Five Tips To Get Ready For A Pain-Free Tax Time

With the holiday season just around the corner, it’s a perfect time to get your financial records in order.  Tax moves you make now can mean finding more “green” to spend on family gifts and festivities.  Here are five quick tips for you to feel more prepared about your financial status as you go into year-end.

Avoid Penalties

This time of year is ideal to double-check your tax payments to make sure enough has been paid in, and even more important, to avoid overpaying so your money is not tied up unnecessarily. If you’re not sure of your 2013 tax liability, check with your tax preparer.

Balanced Books

Rather than wait until the busiest time of year for accountants and bookkeepers, you can get a head start now on catching up your books  You’ll have more of their attention and you may even avoid a rate increase if you get your books done early.  Completed bank reconciliations are a very important part of catching up.

Forms

It’s not too early to get your orders in for the forms you need at year-end like your W-2s, W-3s, 1099s, and 1096s.  That way, your forms will be onsite when you’re ready.

Records

Information that’s missing at the last minute can take up extra time and be costly.  It’s a great idea to do an audit now of W-9s to grab missing addresses and tax ID numbers of your contractors.  Also do a scrub of your employee payroll records so that your W-2s will be complete and accurate.

New Tax Changes

Be sure to check with your advisors on new laws affecting individuals and businesses next year.  One of the biggest ones making news is avoiding the fine involved regarding the new health care requirements for individuals.  And there are many more you’ll want to get up to speed on so that you’ll know how they affect your situation.

We know it’s early to be talking about taxes, but we’re also all about saving you money and time.  Try these five tips so you’ll have better peace of mind and be more prepared for year-end.

Five Best-Practice Accounts Payable Tips For A Smoother Cash Flow

Watching the cash balance is one of the most frequent activities of a small business owner.  Besides making sure you have enough cash for payroll and bills, there is another huge opportunity you can benefit from: lowering the cost of processing your bills.  It can be expensive and time-consuming to process bills and handle the paperwork involved.  We’ll take a look at a couple of the many ways you can streamline your accounts payable processing costs in this article.

Opportunity #1:  Go Digital

The Intuit Payment Network (IPN) is a best-kept secret when it comes to sending and receiving money.  It’s free to set up your account, and it’s also free for your receiver to set up an account.  All you do is add your bank account, and you can easily transfer funds between the two accounts just by knowing the receiver’s email address.

The receiver of money only pays 50 cents per transaction, so when you have a large transfer of funds, it’s totally worth it.  It saves you postage, check stock, envelopes and the related mailing labor.  You could even increase your payment by 50 cents so that your receiver receives exactly what you owe them.

Another way to go digital is via PayPal.  Fees vary, and are usually paid by the receiver.

Opportunity #2:  Get Control

When it comes to finances, it’s never a good idea to mix business and personal, especially when it’s coming out of the same bank account.  Keep separate accounts for business and personal, and your bookkeeping costs will go way down.  Do the same thing for credit cards as well.

If you’re comfortable with credit cards and you can maintain control of your spending, it saves accounts-payable time when you can charge everything you spend on business to your credit card as long as you pay it off every month.  Using your card is faster at checkout than writing a check these days, so you’ll save time on errands as well.

Opportunity #3:  Automate

Put recurring expenses such as utilities, rent, accounting, and other monthly bills on bank draft or autopay if the vendor has that option.  This will save you a huge amount of time, supplies, and postage.  You can also be more accurate with the timing of the payment which will allow you to keep your money for as long as possible until the due date arrives.

Opportunity #4:  Verify

We hope you never pay bills that aren’t yours, but it can happen.  To avoid it as much as possible, implement a three-way matching process on all your payables, especially those related to inventory.  The three-way part refers to the three documents involved in accounts payable:

• The purchase order

• The packing slip

• The invoice

Before any invoice is paid, these three documents should be matched line by line – for quantity, price, and description — to ensure you ordered and received what you paid for.  Only then should your bill be approved.  This will ensure that you don’t pay a fraudulent bill, you don’t pay for out-of-stock that didn’t ship and that you paid the correct price you agreed to in the first place.

Please feel free to reach out and ask us about this if you’d like to know more.

Opportunity #5:  Tell Yourself a Little White Lie

There’s an old saying:  “robbing Peter to pay Paul.”  If you’re always moving money around form one checking account to another to cover bills and payroll, you’re not the only small business owner who juggles funds.  It takes up valuable time to make all these transactions, and then it costs to record them and track them.

Reduce all that by telling yourself a little white lie about your bank balance.  If your bank balance is $10,000, tell yourself it’s only $5,000 (or whatever amount makes sense for you).  That way, you’ll always have a cushion in your account that will help you reduce transfers.  There are several ways to set this “little white lie” up in your books.

More A/P Ideas

These are only five of many ways you can reduce your processing costs and save time on accounts payable processing.  Give these five accounts payable ideas a try, and if you’d like to know more, please reach out and let us know.

Avoid The Three Biggest Sales Mistakes And Close More Business

Every sales lead is precious.  It takes a lot to get people’s attention these days, and once a lead or prospect comes in your door, you’ve accomplished that hurdle, but now you have another one:  getting the business.  To ensure you can turn those prospects into paying customers as often as possible, here are three mistakes we can all learn from and avoid at the very beginning of the sales process.

#1 Tech-Speak

Every industry has its own vocabulary.  For example, pool service companies talk about “shock,” booster pumps, and cyanuric acid levels.  If the salesperson starts slinging too many of these words around, the new pool owner is going to freak out.

Worse, you can end up going down a technical conversational path that derails the sale and has you answering all sorts of educational questions that the prospect doesn’t even need to know about if they hired you.  It’s a sort of foxhole you don’t want to go down, at least not during a sales call, and especially not during the very first interaction with a prospect.

Continuing our example, a pool owner’s goals are usually that they want their pool looking awesome and safe to swim in. Although your business is likely to be far more complex than your prospect realizes, they will be scared away if you overwhelm them and sound like you will be difficult to work with.   Instead, focus on their goals and how your services meet their goals.

#2 Lack of Interest

If your staff is tired when they answer the phone or if they simply answer the questions of the prospect and wait for them to ask the next question, then you’re likely to make a ho-hum impression on that prospect.  It will feel like your company is not interested in them.

A great salesperson – or even receptionist — will answer a prospect’s questions, and will go further to find out more about the prospect’s situation.   Establish a rapport by finding something in common with your prospect.  Perhaps you went to the same college, grew up in the same neighborhood, or attended the same church.

Then find out about the business issue to be solved.  What are their goals?  Ask them for the big picture so that you understand where they’re coming from before you get into the details.   This will make for a great start to the sales process as well as your relationship.

