Invoice factoring provides much needed cash flow
October 19, 2008
Invoice factoring is the practice of selling the interest in receivables or invoices to a third-party, or “factor,” at a discount. By factoring receivables a company can leverage the value of its receivables by collecting the funds from the factor well in advance of the payment by its customers. Factoring receivables allows a company to reduce payment turnaround by 30-45 days.
Invoice factoring is the practice of selling the interest in receivables or invoices to a third-party, or “factor,” at a discount. By factoring receivables a company can leverage the value of its receivables by collecting the funds from the factor well in advance of the payment by its customers. Factoring receivables allows a company to reduce payment turnaround by 30-45 days.
An example of a factoring transaction may occur as follows:
A factoring agent may purchase invoices from a particular company the face value of which is $100,000. Immediately, the factoring company will provide the company with $80,000 or 80% of the value these receivables. The factor then bills the invoices, collects the revenue and then returns between $16,000 - $18,000 to the sourcing company. The cost to the company, then, is approximately 2-4% of the original invoices but the benefit is having cash-in-hand quickly.
Large corporations have been factoring receivables for many years. It is only recently that smaller businesses have had this funding mechanism available. Banks may be reluctant to provide capital to a company without substantial assets. The practice of invoice factoring enables smaller companies to leverage the booked value of receivables without incurring debt.
Factoring receivables allows these companies to convert their accounts receivable into instant cash. Once they have delivered a product or service and generated an approved invoice, they can get their money in as little as 24 hrs. Factoring receivables can help a company stay current with its vendors and meet other financial obligations such as payroll and taxes.
Other types of financing generally require two years in business and showing a profit. Factoring receivables does not have this limitation. Young, growing companies or those with tax liens and even bankruptcy can still qualify for accounts receivable purchasing lines.
A company may be interested in factoring receivables in order to take advantage of opportunities that require immediate cash. Some companies may want to fund some operational expense while others may want to invest in an expansion project that would ordinarily be delayed. No matter what the reason, it is extremely helpful for a company to know that by factoring receivables it is possible to reap the benefits of sales now, rather than later.
During these economic times, business owners that are feeling the cash squeeze may want to consider invoice factoring to convert receivables quickly into sorely needed cash.
Using Security Cameras will Help Prevent Employee Theft
October 13, 2008
If you are a business owner, it can be virtually impossible to monitor your employees all the time. There maybe times when employees indulge in theft and you would not even know of it! This is where installing security cameras can help in preventing employee theft.
The large-scale of employee theft
There is a widespread concern over the presence of employee theft. It’s a concern for grocery stores, large corporations and also high end business and industry. Employee theft effects up to 95% of all business. Employees are known to steal product inventory, cash, sensitive and critical data, and also customers. This risk is enhanced by the simple fact that employers do not have the means to monitor employees in a round the clock manner. This makes it impossible to know the extent of employee theft happening in an organization. Many managers do not even know that their employees are stealing things. In such a scenario, having security cameras can help a lot in preventing employee theft successfully.
Admitting to the problem
Firstly, managers and business owners would need to accept the fact that employee theft is indeed taking place in the company. Secondly, many people mistakenly assume that simply because an employee is getting a good remuneration that he or she will not steal. Often, well-placed officials are exempt from any suspicion of employee theft. Managers often assume that company customers indulge in theft. They also believe that employees are supposed to report any such thefts to the respective authorities.
Install Security Cameras to Prevent Employee Theft
One of the best ways to start preventing employee theft is by installation of security cameras in the workplace. Doing so, places employees on a constant monitoring. Business owners now know what is happening in the organization throughout the working hours. Some employees may resent such a move by the company but in order to protect company assets, it is essential to install such security cameras. Security cameras will deter employee theft due to their presence alone. Once employees know they will be watched on camera, they are less likely to indulge in employee theft.
Minimizing entry and exit points
One of the best ways to extract maximum performance from the security cameras is by sealing off as many entry and exit points as one can. If a company has too many entrance and exit areas, it can make it easy for the employee to escape after committing a theft. By reducing the number of entrance and exit places, employees know the office is under a high security system and that escape is impossible. This way, a company can begin preventing employee theft.
Exit points camera installation
It is important that security cameras be installed at the exit points. If you monitor your entrance and exits with security cameras, there is less chance employee theft will happen. There have been several technological advances in the sphere of security cameras. Hence, investing in some of the latest cameras can help in successfully preventing employee theft.
