lifetime for a small business owner to earn wealth compared to approximately five years for a successful entrepreneur.

Another difference is how innovative are you. Small business owners are not the type to “think out the box”; whereas, entrepreneurs come up with new ideas, innovations, and products, as well as construct creative, strategic marketing plans.

If you are the type who works in their business, you would be considered to be a small business owner. You are more repetitive. On the other hand, if you tend to strategically work on your business, evolving it, change target markets, if necessary, you are an entrepreneur. As a SBO, you tend to not change markets. In addition, your markets may be more general when compared with entrepreneurs who target markets are more focused.

In regards to staffing, if you are a small business owner, you may have employees, which would involve having to pay employee-related expenses; such as, benefits and taxes. As an entrepreneur, you may choose to work with independent contractors rather than having employees work for you.

There are some of you who tend to have characteristics of both groups. For example, as an entrepreneur, you may choose to keep the business in your family, just like a small business owner, rather than selling it. In addition to having this in common, there are similarities in operating your businesses. Both of you have to do some degree of advertising and marketing, as well as daily administrative functions.

Overall, a notable difference is as a small business owner, you tend to need motivation; whereas, if you can be described as an entrepreneur, you are fuelled by ambition, drive and inspiration. Although similarities exist among the two groups, according to my research findings, the two terms are not interchangeable, and there are significant differences.

Bookkeeping For Your Catering Business

Bookkeeping for your catering business involves using an accounting program like quick book, profit and loss statement etc that shows your business transactions up-to-date. There are many types of bookkeeping records. You need to select the type that is most suitable for you. It is also essential to gain knowledge about sales tax and payrolls in order to maintain proper bookkeeping.

Bookkeeping for your catering business consists of recording prime business transactions of income, purchases and sales. If your business is small and just growing, then you need to make entries for day today financial transactions and turnover. It is essential to appoint an accountant or bookkeeper to make these entries. If your catering business is a large one, then you need to use separate accounting software. It is also essential to maintain proper bookkeeping for the value of services sold to the customers and the value of stocks bought from the suppliers.

If you are a small owner running a business and want to maintain proper bookkeeping for your catering business, then bookkeeping software tool is an excellent option to record your daily financial activity. You need to just enter your daily cash or bank payment and receipt transactions in the software. This is simple and affordable. This also enables you to view transaction report, sales report, income and expenses statement and so on. This software provides you bar chart of your net income and expenses every month. This helps you to track your catering business progress frequently.

If you want to earn more profit in your catering business, then you need to control food cost. The best way to control cost for your catering business is to keep exquisite bookkeeping records. The bookkeeping for your catering business helps to track inventory, identify shrinkage problems, track your receiving and audit your pricing. A food-costing program based on these bookkeeping records can help you save lot of money and to run the business successfully.

Bookkeeping for your catering business is not difficult but may be time consuming. In fact, bookkeeping helps you to fix the correct price. You need to fix the price of your food item after considering material expenses, overhead, labor expenses plus certain percentage of profit. Materials include the raw materials like vegetables, fish, and chicken and so on. Overhead expenses include gas expenses, utility bills, rent etc. Labor expenses include salary to chef, other staffs etc.

Fixing the price for your food product is not easy. It is an art that requires a certain amount of skill and knowledge. Proper bookkeeping helps you track fluctuations in price levels and to fix correct price. One of the factors that lead to the success of catering business is proper record keeping.

If bookkeeping for your catering business is excellent, then you will not face any problems during tax payment. Again, records in bookkeeping help you track seasonal trends. This helps you to make better decisions and pre-organize events properly. In short, a good bookkeeping can save lot of time, money and effort and increase your profit. It also makes your business better organized.

Business Blogging – How to Increase Visibility & Credibility by Blogging About Your Online Business

Marketing your online business by blogging on a daily basis will enable you to increase your visibility and gain credibility very quickly on the internet. Blogging is the very best way to let people know who you are and what you by giving them this information in your blog posts.

Blogging has come a long way since it was first around five years ago. People were blogging back then to keep an online diary of what they were doing. Blogs were more of a personal account of what someone was thinking and planning in their personal life. Blogs became known as ways to write on the internet without having any real use for business.

Very quickly the savvy marketers online saw the possibilities for having a blog. Overnight during these first few years, blogs sprang up everywhere, becoming more business in nature and offering a variety of products and services for sale. New blogging platforms were also available, giving people the option to own their own blog by using the Typepad or hosted WordPress option. No longer were people held hostage by the free blogging services, which could shut down your blog on a whim.

These days many people are using a blog instead of a website. The ease of posting and making changes to a blog versus having to write html code and upload all changes to a server make blogs the logical choice for business use.

It is important to post every day for the first four to six weeks of starting your blog. I refer to this as power blogging, and teach the concept to my students. This enables you to quickly gain ranking in the search engines, allowing more people to find you easily. You must also determine the keywords that you will be focusing on. By using these keywords in your blog post titles, it is much more likely that your blog will rank highly for those terms.

Also, make sure that you have a way to capture the name and email address of anyone who visits your site. The way to do this is to install an opt in box in the upper right hand corner, and offering a free gift to anyone who signs up. This free gift can be a short report, an audio recording, a consultation with you, or anything else that people in your market would consider to be valuable. This will help you to begin building your list so that you can offer these prospects more products and services over a period of time.

I also include a resource page on my blog, where I can recommend products and services that I endorse. These are all listed with my affiliate link, allowing me to earn money each time someone makes a purchase. I do this in my posts as well, but only about once a week. The remainder of my posts are filled with useful and helpful information on my topic. I encourage you to do the same thing so that your readers will come to know and trust you as you grow your online business.