#3 Lack of Preparation

You may have called a vendor in hopes of finding out more about what they have to offer, only to discover they are not ready.  This typically happens with new business owners or new staff.  If the staff does not know the answers to the most basic of questions, then you could have a problem.

Prepare a list of questions that your staff is likely to get, and write in the answers so they will have this cheat sheet in front of them when they field calls.  This will allow your employees to speak more confidently and more accurately with prospects.

Be sure they also know how to best handle the question we all love, “How much do you charge?”  Providing a good answer to this question requires extra skills.  You might consider putting together a sales script to handle that question or even putting your employees through some basic sales training.

Check to see if you need to avoid any of these three selling mistakes, and you’ll be on your way to more sales.

Five Fall Projects To Refresh Your Financial Results

As we move into the fall season and the final quarter of the year, it’s a perfect time to commit to a project in your business that will help you reach the year’s end in better shape.  Here are five ideas:

 1.      Back-to-School Time

If payroll expenses are one of the higher costs in your business, then it makes sense to boost your team’s productivity and maybe also your own.   Fall is back-to-school time anyway, so it’s a natural time of the year to take on a course, read a business book, or hire an organizer to help you get more from your workspace.

If you spend a lot of time doing email, consider taking a course on Microsoft Outlook® or even Windows; learning a few new keystrokes could save you tons of time.  If you need more time, look for a book or course on time management.  Look for classes at your local community college or adult education center.

2.      A Garage Sale for Your Business

Do you have inventory in your business?  If so, take a look at which items are slower-moving and clear them out in a big sale.  We can help you figure out what’s moving slowly, and you might even save on taxes too.

3.      Celebrate Your Results

Take a checkpoint to see how your revenue and income are running compared to last year at this time.  Is it time for a celebration, or is it time to hunker down and bring in some more sales before winter?  With one more quarter to go, you have time to make any strategy corrections you need to at this time.  Let us know if we can pull a report that shows your year-on-year financial comparison.

4.      Get Ready for Year’s End

Avoid the time pressure of year’s end by getting ready early.  Review your balance sheet to make sure your account balances are correct for all transactions entered to date.  You will be ahead of the game by getting the bulk of the year reviewed and out of the way early.

Also make sure you have the required documentation you need from vendors and customers.  One example is contract labor that you will need to issue a 1099 for; make sure you have a W-9 on file for them.  If we can help you get ready for year-end, let us know.

5.      Margin Mastery

If your business has multiple products and services, there may be some that are far more profitable than others.  Breaking these numbers out to calculate your profit margins or contribution margins by product or service line can help you see the areas that are adding the most income to your bottom line.  Correspondingly, you can determine if you have any items that are losing money; knowing will help you take the right action in your business.

Refresh your financials this fall with your favorite idea of these five, or come up with your own fall project to rejuvenate your business.

Five Fun Things To Add To Your Invoices

When it comes to marketing, the company invoice might be the last thing you’d think about.  But think again:  it’s a great place to make every attempt to get paid faster and have your customer coming back for more services and products.  Here are five fun easy-to-implement ideas to add to your invoices:

 1.      A Thank-You

A simple “Thank you for your business” or a “We appreciate your business” is a nice added touch on the bottom of every invoice.

QuickBooks invoices include a comment line where you can choose your comment or write one for yourself.  You can also customize the form so that it appears on every invoice.

2.      Your Current Special Offer

A customer that just purchased from you now trusts you; it’s the perfect time to let them know what else you have available that they could benefit from.  Your offer could be a small amount off their invoice for referrals they send you, your monthly special, a sale item, or an item related to what they purchased.

Just add a quick text line to your invoice letting them know the special and where to call for more information.  If you haven’t ever tried this, you will be surprised and delighted at the results.

3.      A Prominent Due Date

Most invoices include terms, but you can make it even easier on your client by computing their specific due date.  If at all possible, include the due date on your invoice so the customer can see clearly when they need to pay you.

Make the due date stand out, too.  Bold it, print it in a different color, increase the font, or do all of the above.  You want it to be really clear when that payment is due in your office.

 4.       A Payment Link

Can you take payments online?  If so, include the web link that customers can use to pay you online.  This might be to a shopping cart, PayPal®, or another online payment system.  If it’s convenient for your client to pay, you’ll get paid faster.

5.      A Friendly Warning for Overdue Invoices: “Does your mother know you haven’t paid this invoice?”

If all the above fails and the customer does not pay you by the invoice’s due date, you’ll want to have a process for re-sending the invoice and/or statement until the customer pays or until you’re ready to turn it over to a collections agency.  Here are some sample sentences you can choose from:

“We hope you’ve just overlooked this bill and can send your payment right away.”

“We’re re-sending this invoice in case it got lost.  Please send payment right away.”

“Could you check on the status of this payment for us? Our records show it’s past due.”

“Please contact us if you have questions or issues with this invoice. Payment is now past due; please remit immediately.”

“Hey, we need to pay the rent!  Please send your payment as soon as possible.”

When the invoice gets older, sometimes it helps to add a little humor:

“Does your mother know you haven’t paid this invoice?”

Marketing to Get Paid

With these five low-cost ideas, you’re sort of “marketing” to get the payment sooner.   They are easy to implement, cost very little, and will improve your cash flow.   Try them and let us know how they are working.

Do You Know Your Small Business Vitals?

On a doctor’s visit, the first thing the nurse does is take your vitals:  your temperature, blood pressure, pulse rate, and respiration rate.  These basic measurements are the first place doctors look to see if something is wrong with our health.

Knowing your vital signs, and especially when they are out of whack, is good for your health.  In the same way, knowing your business’s vital signs, and especially when they are out of whack, is good for the financial health of your business.

Vital Measures

If you’ve been in business a while, you might already know the “vitals” you like to track.  Here are some common ones for a small or new business:

• Checking account balance(s)

• Amounts owed (bills, payroll, and loans)

• Revenue for the month and year-to-date

• Sales by customer so you can see the top five to ten largest customers

As time goes on and your business grows, you may want to add some of the following:

• Revenue for the month and year-to-date compared to last year

• Net income for the month and year-to-date compared to last year

• Days Sales Outstanding which is a measure of how long it take to collect on an invoice from a client

• Revenue by service or product line in a pie chart

These are just a handful of the many options there are when it comes to measuring the results of your business, and it would be difficult for us to list all of them here.  The point is to decide proactively what you’d like to track on a monthly basis.  Then you can set up the process it takes to get those numbers delivered to you in the format you prefer.

Once you decide on the numbers you need to run your business, you’ll be able to take your “vitals” whenever you want.  But you can take this to the next level with one more idea:  exception reporting.