Tracking Internet Advertising
October 10, 2008
The great thing about IM is that every ad you place can be tracked. For example every click that arrives at your internet site can be tracked. For example, you can track pay-per-click (PPC) ads down to the level of the keywords that the searcher typed in to see your advertisement. Moving a step further, you are able to track the resulting sale coming from that click. Regardless of whether you’re using free or paid advertising to get hits to your website, it is crucial to be able to quantify the effects of your campaigns.
As a business, you must know your return on investment (ROI) for your ad campaigns. In the domain of offline advertising such as newsprint or magazine classified advertisements, you’ll often find that advertisers apply a different section telephome number or Post Office box for each ad. They use the same mailing address but add another departmental code. In this way, they can track how different ads perform based on the enquiries that get sent to the different sections.
This works as well for the 800 numbers that you contact to get more information about products that you’ve seen or learned about. Companies can establish different toll-free numbers for each ad and that’s how they can track the effectiveness of multiple advertising campaigns. In offline advertising, it’s much more expensive to set up the tracking. Imagine the costs associated with arranging different phone numbers or multiple Post Office boxes.
In the online world, however, tracking becomes inexpensive as you are able to implement it using an mixture of scripts or software packages. With pay-per-click advertising, you are able to easily use a simple PHP script to enable you to capture the keywords coming from a Google search referral - not to mention Google analytics.
Let’s examine another example. With a lot of web hosting packages, you’re allowed to create multiple email addresses. You are able to set it up so that in each ad you use another email address. Then when you get an email inquiry to a specific e-mail address, you’ll know where that inquiry originated from. Another way to do this is to establish multiple subdomains to use as the link in your ads. For instance, if you’re advertising in online sites, you are able to duplicate the same ad copy but send the readers to a different subdomain using a different URL for each ad.
When you’re able to track the efforts of all your advertising, you’ll be able to sit down at the end of the calendar month and work out which campaigns are generating the best ROI. You can then scale those campaigns or fine-tune them to try and maximise your profits. If you’re not efforts today.
Merchant Account Comparison - A Quick Way To Compare Merchant Accounts
October 3, 2008
Being able to take credit cards is critical to any company wanting to actively sell their own products on the Internet. Back in the early days of the Internet it was thought that using credit cards for Internet purchases was not ideal, because it applying an offline system to the Internet. Various companies trialled virtual currencies for example “flooz”, but the web-based currencies didn’t flourish. And so, approximately 10 years on from the commercial birth of the Internet, still getting our plastic out of our wallets to buy on the web and accepting credit cards when trying to sell things online is still vital.
Basically, there are two ways to accept credit cards online. Let’s compare merchant accounts. A business can either sign up for a merchant account, which allows them to process credit cards in their own business name, or they can elect to use the services of a third party payment service, who actually processed the credit card orders for the company. Getting a merchant account has higher upfront costs, but has lower per transaction costs. Using a third party processor costs less initially, but has higher per sale costs.
Deciding whether or not to get a full merchant account or use a third party payment service is only a question of doing the math. Consider these different business types and compare merchant account benefits…
In most cases, established businesses who are actively trading offline and simply want to expand online will be more suited to obtaining a credit card processing account. Most likely, It’s most likely that they will already have an offline merchant account and will tailor that account to also do “MOTO”, which is “Mail Order Telephone Order” processing and only means that the credit card holder isn’t present at the point of sale.
For micro businesses starting to sell products online, it’s think about testing their sales using a third-party payment service. The advantage to the new business is that there’s hardly any initial cost so they can test their market cheaply and easily. If sales boom, they can consider reducing the per-transaction fees by obtaining their own credit card processing account. If sales are poor, they can quickly exit the marketplace without having paid significant upfront costs to get their own merchant card processing account.
Steps on How to Build Your Business Credit Score
October 3, 2008
As a small business owner, it is natural for you to want to grow your company and expand your business. However, any business goals you wish to pursue would always entail the need for sufficient funding. In this case, it is with much benefit for yout business to obtain a business lines of credit that you can use to build your business. Before you can convince banks to loan your small business money, you're going to have to build good business credit scores for your small business.
The initial step on how to build your business credit score is to establish a legal entity, which translates to listing your business as a corporation or a limited liability company, popular known as LLC. The reason for this is that lenders are more willing to transact with corporations, which has reduced liabilities compared to a business with only a single owner.
Before you take on the challenges of expanding your business, make sure that your business has every single permit and licenses needed for its operations. One good way to ensure this is to check with local business bureaus and have a checklists on all the paperwork needed. Don't underestimate how critical this step is because potential problems can arise if you suddenly find a document is missing at the moment you need it the most.
