Tools

Why Do Business People Use MS Excel? Reasons it Dominates Other Apps

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Excel is an integral part of Microsoft office suite. Its powerful functions has become an integral part of every business operations. So much so it has also become an integral to ones way of life. .

Why is it that that people are heavily dependent on this application? What is it that makes it so indispensable?

The Answer is…

  • Excel comprises individual worksheets for creating lists and spreadsheets.
  • It comes with such varied functions that creating lists, maintaining data or records or even scheduling becomes extremely easy.
  • Imaging converting any data into a pie chart or a bar graph representation with just a click of the mouse.

To Give you an Example…

  • Let’s consider a weekly conference room resource schedule as an example. It is very easy and handy to create a resource schedules with Excel. You can color code it and set it up to update itself automatically with every change of schedules. You can have the headings of each column named by the day and the rows based on time span. The first column may have Monday as the column heading and time slot, say 10 am– 11am as the row name.
    Thus you allocate different timings for different departments and pass on the sheet to the respective department to ensure every department is aware of their respective schedules. Can there be a better way to avoid confusion?
  • Lets consider the use of excel sheet in basic account. There can’t be a better application for checkbook ledger. After entering debit and credit figures you easily convert the entries into a pie chart to get a complete overview of how it went for you in a particular week or month. If you want to compare the expenditure figures of a few months, convert it into a bar graph, with each bar representing each month. And all this can be instantaneous. Likewise you can track product changes with excel on a monthly or quarterly basis. With a correct idea of the upward and downward trends, you get to know in which direction your business is heading. A detailed chart can also help you see your return of investment whenever you want.

When it comes to list making nothing can beat excel sheet. This feature can be put to a variety of use. For instance, if you wish to create a database of your customers, excel sheet is your best bet. You can endlessly add names and other information. When it comes to finding someone out, you wouldn’t face the proverbial needle in a haystack situation. Do a Ctrl + F search and pull the name out in a flash. You can go on adding fields without affecting the layout in possible way.

Given the many ways in which it can be put to good use, its doubtful whether excel sheet will ever outlive its utility.

Some Good Accounting Software for Business Use I Recommend

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For a business, to know how profitable it is, the balance sheet must be created and the state of the business put down on paper. This can be an unwieldy experience especially for new business owners with no experience in book-keeping and management. The most obvious alternative for most businesses is to hire an accountant. This option is only practical for businesses with a large margin, but unthinkable for small business owners. The other alternative is to get accounting software and learn how to use it. These tools will save a lot of man hours and most importantly, the business money, as time is indeed money, not to mention there savings arising form not hiring a professional accountant.

Sage Peachtree Complete Accounting

  • The features provided include audit trail accounting and email invoicing. It has a user friendly and intuitive inventory control.
  • It can keep track of the vendor quantities, size the inventory etc. The initial setup is quite confusing and needs a knowledgeable individual to assist

QuickBooks Pro

  • This is an affordable piece of software, ideal for small businesses.
  • The premium features include: supplies management, point of sales, and credit card processing.
  • There are other features like creating and managing invoices, automatic billing, creating tax forms (like 1099), tracking inventory, tracking payments as well as sales expenses and creating checks.
  • This service is completely web based currently, and it supports most of the web browsers on multiple operating systems.

AccountEdge for windows

  • This accounting software handles regular and recurring journal entries and budgets can be created covering up to two years.
  • There is a sales module in which features such as quotes, invoices and work orders can be found. A purchases module keeps track of purchases as well as returns.
  • There is a contacts’ module that can track customers, and create personalized letters. There is also a feature to create tax codes for clients as well as multiple tax codes for the same.

Simply accounting pro

  • Simply Accounting Pro comes from the same software accounting as Sage Peachtree.
  • Some of the features that it has are payroll, job costing, inventory, banking and time billing. The software has an extensive help section and is intuitively designed to make it easy to use.
  • It has an accounts receivable section that can perform functions like building general quotes, creating receipts and sales orders. But this section unfortunately can not estimate shipping costs, something that the competing products can do.
  • The payroll section can allow the addition, removal and modification of an employee’s record as well as setting different pay periods that can be 26 or 52 per year in number.

Rainmaker platinum

  • This is accounting software mainly targeted at attorneys.
  • It is designed to ease the process of creating complex bills and increasing the efficiency and handling of client payments and the accounts receivable.
  • It is a response to the need for secure and innovative accounting software solutions for law firms.

Latest 8 Google Apps for Business Use: What’s the Cost and Pricing?

