General Business and Finance Blog

Running a small business can be tough at times and most businesses run a fine line between being profitable and making a loss. These narrow margins leave small businesses very vulnerable to the risk of losses resulting from accidents, theft or lawsuits. Minimizing risk is essential for small business owners and adequate insurance is an essential solution for this. Business insurance offers protection for when your product or service fails, when someone is injured on your property, when a thief walks off with your office computers or when your driver crashes the company vehicle.

Getting the right type and amount of cover is a daunting task for most people. As a result many small businesses are either under insured, over insured or worst of all not insured at all for vital risks. The type of business you are running and the types of products and services you offer will largely determine the type of insurance you require. In general, small businesses need a combination of the following types of policies:

Public Liability Insurance

This type of insurance policy protects your business from lawsuits associated with damages caused by your business or injuries sustained by people on your business premises.

Professional Indemnity Insurance

If you are a professional like an accountant, investment advisor, tax consultant or even an insurance broker then you should definitely consider taking out this type of insurance policy. It protects you from losses that could occur should a client sue you for advice or services that may have led to the client losing money. Professional indemnity insurance covers legal costs, court fees and pays the settlement should you be found liable.

Workman’s Compensation

Many countries have regulations that make workmans compensation insurance compulsory, but even if it is not, this type of insurance can cover injuries sustained by your employees while on the job.

Business Interruption

If something happens like a fire on your premises and you need to stay closed for a significant number of days, weeks or months, this type of insurance will cover your fixed expenses like rent, utilities and taxes. Having to cover these expenses while the business is not generating an income would be disastrous without adequate insurance.

Building Insurance

Just like with home building insurance this type of policy covers the expenses of rebuilding or fixing damaged business premises following a fire, water damage or similar event.

Business Motor Insurance

This is similar to regular car insurance, but usually differs in terms of the drivers stipulated in the policy. Since several different people typically use a business vehicle a policy with multiple drivers is usually needed. Should the business operate many vehicles then fleet insurance will be required.

If you are unsure about your small business insurance needs, then it is vital that you consult an insurance broker who expert in small business insurance. An insurance broker will be able to analyze your businesss services, products and activities in order to determine where your high risk areas are and provide you with policies to cover this risk. A broker will also be able to source several insurance quotes for you in order to find a good deal.

Buying a franchise can be an excellent way to go into business while having the security of a tried and true business plan for success. It can take much of the trial and error out of the equation that independent business owners often go through, because you can instead work from a template of an already proven business model and focus your time on perfecting your operation. When deciding whether a franchise business is right for you, it’s important to know the basics such as how they function and what you can expect from your franchisor-franchisee relationship before you jump in any further. Here is some basic franchise business information to help you get started:

What is a Franchise? A franchise is defined as an agreement between the franchisor and franchisee, wherein the individual buying into a franchise will market a product or service created and provided by the franchisor. It is a form of business ownership where you are halfway functioning as your own boss, as a business owner, but also working within an established organization and system.  Franchising offers business owners the ability to work for themselves, but with the security of an existing framework and support to help them achieve success. However, franchising is not a magic formula, and franchisees will still have to have strong entrepreneurial skills and the dedication to ensure the business functions to the best of its ability.

The Financial Exchange:  For the privilege of working within the franchisor’s system, the franchisee must pay certain royalties and fees back to the parent company, and there can be a lot of variation from one organization to the next, so it’s best to do research in order to get the franchise business agreement that will work for you. At this stage in the process it is extremely important to have an experienced franchise lawyer to help you negotiate contracts.  In return for this financial exchange, the franchisor can provide support, marketing, and the initial framework to get the new franchise owner’s business started – again there can be variations in the level of support you will receive from one franchise business to the next, so some research and franchise evaluation will be required.  A franchise lawyer would be able to assist you in creating a comprehensive franchise evaluation report.

The Two Main Types of Franchise: When looking to buy a franchise, you will find that there are two main types to choose from, business franchise, and product/trade name distribution franchise.  For business format franchises, the franchisee receives the whole setup to start their own business, including trademarks, logos, marketing, a clearly defined business plan, as well as ongoing support from their chosen franchisor, in exchange for an upfront franchise fee and ongoing royalties. Examples of this include fast food restaurants, gyms, cleaning agencies, and copy centers, which all must be run according to the predetermined structure established by the franchisor, and maintain a set of standards laid out for them in their franchise contract. For product/trade name franchising, it is a much simpler affair, with franchisors providing a product, advertising, and branding, so that the franchisee can sell their wares in their chosen location—examples of this form of franchising include soft drinks and office supplies.