Do not forget to obtain federal and state business tax identification for your company. Have all your financial paperwork arranged and presented efficiently for easy reference. In small businesses, it is but understandable to only have one accountant so make sure you get a good one who will organize all your financial statements and ensure proper documentation of all transactions.
Next would be the improvement of your business operations, particularly in your means to communication. Obviously you need the basics your own telephone line, business email addresses, and broadband internet service. In the electronic age, it pays to keep your business operations on par with the rest of the world, if it's relevant to your business growth of revenue. Just make sure you present a respectable image for your company.
It would also do your business good to have it listed under the proper agencies. This helps a lot in raising your company's visability in the business world. Understandably, no lender or creditor will look upon an unknown, unlisted company favorably.
Examine your transactions with your bank and make sure all are properly executed. Most lenders require you to present proof of at least two years of active account with your bank with evidence of proper cash flow management. The favorable reference given by your bank would surely enhance your business credit scores.
Small business credit scores are also enhanced by references made by your business partners such as suppliers and clients. You need as much references as you can get, making sure they make your business shine.
And lastly, select a credit reporting agency that you can trust and rely on to give your business honest and credible ratings. Have them evaluate your credit history and that includes purchases you made with business credit cards.
If you have all these steps instituted, you will find it relatively easy to acquire favorable business credit scores.
For more information on building your business credit scores, visit http://www.buildingmybusinesscredit.com, a web site that provides business credit information to small and home businesses.
Secured and Unsecured Business Credit Cards - Should You Really Care About Them?
October 3, 2008
There will come a time for a business to seek for outside sources of available funds. Securing a good loan product is easy if your business has a good credit rating. However, what if your credit score is hindering your business from getting funding? One of the products lenders can probably offer you is unsecured business cards for bad credit. But before you get one, it do you a heck of a lot of good to review what both secured and unsecured business credit cards entail.
As the name suggests, a secured business credit card is obtained after you put up a collateral, most specifically a separate bank account that is both active and stable. This is because some lenders may opt to offset some of the risks associated with lending to a company with bad credit score by getting a guarantee for future payments. Additionally, the amount granted to your company would not be as high as you would prefer. They may start you off slow and offer less than the amount you applied for. As a result, your freedom to make huge purchases with this business credit card would surely be affected. You’ll have to be more creative and work harder for growth and expansion of your business. One possible benefit a secured business credit card has is a manageable interest rate.
Considering the pros and cons of secured business credit card, a lot of companies still opt to apply for unsecured business credit cards for bad credit. This type of loan can be obtained without putting your house or assets up as collateral to back the loan. High interest rates may be the payoff for you. That’s because unsecured business credit cards do carry a high risk to lenders compared to secured ones.
Those who have obtained unsecured business credit cards for bad credit also need to keep a close eye on their transactions, since this type of credit card also has more stringent payment terms. However, businesses may readily be granted with this financing tool, providing ready funds for expenditures.
Hence, it would really be beneficial to your small business if you determine first which type of financing your company needs. Getting secured business credit cards lessen the chances for your company to incur escalating debts. On the other hand unwanted debt is a possibility when you obtain unsecured business credit cards for bad credit. It would also pay to review the payment terms of these business credit cards and select the one your company can realistically work with. Take note that getting a business credit card, despite your bad credit is an opportunity to turn your business credit rating around. With proper strategies and policies, as well as adherence to payment terms, these goals can be readily achieved.
For more information on unsecured business credit cards for bad credit, visit http://www.buildingmybusinesscredit.com, a web site that provides business credit building information to small and home businesses.
Are Unsecured Line of Credit Right for Your Small Business?
September 29, 2008
When your business is just starting out its operations, you are probably making use of funds available through the small business credit card. Of course, there are several advantages to this financing tool, foremost of which is the relative ease of obtaining it, the low interest rates, and most lenders offer flexible terms of payment. Though there are also disadvantages, such as the need for the owner to risk a part of his personal finance for guarantee and the possibility of abuse, there is still no denying its multiple benefits. And for a while, small business credit card would be sufficient to meet the financing needs of your company. Keep in mind, there will be a time for your small business will need financing more than a credit card can supply. That’s where unsecured lines of credit for your business comes in.
What advantages does the unsecured line of credit hold over small business credit card? Apart from the higher credit limit, unsecured business line of credit also has lower interest rates. As the name suggests, unsecured business line of credit doesn't need collateral to back the loan, reducing the personal liability of business owners. But the process of obtaining unsecured lines of credit is quite different from that of procuring small business credit cards.
