5 Excellent Accounting Software for Your Business

This is a guest post written by Jimmy Wentz. If you’d like to write a guest post please contact me.

Express accounts: All action account app [Mac]

Image courtesy of all-freeware.com

Express Accounts highly professional accounting application is a great freeware product that can help you run a number of small businesses together. It tracks and reports on incoming and outgoing cash flow including payments, sales, receipts and purchases. It also allows you to create multiple journal entries for all your monetary transactions. Its default reports are fairly comprehensive and can easily cover the basic requirements of any small business. The main standard reports, including profit & loss and overall balance, are fairly intuitive and easy to generate accurately.

Rhino Accounting: Why-no other accounting app will do

Image courtesy of rhinoaccounting.com

I borrowed the appalling tag-line from a mate who doubled-up as my accountant, who being an extremely thrifty fellow, claimed that he always liked to think about Rhino Accounting’s uniquely free double-entry bookkeeping to console himself any time he took a girl out on an expensive date. Yes, he is a little strange, but he has saved me a lot of money and blushes over the course of my business career, all for the price of unlimited booze. How he managed to keep track of all those numbers when he could barely stand, I have no idea, but then again he did always claim accountants need to be creative.

Having had a stab at it myself, there is no question that it gets the job done, but it is a no-frills piece of software and unless you are serious about your accounting, then you might want to opt for something with better support in the long term. But as my friend still maintains, “if it’s free, don’t fix it”.

Billing Boss: Invoice for free


Image courtesy of billingboss.com

Invoices don’t need to be so complicated. If your business is at an early stage it is likely that you don’t really need something too fancy like QuickBooks Premier Edition or FreshBooks, so save yourself a few bob and pick up Billing Boss free instead. There is no limit on usage and it is even easy enough for me to use – even after a night in with my accountant friend. Of course, he turns his nose up at it, but secretly he’s happy that it is so straightforward that he can leave me alone with it for an hour or two without having to check up on me or have me nag him for heIp. Yes, he also likes it because “if there is nothing to mend and you don’t have to spend, then it’s the perfect blend.”

Invoicera: Take the taxing out of taxes


Image courtesy of nextbigwhat.com

For those business owners that don’t have a big budget or an accountant that can be easily bribed with a plenitude of alcohol, then Invoicera will usher in a new age of easy accounting for your business. It has a lot of features for a free billing app and a very accessible interface. It offers a highly comprehensive service, and it works particularly well if you are web-based business dealing with clients all over the world as it supports a vast number of gateway payments. It is a little limited as a free app, but as a premium app it works well as a general business management tool thanks to features such as Time Tracking (very useful for lawyers keeping track of billable hours), and Expense Tracking, which can help keep tabs on your employees’ and other business expenses.

KashFlow: Keep yours fluid


Image courtesy of accountingweb.co.uk

An all-rounder accountancy app, Kashflow is great for the beginner entrepreneur and for start-ups. A handy 14-day trial is worth experimenting with. The, fairly rarely offered, 24-hour email support is a pretty good bonus as well.

Jimmy Wentz is a budding freelance tech writer, gadget and gaming enthusiast, and social media junkie. He writes regularly about O2 and the latest news in the tech, gaming, and the social media world.
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Showcase Your Reputation

What sways a new customer towards a purchasing decision? Is it the clean design you have on your site that makes navigation simple? Have they read your blog, and decided that you will be the best person to meet their needs as a preferred supplier? Or have you built up a relationship with the customer through online communication, to the point that they wouldn’t dream of going anywhere else? Whatever your customer’s reasons for choosing to purchase, you can bet your bottom dollar that they considered your online brand and reputation before making the jump to contacting you or ordering through your site.

PeopleIn these enlightened days of online consumerism, people are savvy. They know what they are looking for when they come to you, and they have the right methods of weighing things up to determine whether or not you will be a suitable service provider. Above all, they know to seek out the recommendations of other people before taking a punt on you themselves.

That’s why I have my testimonials page, with over 50 testimonials.

The Internet has opened up consumerism to a whole new level of protection for customers. Rather than having to take a chance based upon gut instinct or the fact that they like your site, people who come to you have endless opportunities to seek out information online about your reputation and establish to their satisfaction whether you are a trades person that can be trusted to be reliable, ethical, and strong on customer service. Sites such as eBay and Amazon tapped into this consumer power from the start, enabling people to rate their transactions with sellers and buyers, write product reviews, and comment on the efficiency of service and speed of delivery.

Your customers are no longer impressed simply by an accessible site and a great product; they are looking for clear, visible evidence that you’ll do what you say, when you say you’ll do it. They want information that relates to your past dealings with other people which will convince them of your reliability and gives them confidence in your product.

