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There was a time when small businesses could run their operations with little to no book keeping or accounting practices. But with more and more people leaving their 9 – 5 job and opting to take their chances running their own small business either from home or an office is driving the demand for accounting programs. Countries all over the world are reporting an increase in small business and these small business help make up a countries GDP thus helping fuel their economies. The need for accounting programs for small business has never been greater as it is today, in fact most businesses can not get away with not having some sort of accounting program in place, to help run the day to day finances of their businesses.

Each business is different in regards to accounting needs. Some businesses choose to outsource most of its accounting duties during tax season while others have accounting programs ranging from simplistic accounting programs to advanced accounting programs. Stricter government regulations over the years have made it mandatory for all businesses to properly file and abide to accounting regulations in place.. It is imperative that a businesses accounting program is up to par in doing so and can sometimes mean the success or failure of your business.

One of the more simple programs ion the market today is Microsoft Money. This program is pre-installed on most PC’s manufactured today and its simplistic interface is the main reason it is such a hit for individuals and small businesses that choose to use this accounting program. As far as small businesses are concerned Microsoft Money can might be able to meet your accounting needs but be aware that the program is geared towards personal finance. However Microsoft does offers a version that is catered to the small business called Microsoft Money Small business 2006.

There is also the accounting program Quick Books which is geared towards the small to medium sized business and is much more advanced then Microsoft money. This program is designed by a company called Intuit, that offers free support when you purchase their product which may come in handy as not all accounting programs offer the level of support you will receive from Intuit. Quick Books allows you to tailor reports and the interface to suit your companies needs and help streamline your business accounting. It will also set up all your files and prepare them for the year end tax season, this accounting program is defiantly the accounting program of choice for many small business.

With the number of accounting programs out there its not very difficult to choose the program that will best suit your accounting needs If you’re a startup operating out of your basement or you are a medium sized business with hundreds of employees worldwide there is an accounting program that will help your business comply with government regulations and accounting policies.

By: Ian Henman

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Business News Alert! Relationships are the key to success in any business endeavor.

All right, I’ll admit, not exactly a story for the 9 o’clock news. However, I do believe that it is true, nonetheless. In fact, when one considers what the essentials are for success in life, as well as business, the type of relationships you build and maintain should be at the top of the list. If you don’t get that aspect of your business right, your chances of being a leader in your industry, much less a major player are pretty slim. It may just be common sense, but after all, regardless of the type of business or industry you’re in, how well you get along with people will be a big determining factor of how well you succeed.

If you are a networker, or involved in internet marketing in any way, you know that you can’t do it totally alone, so it should come as no surprise that the advice is even more relevant. Not only is it how well you get along with people in general, but we can expand that specifically to how you build relationships with the right people, that can further your career and/or income potential.

Look for positive thinking, and positive environment people, and find out what kind of relationship you can develop with them, regardless of whether they’re inside your industry or outside of it. If you already have a relationship, learn how to make it stronger, and more beneficial for both of you. Depend on your strengths.

What it all boils down to is, the better your relationships with those that are a positive influence on you, the more likely your chance for business success.

By: Jack Koetting

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The best way to shop for a protection plan is to get free online insurance quotes. It not only saves your time, but also saves efforts of making calls to several companies.

There are several online companies that offer free quotes. All you have to do is search a relevant website and submit basic information about yourself to get policy quotes.

Some Benefits Of Using The Internet For Getting Insurance Quotes Are:

It Saves Time

Time is money. You can save a lot of time if you get policy quotes through an online company. You will just need to spend around 10 minutes to submit the required information. The company will process your information and send quotes as per your requirements within a reasonable time. So, with the availability of policy quotes, you do not have to make several calls to your insurance agent or company for getting rates and terms of different policies.

They Are Free

Whether you need a health insurance, life insurance, or auto insurance, you can get free quotes for them online. Most companies do not charge anything for the quotes. Hence asking for policy quotes is a wise decision, which will help you choose the right protection cover.

It Helps In Easy Comparison

Since the Internet provides you with lots of policy quotes with detailed description about the plans and their terms and conditions, it helps you in easily comparing them. Getting such details through an agent or company is quite difficult.

It Helps You Make The Right Decision

Insurance agents are often quite persuasive and try to sell certain plans through which they can make great profits. However, this is not the case with online policy quotes. You get quotes for as many plans as possible that suit your requirements. Also, there is no one to give you biased opinions. This helps you identify the right protection plan.

You Can Get Information When You Need

If you are a busy person and need information regarding insurance plans in the middle of the night, it is possible with online policy quotes. You can access information anytime, 24 x 7.

