Buisness: 1 Business Building Tool in Network Marketing

Ever wonder why one person succeeds and another fails in MLM? Or why someone has massive success in a company, then leaves, goes someplace else, and never, ever again duplicates that success? Or why some people spend 5, 10, even 20 years in network marketing with NO success...

Yet they never quit!

Or how an industry that does so many things so wrong can still be so popular ...

This Tool Can Change Your Life

On December 12, 2004, our team released the ebook "Success In 10 Steps", the story of what we have learned from 26 years in MLM.

The feedback has been astonishing.

People say, "I could have written that book!

That was my story.

Why did you steal my story? How could you know exactly what I went through?"

Back in 1991, my mentor was making full-time income from MLM.

He retired from that company and actually joined over 100 network marketing companies in the next few years, to figure out how this industry really works: the good, the bad, the ugly.

Here's what he did:
1. Got on dozens of company conference calls
2. Organized & categorized companies, products, compensation plans, distributor kits, & marketing materials to compare each company with all the others
3. Studied their business models, to understand what kind of behavior certain business models drove
4. Studied how different "upline gurus" trained (or did not train) their people

This process answered all the mysteries. It also revealed some valuable, valuable secrets about network marketing.

Example #1:

The hard-driving, closing salesperson is about 8% of the population. And those 8% have convinced the other 92% that the 8% are right and the 92% are wrong.

How did they do that?

Because that is what THEY do. It works for them, so they have total confidence they are right, and when you feel their confidence, you KNOW they must be right, so you do what they tell you.

92% of the world's population is sales-resistant.

They do not like to be sold, and they do not want to become that pushy, aggressive salesperson nobody likes. Yet when they join MLM, some upline leader tells them,

"Make a list of your friends and family. Call them up. Get 'em into the business. You need to hear 100 'No's for every 'Yes'.

Guess what?

It still only works for the 8%.

If you let them mesmerize you, you can wander aimlessly in the "failure" desert for years...

Maybe forever.

The Choice Is Yours

You can't become something you hate in order to be successful. This model works for the 8% who are real salespeople.

It's a disaster for the rest of us...

A very bad business model.

Example #2:

Every person on the planet has to be educated in the skills of what they're doing.

Whether you're a doctor, carpenter, plumber, ditch digger ... whatever you are... You've got to be taught the skills of that business.

And what "Success In 10 Steps" does for people is, it gets them to realize,

It's not your fault! The people teaching you didn't know any better.

They weren't bad people. They weren't lying to you intentionally. They just didn't know any other way to do the business.

Do you think you can wake up one morning and say, "I'm going to be a doctor!"

And you go down and join a company, get a distributor kit for 50 bucks, and you're a doctor?

Of course not. That's ludicrous.

How about a carpenter?

No way. You have to learn pitches and square and level and plumb.

You have to be taught the skills. Yet people get in network marketing, and they're told,

"Call your friends & family." It's the biggest fallacy in the industry.

Network marketing is not a sales business.

It's a teaching & mentoring business.

When you build people, people will build your business. Those upline guru leaders will tell you,

"Well, you didn't make enough phone calls. You're a loser. If it's to be, it's up to me." Have you heard all that stuff?

I bet you believed it, too, haven't you?

Why This Ebook Is Such a Hot Tool For Building Your Business

So the ebook really opens people's eyes to the fact that they've been lied to. You must do your business with people who WANT to be in business with you. You have to sell product to people who LOVE the product and want to buy it. That only comes through target marketing.

We learned early-on about targeted marketing.

Only talk to people who have raised their hand and want what you have.

Well, guess what? EVERY person who downloads "Success In 10 Steps" is trying to figure out why MLM is not working for them. When you call them up, they could be in a company already. They could be working the business a year or 2 or 5, 7, 10 years. But why would they download that ebook?

They're divulging some critical information. The business is not working for them.

They want to figure out what the problem is. And they're looking to you for help. THAT is the basis of a long-term relationship, and THAT is the effect you can create with "Success In 10 Steps

3 Keys To Success With Your Affiliate Program

Affiliate programs (also called Referral Programs or Partnership Programs) are essentially commission-based sales schemes.

Joining an affiliate program is a neat way to make money from your users. But just as you can join someone else's affiliate program, so you can set up your own program and invite webmasters to sign up. Here are my top 3 tips to succeed with your own affiliate program.

