Business

Every year, millions of American adults discover the pleasures and successes of owning and operating their own business from the comfort of their own home. Whether you are already employed full-time or part-time, the role of a home business owner is highly flexible and can be adjusted to accommodate any existing schedule. These tips and tricks offer excellent insight into the world of home business.

When preparing tax statements for your home business, do not put down any discounts that you feel you can not uphold. If you can not prove it on paper in your tax file, you certainly will not be able to prove it with a tax auditor breathing down your neck. If it does not feel right, do not take it.

When you are in the hiring process, do your research. Poor employees can turn a successful fledgling business into a flop, so be sure that you hire reliable people with the skills needed to help your company grow.

Attracting clients to your home business is integral to its success. Social media because of its popularity can be a critical medium for advertising and marketing your business. Your business should have its Social Media feed. You can also find creative ways to market your business on websites like Reddit and Digg. Finally, since you are working from home and likely using the same computers for both personal and business use, make sure to keep the accounts separate!

Do not be afraid to ask for help with your home business. Asking for help shows that you are strong enough to realize that you can not solve every problem. Asking about what you do not know is a great way to learn what you need to learn. By asking people intelligent questions, you will get the help you need.

Figure out what you will name your business and set up a website relevant to your business name. It's easier than you may think to have your own website and you can get your own domain name for as low as $ 9. You can also expand your business with a website.

If you plan on selling products from your home business online, you must be sure to choose a good merchant account. A merchant account will enable you to accept credit card payments both online and offline. A top-of-the-line merchant account should have totally secure transactions, be able to be integrated into your shopping cart software, and should deposit payments to your bank account in a timely manner.

Take the time to showcase your knowledge of your product to others. Write online articles and put your contact information in them. Search for seminars that you can participate in and think of other opportunities to become involved. The reputation of your home business will increase the more you put yourself out there.

As you have no doubt discovered from reading this article, starting up and succeeding at your own home business is a potentially lucrative opportunity that can be …

If you're in a financial advisor career, you're probably like I was when I was a financial advisor with American Express: always seeking to increase client acquisition.

If that's you, read on for one of my client acquisition strategies that worked amazingly well.

The key to growing your financial planning practice chock is full of affluent clients is to get clients by REFERRAL from existing clients.

This is by far the easiest, least expensive and fun way to grow a financial planning practice. Most financial advisors simply ask their clients for referrals. Then, the client says something like "I do not know of anyone right off the top of my head, but I'll keep you in mind."

Not the answer you're looking for.

I used a simple strategy that will get you more referrals than you could ever be able to handle (which is a good problem).

I call it INSERTION. I inserted myself into my client's lives. Insertion is a powerful strategy, because it does double duty – it cements the relationships you have with your existing clients, while exposing you to all their friends and family.

And the INSERTION strategy is easy to implement. It takes 3 things:

1. To be warm, outgoing and friendly.

2. Let your clients know you are open to coming to their life events (weddings, funerals, etc.). You can do this very subtly, by suggestion, not by outright asking.

3. Go to the events you're invited to by your clients, with an eye out for gaining more clients. Be balanced here. You're not at the event to have a good time and hang out, but you're not there to shove your business card in everyone's face either. Be mindful to have an enjoyable time, while letting the people at your table – and the people that you'll connect with at the event – how you know the host or hostess. When their friends and family find out you are the host's financial advisor, they'll ask more questions if they want info.

Do not give them information overload! Have a short, compelling elevator speech ready, and slip them a card. Ask them for their card also. Then tell them you will contact them on Monday morning to chat more.

Be casual, professional, and engaging.

And above all, remember that the event is about your client, not about you getting more clients. That just happens as a very nice side effect.

The more you hang out where your affluent clients are hanging out, the deer into their circles you will be able to insert yourself, which means soon you'll be doing business with many of their friends and family.

The INSERTION method works. I used it for years, and had fun doing it! And more importantly, provided a great value and service to my clients, their friends, families and associates. …

Financial accounting and reporting is important both for internal and external users.

Internal financial accounting

Within the business it is important to maintain accurate and up to date records for the following reasons:

1. Tax compliance

It is required by the Revenue commissioners. Tax compliance is mandatory so maintenance of proper books and records are essential to ensure accurate reporting of income and expenditure and the timely and accurate return of payroll and VAT returns.

2. Measuring performance

The prime users of financial accounting information about a business must be those who manage the business on a day to day basis. Furthermore, every business should have a business plan and a resultant annual budget to measure actual performance against. Information about sales revenue and gross profit, together with levels of expenditure on overhead is critical to the operation of the business. Operational decisions must be made consistently and these can be dangerous wrong if made on the basis of inaccurate or out of date information.

3. Planning and budgeting

Business plans are not just for loan applications or grant claims. The business plan is of course an important requirement for obtaining external support but if it is not a real plan for a real business then it is a recipe for disaster. The old adage states that if you fail to plan you plan to fail. That can be updated to state that if you fail to plan honestly, accurately and realistically you will plan to fail spectacularly, disastrously and financially. Simply put, when you prepare your initial plan you require feedback from your accounts system to measure your business performance against the plan, so that early corrective action can be taken. When you selectively prepare your annual budgets past performance measured by your accounts system forms the basis for future projections.

External financial accounting

For external users too, financial accounting and reporting is of extreme importance:

1. Existing (include yourself) and potential investors

Your accounts give a clear picture of the financial standing of the business to existing and potential investors, helping them in deciding whether or not to invest. Financial accounting also gives you up to date information for existing investors about the future of their investment.

2. Banks

Financial accounting is required by banks to support loan applications and existing borrowing facilities including overdrafts.

3. Suppliers and Customers

Suppliers often take decisions about extending credit to companies based on information extracted from accounts. Also customers, especially PLCs or large multinationals often check the financial status of potential providers of goods and services before awarding contracts. The absence of up to date financial accounting statements to demonstrate capability to fulfill contracts can be costly.

4. Tax Clearance

A current tax clearance certificate is required by semi-state and state companies as well as local and central government departments prior to awarding contracts. There are also an increasing number of private sector companies who are insisting on tax clearance as a prerequisite to trade. A tax clearance certificate can only …