You should do some homework before requesting the policy quotes to make the best use of them. For example, if you want auto insurance, you should decide the type of cover you want to buy, the extent of cover, and how much you are willing to spend on premiums. You should make these decisions keeping in mind the minimum liability cover in your state, your income, number of dependents, and type and extent of medical insurance you have. If you keep these little points in mind while requesting quotes, the online firm will be able to send quotes of the covers that will best meet your needs. Also, you should ensure that you are approaching a reliable company that does not fool you around.

Free online policy quotes can greatly help you figure out the best and cheap policy but you should check the credentials of the company through the insurance department of your state before buying the policy.

By: Patrick Spenser Sharp

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The economic meltdown is revealing itself to be a series of events set off like dominoes cascading to their demise. The latest to fall informs us of issues regarding home foreclosures. Not only did foreclosures hit a record high in September 2010 but public awareness also peaked with inquiry into potential errors on the part of the banks.

I am not an expert on this subject but from recent study will attempt to give a basic overview of this vital personal-finance issue. Dubbed “foreclosure-gate” and “fraudclosure”, banks are “under the gun” by light that shines on their mortgage-banking practices. Due to reports of “robo”signers” (signing foreclosure documents without actually reading them), several large banks initiated temporary document-processing freezes.

A technical procedural misstep would be bad enough but, in fact, the robo-signing at issue diverts attention from the elephant in the board room: Systemic flaws.

The banking industry’s full-court-press homeownership advertising campaign of the early 2000′ lured countless Americans to become “true believers”. The mantra of “real estate would only go up” seemed to hypnotize the masses. Millions threw caution to the wind to exploit the real-estate gold rush.

On the front end, real estate agents and mortgage brokers gladly racked up larger-than-ever commissions and sometimes under-the-table lender bonuses; turning a blind eye to inflated income levels, fake home appraisals and other lies inserted in to mortgage underwriting documents. In turn, word on the street was “all systems go” to those who otherwise would never qualify for a loan.

The rest is history.

Time has proven that many of these financial products were really designed to benefit the financial sector, not the little guy. Wall Street bankers developed them while the government permitted them; a joyous joint venture!

Most real estate professionals knew full-well of their clients’ (often sub-prime) likely inability to repay over the long-term. Bottom line: A defaulting loan and a home in foreclosure were ultimately worth more money. However, the real estate bubble and collapse was just the tip of the iceberg.

At the heart of this story lies MERS the heretofore elusive brain-child of a group of elite bankers who in the early nineties aimed to streamline (speed up) the real-estate mortgage process thereby also avoiding traditional County Recorder title-recording fees.

MERSCorp Inc. (Mortgage Electronic Registration System) was incorporated in Delaware in 1995. MERSCorp Inc. functions as a legal pass-through electronic “conduit”, owns nothing and has no building or employees. Surprise surprise, shareholders listed on its website are some the usual suspects and largest beneficiaries of the TARP bailout and global revenue in general: Bank of America, Chase, CitiMortgage, Inc., Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, HSBC, SunTrust, and Wells Fargo.

Below is the best overview of MERS I could find by Christopher L. Peterson, Associate Dean of Academic Affairs and Professor of Law, University of Utah, S.J. Quinney College of Law.

“MERS operates a computer database designed to track servicing and ownership rights of mortgage loans anywhere in the United States. Originators and secondary market players pay membership dues and per-transaction fees to MERS in exchange for the right to use and access MERS records.

“But, in addition to keeping track of ownership and servicing rights, MERS has attempted to take on a different, more aggressive, legal role. When closing on home mortgages, mortgage lenders now often list MERS as the “mortgagee of record” on the paper mortgage-rather than the lender that is the actual mortgagee. The mortgage is then recorded with the county property recorder’s office under MERS, Inc.’s name, rather than the lender’s name-even though MERS does not solicit, fund, service, or ever actually own any mortgage loans. MERS then purports to remain the mortgagee for the life of a mortgage loan even after the original lender or a subsequent assignee transfers the loan into a pool of loans that are ultimately sold to investors-a process known as securitization. Although MERS is a young company, 60 million mortgage loans are registered on its system.” (Now 62 million in 2010 – ed.)

Some of these 62 million homeowners are extremely concerned about the implications of MERS showing as mortgagee of record. US lending laws state that only the owner of a loan can initiate a foreclosure and MERS cannot lawfully own mortgage loans! In addition, investors who purchased pools of bank loans called securitizations now question the accuracy of the ratings assigned to the loans at the time they purchased them. Plus, the legitimacy of the same loan pool sold over and over again to different investors is also under investigation.

Serious questions remain given how MERS private governance of the nation’s real property recording system quietly supplanted centuries-old property law without an act of Congress. To date, class-action lawsuits against MERS are pending in California, Georgia, Kentucky Nevada, and Arizona. Who knows, maybe big banks will be forced to let families stay in their homes as well as buy back deceptive loans they peddled to investors.

Should issues of incomplete and mis-information given to borrowers, lost hard-evidence of title ownership (broken chain-of title) and investor deception prove to be true; will such revelations serve to level the playing field between banks and the people?