1. How to attract affiliates

One of the biggest fears new Affiliate managers have is in finding new affiliates. This fear is a stumbling block that stops many site owners from getting started with affiliate marketing. Interestingly, with a proper marketing strategy, getting affiliates may not be very difficult. Given below are some tips that may help in attracting new affiliates.

Find complimentary sites - "Complementary" sites are sites that sell products or services that compliment your offers. If you sell "gardening tools", a site that sells books on "gardening tips" would be a perfect affiliate.

Find content sites - There are many sites that do not sell any kind of product or service but are mainly content oriented sites. Such sites promote an idea, concept, study or belief. Content sites that are used as a resource for your target market are ideal affiliates.

Finally, there are several sites on the Internet dedicated to listing affiliate Programs. Get your program listed in these directories.

2. Classifying Affiliates for Better Management

The hardest part of administrating an Affiliate Program is deciding what your affiliates need to help make the sale. But, by carefully categorizing your affiliates, you can easily determine what their needs are and how to accurately meet them.

The first step is to pick at least three types of affiliate. Take a look at your affiliates and try to determine one outstanding characteristic that can easily be compared across the board and choose at least three types of the characteristic.

The Second Step is to determine the needs of each type. Each of your affiliate types will have different needs; some of their needs will overlap, but you should find a distinct difference in many of their needs. If you find that all of them have the same needs, go back to step one and re-think your types.

The Third Step involves the process of creating and compiling linking methods for each group of affiliates. Based on the needs you identified in Step two, create and compile linking methods for each type.

3. Safe Guarding Against Spam

Any time you run a program where your affiliates rely on other signups to generate profits, you will eventually have a problem with spam. One of your affiliates will inevitably get it into their head to blitz the Web with unwanted garbage.

When this happens you need to be ready to take action otherwise it will cost you! Your Internet company can boot you off your server and you can find yourself blacklisted. Not good for business. If you get an email from someone claiming they received spam with your URL, then take it as an early warning.

I am not advising you to immediately terminate the affiliate's account, but be sure to contact them to follow up on the complaint. Let your affiliate know you received a complaint and advise them to remove this person from their list.

If you only get one or two complaints, it's probably not spam, the complainants might simply have signed up for an email list and forgotten all about it. You will know when one of your affiliates is spamming, because you will get anywhere from 10 to 100 complaints in the same day all regarding the same URL.

The best thing to do in this case is to immediately terminate or disable the account of the affiliate URL that was spammed.

Affiliate Programs Worthless for 80% of Affiliate Market

No doubt you've heard of the 80/20 rule - which states that20 percent of affiliates generate 80% of affiliate income, andconversely, remaining 80 percent of affiliates generate only20 percent of all income for most affiliate programs.

There are ten basics that will put your affiliate marketingin the top 20 percent of affiliate earnings. Ten suggestionscreek that barely covers your hosting fees, to a roaring river

TOP AFFILIATE MARKETERS DO MOST OF THESE TEN ITEMS

1.Top affiliate marketers cloak web site links

Cloaking affiliate links should not be necessary, but is. Oddlymany site visitors refuse to visit your links if they see an affiliate code appended to the URL when they hover their mouseover a link on your web page. Sometimes they will type theaffiliate domain directly to the browser address bar whileremoving your affiliate ID from the URL. To short circuit thisodd behavior, simply cloak the URL. How? Visit this Link Tool:
http://WebpositionAdvisor.com/tools/link_cloaker.php

2.Top affiliate marketers write & distribute articles

Writing articles about your market niche is essential to gainreputation as an expert in your field. But the biggest benefitcomes not just from writing those articles, but from havingthose articles published by other web site owners and ezinepublishers. Your article gains you both reputation and linksfrom other web sites from the resource box appended to theend of each article. Here are major article distribution sites.
http://yahoogroups.com/group/free-content/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aabusiness/
http://www.goarticles.com
http://www.ideamarketers.com

3.Top affiliate marketers focus on a market niche

Filling a web site with content reflecting a narrowly focusedproduct or service niche is a well known method of gaining webtraffic in your area of specialty. An excellent resource thatan help you determine relevant and focused areas to fill yoursite with is called NicheBot. They offer innovative tools toresearch and pinpoint market niches for your web site based onthe WordTracker Database and Google. http://www.nichebot.com