One of the vital requirements in obtaining unsecured line of credit for your business would be the business credit scores, which contains data on previous credit transactions you have and on how well you adhere to payment schedules in the past. Consequently, the approval of your unsecured line of credit largely depends on the favorability of your business credit scores are.
Obtaining and maintaining a good business credit is relatively easy to do as long as business owners and managers implement policies designed to limit unnecessary expenditures and keeping track of transactions efficiently. Avoid late business credit card payments at all times and keep your business debt to a unmanageable level, as these are some of the biggest challenges in obtaining unsecured business lines of credit. And make it a priority to establish a partnership with a reliable credit agency that will keep track of your credit transactions and rate it accurately.
Once you have obtained unsecured line of credit, use it wisely to grow and expand you business operations. Also, if you are persistent with implementing strong business policies, you'll have it easier getting similar unsecured business line of credit in the future.
For more information on unsecured business lines of credit, visit http://www.buildingmybusinesscredit.com, a web site that provides business credit information to small and home businesses.
Save Time and Money: Buy Office Supplies Online
September 29, 2008
Although there are probably many office supply stores in your immediate area, you may want to consider buying your office supplies online. There are many advantages to shopping on the Internet for things such as paper, computer equipment, software and even discount office furniture. Here are four reasons to do your office supply shopping online.
Easy Comparison Shopping. Shopping for office supplies online allows you to quickly do comparison-shopping without leaving your home or your office. Instead of driving from store to store looking for the best deal, you can find it with just the click of a mouse. As you probably already know, there can be big differences in price for common supplies depending on the brand and the retailer. Using a site like Froogle.com allows you to easily compare the price of an item across several different shopping platforms. If you’ve always wanted to know which store has the best deal on ink for your printer a shopping comparison site will help you.
Save Money with Coupon Codes and Free Shipping. Taking your search online can also help you save money. Many online office supply retailers offer free shipping and deep discounts on common items. Instead of spending money on gas to drive to and from the office supply store, you can have your items automatically delivered. Stock up on necessary items by buying in bulk and save even more money. Depending on the time of the year, you can often find coupon codes for office supplies and special offers that will allow you to take as much as $30 off $150 office supplies purchases. And many of the larger retail office supply stores offer free delivery on purchases over a certain amount (usually $50 or more.)
Hard to Find Items. Online office stores may be able to provide specialty itmes that are not available in your local store. If you need a particular type of file,for instance, to fit into your antique file cabinet, you might just be able to find what you need online. The same goes for unique or designer office supply items. If the office supplies at your local chain store leave you yawning, try searching online to find just a desk, pens or the wipe board that will match your personal sense of style.
Reminders and Auto Shipments. Once you have established an account with an online office supply store, you can choose to be reminded on a regular basis of consumable products that need to be purchased again and again. For example, the store’s system will contact you every two months about purchasing ink for your printer. If you’re doing the purchasing for a large office, this can be a great timesaver. Instead of having to keep track of what brands of printer ink are needed and when they need to be purchased, the office supply store will do this for you. Even if you’re just buying for your personal home office this aspect of buying online is a welcome feature.
When you need office supplies, search online first for the items you need. You’ll be getting quality supplies without the hassle of wading through the crowds and wasting time comparison shopping among different stores. Whether you’re shopping for yourself or for your employer, experiment to see how much money and time you can save.
Forums the ATM of building a profitable site
September 28, 2008
You have decided to build your fortune with an online business and you have designed a fabulous website, produced a bunch of products to sell and now you are just waiting for the customers to show up and reach for their credit cards to make you dreams come true. You wait, wait and wait some more but no one shows up.
How discouraging it that? It seems that no one ever told the majority of new online business people that the most important aspect of internet business is not the glitz at all but the down and dirty chore of getting prospective customers to their site.
Advertise, Advertise and Advertise some more. Posting on Forums will bring visitors by increasing your sites rank and that allows those searching for your type of material to find your site.
A very successful friend of mine once told me that the proper way to begin your business is with a budget. Doesn’t matter how much you have to spend it is always the same If your budget is $100 the breakdown should be as follows:
1. Site $10
2. Inventory $10
3. Advertising $80
It didn’t make much sense to me then but I have come to realize that he was right. No advertising no sales but how do you advertise on the internet? One of the many answers to that question is to post on Forums that pertain to your product niche.
* Why use forums?
Think about it for a minute, where can you find the largest number of prospective customers interested in your product? On forums!These are customer just waiting to hear about your products!