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Google is one of the biggest companies in the empire of the internet and it has currently the widest array of different applications. If you own a business, these applications can work more than useful for you and so, they prove that it is really worth looking around on the internet for getting them.

Here, we shall discuss the applications meant for PC or laptop.

Sometimes applications are also business dependent. Therefore, we will enlist and shortly describe a couple of Google applications, which can prove useful to you. Google has prepared a Business package especially for small, medium and grand sized businesses. One package has a one-month trial version and it contains the following programs:

Top 8 Google Apps for Business Users

  1. Chrome: Google’s browser is getting more and more popular and used, because it is quicker and much easier to run of JAVA and FLASH than the other browsers.
  2. Calendar: Calendar can be your online filofax, containing all details, for example, a date that you need to remember. The calendar can be integrated with your mails, shared for a project and can be used on your mobile device too.
  3. Google Docs: With the online Docs, Google tries to do the backup for the Office re-creating everything in HTML that you need to share online. The Docs is able to give back the qualities of Word and Excel. The documents created in Google Docs are overall compatible for all systems.
  4. Google Cloud Connect: It is like a big Team Viewer where you together can work on one document or presentation. It is a tricky idea and makes cooperation much easier.
  5. Google Sites: This is a very easy website maker, an application that helps you to start from zero, entering the world of website creators.
  6. Google Apps Marketplace: This is a place where you can get or simply download other ads for your business. Once you start browsing, you will have endless choices in this regards. However, try to act smartly as downloading too many applications at a time may harm your system. So do it with thinking and some of your choice of apps knowing that so many Google applications exists that can be extra useful depending on the exact nature of the business. There are some Google apps for business review too.
  7. Google Finance: If you get this program, you will not need to search of Google apps anymore for business pricing and cost. This clever application will be your help all the way through. Google Finance interprets the stock prices and business reviews from all industrial segments.
  8. Google Groups: It is a program for keeping only company or department members on it. It gives place for document and idea sharing, so that a whole group can discuss the work phases, let is be about any sort of work.

This is just the starting of Google apps for business. You can see the rest of the applications on Google’s website with a fair yet short description.

Review of Top 5 Antivirus Software for Business and in 2011 and 2012

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5 Best Antivirus Software for Business Users

1. Antivirus Software for Business

  • Most of the worlds home and business computers run a version of the Windows operating system.
  • Unfortunately, for interoperability between different computers and file format compatibility, it is very necessary for business to business communication, not to mention Microsoft’s profits, this has encouraged the rise of programmers that write malicious code intended to damage, compromise, steal or corrupt data stored on computers running Windows.
  •  This has necessitated the development of programs meant to protect the operating system form these dangerous pieces of software called viruses. Protecting the computers used by a business is critical, as it may mean the difference between the businesses surviving of going under loss.
  • Viruses have been known to target and steal trade secrets stored on remote computers, to interrupt normal business operations, or physically damage critical hardware. Listed here are some of the anti-viruses a business should consider obtaining.

2. Kaspersky business space security

  • This has features like: on-access virus scanning, on demand scanning, automatic scheduled and manual updates and a secure quarantine container.
  • This antivirus also does real-time HTTP and email scanning, as well as option for system rollback in case of an unforeseeable contingency.
  • It offers protection form rootkits and keyloggers, a secure firewall, removable storage control, as well as support for different platforms including smartphones, workstations, fileservers, and clusters.

3. ESET NOD32

  • NOD32 is considered a reputable anti-virus. Some of the features that it has are, scanning SSL encrypted traffic channels like POP3s and HTTPS for threats.
  •  It can scan your email under clients like Mozilla Thunderbird, Microsoft outlook, and Windows live mail to ensure the integrity of emails. Removable media can be scanned on access, or can be given full scans on request from users, and self running removable drives will have their Autorun.inf files checked before they are run.
  •  There is an option to create bootable rescue CD/DVDs or even USB media, ensuring quick recovery after unexpected system problems. Curiously the software can also prevent malicious programs from altering it or disabling it. It goes for about $430 in the market place.

4. VIPRE business premium

  • This comes with features such as on access scanning for removable media, an advanced firewall with process protection, code injection logging, boot time protection, and a Snort based intrusion detection system.
  • Web filtering is available and so is URL blacklisting and the option of blocking advertisements.
  • This software scale swell with system size and can handle thousands of clients, it is also easy to set up the suite on clients by creating .msi or .exe for push install on the command line or via group policy software installation.