4.Top affiliate marketers use autoresponder series

Autoresponders are incredibly valuable tools that allow you to send a timed series of email messages to those that sign up for them. Most often those autoresponders are sent through a thirdparty provider. Some of the top providers are Sendfree.com and aweber.com, for a tutorial covering autoresponder basics, visit:
http://website101.com/email_e-mail/email_autoresponder_basics.html

5.Top affiliate marketers create web pages to pre-sell

Creating either testimonial pages or review pages that discussand pre-sell the product or service you are affiliated with isthe best method of getting increased orders for your chosenaffiliate programs. Many programs actually provide either anarticle or recommended text to sell their products for you and allow reproduction of those articles with your links embedded.

6.Top affiliate marketers gather email addresses

The best affiliates collect email addresses on their web site by offering free reports via the above mentioned autoresponders or by giving away ebooks or through newsletter signup forms.The best use all of these methods or more to build their listof email addresses. This also allows you to contact potential customers that would otherwise never see your site again after clicking away to the affiliate program web site.

7.Top affiliate marketers advertise SOMEWHERE

Depending on your market niche you should advertise using PPCand/or ezine advertising. Some categories of Pay-per-click can be prohibitively expensive, but advertising somewhere is all abut mandatory to gain substantial additional traffic to yoursite. There are some great bargains in ezine advertising and some less popular PPC engines other than Yahoo's Overture and Google's Adwords. Try 7search, Kanoodle and FindWhat for lowerBids than the big boys of PPC.

8.Top affiliate marketers optimize for search engines

Search engine optimization is becoming more complex as more and more webmasters participate, but the basics applied to your site can increase visibility dramatically over time. The most critical of the many SEO techniques is to use title tags that reflect individual PAGE content. Many webmasters write a master title tag and apply that site-wide. This is the worst thing you could do for search engine ranking. Learn more SEO:
http://SearchEngineOptimism.com/SEO_Tutorial/

9.Top affiliate marketers give away ebooks or freebies

Everyone knows by now that giving something away is a greattraffic generator and allows you to gather email addresses to allow contact of potential customers at a later date. This strategy is employed by EVERY successful web-based company at one time or another. Think of all the free things YOU have
collected online over time. Screensavers, software, ebooks, discount codes, toolbars, white papers. They work!

10. Top Affiliate marketers have their own mailing lists

The best of affiliate marketers have their own newsletter or ezine and gather email addresses on their site to build their list of subscribers. Having this list allows regular contact with potential customers interested in your site, your product and your market niche. If you don't write your own material or think you can't produce weekly content, there are hundreds of authors out there that will gladly product articles for you. The article distribution lists provide free content and ghost Writers provide high quality content for a fee.

If you implement ALL the above techniques, you are guaranteed to become one of the top affiliate marketers on the web. Then you can create your own product telling everyone how YOU did it, create your own affiliate program and have hundreds of usselling for you.

Affiliate: $27,817 Monthly With Affiliate Programs

I still remember thinking that promoting Affiliate Programs was a waste of time. Until I started making a small fortune.
At the end of 2004, I started some time exploring the concept of promoting affiliate programs through pay-per-click search engines. I knew of some Internet Marketing gurus who were claiming you could make thousands of dollars every month. But I was skeptical. I remember thinking, "I know what these guys are about. They just want to sell more books."
But I decided that at least it was worth a look. The concept is quite simple. Choose a product - and one that has an affiliate program, of course. Set up an advertising campaign at a PPC search engine like Google and choose how much you want to pay per click. Write a three line advertisement and add your affiliate link. Whenever anyone clicks through your ad and buys the product, you earn a commission.
So I looked. And thought about it. And looked some more. I was still very uncertain about the whole concept, but I finally decided to test for myself whether it could really work. And since I knew I'd be spending quite a bit of money on advertising clicks, I felt it was well worth investing in a book so I could learn from more experienced marketers how to maximize the profitability of my campaigns.
As my business grew over several weeks I purchased and read several ebooks. By far the best I read was Chris Carpenter's Google Cash ( http://tinyurl.com/6gdaq ). His approach is genuine, down-to-earth, and he explains very clearly how to build your own affiliate marketing business. And importantly, he makes a fortune doing what he explains in the book.
I started by testing 20-30 campaigns on various products. Most of them were unsuccessful, but I expected that from what I had been reading. I would test a product, and if it didn't work, I would drop it quickly. The key with this business is identifying the affiliate products and campaigns that are successful. Once you find one that works, the money starts rolling in.
By February of 2005 I had identified several campaigns that were turning a profit. With one of these I was spending $0.08 per click to promote an affiliate product that pays me $18 commission on each sale. Approximately 1 visitor in 100 buys the product, so I make around $10 profit for every 100 visitors that I send.
What a formula! For every 1,000 visitors, that's $180 in commissions. That might not seem like all that much, but remember once you have a successful campaign it keeps going all day, every day. If you send just 1,000 visitors to a program like this every day, then by the end of the month you will have earned $5,400 in commissions, of which $3,000 is profit.
Does it seem too simple? Well, if it was so easy everyone from your Aunt Mabel to the mailman would be doing it. In fact, while the concept is simple, getting your campaigns to run profitably does take some work. Since I can't possibly teach you all you need to know in one article, I'll give you a few tips here and recommend Google Cash for a detailed explanation:

1. Choose Your Product Wisely. The program should pay a commission of $15 or more, otherwise it won't be worth paying for your clicks. And if the commission is very high, be careful. Some products like web hosting and satellite dish installations may pay commissions of $100, but you face intense competition from other affiliates, so the price you need to pay to get ad exposure and clicks will probably also be very high. Sometimes it is better to identify a niche product with less competition from other affiliates.
2. Track Your Campaigns Carefully. If you're paying around 7 or 8 cents per click for a program that pays close to $20 commission, you need to make at least one sale for every 250 visitors. If you send 300 to 400 visitors with no sale, consider dropping it.
3. Days Of The Week Do Matter. When testing campaigns keep in mind the day of the week and even the time of day. Some products sell better on Mondays through Fridays, during business hours. Others, like entertainment products, sell better in the evenings and on weekends.

Getting back to my own experience, after identifying several campaigns that 'worked', I spent some time fine-tuning them using techniques I read about in Google Cash. By the end of February I had earned $27,817 in commissions for the month, all on products I had never even heard of at the end of 2004. My profit was a neat $10,795.
It's incredible really. I made this money without a web site. From home. Working an average of just an hour or two a day.
I'm finally making the amount of money online that I dreamed about.
How about you? Would you also like to build an affiliate marketing business? Could you use some additional income? I encourage you to proceed, but be smart about it. There are risks involved and you should be aware of them. You should read Chris Carpenter's book. That way you'll be on a fast track to more profitable campaigns. And his book will save you hundreds of dollars, easily, as you avoid some common mistakes and pitfalls.
Good Marketing!

Buisness:4 Steps To Unleashing Profits In Your Online Business

Ever wonder how the thousands of "under the radar" web businesses that earn well over $100,000/year (many with much higher sales) out of their own home do it?

Over the last year I've had the great fortune to speak with many of these true, hidden entrepreneurs at conferences, seminars, e.t.c.

What I'm about to share with you also came true for me, and is outlined in more detail in my Ultimate Information Entrepreneur's Success Package

Here's an example of their business model:

1. Information Products. Without a doubt, each one of the successes I know market their own infoproducts.
For some, it's an ebook. Others have special reports. Still others run online coaching programs, membership sites, paid newsletters, teleseminars, or produce digital audio or video products. It's not their only source of income, but is a MAJOR source of income, and more important, brands them an expert in their field leading to success with 2 and 3 below.

2. Market related Affiliate Products. Again, in almost every case, these online success stories become experts
at finding and creating joint venture deals with partners.

But, they work differently than most affiliates.

They start by ALWAYS reviewing the product they will market. Second, they look for a different way to present the product or service - a more beneficial way to show users the real benefit in the affiliate product. Third, they use the branding from 1 to negotiate higher commissions and focus on high commission programs only.

3. They monetize their traffic using Adsense or selling advertising on their sites. For high traffic pages
where adding paid ads or Google's Adsense will not impact their own sales, they will run ads to further monetize their sites.