Day Trading Training

Verily, day trading is an alluring proposal to hear, being day trading ground rules relatively simple. By making very brief term investment choices and ultimate them out profitably, you can set yourself free of charge based on information from your boss, your mortgage, and your debts. Unfortunately, ensuring profitability is one of the biggest challenges for professional day traders. Day Trading Training

While other day traders struggle to recover their original day in and day out investment, you have the key to overcome this challenging factor and separate yourself from them. By employing proper day trading training basics, you will be able to ensure your profitability as a day trader, and truly enjoy all of the lifestyle benefits day trading can bring to you.

1. Focus on one market area

Huge volume of market activity is one of the biggest challenge for most traders. Short-term trading easily tenders itself to spontaneous feed backs to market movements. Proper notice is crucial to profitability, however, it is convenient to be swarmed. Day Trading Training

To have a better profit, concentrate on one market area, familiarize the trends in that market area and be a specialist on the leading companies engaged on that particular market. Resource metals or green energy firms may be one of those that you like. Identify what’s hot what’s not, break down its surrounding regulations, and aim to distinguish its clients in the market. In this way, when something happens in your market area, you will be able to understand and correctly interpret the data to get to a profitable trading position.

2. Get fundamental Day Trading Training

Before making any trade, ask yourself if it is an emotional or a fundamental decision. Never losing sight of the fundamental values and properties as to what you are buying and selling is one of the most important day trading basics. Thinking on the terms of numbers on a screen is simple, however, you may overlook the chances when you do not base verdict on the concrete products behind those numbers. Day Trading Training

3. Minimize your losses The easiest way to ensure your personal profitability is to limit your losses. Discipline is necessary for you to have with respect to your trading, as well as steadfast system about your actions in case of drops in a given trade. The game is not about buy and hold when it comes to day trading training. Day Trading Training

You are not in this for the long haul-you are in this for the money. No matter what your instincts will tell you about the stocks, always have a contingency plan and stick to it. Honest are numbers, so when it is time to bail out, sever you losses and start to trade again. Stop what you are doing RIGHT NOW and get your Life Changing Day Trading Training Program. It’ll change your Life Forever!

I’m not an Economics Major! What do I need to know about Small Business Finance?
No, you don’t need to be an economics major, but you do need to understand the basics of small business finance and good financial management. And if you are an economics major, Great! You have a big head start.
Do you need a bunch of spreadsheets? Not today, but as you plan your business and it begins to grow, you’ll know how to use these! When you’re starting out, there are five basics areas where you need to learn as much as you can:
Bookkeeping:
In very simple terms you need to keep track of the money that comes in and the money that goes out. It may sound a simple, and it might be in the beginning, but you’re not starting this business to run for a month. Hopefully you’re starting this business to last for a long time.
It’s a very good idea to put a smart small business finance accounting system into place from the beginning, and get it set up to grow with your business. You will find a resource page below with some very good basic accounting systems that are affordable and easy to use for small business finance.
Credit and Collections:
You need to make sure you get paid for your product or service. How this happens can vary greatly based on the type of business you run. If you’re just starting out, you will probably not offer your customers credit terms, more likely it will be cash on delivery.
For this you need a payment tool that your customers trust (always look at your customer’s point of view first) and one that will allow you immediate access to your cash. There are many online payment tools and gateways, like PayPal.
One important note, it is an extremely smart idea to use a payment tool or gateway that also offers you the ability to download transaction details into your accounting package. This saves you loads of time manually entering information into your small business finance software package, and has many additional upside advantages.
Cash Flow:
This is where most people have problems with small business finance, and the largest reason for business failures. Let me explain it this way.
Can a profitable business fail? YES, and many do! Cash is KING!
You must have enough cash coming in to pay your expenses. In the beginning this will be from your own pocket or from your small business finance loan or credit facilities. But eventually, and in most cases sooner rather than later, the start-up funding will run out. You need to be focusing on cash flow from Day ZERO, and eventually when the business is running on its own income you can focus more and more on profitability.
Purchasing:
You will need to buy things for your business. In the beginning it’s important to focus on how you pay for these items. If you’re using your credit card, no problem, but watch the finance charges. Try and keep the outstanding balance on your card down to a minimum.
If your making most of your purchases online, then find a good payment tool or gateway that you can use to pay for purchases while at the same time collecting money from your customers.
Financial Analysis:
Don’t worry, this is not a huge issue in the beginning, because if you’re like most new businesses there will be very little to analyze.
But keep in mind; this will become more and more important as your business begins to grow and you have less and less time to dedicate to finance. You will need to again select an accounting package that can grow and expand with your business giving you easy reports to understand.
In the beginning you really just need the ability to watch your finances and do short range forecasts of your cash flow. Most accounting packages have this as a basic part of the package, if not; keep looking for a system that offers this from the beginning.
Get the Small Business Finance Basics right, and the rest will follow with much greater ease. Ignore the basics, or do them wrong, and you’re asking for problems later on that will distract you from your main function as a business owner which is finding and keeping customers!