Being Exceptional

It’s great to glance at your numbers periodically, but there can be a lot of data to wade through.  How about getting a report that tells you only when the numbers go out of range?  This is called exception reporting, and requires that you set ranges for each measure you want to follow.  If the measure stays within range, you do not have to be alerted.  However, if it falls out of range, then you can get a report to tell you what’s going on so you can take the right business action.

Exception reporting is not all that common in small business, but can save a busy owner a lot of time.

A Clean Bill of Health

By determining the vitals you want to watch for your business and putting a process in place to monitor that information, you will be helping your business stay healthy.  If we can help, please reach out and let us know.  The doctor is IN.

Five Ways To Rev Up Your Referrals

In the vast majority of industries, referrals are the most cost-effective way to gain new clients and grow your business.  When you attract new clients through referrals, your marketing costs are lower, your selling process is easier and more effective, and the referral usually makes for an excellent client.  It’s just good business sense to look at how we can proactively increase our referrals.   Here are five ideas.

1.      Your Email Signature

We know it can be embarrassing or uncomfortable to ask your clients and friends directly for referrals.  A great compromise is to add a line to your email signature that takes care of it for you.  Here are a couple of wording options:

Your referral is our greatest compliment!

Referrals are the lifeblood of our business. We thank you for yours.

We appreciate your referrals.

Adding one of these lines to your email signature file is a subtle notice to everyone you email that you are open to taking referrals.  It’s indirect enough to where no one feels put on the spot, and it takes all of five minutes to implement.

2.  Acknowledge Your Referral Sources

When you find out someone has sent you a referral, be sure to acknowledge that person with a thank you note or a gift.  (Be sure to check any licenses you hold so you know what restrictions you are under concerning gifts to clients; some industries disallow it.)

You might want to reward your top referral sources with more than a thank you note.  If you are not sure who your top referral sources are, we can help you create a report in your accounting system so you can track that information on a regular basis.

3.  Set Up a Referral Program

Creating a formal referral program generates several benefits:

• It formalizes the process of asking for referrals.  This lets clients know you’re serious and interested in referrals.

• It gets the word out to everyone without anyone feeling pressured.

• It is cost-effective and still far lower cost than using other marketing channels.

• It is not too time-consuming and produces results.

To set up your referral program, decide how you want to reward your referral sources.  It could be as fun as awarding prizes such as Kindles and tablets to clients who send the most referrals to you.  The cost of the prize is a small price to pay for the lifetime revenue of several new high-quality clients.  Send a letter or email out announcing the program, and then set up a process for tracking.

If you’re in an industry where prizes and programs are simply not done, then a simple letter requesting referrals will work too.  Be sure to include a description of the specific type of client you are looking for; you are far more likely to get referrals when clients know who to look for.

4.  Develop Referral Sources

One way to truly quantum-leap your business is to find new sources of referrals.  Your clients are a great source, but they each know so many people.  If your clients have been with you for a while, your referrals could stagnate because your clients have referred just about everybody they are going to.

Keep your referrals growing by tapping into power partners.  These are small business owners that have the same type of client you do, but are not competitive at all.  The best way to reach out to them is to send them a referral!

5.  Set Up Referral Processes

There’s a lot your back office can automatically do when it comes to referral processes.

• You can remember to ask how a new lead heard about you when they first call.  Then you can record and track that, so that you will know where your top referral sources are.

• You can systematize the thank you notes and gifts so they go out timely and automatically.

• You can regularly schedule times with power partner to keep them up to date on your business changes and opportunities.

• You can systematize a referral program or related communications to keep everyone informed.

Once you set up these processes and delegate the tasks, you will grow your referrals and subsequently your revenues.

Oh, and by the way, we appreciate your referrals!

What Does Popeye Have To Do With Accounting?

You might have heard the terms “cash basis accounting” or “accrual accounting.”  Your net income number can change depending on which method your books are set up for.  Here’s a simple explanation of the difference, with a little help from one of the most famous cartoon characters in history.

Popeye and Wimpy

You might recognize Popeye the Sailor Man from the television cartoons or other media.  His sidekick, Wimpy, was the one who was always hungry and always out of cash.  One of his favorite sayings was, “I’ll gladly pay your Tuesday for a hamburger today.”

It’s All in the Timing

Let’s make today Thursday.  If Wimpy wants to pay us Tuesday for a hamburger today, here’s how it would be done for a restaurant on cash basis:

Cash basis recording Wimpy’s hamburger purchase 

Both the sale and the receipt of cash would be recorded on Tuesday.  Companies on cash basis only record the transaction when the cash is received.

But, if the restaurant’s books were on the accrual basis, it would be a different story:

Accrual basis recording Wimpy’s hamburger purchase 

Wimpy’s hamburger sale would be recorded on Thursday, the day he ate the hamburger.  The receipt would then be recorded on Tuesday, assuming Wimpy made good on his promise to pay.

You might be asking why a few days is such a big deal.  Outside of cartoon life, a couple of extra twists can happen.  It can be far more than a few days from the time you do the work to the time you get paid for it.  And often, these dates span different months and even years, affecting the amount you have to pay in taxes to various agencies.  Manipulating these dates (legally, of course) is one of many tax planning strategies that we can help you with.

Choosing for Your Business

In many cases, the government has chosen which method you must use when it comes to sales tax, payroll taxes, and income tax.  That’s part of the reason we make the required adjustments to your books at year end.

To help you run your business in a forward-thinking way, the accrual method is best.  You can record invoices for work you’ve done even though you haven’t received payment yet.  You can enter bills you need to pay before you pay them to forecast cash requirements.  Using accrual accounting, you can budget for cash flow needs as well as see more accurately what your revenue and income is looking like.

For clients who remain behind in their bookkeeping and just want to catch everything up once a year, the cash basis is adequate.  However they lose out on all the good information they could have had throughout the year to run their business better.

For other businesses, a hybrid approach between cash and accrual accounting can be the most cost effective.

A Little Help from Popeye the Sailor

What would Popeye say about all this accounting talk?

“That’s all I can stands, cuz I can’t stands n’more!”

Mobile Accounting

If you are the type of person who loves mobile apps, texting, and getting your email on your phone, then you’re in for a treat: accounting has finally come around to your smartphone.  Here are a couple of great developments you can try so you can stay on top of your numbers.

Accounting Apps

For users of QuickBooks desktop and QuickBooks Online, an app is available to help you stay on top of your accounts receivables.  You can send invoices, view and update customer information, mark an invoice paid, and check up on customers’ balances.