Reputation is based first and foremost upon word of mouth. As a culture, we seek out the opinions of other people for most of our significant purchases. When we buy property, we speak to other people in the area to find out what it is like to live there. When we look for the ideal car, we ask people who have owned models that we are considering, getting insight into whether the vehicle is reliable and will suit our needs. The Internet has opened up this customer-led consumerism, making it easy for people to access opinions and perspectives on every possible product prior to purchasing. Just as an outstanding rating can be the single most persuasive factor in determining the purchasing decision, a bad rating on a site can be sufficient to turn customers away. For shabby service providers, there is no longer a way of hiding behind anonymity to disguise the fact that their product or service is below par.

All of this leads us to the conclusion that having testimonials on your site is the most important way you can showcase the fact that you are a trusted and efficient service provider. Publishing trackable, verifiable feedback from previous customers gives future buyers a sense of confidence, demonstrating that you operate to a high standard. These days, a site that doesn’t feature great testimonials is probably (at least in the eyes of the customer) trying to hide something. Either they have just started out in business, in which case they may not have the experience to fulfill orders properly, or they have not done sufficiently well in their trade to invite people to pass comment on their service.

Here are a few ways you can incorporate some absolutely stunning reviews on your WordPress site to give your customers peace of mind that you are an outstanding service provider.

WP-Testimonials

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-testimonials/

This plugin is a simple and effective way of showcasing what people have said about you and your services. Choose testimonials that you can link back to the site of the customer to assist their authenticity and bring peace of mind that they are genuine.

WP Customer Reviews

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-customer-reviews/

For an added element of authenticity this plugin lets people add their own reviews and testimonials. You can still moderate them before they go live, but this allows your visitors to quickly and easily post their views without the need for you to contact them with a specific request.

LTW Testimonials

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/ltw-testimonials/

This is the plugin that I use on my own site. It’s my preferred choice, because it’s very easy to use and it gives you the ability to categorize and group your testimonials so you can choose which ones to display at any given time. You can also tap into the functionality which lets you display a sidebar highlighting your customer feedback; this is great for visitors who are on the cusp of becoming a customer and just need a little nudge.

Video Testimonials

If you want to really increase the power of your testimonials, why not include video reviews on your site? You can record testimonials from customers using the VodBurner video recorder for Skype. Widgets like Bubobox.com and Pluspanda.com allow you to add them easily your site.

Let Your Feet Do The Talking…

Did you know that feet can talk? Most of us will experience the fallout of customers talking with their feet at some point during our internet business activities. Often, the loudest communication we can hear is that of customers picking up their loyalty and decamping to another service provider, or arriving at your site to stick around and make purchases. This activity is easy to benchmark and monitor, giving us outstanding insight in to how we are performing as business owners online.

Continue reading Let Your Feet Do The Talking…

Win The Latest 8G iPod Nano – Enter The Simple IncomeBloggingGuide.com Contest

It’s my privilege to be a co-founder of the Income Blogging Guide Membership course, and this week it has re-opened its doors to new members and we’d like to celebrate.

To celebrate (and generate some buzz, of course!), we are holding a contest where you can win the latest 8G iPod Nano (5th Generation – worth $125).

Please note: if you live outside the U.S. or UK and win, we’ll send you $125 via Paypal as an alternative prize.

To enter the contest, all you need to do is download our free Income Blogging Guide Blueprint.

By downloading the guide you will be automatically entered into the contest (if you have already downloaded it you will be automatically entered).

Double Your Chances:

If you retweet this post, your name will be entered twice.

You can use the retweet button within the post (top left) or you can copy and paste the text below and tweet it manually:

Deadline Date:

The deadline is Friday 14th May (midnight, USA EST).

Winner announced:

On Monday 17th May Andrew and I will draw the lucky winner using Random.org.

More About The Income Blogging Guide Membership:

If you want to have your own on-line business, then you may wish to view our course details.

Please Note: There are no images of mansions or flashy cars, just the exact details of how you will benefit from the course.

Here’s the link: Income Blogging Guide Membership course.

Here’s where you can download our free guide: Income Blogging Guide Blueprint.

As always, any questions just let me know.

Updated Ultimate Guide To Online Video

It’s been over 18 months, but I’ve finally gotten around to updating my free ebook that reviews 52 of the major video sharing websites (with a brief look at a few video editing sites) and rated them for quality, and ease of use. There are three parts to the guide:

Video Quality Comparison

The video comparison page currently compares the video quality of 52 of the most popular video sharing sites.

Video Comparison Page

Video Comparison Matrix

The Online Video Comparison Matrix quickly allows you to see what features are offered by each of the 52 video sharing and editing sites and what rating they have given them for various aspects of their service.

Free Ultimate Guide to Online Video eBook

The various online reviews and ratings have been gathered together into a Free Ultimate Guide to Online Video eBook that is available for all to download. The guide:

* Quickly looks at the registration process
* Simply compares their ease of uploading your own content
* Looks at the quality of the video
* Rates the services of 52 of the top video sharing websites
* Is FREE!

Ultimate Guide To Online Video

You can download the Ultimate Guide To Online Video for free here for a limited time. No sign up or anything is currently required.

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