The weekly top 5 tips post is always full of helpful hints and advice for small, home and micro business owners.

1. Putting your accounts in the Cloud requires far less IT infrastructure and upfront investment in software or better hardware than would normally be needed.

2. You will be able to access your accounts remotely at any time, from anywhere. This makes it easy for your business to operate from multiple sites or make use of external staff.

3. Cloud solutions make it far easier to ensure business continuity. Everything is automatically backed-up and stored remotely, so even if you suffer an office computing disaster it will not be a major setback.

4. You are less likely to have technical issues that often arise when you are forced to install or update new software, because you will never have to install or update anything.

5. Cloud accounting solutions often come as part of an integrated package, making them far more useful and powerful than stand-alone alternatives

Whatever your financial situation your credit history will be taken into consideration if you are looking for cash loans. If you do have a poor credit history, however, this does not mean that you will not be able to get cash loans. There are things you can do to increase your chances of being successful in your application even if you have a bad credit history.

One thing you can do is to use a valuable possession as collateral. A house is often used in this way and can be a quick way of opening up your finance options. If you use your house or other valuable possession as collateral for cash loans then your credit history becomes less important than the value of the assets you have. Obviously there is risk attached to this method. If you cannot re pay the loan when agreed then the lender will be able to take possession of the property that you have used for collateral. However not all cash loans will use this method of secured loans. Cashloans.org.uk offers a unique online instant cash loans approval and can help without the need to use your property as security.

With this in mind it is important to consider the amount of money that you really need to borrow in the form of cash loans. If you borrow as little as possible to cover your requirements then you will be lowering your own personal risk and increasing your chances of being able to repay the loan when required. Also you should consider that the higher the loan then the higher the level of interest that will be charged. So even if you use a valuable possession as collateral, do not be tempted to borrow more than you really need. 

Any business that embarks on a project without prior planning is being at the very least careless, or perhaps even wilfully reckless. Without good planning it is easy to veer off-course or get distracted, plus it becomes increasingly difficult to evaluate the success of the project. With this in mind, here are some planning tips for any business starting a new project:

Market Research: It is essential to know everything about your marketplace, especially if you plan to launch a new product or service. Businesses that are unprepared for entry into a market will not have a full picture of all the factors that impact on their product launch.

Competitive Analysis: Similarly, you need to understand the competition that exists within that market. By doing this you can find out what makes the market leader so successful and also what the others are doing wrong.

Identify Opportunities: You need to look carefully at why you are going ahead with the project and decide upon all of the things that will need to be achieved in order for it to be successful. Then, you need to work out exactly how you plan to achieve each individual step.

Financial Management: Once you know what needs to be done, you will need to do all of the costing. This is very important, because if you do any of the sums wrong it could be extremely costly for the business and you may be unable to finish the project.

Implementation and Evaluation: Finally you need to put your plan into action. Once the plan is on-going, you will need to start evaluating how successful it is. Don’t be afraid to make changes if things are going badly.

No business can succeed in today’s competitive environment without clear aims and goals. Getting distracted or losing sight of what constitutes the core business can easily lead to strains on business finances and a scatter gun approach to marketing.Natural planners in business are a rare commodity. Any small business owner should be focused on sales and marketing and look for easy ways to solve vital but distracting tasks – the following tips will help you to plan some aspects of your business with ease.

Utilise Software – Look for business planning software that can easily integrate with other applications used in the business and provide clear graphical representation of financial results has to be a must.

Know Your Business – Find packages that have added features such as the inclusion of a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats analysis that can also help identify where the business sits in the market place and where it can succeed and needs to take measure to avoid failure.

Cashflow – Know where cash comes from and goes to in your business. Whilst many businesses may be profitable a significant number will run out of cash to fund success. Planning cash flow and knowing where problems may occur can also avoid last minute discussions with suppliers or bankers meaning that you can get the best possible terms for your sources of finance.

Be Flexible – Business plans are not fixed in stone and should not be private. Whilst not every detail needs to be made public, sharing plans with other stakeholders in the business can enhance performance and help maintain focus.

Update Regularly – Finally, business plans have to change and adapt to current performance and challenges. Any software should allow for easy updating of the key performance criteria to reflect progress to achieving goals.

The top 5 tips weekly post is always full of hints and tips for small, home & micro business owners.

1. Keeping your finances in order will ensure that your small business is attractive to potential investors.

2. Minimising risk is a key aspect of financial management. Ensure that all of your most valuable and important business items are well insured.

3. Offer customers incentives to pay their debts quickly so that your cashflow can be predicted with greater accuracy.

4. Your accountant is your closest ally when it comes to financial management. Provided they are doing their job properly, they will be the first ones to alert you about any potential problems

5. Online Office V6 is more powerful than ever and will take your financial management to a whole new level

No business wants to spend any more than is absolutely necessary on any service that does not contribute to bottom line success. And that goes for accounting services too. Therefore, look at online software that allows users to work securely from any location or computer with an internet access.

Scalability – As your business grows so will the users of any software so make sure that the service subscribed to is scalable at reasonable cost.

Automatic Updates – No matter what software is selected it can become outdated by changes in legislation or accounting rules. Therefore, choose a system with automatic upgrades and a help desk that is available whenever you want to work.