If you are on the Xero cloud accounting system, the Xero Touch app is comprehensive, showing a dashboard of all of your major cash account balances and allowing you to perform numerous accounting functions on your phone.   On the accounts receivable side, you can view and re-send invoices, check customer information, and view account balances.

In the Xero app, you can snap a picture of a receipt and upload it right on the spot.  This helps avoid lost receipts and decreases paper handling, plus the cool factor is high!

These apps work on the iPhone, iPad, and Android.  With QuickBooks, there is a small monthly charge after a free trial, and with Xero, the app is free with your Xero subscription.

Bank Apps

If you’re banking with a major bank, chances are “there’s an app for that.”  Downloading your banking mobile app will allow you to stay on top of balances, receive alerts, and manage your cash flow more effectively.

Payment Apps

More and more businesses are collecting customer payments via their smartphones.  You don’t even need a merchant account for some of these payment apps, like Square, PayPal, or Intuit Mobile GoPayment, but it is cheaper if you do.  If you’re not already taking credit cards, it’s an effective way to get started; your customers can pay via Visa, American Express, MasterCard, and Discover.

With many of these payment apps, you download the app, receive a reader in the mail, and are then able to swipe or key in a client’s credit card information.  You are charged by the transaction, or monthly, if you sign up for a merchant account.  Plus, you can often customize the receipts the client receives with your logo to make them look professional.

Add-on Apps

There are many other mobile apps that can increase your accounting capabilities.  Both ADP and Paychex have payroll apps for their clients.  There are numerous apps to extend many of your accounting functions, such as expense management, document management, invoicing, time-tracking, bill payment, and even work order management.

Accounting to Go

Now you have a choice with your accounting:  you can “eat here” or take it “to go.”  If we can help get you equipped as an accounting road warrior, give us a shout.

Budgeting Breakthrough

When you hear the word “budget,” what do you think about?  Most people would say something similar to “Ugghh!” If you would rather do just about anything besides create a budget, you’re not alone.  The word “budget” brings up connotations of endless numbers, constraints, the opposite of freedom and creativity, and hard work, none of which are very desirable.

Yet, the benefits of a budget are huge.  Budgets can help you with cash flow improvements, keep you on track for higher profits, and alert you to items that need further action.

From “Budget” to “Profit Plan”

To be successful with budgeting, we need to get rid of all of the connotations that go with the word.  Perhaps it might work if we rename “budgeting” to “profit planning.” And then, rather than focus on how little we should spend, let’s start with how much revenue we’re going to make.

Revenue Clarity

It’s simple to create a revenue plan if you go backwards.  What revenue goal would you like to hit this year?  Just like we would never get in a car without a final destination, a revenue plan gives us a number to aim for in our businesses.

Once you know your number, then we can use averages to come up how many sales or clients we need to generate in order to meet our revenue goal.  Here’s a quick example:  Let’s say you want to reach $5 million in revenue this year.  If you average order is $10,000, then you need 500 sales.  If you have multiple products and services, then you’ll need to sum the product of the average sale times the needed number of sales for each line.

From there, you can make marketing and production plans based on the number of sales or clients you need.

Protecting Your Profit

Think of the expense side of your “profit plan” as protecting your profit margins so that you can ensure financial gain from all the hard work you do.  Setting budget limits on spending will allow you to control overhead and other items so you can keep more of what you make.

Exceptional Reporting

A great “profit plan” report will provide several things.  You can compare budget to actual, or better yet, just be alerted to the accounts showing exceptions.  You can also get an income statement that compares the current period with the prior year period so you can see how far you’ve come.  One last option is a benchmark report which provides industry averages so you can measure how you fare compared to other companies in your industry.

A “profit plan” is a great tool for your business.  If we can help you with the process or provide you with custom reporting, please give us a call.

Need An A/R Makeover? A Quick, 5-Item Best Practice Checklist

Technology has allowed businesses to make substantial improvements in their customer invoicing processes.  The good news is that when you implement these technologies, you will almost always get paid much faster.

If it’s been a few years since the last time you’ve changed your accounts receivable processes, it’s time for a new look.  Here are five tips you can use to rate your own invoicing process, step by step.

1.     Invoice Creation

The best way to create all of your invoices is by the push of a button from one of about five types of systems that already have all of your data:

•  Time and billing, if you bill hourly

• Estimating and project management, if you use proposals

• Customer relations management (CRM) systems that have invoicing as a feature

• Point of sales systems that track open accounts

• Accounting system that includes an A/R component

There are a couple of key best-practice concepts to follow at this step:

• Eliminate any duplicate data entry you can.  You should only have to enter your invoicing data in one place, and it should flow to every other system that needs it.

• Automate as much of the process as possible.  Never start in Word or Excel, because this always means duplicate data entry somewhere.

• Have an easy approval process so someone else can do the data entry if needed.

• Keep your invoice data real-time so you can benefit from the next step, which is….

2.     Invoice Delivery

How you create your invoice will vary by the type of business you have, but the main thing to make sure of is that the invoice is approved quickly and sent out to the client as soon as the work has been done.

The only way to do this is electronically.  If you’re still printing, stuffing, stamping, and mailing you invoices, you’re losing anywhere from two days to nearly a week before your customer even sees the bill.  Change that by using email or delivering the invoice electronically.

3.     Invoice Terms

When do you want to get paid?  Most people feel it’s realistic to aim for 30 days.  But if you set your payment terms to Net 30, you’re more likely to get paid in 45 days, not 30, according to recent research by Xero, where over 12 million small business invoices were reviewed.

Set your terms to 13 days or less, Xero suggests, because most small business debtors pay two weeks late.  Here is the infographic in case you want to check it out:  http://www.xero.com/guides/invoicing/

4.     Payment Method

How does your business rate when it comes to payment options?  If all you take is checks, you can add another week’s delay to your payment.  Instead, we recommend creating lots of choices for customers, such as taking:

•  Credit and debit cards through MasterCard, Visa, American Express, and Discover

  • You can set up links online (best) or receive a fax or scanned form where you can enter the card into your back office.

• PayPal

• ACH for recurring payments that the client agrees to draft from their bank account

• Checks

Your industry may even have more options.  For example, in accounting, Intuit has their Intuit Payment Network (IPN) where small businesses can receive money electronically and send and receive requests for money.  IPN is far cheaper than PayPal fees, too.

5.     Receipt

When you get paid electronically, it’s in your bank (or your merchant account) within minutes.  If you bank online, you can see things immediately now (it’s really amazing!).  When you receive a check, you have the overhead of preparing the deposit and making the trip to the bank.  If you have hundreds of paper checks, you also have additional bank fees incurred from processing the checks.

If your accounting system interfaces with your bank, then you save a lot of time and money not having to post those transactions.