4. Sell their time. You will find that truly successful people online LOVE to help people succeed. But...for
every person who is really dedicated to succeeding there are 10 "tire kickers" who want someone to hand them success on a silver platter. It doesn't work that way, nothing works that way. So, in order to leave time to help those who really want it, coaching programs are formed. Yes - you have to pay big money, but you should easily be able to get 10X the value for money spent.

So as you can see, there is no ONE single way to build your wealth online.

Instead, you build a diversified, rich and healthy business by focusing on these 4 pillars. Not only will you earn more money, but your business will be stronger and build momentum faster when you do.

Adsense Tips: 3 Unusual Formats For Auctions on eBay

eBay users are accustomed to only two "standard" formats for sales on eBay: either the 'regular' auction which involves bidding and waiting; and the Buy It Now, which is an instant purchase.

But there are three other formats that are less well known.

1. Live Auctions

Before eBay, the traditional auction included live bodies in chairs and an auctioneer up front (talking so fast he was frequently unintelligible). Any buyer can still participatein these live auctions via eBay. Live auctions are a hybrid - a buyer is 'sort of' present in a live setting yet is at home using an Internet connection.

The products for sale are usually expensive and unusual. There are such items as expensive and unique coins, Asian art, native American artifacts, incredible jewelry, costly furniture, memorabilia from major sports stars and even history. Today, for instance, there are documents signed by John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, James Madison and Ulysses Grant (he confides that he was strenuously opposed to the "wicked" war with Mexico).

If you choose to participate in a live auction, be certain that you register first because you can't just drop in on a whim.

You can find all the details here:
http://www.ebayliveauctions.com

2. Private Auctions

Private auctions are similar to the typical auction that we're all familiar with except for one detail - the identities of the bidders are kept secret. Only the seller has access to the names.

Why would anyone create a private auction? It's usually for one of three reasons:

* The item is quite expensive and buyers might be uncomfortable having others know they can afford such merchandise. Their concern about their financial status is most likely misplaced because it is quite possible to distance yourself from eBay contact information, but much of selling is about perception.

* The buyers might be embarrassed by the nature of the merchandise.

* Some sellers habitually use private auctions to make it harder for their competition to snoop on them.

3. Restricted Access Auctions

This is usually for sales of "adult" items. The main purpose is to prevent children from seeing this kind of merchandise, and is similar to having covers on racy magazines at storecheckouts.

To bid on these items, the buyer must:

* Be 18 years old

* Must have supplied credit card information to eBay.The theory is that no one under 18 can get a credit card and therefore cannot get into these sections.

* Agree that he is voluntarily accessing restricted access auctions In addition, restricted auctions are excluded from the Featured pages. So if you are a seller using this format, your listing will be harder to find.

Even though they are less well known, these three formats for auctions on eBay still account for tens of millions of dollars in sales each year. If they suit your business model, you might consider them.

Accounting Tips: 9 things you must do to maximize your chances of obtaining a small business loan

To get approval for your small business loan application, you must be able to meet the lending criteria set down. Some organisations are more risk averse than others, and will therefore have more stringent criteria.

To vastly increase your chances of a successful funding application, you will need to present the following information:

1. The reason for the loan. The lender will be looking for something that fits within the normal range and expertise of your business. The amount may cover a number of items, so you will need to cover each.

2. The amount required, and the repayment term of the small business loan you want. (e.g. $10,000 term 5 years, payable quarterly).

3. Details of how you will repay the amount borrowed. For example, “From the increase in profits of reduced running costs of the Whizzbang Go4It”

4. Details of security you will be able to offer to the lender. This will act as reassurance for the lender. If you’re not prepared to put up some aspect of security, then why should they?

5. You will need to include your business plan which will serve to answer essential questions relating to management capabilities, information about the market you operate in. What kind of business you are in etc.

6. 3 Years financial statements. You will need to present quality financial information from your accounting software, preferably signed off by your accountant or tax advisor.

7. Latest Set of Management accounts. Again produced from your accounting software.

8. Accounts receivables (debtors) and payables (creditors) ageing reports.

9. Principals financial statements. – Particularly required if some form of security is necessary.

If you are a new company, the emphasis is going to be on your business plan , and the security (also called collateral) you or your business can provide against the loan.