Time will tell.

Some analysts say more likely to happen is that President Obama, sometime after the mid-term elections, will sign the very same executive order he pocket-vetoed on October 7 to make it more difficult for families to bring suit against the banks. This might include an official retroactive redemption of mortgage-banking sins and blessing going forward on MERS as the digital savior of the “old school” county-recording system of title.

October 20, 2010, in ABC News Today, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan said although reviews continue on foreclosure documentation problems regarding specific lenders and banks who might not be following the rules, there does not seem to be any “underlying systemic problems”.

If you believe this…I have a bridge I’d like to sell you!

By: Susan Boskey

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Business has a lot of words that often confuse people. People tend to mix their meaning and are unable to differentiate them. Business plans and business proposals are amongst these misleading terminologies. People often think of them as one and the same thing. These plans and business proposals are totally different in their use and nature. Both are documents used in business but both have different purposes.

These plans reflect the long term plan of a business. It reflects the way a business plans to establish itself over a longer period of time. These proposals on the other hand are not meant for longer term. They are an intention to work out a business venture with another business. The intended audience of both the documents also varies significantly. The business plan is intended for the management as well as the lenders and many others. The business proposal is however a document that is only intended for the other business with whom a business wishes to enter into a joint venture with. Then there is a difference of need. These plans are needed for establishing a guideline for standing up a business from scrap. It usually defines the directions the business has to follow step wise in order to achieve that. These proposals are really not for that purpose.

They are short term and only needed to communicate a business’s intentions to work with another business. These plans often help to raise the required capital needed for your venture. Business proposals don’t do this sort of work. These proposal can be intended or unintended as well. A large public or private company may give an advertisement about pursuing an adventure and want to get third parties involved through an open bidding process. Unintended proposals are those in which the large organization is reached by the third party to pursue a venture with them in doing the business. In both cases the purpose is quite different from that of a business plan.

By: William King

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Having a small business is a good venture. It’s very different with working for a company. You have a complete control over your time management, activities, and decision making. But, even though it seems so simple and convenient, managing your own business is really difficult particularly when it comes to hard times. Most of the time, you won’t find any time to relax and just let your business earn income by itself. Thus, actions should be planned carefully and strategically in order for your business to have better cash flow results.

Accounting is an important factor in your business. And for your small business to improve its cash flow, here are some accounting tips that you can refer to in order for your small business to grow.

Manage Your Money Effectively

Don’t let your money work by itself for itself. Remember that it doesn’t have its own mind to work for itself, thus it needs someone who could manage it effectively in order to earn better income, and that should be you, the business owner. Manage your accounts very well so that you’ll grasp the movement of your money within your fingertips, particularly your expenses, revenue, and losses. Understanding the flow of money in and out of your business will help you grow your small business.

Employ People With Different Specialties

It’s really difficult to manage your own business all by yourself. There are other business aspects that you may not be able to handle by yourself, that’s why you need to hire people with specific specialties to help you take care of all your business aspects. Also employ a bookkeeper for the job of tracking all company expenditures and looking after necessary payments, taxes, and dues to the government so that your business won’t be getting any infraction.

Make Use Of Modern Technology

These days, modern technology is very important, especially in businesses. You can save a lot of papers from your office through the help of computers and software programs. Paperwork can now be made without papers and are easier to handle through the application of technology. Just a few mouse clicks and some keyboard presses will do for a more secured and confidential small business transaction.

Don’t Let Customers Pay Their Dues When They Want It

Yes, it is definitely a good move to not wait for your customers to give their payments whenever they feel like it. Take note, you should have that money safe and sound in your accounts and not on somewhere else as soon as possible. Thus, you should send invoices immediately so that you could collect the money and put it immediately in its rightful place – at your business account.

Keep Some Money In The Bank

Holding your hard-earned money at your own hands is a delightful feeling, but it should be better to keep some of it in safety. Deposit some amounts at the bank. This is helpful because saving money in the bank ensures that you have some reserves to use and to cover for some expenditures, especially in difficult times for your business and whenever the trend slows down. Remember, it is always good to save money for the rainy days.

Use A Simple Accounting Software System

If you are using an accounting software solution, it’s better to choose a simple system rather than a very complicated one. Accounting software programs help you monitor all small business aspects, and its simplicity can give your workers, particularly the bookkeepers, more comfort and convenience.

Income Should Be Higher Than Expenses

A very basic yet effective thing to consider is to make sure that your business income is higher than the expenses. In order for your small business to prosper, you have to follow this scheme.

Conclusion

These simple tips are very useful for your business to improve its cash flow. Small business at it is, managing your own small business also needs the help of other people with specific specialties, functional accounting software systems, and careful and strategic planning so as to ensure a better profit.

By: Geobradley Hinchcliffe

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