Invoice-Free Zone

Why not get out of the invoicing business altogether by offering a pay-in-advance option?  Your Accounts Receivable balance goes to nothing, to name one of many benefits.  Not every industry can adopt this practice, but if you think creatively, you might find some ways you can implement this in your business.

How did your A/R process rate on the 5-point checklist?  Got some ideas for improvement?  As always, please reach out if you have A/R questions or if we can help you implement your best practice invoicing system.

Five Cash Leaks To Avoid

Cash flow improvement is a hot issue for small businesses; in many businesses, it seems like there is never enough cash when you need it.  The last thing a business owner wants is to reduce their cash balance unnecessarily.  To help you preserve or increase your cash, here are five cash management leaks to avoid.

1. Bloated Bank Fees

Some banks are more business-friendly than others.  We recommend you assess the fees you are currently being charged to see if you can discontinue any unnecessary services.

•  Could you maintain a cash balance to avoid monthly fees?

• Are you being charged online banking fees and bill pay fees, and are these still necessary?

• Are you being charged for a high volume of transactions or cash drawer services, and are these competitive with other banks?

Banks, including national brands, that have not kept up with technology and have not automated a significant amount of their transactions are inefficient and must charge higher fees to cover their processing costs.  If your accounts are located at one of these costlier banks, you do have a choice.

2.   Overtaxed

Are you sure that you are paying the lowest amount of taxes you legally owe?  There are several places to look to make sure you have not overpaid taxes anywhere in your business or personally:

•  Payroll taxes

• Sales and use tax

• Franchise taxes

• State and local income taxes

• Property taxes

• Federal income taxes

• Taxes that are specific to your industry

In preparing income taxes, a few of the easiest items to overlook include carryovers from prior years and new deductions you become eligible for.  If you received a large refund this year, congratulations, but that means you gave Uncle Sam an interest-free loan on your money.  You can do better next year by estimating your tax payments and paying only what’s due.

3. The Check Is in the Mail

Customers who take too long to pay you are big cash drains in your business.  Consider changing your terms, asking for deposits, or becoming more aggressive with collections to bring your DSO (days sales outstanding) down.  When you do, you’ll get an instant, permanent cash flow improvement.

4.  Sweat the Small Stuff

You may have an eagle eye on your largest bank account, but what about your other cash stashes?  PayPal, petty cash, and business savings accounts are among the places that may not get daily scrutiny.  Make sure those accounts are properly reconciled and have the proper controls in place so funds don’t go missing.

5.  It’s in Your Interest

A nice problem to have is when your bank balances get too large and you don’t need the money immediately.  Make sure that money is still working hard for you by putting the excess in an interest-bearing account.  It’s not much these days, but every little bit helps.

Make a Dash to the Cash

If we can help you plug any of these cash leaks in your business, please don’t hesitate to reach out and let us know.

The Fine Art Of Prioritization

Running a business usually means putting in over 40 hours a week.  In fact, if you’re the typical entrepreneur, you have more ideas you want to implement than you have time for!  That’s when proactive, strategically executed prioritization can make all the difference.

So Hard to Choose    

If you have lots of ideas in your head or on your “to do” list that are not getting done, you’re certainly not alone.  Here’s a process for helping you decide what to do first, next, and not at all.

Step 1:  Write down all your ideas, tasks, “to do’s,” projects, and even items you need to do on a daily basis.  Use a spreadsheet and list each item in a row by itself.  Later you’ll want to be able to sort the list, so we recommend using Excel or another spreadsheet software.

Once you have everything down on paper, you will be amazed at how much this unclutters your thinking.  You will also have all your great ideas captured so you don’t forget them.  You might also get very overwhelmed, but don’t stop now.  Relief is on the way.

Step 2: Add some information about each item, creating four additional columns:

1.  Is this item about working IN your business (client work, overhead, etc.) or ON your business (new products or new services, developing procedures, hiring more staff, marketing, creating new partnerships)?

2. Is this item revenue-generating?  Or will you lose revenue if you don’t get it done?

3. Can you delegate this task or does it have to be done by you?

4. If you were to hire someone to do this task, how much would it be worth per hour?

Step 3:  Analyze your choices.  Once you have these additional items filled in, you can go wild with opportunities.  Here are some very cool eye-opening activities to try:

• Separate tasks that are working ON vs. IN your business.  There is never enough time to work on your business, so force it by blocking out a few hours or a half-day a week and do it, no matter what.  It might be the best way to make progress in your business.

•  Sort the list by how much revenue the task could generate or how much potential it has, and decide how to prioritize from there.  If you need help calculating the ROI, return on investment of an idea, we can help you calculate that.

• Take a look at what you marked “not able to delegate,” and ask “why not?”  Does a procedure need to be written?  Do you need more staff?  Does your staff need training?  Or do you need to learn to let go?  Whatever it is, and especially if there are a lot of these items, get these roadblocks tackled so you don’t become the bottleneck in your own business.

• Sort the list by “column D” above, the market value you recorded for the task.  Then ask yourself what your hourly rate is.  How many tasks are you doing that are below your hourly rate?  Hiring someone to do your lowest level tasks could very well be another item you need to add to your new “to do” list!

This last one is really important, because it can so strongly affect the profitability of your business.  The last thing you want to do is go backwards and give yourself a demotion with a pay decrease, but that’s exactly what you’re doing each time you do a task yourself that’s at a low market rate.

Step 4:  Prioritize with confidence.   With all of this information in an organized spreadsheet, you will gain the clarity you need to make some powerful decisions about how to spend your time.

Time

There’s nothing more precious and scarce than our time.  Every day, we have a choice about how to spend it, but too often we get caught up in the urgent, but not important, daily fires.  This exercise helps us take a step back and look at what’s important instead of what’s urgent.

Is Hosted QuickBooks Right For You?

If you are currently using the popular QuickBooks desktop software, you now have a fairly new option available to you:  hosted QuickBooks.  In this article, we’ll talk about what it is, what type of businesses it’s right for, and how to get started if you decide it’s for you.

A Host of Opportunities

Hosted QuickBooks changes the location of your QuickBooks company file from your local computer to one of the dozen authorized QuickBooks hosting companies.  You then access your QuickBooks file through a secure Internet connection.  The good news is you continue using the exact same QuickBooks software, screens, forms, and reports that you are comfortably familiar with, so the additional learning curve is extremely low.   The two biggest differences are:

• You access your QuickBooks differently; instead of accessing your local software, you will access the same version of QuickBooks software via the cloud on a secure server provided by a hosting vendor.  You will most likely access your QuickBooks by clicking on a desktop icon or accessing a screen and entering your login information.