And there are lots of them, take a look at the forums for your niche. If you were involved in selling golf balls for instance, a Google search shows 1,840,000 golf forums that are filled with golf nuts that could be your customers simply by posting to the forum with a link to your site!
That’s a lot of potential customers.
You can use this method to bring prospects to your site no matter what you are promoting. Affiliate forum marketing, General forums, discussion forums, game forums, internet marketing forum, seo forums, software forums, video game forums all might be good places to get familiar with forums and posting to them.
Posting to forums takes too much time?
Lets be realistic, to post to just a fraction of the forums available would take a bunch of time. It is possible to eat this elephant a small bite at a time by organizing a list of forums and posting to a few per day. That would sooner or later have the desired effect of building the back links you need to bring customers to your site but if you are like me I want the results yesterday so you are going to need to have something that will accomplish this task in a quicker fashion.
* Is there a quicker way to post to forums?
A good many of these software programs are to expensive for me. I am cheap so I need a cheap software product to do the work.
There are several if not many software products that fill the bill but I use Forum Submitter Pro. It is just my style, cheap and simple.
* How do I use a posting to increase my back links
A simple link to your site with the sites main keyword does the trick. If you were posting to a golf site you might ask a generic question and place the link to your golf site below your name.
For example: “Question: Is it a good idea to recommend to have clubs fit to you? If so who should fit them?
Jerry Hubbard using a regular href link and the term Great golf tips
Your sites main keyword is Golf Tips and so Google really likes it when someone clicks the link. This builds the best links for ranking. Links like these are money in the pocket.
One other great benefit of creating back links through the use of posting to relevant forums is that so few website owners will take the time and effort to do it. You can be one up on most of your competition and run in front of the crowd instead of running to catch up.
Naturally, forum posting is only one of many methods to build traffic to your site but it is one of the very best. Give it a shot.
Get more forum posting info here
Jerry Hubbard is a full time business owner of several websites and an interested student of all types of marketing methods.
The “Secret” of Voice Broadcasting Uncovered
September 28, 2008
Voice Broadcasting (dialing a huge number of automated phone calls and playing a pre-recorded message to them) is a really powerful and low-cost way to get your message to large numbers of customers.
Despite its powerfulness, before you spend one thin dime on a voice broadcast, it’s essential that you study this secret. Because without it, you might just blow your resources. So, what could this awful secret be? It’s really easy - Almost all people don’t like being bothered by telesales calls.
OK, OK, I know that’s not exactly a secret. If you’re debating using a phone broadcasting system and you neglect to look into this “secret” carefully, it can devastate your campaign. Here’s why…
The biggest by far majority (90% or more) of prospects who get a broadcast call simply hang up. The next largest portion (a few percent) of people press “2″ (to be deleted from the dialing list). The smallest group, around 1-2%, press “1″ (to be transferred to a live salesperson, or to listen to more recorded information, or to leave a message).
You’re probably thinking…”I understand, but I’m only being charged for the “press 1’s”, so what’s the problem?” Here’s the problem.
Just because someone presses “1″, it does’t guarantee that they’re interested in your offer. Some of them only want to request removal from the call list. Those responses are worth nothing to you. But you still pay for them. So you should carefully consider how to maximize the positively interested, qualified responses.
Now, whether you’re selling merchant accounts to business prospects, or even soliciting donations for your charity event, you’ll hear some folks say “remove me from your list and don’t call again” (or worse)…That’s not a shock, is it? And I promise, even if you’re soliciting donations for sick children, even if you’re calling a list of past donors, you will STILL receive some negative calls!
The unavoidable reality is this - out of 1000 people, there are possibly 2 or 3 who get so irritated when they receive a telemarketing call, they will press “1″ to sound off. To illustrate the consequences of response rate on the quantity of worthless transfers received, consider two speculative broadcast campaigns.
Campaign #1 - advertising merchant accounts to businesses - response rate is below average, at 0.6%. Campaign #2 - soliciting donations for sick children - using a donor list - response rate is above average, at 1.5%.
Now, assume that 3 out of 1000 (0.3%) of the prospects called are the kind who will “press 1 for no good reason”… If you work through the numbers, the business campaign gets 50% negative calls, but even the charity campaign gets 20%!
The truth is, if you are delivering your calls to live answered phones, and taking live transfers, you {will never,simply cannot} escape negative calls, no matter what your message is about. And the primary way to reduce them is to construct a message with a higher response rate.
We’ve described how receiving bogus live transfers is a fact of life in this business, and how increasing the response rate will reduce the quantity of negative calls.