You must take the time to practice presenting your case to the bank or lender to iron out any glitches. Practice on your colleagues and family (you never know, they might be so impressed, they'll invest or lend!). It may help to role play the lender and come up with as many pointy questions as possible. The more time you take the better your chances will be. (But remember, don’t fall into the analysis paralysis trap!)

Good luck! 
by: Neil Best

Accounting: 9 Strategies for Writing Accounts Payable Procedures

You have permission to publish this article free of charge, as long as the resource box is included with the article. If you do run my article, a courtesy reply to sean@bizmanualz.com would be greatly appreciated. This article is 1,067 words long including the resource box. Thanks for your interest.

The Cash to Cash Cycle
Part Four of Series

Part One: http://www.bizmanualz.com/articles/01-05-05_inventory_procedures.html/?ART78

Part Two: http://www.bizmanualz.com/articles/01-11-05_accounts_receivable.html/?ART79

Part Three: http://www.bizmanualz.com/articles/01-18-05_Sales_Marketing.html/?ART80

Next Week: Complete Cash to Cash Cycle

The white flag is just a nose away…toward the Million dollar prize in cash savings for your business…

So far, in Inventory and Accounts Receivable, we've found $250,000 each in cash savings. Then we found another 250K in Sales and Marketing. And so, now, Accounts Payable is the final process within the Cash to Cash Cycle - and also the final $250,000.

The cash cycle is undoubtedly the single most important process to optimize for any business – from when you spend money to when you get money.

Circling the Cash to Cash Cycle

So let’s tie this back to accounts payable - the event that pays for the liability incurred by purchasing, which is for inventory required by manufacturing to meet demand. Sales generate this demand that creates the accounts receivables, which is turned into cash. And now we have come full circle and completed the discussion on the cash to cash cycle.

Increasing the Velocity of Accounts Payable Processes

Your accounts payable is a bit different than the other processes we have examined so far. The first three processes we looked at represented processes where the focus was on reducing the size of assets (inventory or accounts receivable) or expenses (marketing) and increasing the velocity or cycle time. But in accounts payable our focus is on increasing the size of the asset, while maintaining a solid credit rating - and increasing the velocity of the process.

Now let’s look at how to find $250,000 in accounts payable savings. If your organization has $500,000 in accounts payable each month, then STOP! We can find $250,000 in savings right here. Where, you ask? Increasing payables by 25% will produce $125,000 in cash plus $125,000 from automating tasks, taking more discounts, and managing the process better.

Service Business Procedures Case Study

An organization with $600,000 in monthly payables needed assistance. We examined their payables process to understand and quantify workflow, paper processing and credit issues. Then we designed and implemented a process to increase their use of payables and discounts, improve their payables cycle efficiency, and tie it to their purchasing and receivable cycles. We then reinvested $50,000 back into an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) program to automate some of the processes that weren’t automated already.

The metrics we developed reduced their purchasing & payables expenses by 25% and increased their efficiency from 50% to 75% within 2 months of implementing the new procedures. With these new processes and reports, the company now tracks payables cycle efficiency and average days payables, rather than just bills paid on time or outstanding balance, as the measure of their payables effectiveness. The result: an extra $300,000 in cash plus a 50% increase in process capability (capacity).

But how?

Methods to Design Your News Accounts Payable and Accounting Procedures

• Eliminate Paper. The single biggest cost for any purchasing and payables department is paper, including: purchase orders, purchase order follow-up, small-dollar purchases, delivery tracking & receipts, and vendor payments. Utilizing paperless invoices, Web-based supplier self-servicing, centralized vendor files, automated workflows for electronic or imaged invoices (see ERP below), and payment methods, such as business credit cards, Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT), can reduce paper handling costs by as much as 90%.

• Integrate ERP Systems. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) automates the purchasing and payables functions, which allows a company to get more work done with fewer personnel. Also, electronic invoice matching applications save time in retrieving paperwork. It is estimated that an ERP system can annually save an organization $300 per million in sales.

• Increase Payment Terms. Negotiate payment terms based on receipt of goods or the invoice. This can add one week or more to your terms, which can be 25% of 30 day terms. Use EFT for just-in-time payments to maximize your payables terms and minimizing the impact to your credit.

• Take Payment Discounts. If you are getting 2%/10 net 30 terms, then consider taking it. This means you are offered a 2% discount if you pay within 10 days, instead of the normal 30 day terms. This translates into an 18% return on your capital, and for many organizations this is a good return on your investment.