• The pricing is different.  Instead of paying a large software fee at the beginning and then optionally paying for annual upgrades, you pay monthly, like a lease.

There are a few other very minor differences, such as how you back up your file, how you print checks, invoices, and other forms, and how you interface with other software such as Microsoft Outlook® or Word®.  At most, the learning curve for each of these minor changes is five minutes top for any user.

Who Benefits

You will benefit from hosted QuickBooks if any of the following are true:

• You, your team, your bookkeeper, or your CPA needs to be able to access your QuickBooks files from multiple locations.

• You are spending at least one hour per month restoring the file from one location to another.

• You have experienced errors in the past from backing up and restoring the company file or the Accountant’s Copy because of passing it back and forth among people who need to update it or to get information from it.

• You prefer to save the time it takes installing QuickBooks and applying the upgrades to QuickBooks software.  With hosted QuickBooks, the hosting vendor takes care of all of that.

• You do not have a recent backup of QuickBooks and forget to take backups on a regular basis.  With hosted QuickBooks, backups are a routine part of the process.

• You’re great at working on the core items of your business, but want to reduce time spent on IT-related tasks.

• You dislike or feel inadequate when it comes to technology, and you agree it makes sense to outsource as much as possible.

Any Concerns

Hosted QuickBooks is great, but it’s not right for everyone.  If you feel “safer” with no one having access to your QuickBooks, then hosting it may not be right for you.  Although the data centers are far more secure than the PCs in most people’s homes and offices because they have to undergo a rigorous security audit to become a hosting vendor, some people are simply uncomfortable passing their financial data to others.  If you want to consider hosted QuickBooks and wonder about security, we’ll be happy to have a conversation with you about that.

Hosted QuickBooks is also not right for people that are using very old software versions because you may be forced to upgrade to a newer version.

Hosted QuickBooks is also not right for people who have much more free time than budget.  Although hosted QuickBooks is not particularly expensive, there is a cost outlay that will buy you time savings.  If the free time you gain (that you can apply to completing more important priorities in your business) is not valuable to you, then hosted QuickBooks may not be right for you.

Getting Started

Before moving to a hosted QuickBooks solution, your accounting professional will want to ask you questions about how you are using QuickBooks, if they aren’t already familiar with your requirements.  Selecting the right hosting solution means evaluating:

• What version and line of QuickBooks you are currently using because this has to be exactly matched with the hosting vendor.

• What other applications access QuickBooks, such as online banking and payroll.

• What add-ons you are using with QuickBooks, if any.

• What printers, Microsoft software, email software, and other peripheral needs you have when using QuickBooks.

Once those answers are gathered, your accounting professional can provide you with some hosting solutions, costs, and implementation plans.  Most accounting professionals partner with one or more hosting companies so that you can get a seamless one-stop shop experience.  You may also be able to benefit from volume or package pricing through your accounting professional.

If you are thinking that hosted QuickBooks might be right for your business, please email us or give us a call so we can talk more about it.

Have You Been Hacked? How To Minimize Your Risk

Just about every day, we read in the news that another company has been hacked. You might have already been directly affected by the password thefts at LinkedIn last year or Evernote this year. Or you might have had your own social media account, email, website, network, or computer hacked. Worse, many of you have been hacked but don’t even know it.

So how can you minimize the damage and risk of hackers? Here are several tips, some familiar, some not so familiar. As you go through the list, check off the ones you’re already doing and make a list of new ideas to implement to protect your business and personal assets.

Signing Your Life Away

Your signature might look great in a graphic in your email signature line, your website, or your newsletter, but it’s a huge risk. You’re giving away your handwriting, and forgers can easily replicate, master your handwriting, and impersonate you. To reduce identity theft, don’t publish your real signature anywhere.

Money, Honey

Implement strong passwords on all of your financial accounts: banks, credit unions, PayPal, credit cards, and your accounting system. We know it’s painful, but do not use the same password for your financial accounts anywhere else, especially social media! If possible, use a different password for each account to reduce risk further.

What’s Your Password?

Here are some quick password tips:

• Do not use your name, your pet’s names or your kid’s names in your passwords. There’s just too much information available publicly to do that safely anymore.
• Mix up letters, numbers, capital letters, and special characters, if they are allowed.
• The longer, the more secure; most apps require at least 8 digits.
• Change passwords quarterly to be on the safe side.

Password Storage

Most apps that help you save time with passwords are NOT safe! Here’s what we do and don’t recommend:

DO:

• Password-protect your computer, even though you don’t have to.

• Keep a separate file of your passwords on your computer, but DO password-protect that file and make sure it is not shared with anyone on a network. Also name the file something totally unrelated like bio, letter, or goulash recipe; do not name it “passwords.doc!”

• You can also keep a record of your passwords offline, but be sure to lock it up in a safe.

• When you make file and disk backups, be sure those are locked up and password-protected too. They will no longer have your PC password to protect them.

DON’T

• Don’t give in to your browser or any website when it asks to remember your user ID and password, especially for your financial accounts or client information. All of the major browsers have been hacked – Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox, and even Safari.

If you use password management applications, proceed with caution. Be sure you have properly vetted their security claims. Most of these are simply form fillers that are not safe.

Vulnerable Applications

Avoid leaving vulnerable PC ports open and unattended, including chat, messaging, FTP (file transfer protocol), Skype, webinars, Google hangouts, video sharing, and the like. It’s like having all the doors and windows unlocked in your house; an intruder has a lot of choices for easy entry. When you are on these more vulnerable connections, shut the others down, and close the applications you don’t need. Then logoff when you are done.

A Plug for Software

As soon as a hacker has found a new exploit, the software companies will learn about it and make an update available within days. The hacker community is tight; other hackers will look for software that is not updated and exploit the hack. Avoid the copycat hackers by staying on top of your software updates, not just your anti-virus, but also your Microsoft and other software updates. Doing this will eliminate a great deal of the risk out there.

New Users

If multiple team members need to access your software, consider setting up additional users rather than having one account. If one person gets hacked, the others will likely still have access and can react quicker to the intrusion.

Stay Safe Out There

How many of these are you already doing? Give yourself a reward, and then get busy implementing the rest so you can stay safe.

Seven Strategies To Put The Spring Into Your Sales

Spring is here and that’s the perfect time to try something new in your business to make things fresh.  Here are seven ideas to try in your business; pick the one that’s most likely to put the spring in your sales.

1. BOGO

“Buy one, get one” or BOGO deals are always hot and never grow old.  Even if it’s not common in your industry, see if you can adapt and create a deal like this.  The best thing about a BOGO strategy is it spreads more of your product or service around to a wider customer base, which can spur referrals or word-of-mouth, the best kind of sale.