Know The Basics – Knowing what you want from accounting software can be a challenge until you have experience of a system. Therefore look for complete systems that allows for tri-ledger accounting and, if exporting or importing goods or services, multicurrency from the outset.

Graphical Overviews – Analysing financial data can be daunting so look for a system that produces graphical output rather than tables of figures. Most can ’see’ information better than read it.

Integration – Finally, it makes sense to look for an accounting package that fully integrates into the sales and marketing side of the business. This seamless link aids quality and timeliness of information and reduces paperwork and administration.

At several recent meetings I noticed some common business etiquette mistakes people make. These are a few tips I have for everyone out there:

Tip #1 : Wear nametags on your right side. Since most people shake your right hand, it is easier for people to covertly scan for your name if positioned on the right.

Tip #2 : Remember names. It looks bad on your part to repeatedly ask for a name when you have met the person over and over again. Still having trouble? Try using the their name three times during a conversation. Once when you first meet them, once during the conversation and once when you both depart.

Tip #3 : Carry business cards, everywhere. If you are still writing your phone number on used paper napkins, get some business cards made. VistaPrint.com is a great place to start. Whipping out a simple business card with your name, phone number and email looks oh-so professional.

The top 5 tips weekly post is always full of hints and tips for small, home & micro business owners.

1. Investing in a good backup solution can actually prevent you from ever losing data. Combine a USB drive with a cloud solution for best results.

2. Make sure that you monitor your data carefully. Watch out for error messages, they could be a symptom of something more severe.

3. Put a plan in place so that all employees know what to do and who to contact if they suspect data loss is occurring.

4. Try not to panic if your system is hit by a power surge or you knock a cup of coffee over it. Experts will likely be able to salvage most of your data for a fee.

5. Don’t attempt to try DIY data recovery unless you know what you are doing. You are more likely to make things worse than rescue your data.

The weekly top 5 tips post is always full of helpful hints and advice for small, home and micro business owners.

1. Planning your eating carefully throughout the day is important. Don’t skip breakfast before work as it will put you at a disadvantage for the rest of the day.

2. The types of food that you eat will also play a major part in your productivity for the day. Try to eat small amounts of protein at regular intervals and minimise your sugar and carbohydrate intake.

3. Avoid making the common mistake of letting your blood sugar levels plummet after lunch. It can help to swap your large evening meal to lunchtime.

4. Increasing your overall activity will give your health a massive boost. Try to workout 2-3 times a week as this will raise natural oxygen levels, allowing you to function better and think more clearly.

5. Try to get eight hours sleep. Your body and mind needs to recharge after a day of hard work or it will not function at full potential the next day.

Do you have significant debts as a result of overspending? If you do, you are not alone. Modern society makes it particularly easy to spend more than we really should. However, if you want to clear your debts and have greater peace of mind, it is important to tackle the root cause which is overspending.

These are several tips to help avoid overspending.

1. Be Aware of How much money you spend.

Many chronic spendaholics live in denial about how much they spend. If you realise how much you spend on various items, this alone may be sufficient to reduce your spending. For example, on a night out it is easy to spend much more than you think, especially if you pay for drinks and food on cards. – Quite often, friends think they must have lost some notes, because the money has disappeared so quickly. Often the problem is relatively cheap items, that we buy often: coffee, takeaways, mobile phones e.t.c. Go through your bank accounts, credit card statements and add up how much you spend on different items and decide whether you really want to spend that much money.

2. Avoid Impulsive Spending.

If you are in the habit of spending on impulse make an effort to have a moment of reflection before buying anything. If you see something you would like to buy, try waiting a day before actually committing yourself to buying. If you really want it, you will come back. This also gives you the chance to find other things that may be better.

3. Don’t spend time where it is easy to spend money.

If we spend alot of time in certain places we will be drawn to spend money. This spending is mainly to relieve our boredom and not because we need to buy it. Therefore, don’t spend every lunch break wandering around your favourite shops. Go to a garden or place where there is little temptation to spend all your money.

4. Have Clear Objectives when shopping.

Before going shopping have a clear objective of what you need to buy. This means that you will buy things because you need them, rather than because they “look nice”. Don’t go into the city centre without a clear objective.

5. Give Items Objective ratings.

Before purchasing any item give it an objective rating of how much you need and value it. If you are honest in your valuations you will think carefully about buying things which are less than 8 out of 10. It is good to combine this suggestion with leaving things a day. This means you will go back to buy the things you really need and value the most.

6. Avoid Spending by Habit.

Quite often a lot of our spending is a daily habit. However, this spending could easily be unnecessary. For example, if you buy a takeaway coffee everyday, why not invest in a coffee machine. Just because you spend $10 a day on lunch doesn’t mean this habit has to continue for ever. Try taking your own lunch. Reevaluate all your habitual spending patterns and decide whether it is necessary.

7. Give yourself strict income limits.

If you really have trouble controlling your spending it will be very effective to give yourself strict amounts of income per week. This will work most effectively with cash, because it is easier to monitor. If you learn to live on $80 per month, you will value money more and learn more frugal habits.