How Secure is Your Small Business Accounting App?

We spend a lot of time talking about why you should ditch spreadsheets in favor of an accounting app — automating, error-proofing, scalable, saves you time and money — but we don’t touch on enough on the topic of security. Which is more secure — book-based bookkeeping, Microsoft Excel, downloaded accounting software like Quickbooks, or the trendy cloud-based accounting? They each have different pros and cons Today we look to weigh the risks versus the benefits of using an accounting app to manage the day-to-day of your small business in the cloud.

Know Someone Who Runs Personal Expenses Through Their Small Business?

Tax Strategist or Tax Evader? C’mon…admit it. You know someone who’s done it.

The Key to Managing Profit and Cash Flow for Your Small Business and Knowing the Difference Between the Two

If you’re looking to start your first small business, there is one thing you need to know more than anything else, the role profit and cash flow will play in your venture. An Insights West survey found that nearly half of small business owners consider these their main source of stress. A U.S. Bank study by Jessie Hagan found 82 percent of businesses fail due to cash flow mismanagement. We don’t want you to become part of that statistic. We want to help you start your small business on the right foot, and increase your chance of success straight out of the gate. To do that, not only do you need to ensure profits, you absolutely must embrace the concept of cash flow management and it’s critical importance to the success of your business.

5 Apps To Use in Place of Spreadsheets

If you’re like some small businesses, you may be under the wrong impression about the tools to maintain and close your books. You might think you have only two choices: spreadsheets or QuickBooks. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. You now have access to an ever-expanding field of cloud-based accounting apps. More importantly, a few accounting apps on the market stand out as strong alternatives to QuickBooks or humdrum Excel spreadsheets.

The best back-office software for small businesses

Businesses are fundamentally about money: making money, managing money, and paying money to employees or other businesses. Every business — even those “billion dollar” startups that don’t make a cent — needs to stay on top of its finances.

5 Essential Strategies You Need to Use to Motivate Your Best Employees at Your Small Business

You may think your top-performing employees don’t need extra encouragement. After all, they’re already driven, productive and well-compensated, right? Why fix something that’s not broken? That’s a risky mindset that may very well backfire on you.

5 Ways To Experience Flow and Get Crazy Productive

The average person has 70,000 thoughts each day, and if you don’t learn to organize them, they have the potential to wreak havoc on your productivity. When you succumb to the flurry of thoughts running through your head, your mind becomes disorganized, and the more you ruminate on intrusive thoughts, the more power you give them. Most of our thoughts are just that—thoughts, not facts. When you find yourself believing the negative, distracting, and pessimistic things your inner voice says, it’s very hard to slow down the momentum of your thoughts.

12 Ways to Improve Your Cash Flow

Managing cash flow is the lifeblood of every small business. Your work may reward you in ways that aren’t about money at all, but if the cash flowing in doesn’t exceed the cash flowing out, you’ll probably be in trouble before long. These 12 ways to improve cash flow can help you encourage incoming payments, delay outlays of cash and stay on top of everything in between–like payments, late fees, and billing cyc

5 Ways to Improve Your To-Do Lists

To-Do lists should be an invaluable part of any small business person’s day-to-day. They don’t just help you get things down, they help keep you motivated and on track. Now, they seem pretty self-explanatory, right? Write down a task. Then do it. But sometimes they can quickly go from being useful to useless. A to-do list can too easily take a wrong turn and become exhaustive and exhausting. Here are five quick tips to help you get the most from your to-do lists.

7 Bad Management Traits and How to Fix Them

It doesn’t matter whether you’re the best florist, hair stylist, party planner or accountant, your business will never grow if you don’t know how to manage employees. Take a look at this list of management traits and ask yourself whether any of them apply to you. Don’t sweat it if you’re guilty of some (or all); the fixes are easy and your reward will be a successful business.