Here’s an example of a BOGO applied to a service: Purchase a seat at a training workshop and bring a co-worker at no extra charge (or charge the price of materials and lunch to cover costs).  You can also offer one month free (cheaper than offering 10 percent off on an annual basis) if you have a service that is performed over time.

 2.Weekend Sale

Sales can move a lot of people to action.  The key is to limit the time that they can get the discount to a very small window.  Hold a time-limited sale when it is slow for you (could be during this month when people are hit with tax bills) to boost your volume.

 3.Freshen Up Your Displays

If you have a storefront, when is the last time you’ve freshened up your look?  Retail businesses work hard at this, but even if you aren’t in retail, take a look at what the customer sees.  Is it inviting?  Fresh?  Pleasant?  If not, do some spring cleaning!

If you work from home or have a virtual office, your website is your storefront.  See if it needs some spring cleaning so that you look more attractive to your prospects and clients.

4.Introduce New Features

Make a slight change to your existing product by adding a new feature, offering it in a new color, or something similar.  It will feel a little fresher to your clients, which may cause an increase in perceived value.

 5. Start a New Niche

Once you’ve gotten a couple of clients from a new industry, you’re off and running.  You will be able to learn from working with this new industry, and then you will be more valuable to others in that space.

Take a look at your client list, and see where you have just a few clients in the same industry but would like more clients like them.  Then go for it!

6.Flavor of the Month Club

Baskin-Robbins used to have a “flavor of the month” so that customers would be enticed to come into their ice cream shops over and over again.  You may be able to have an “item of the month” or even a VIP club where your customers get something new each month.  Your VIP Club could also include priority treatment with specials or discounts.  VIP clubs done right are especially effective in restaurants and retail, but can work in other industries too.  The goal is to increase the frequency of visits to your business by enticing clients to become regulars.

7.The Biggest Opportunity of All

We often overlook the top opportunity that’s under our own noses:  our current and past clients.  They trust us the most, which is the highest hurdle to new business.  If you haven’t contacted your top clients in a while, make a point to reach out.  More sales could be just a phone call away.

Now it’s time to spring into action on the one idea that resonates most for your business.

What Is Cloud Accounting?

One of the most exciting changes in the accounting industry is cloud accounting.  The concept is easy to grasp:  cloud accounting simply puts your accounting system in a private space online so that it is fully accessible to you via a browser or a secure remote connection.

Two Ways to Be in the Clouds

There are primarily two ways to have your accounting system in the cloud.  First, it can be “hosted.”  This means that the current software you are using on your desktop, such as QuickBooks or Sage, does not change.  Neither does your company file.

The only thing you do differently once it’s set up is click a different icon to start the software.  Once you log in, most everything else is the same.  There are a couple of differences in printer access, Microsoft Excel® access, and some of the other interfaces, but it’s essentially the same experience.

So if it’s the same, why would you want to move to the cloud?  Because it completely eliminates the passing back and forth of the file among you, your CPA, your bookkeeper, and anyone else that needs to update or access your accounting file.  No more restores.  No more DropBox or YouSendIt downloads.

Hosting saves a ton of time because the people you grant access to can login to your file from anywhere.

The second way to have your accounting system in the clouds is to switch to an online accounting system.  In industry jargon, this is called SaaS, which stands for Software as a Service.  Examples of online accounting systems include QuickBooks Online, Xero, Wave, and Kashoo.  These systems have fewer features and will only be right for a client with a need for a simpler accounting system.

When you switch from desktop accounting software to SaaS, it will likely require conversion, setup, and training.  It’s a major change.

Benefits

There are many benefits to moving to the cloud; here are just a few of the more common ones:

• Anywhere, anytime access to your accounting system.  Companies with multiple locations will benefit significantly from a hosted solution.

• No more worrying about who has what version and whether the changes the accountant made were updated or applied.  There is one central file, and multiple people can be accessing it at the same time as long as you have the right number of user licenses.

• No more software updates that you have to apply yourself or wait for.  This is done by the hosting provider or the SaaS.

• Tighter security for your data.  The data centers typically have multiple state-of-the-art data security controls and must pass a rigid audit, which is far more protection than any small business can afford to provide for their own data.

• Automatic offsite backup for disaster recovery purposes.

Concerns

Clients’ two major concerns include security, which is covered above, and costs.  When it comes to costs, the most important thing to look at is return on investment.  Will the time you save be of greater value to you than the costs of hosting or moving to a SaaS?  That answer varies for each client.

Curious About the Cloud?

If we’ve piqued your curiosity about cloud accounting, please feel free to reach out so we can continue the conversation.

Is Your Data Backed-Up? Seven Often-Overlooked Places

Hopefully, you’re already making backups of the data on your business server on a regular basis.  It’s simple to set up data backups automatically and then forget about them until you need them.  But have you ever looked around to see if there are any gaps in your backup strategy?   Here are seven places to look to make sure all your business data is backed up safely.

 1.Online Calendar

Do you use an online calendar?  If you use a calendar such as Google Calendar, then it’s a good idea to keep a backup in case something happens to it that’s out of your control.

In Google, go to Settings from the Settings menu, click the Calendars tab, and Export your calendar to get your backup.

2.Website 

It’s common for business owners to rely on their webmaster to have a backup of their website, but this is often not within the scope of the webmaster duties.  Check with your webmaster to get a backup of your website files so that you are protected against hackers, hosting problems, and more.

If your blog is in the same place, make sure you have a backup of it as well.  You may also want to preserve any online profiles you have in the same way.

3.Your Email

We are so dependent on our email these days that we should consider backing this file up daily, if not hourly.   The location of your email file varies, and some people have more than one.  It’s worth double-checking to see if this file is included in your regular backup routine.  You may also want to create a separate, more frequent backup routine for this critical file.

If you have an online email account, make sure you have a backup of all those emails in case something goes wrong.

4.Browser Data     

Browser-related data, such as your bookmarks, history, toolbar, and saved passwords are all stored in files, but they can be hard to find and recover.  If something happens to your browser data, it may or may not be a big deal.  If it is, include these files in your regular backup so you can recover what you need more easily.

5.Online Bank and Vendor Account Information

If you get audited by the IRS, it’s almost always for a year in the distant past.  Digging up invoices you might have had online access to but no longer do can be time-consuming and painful.  Most banks and vendors have made it super-easy to download PDF versions of your invoices and statements, so be sure you do that before your access to them expires or becomes an extra charge.

6.Local and Cloud Drives 

Every business’s technology setup is different.  If you have a server, chances are you’re getting it backed up regularly.  If you have employees, make sure each of their hard drives are backed up so they don’t lose any files that are not on the server.

