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Finances
One of the things that I’ve found out about investing is that it can be very confusing if you don’t know what you are doing. I played the stock market and put money in some other things, but it kept me longing for more. I wanted a way to invest that was simple and helpful, and at the same time earning some money. I didn’t need the “get rich quick” mentality; just an avenue to invest.
A few months ago I stumbled upon Betterment, a web application that lets you invest your money and makes it pretty easy to do so. It is a great service that gives you a wide variety of ways to educate you to make an informed decision about investing. But it doesn’t stop there; it is a site where you can put your money into stocks and bonds through Betterment’s portfolio.
For those of you that run a small business, you know that keeping track of your finances is very important. You want to make sure that every penny is accounted for that goes out and that comes in. As someone that does the finances for my wife’s photography business, I am always searching for a way to keep track of receipts.
Over the past couple of years, I have tried to scan them in with a scanner and kept them in an envelope, but have found both methods to be average at best. There is nothing great about them, but something was still missing. I think I found what I was looking for when I started using Lemon, a web app that helps you keep track of receipts.
With the ever-rising popularity of web apps, businesses are turning to online solutions for their business needs, as it allows quick and easy access no matter where you are. The days of being tied down to the office to complete work are over as cloud computing and online platforms become ever more a reality in daily business life.
Last month, I took a look at Kashflow, an online accounting system aimed at small businesses helping them to keep their books in order and process simple accounting tasks such as invoices. However, there is now a new kid on the block, Crunch, looking to steal Kashflow’s thunder. It is, like Kashflow, aimed at small businesses who don’t want to have to shell out loads of money for an expensive IT system.
Is Crunch the one accounting system that your small business has been looking for? Let’s have a look at it in a bit more detail.
Good accounting practices are key to any company, whether it be a sole trader or a large, multinational corporation. It helps keep the company flowing and is vital for end-of-year figures, fiscal forecasting and resource planning. However, given the sheer range of accounting software out there, it is often difficult to choose which one to use. Large companies with plenty of money at their disposal often choose an expensive ERP system such as SAP or Infor, however smaller companies often don’t have the liberty of choice.
Web-based accounting software seems, for the time being anyway, to be the way forward for smaller companies looking to keep their books in order as well as saving money purchasing expensive, mainstream accounting solutions such as SAGE. The one I’m going to look at today is Kashflow, which is aimed towards small businesses based in the UK. There are plenty of features built in to Kashflow which make it a worthy candidate as a great accounting system for small businesses.
Let’s have a look at it in a bit more detail.
Cross-checking credit card statements with your receipts is like checking a lottery ticket: you feel like you should do it, but it rarely bears fruit in the end. I can’t recall a single time I’ve ever been able to find a fraudulent transaction on any of my credit card statements. Likewise, I’ve never won the lottery.
And yet, you can bet your last dollar that once the end of the month rolls around I’ll be hunched over my desk, brow furrowed, crosschecking crumpled receipts with crisp bank statements, almost daring some fraudster to have scammed me. I’m already plotting my revenge in anticipation.
BillGuard, a startup having just recieved their second round of funding, aims to stop the loose-cannon cop in all of us by doing the legwork. Think anti-virus for your credit card - only bigger.
When I was in college few years ago, and even as I’m running a business today, the word accounting always makes me cringe. I’m sure there are plenty of people like me across the globe. But there is no escaping account. Lack of proper accounting might lead to audits, penalties, and more. So it’s better to bite the bullet and get those finances in order. Fortunately, there are many web apps in the market to help you with it.
Outright dramatically streamlines the work involved with running a small business by helping entrepreneurs pay the right taxes, organize their income and expenses, and keep their businesses on track. Let’s see if the app is simple enough to use for those who aren’t really good at accounting.
If you’re like me, you’ll have learnt to love the convenience of ordering products through online retailers such as Amazon. However, the almighty Amazon boasts a feature which has proven to be incredibly helpful when wanting to save items that you’d consider purchasing in the future but not at the moment – wishlists. If you don’t want to be confined to the Amazon interface and would like a solution that focuses primarily on wishlists themselves and nothing else, look no further than Whimventory.
Whimventory is a cool new alternative and it offers support for multiple online stores, password-protected lists and even allows you to share your wishlists with a single click. Like what you hear? Read on to find out more.
One of the best things about web apps is that you can run them from any computer. Many PC users wish they could run popular Mac apps in Windows, while Mac users for years wished they could run PC games on OS X. Linux users are often left in the cold entirely with commercial software. But if you’ve come across a brilliant new web app, you won’t have to worry whether or not it’ll work on your computer. All you need is a modern browser and an internet connection, and you’re ready to go.
Billings is a popular invoicing app for Macs, one that’s nice enough that I used to wish I could run it on my PC. It’s still a fully OS X app, but now, you can use a companion web app to manage your team, track time on work, and record expenses from any browser. It’s an interesting synergy that tries to balance the flexibility of web apps with the style and features of a native Mac app, while letting you host the web app yourself or use their cloud service to save you the trouble.
To freelancers, time tracking is probably the most important aspect of any project. It helps you keep track of exactly how much time you are spending on a particular project, how productive you are and, most importantly, how much you are owed when it comes to payday at the end of the month! There are many different time tracking solutions available for all platforms, however it seems that in this day and age of the Internet, an online-based solution is often more appropriate.
Why? For one, they are often cheaper than PC or Mac-based software and they have the advantage of being able to be accessed from anywhere, not just from your own computer. There is a wealth of online time tracking applications available. Today, let’s have a look at Paymo, which we just recently featured in a giveaway.
Paymo has a considerable advantage over other time tracking clients in that it is free (if you sign up to the basic account) and that there is a range of goodies that can be added onto it, assisting you even further. Let’s have a look at it in a bit more detail.
There are a few things that you have to get used to when becoming a Apple user. You get used to paying a premium for a family of products that are more fun and less frustrating. You get used to seamless integration between all of your devices. You get used to looking forward to updates, even if it’s just a minor OS update. But if you’re like me, with a limited gadget budget, you also get used to predicting Apple’s release cycle so you can make smart decisions about buying a product or waiting for the new one.
Decide.com is a site that does this — not only for Apple products but for all kinds of gadgets from laptops to cameras, TVs, and phones. This web app aims to eliminate buyer’s remorse by making sure that you know how to get the best deal on updated or price-reduced gadgetry.