• Review Purchases. Purchasing is a continuous process that requires continuous review. Consider: transportation charges, expedited fees, odd lot penalties, new pricing, new products, consolidating vendors, new vendors or buying groups, payment terms, and more. Communicate with your suppliers to improve the process. And review and monitor everything to account for changes in your environment.

• Communicate with Suppliers. Communicate with your suppliers to improve the process. Ask suppliers to submit their invoices electronically. This will save you time, resources and losses due to waste.

• Eliminate Disputes. Disputes with your suppliers are typically the result of a problem with your purchasing/receiving process. When disputes occur, review your purchasing procedures to ensure that they are producing the correct metrics and that you are not forced to pay for your mistakes.

• Reduce Errors. Overpayments, payments made to the wrong vendors, fake invoices, or even late payments represent a common problem for payables. Increasing your focus on error control, along with written procedures and audits, can reduce these errors considerably.

• Train personnel. Provide your accounts payable staff with regular formal training. This will arm them with better knowledge of frauds, negotiating skills, and an understanding of the economics of payables – which will result in improved effectiveness.

Accounting Policies and Procedures for Cash in the Bank

In the past few weeks, we have showed you four parts of your financial statements that will each contribute $250,000 in cash savings. The last hurdle was Accounts Payable, and we sailed through it. And now we have crossed our final goal: $1,000,000!

Time was - and is - the key. All you have to do is own it. And, remember, next week we will put together each of the four elements of the cash to cash cycle, and look at how it affects the working capital of your business.



About the author:
Chris Anderson is currently the managing director of Bizmanualz, Inc. and co-author of policies and procedures manuals, producing the layout, process design and implementation to increase performance.

To learn how to increase your business performance, visit: http://www.bizmanualz.com?src=ART81

Accounting: 7 Things to Consider Before Buying Small Business Accounting Software

The world of small business accounting software can be a minefield for any business owner. However choosing the right package is one of the most critical business decisions you will make.

Here are the seven things you must consider before making a purchase that will help you achieve your businesses goals.

1. Scalability

Businesses change over time so it's critical that the small business accounting software you choose can change too. Some things that often change are the number of products and services offered and the number of employees. When you choose your package try and imaging the business in 5 years or 10 years time and how different it will be. Use this information to guide your purchase decision. It may well be better to pay a little more now for the software knowing that it can be easily
upgraded when needed with minimum disruption and cost to your business.

2. Support

It is important that any software has great support for when something goes wrong (and it always does). Most major companies offer support but you also need to think about support in your local area. It's often much easier to have someone locally come in and do things you need done with your software than have someone trying to help you over the phone. Make some
enquiries with other businesses about the package they use and who helps them.

3. Accountant Interface

It's most unlikely you will handle every aspect of your businesses accounting. Your accountant is an important factor in making the right decision. What software are they used to working with and what do they prefer? Can you easily supply them data and reports from your package without the need for any extra work (which you'll have to pay for). Don't be afraid to ask their opinion as they live and breathe this stuff.

4. Best Value For Money

Once you have selected the right package for your business you may as well get the best value. Shop around as the price can vary greatly and the product is exactly the same. Online merchants such as Amazon may offer better pricing because of the sheer volume of products they sell. However price is only one part of the equation so if their is great merchant locally with support or installation assistance this may be far more valuable.

5. Major Brands

There are two major players in the small business accounting software market. They are QuickBooks and Peachtree. Microsoft is expected to enter the market soon. I recommend choosing a major brand so that you can get regular updates and you know the company will be around as long as your business needs them.

6. Ease of Use

Ease of use is a personal thing but it is worth trying the software before you buy it if you can. Remember to get the person who will be the main user to test the software as well. Also consider how well the package can interact with other software you use. This is an advantage the Microsoft package may have when it's available.

7. Features Needed

I touched on this earlier when talking about thinking ahead as to where you business will be in 5 or 10 years time. Most accounting software packages come in several different versions. If you don't need certain features now and can't see a need for them in the future then don't buy them. The major differences are usually - number of users allowed, inventory management capability and number of reports available.

To sum up think ahead when planning your purchase of small business accounting software. You will make a much smarter business decision that will save you plenty of trouble and money in the future.

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