If you have your files centralized in the cloud, make sure you have a backup of those files.

7.Desktop

One additional place that may not be backed up is your Desktop.  It depends on your operating system; sometimes desktop files are excluded if you have your backups set to copy only “My Documents” files and subfolders.

Bonus Tip

Periodically check the accuracy and effectiveness of your backups and see if you can recover a file or two.  If not, you’re back to the drawing board, and it’s better to find out in a non-emergency situation that you have some work to do on your backup and recovery strategy.

Reducing Risks 

Being a business owner is all about taking calculated risks.  Having all your important business data backed up helps you reduce your risks and protect what’s perhaps your most important business asset.

Five Ways To Protect Your Cash

As entrepreneurs, we work hard for our money, and the last thing we need is to have it disappear due to fraud, hackers, or identity theft.  Some people have called 2013 the year of the hacker, which is worrisome.  But you’re far more likely to experience risks with disgruntled or financially desperate employees and contractors.  Mistakes happen, too, and when they do it can be costly to get them corrected.

Here are five ways to increase your financial controls so that you can lower your business risks when it comes to the handling of cash and cash equivalents.  As you read the list, check to see where you can tighten up controls in your business.

Checking for Checks

Do you have blank checks lying around?  If so, reduce the temptation and get them locked up.  You can also go a step further and have your accountant run a report each month (or week) of missing check numbers.  If any checks are unaccounted for, take action by processing Stop Payment orders at your bank.

Bank on It

If you are still getting your bank reconciliation on paper, where does it get mailed?  The business owner should always see the bank reconciliation before anyone else does.  Also, make sure the person that performs the reconciliation is not the same person that deposits the checks.  Segregation of duties is essential to improve cash controls.

Today, it’s a good idea to do all your banking online, if possible, so that nothing gets mailed.  In that way, you have some reduced risk over identity theft.

Some banks offer multiple-user access to your banking account, so that bookkeepers can get the information they need.  Lock that user ID down as much as possible, so that the user can only get to what they need to.  If they’re honest, they will appreciate the reduced level of responsibility and consider it a smart financial move.

PayPal Protection

If you have a PayPal account, keep the balance low by transferring funds frequently to your bank account.  You can also restrict access to reduce your risk.

Credit Card Control

If you use credit cards in your business, you’ll want to maintain tight control over them.  For each employee or contractor that needs to charge items on a credit card, here are a couple of points to consider:

• If the credit limit on the current card is sky-high, then ask the bank to lower it or set up a new card with very low credit limits just for employee use.

• Contact your credit card company and get a card in the employee’s name.

• Make sure you can access the credit card transactions online.  They are immediate, and if necessary, you can closely monitor what’s going on.

• Insist on a receipt brought to you for every purchase.

• Create clear procedures, limits, and approvals before the spending occurs.

• Don’t let the employee “keep” the credit card during off hours.  Keep it locked up on your premises instead.

Safeguarding Payroll

One of the biggest cash outflows for small businesses is payroll.  Here, segregation of duties comes into play again.  The person preparing the payroll should not be the one who approves it and actually runs it.

You can do this by having different user accounts and controls within your payroll system.

Hopefully, you already have a lot of these ideas in place.  If not, add the ideas you like to your to do list so that your business risks will be reduced.

Five Email Productivity Tips

Is email taking up too much time in your workday?    If you’re looking to spend less time on email, here are five quick items to test your existing knowledge and fine-tune your organizational skills.  We’ll talk specifically about Outlook®, but if you use another package, you may be able to find the same features there.

1. Folders

We all start with several default folders in our email software, such as our inbox, drafts, sent, and deleted email, but if that’s all you use, then this tip might save you time.  Consider creating additional folders to file or organize your email.

For example, under your inbox, you could have “hot,” “warm,” and “cold” folders for tasks that need to be done right now, in a few hours, and later today.  You may also want to create folders by clients, employees, business functions, products, vendors, important documents, or some combination of the above.

It’s especially useful to group certain emails together so you can work on a string all at once and not as they come in.  That way, you can minimize interruptions which can improve your focus throughout the day.

In Outlook, you can find the Folders command as a menu item with many tasks to choose from.

2. Rules

Once you’ve gotten those folders setup, you can create rules to automatically “file” emails that come in.  One great example is all those social media emails we all get.  Create a folder called “Social Media,” then create several rules to file those emails directly into that folder.  For example, all emails from LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and other sites you have profiles on can go straight into that folder to be read later.  It keeps your inbox much cleaner and lowers that feeling of overwhelm too.

Look for the task bar item, “Rules, Create Rule” to get started.

3. Signature Files

If you haven’t already, create a signature file that looks professional and does a little bit of marketing for you as well.   At a minimum, include your name, company name, phone and website address.  Consider a short description line about what your company offers, especially if it’s not clear from your company name.  Finally, include a very short description about the type of client you’re looking for, a complimentary offer you have, or a brief phrase to encourage referrals.

One more thing to consider:  include your full signature on both new emails and replies, just to make your phone number and contact information all that more accessible for prospects and clients.

To get started or to edit your existing signature, go to the File menu, choose Options, Mail, and then locate the Signatures button.

4. Multiple Email Addresses

A great way to cut down on overwhelm is to have at least two email addresses.  The second, extra email address can be for email you don’t need to read as often as your client and employee email.  Send that email to a completely separate box that you only open once or twice a week.  Assign those social media emails, list emails, meeting notice emails, and other subscription emails that just don’t need immediate attention.

You can also use multiple email addresses for special tasks such as hiring.  Direct applicants to send their resumes to the separate email account.  When you are ready to review the resumes, they will be all in one place with no other email clutter.

5. Categories

A further tool to sort and organize emails is the Categorize feature in Outlook located on the tool bar.  You can create categories to group emails that are all in one folder, such as your inbox.  Categories might include functions such as accounting or sales, clients or type of clients, urgency, employees, or another grouping that helps you keep related or similar emails together.

Bonus Tip:  That Distracting Bell

When new email comes in, does your computer interrupt you and make a sound?  Worse, do you stop what you are doing and read the new email?  If you do, you will get a huge productivity boost by simply turning off the automated send/receive email feature.  Instead, schedule the sending and receiving of your email manually two to three times a day.

In Outlook 2010, go to File, Options, Advanced, Send/Receive, and uncheck “Schedule an automatic Send/Receive every __ minutes.”  After you have changed this setting, no more email will come in until you manually click the Send/Receive toolbar button under the Send/Receive menu bar item, so you are now in total control of when you want to be interrupted by email.

You will be shocked how much more productive your day is by implementing this one bonus tip.

Try these tips to boost your productivity with email.