5. Bitdefender antivirus pro

  • This antivirus come with standard on demand, on access, and scheduled scanning features.
  • It also features a proactive virus protection that checks for malware and new viruses.
  • The software also safeguards one’s privacy online, whether on social networking sites or in data transfers, from malicious loggers that attempt to track one’s activities online.
  • There is a safe search built in that will warn a user while online about malicious websites within search engine results.
  • There is also ingenious use of cloud computing technology to minimize the impact on one’s system while scanning for viruses.

Social Networking for Business 2011 – 2012: What are the Pros and Cons?

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Many people use social networking sites, such as Facebook; therefore, this is a good way to reach the public about a service that a business is offering. Social networking sites are websites where people have a common interest or where people join a website to find people with a common interest or are from the same geographical area. Companies can use these social networking sites to target their customers or to try to improve their sales. Many companies start to stagnate and need a new way to reach out to customers, and social networking for business in 2011 is how this can be achieved. There are an estimated 131 million Facebook users, so a business can easily find a target group in a social network group with so many versatile members.

Social Networking for Business 2011

There are many different websites and tools that can be used for social networking for business in 2011, and create an advantage for businesses.

  • If a business has a web presence, the more likely that somebody surfing the web is going to find that business. Additionally, with social networking, many of the websites are free, such as LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube.
  • With different social networking sites, a company can set up a business page or a group page for free to help promote the company.
  • Social networking for business in 2011 also allows a business to find their target consumer or to promote their product. For example, if a company specializes in baby products it would be easy to network with parents on Facebook or to reach them by a blog. More and more people are getting to where they “window shop” or buy their products off of the Internet; however, they do searches before they buy.

Pros of the Social Networks to Businesses

The social networking for business has both pros and cons; however, the pros outweigh the cons. The pros of social networking are as follows:

  • A business can make other business connections that could lead to a partnership.
  • Social networks will promote the product and the business.
  • Social networking is a much easier way to stay in touch with clients because many clients use such social networks as Twitter or Facebook.
  • Social networking is cheaper than advertising and reaches more people because more people are spending time on the Internet.

Cons of Social Networking

  • Even though social networking is cheaper than regular advertising, social networking does take time to develop. It takes time to set up your network pages, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, and then it takes time to network.
  • If something negative happens within the business, it spreads very quickly through social networks.
  • Some people prefer the old way of doing business and do not like to adapt to the new methods because they say it is impersonal.
  • If a person is using social networking to promote his business, he needs to remember that his life and business is exposed to the public.

Top 4 Smartphone for Business Professionals 2011 with Email Support

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The features and applications found in phones are constantly improving. This has led to smartphones finding application even in the most unexpected of places. One can keep in touch on the go using email, video calls are also slowly being introduced in smartphones and most of all, using the Internet on the smartphone is to get information is almost like doing the same on a desktop computer.

Best Smart Phones for Business Use in 2011

Apple iPhone 4

  • Comes with a 3.5 inch touchscreen, packs a 1 GHz processor, storage provided by 16BG or 32GB flash drive.
  • Comes with a 5-MP camera, HD recording, and a front facing camera for facetime calls.
  • The iOS 4 mobile oprtating system supports standardized servers for facillitating features such as push email, contacts and calendar.
  • Data protection is thorough, with information encrypted when en-route during transmission, in the filesystem on the device and even when backed up on iTunes.
  • The price is $199 for the 16GB version and $299 for 32GB.

HTC Thunderbolt

  • This phone comes with a 4.3 inch screen, the android operating system, and 8 MP camera, 4G enabled and a 720p HD camera.
  • Has DLNA which will beam photos, music and movies to your TV wirelessly. The processor is clocked at about 1GHz, and the phone has about 32 GB of pre-installed storage space.
  • It also come with DIAL MICS that can do noise cancellation, an accelerometer, a compass and proximity sensor. The android app store is ever widening, and more developers are developing for android devices.
  • This capable phone will be able to handle most business oriented apps and promises to be a very versatile tool.

Blackberry bold 9930

  • This comes with a 2.8” capacitive touch screen, and a full QWERTY display, a combination that is rarely seen in smart phones.
  • It sports a 1.2 GHz processor plus 768 MB of RAM. Internally it houses 8 GB of space with a slot for cards holding up to 32 GB.
  • Inside there is an accelerometer as well as a digital compass, a proximity sensor as well built in GPS and aGPS. There is also dual band WiFi and Bluetooth support.
  • The Blackberry world is well serviced by an appstore featuring all the necessary function enhancements from apps that are needed.

Motorola droid 3

  • This solid phone from Motorola features an impressive five row QWERTY keyboard, a dual core processor, and an 8 MP camera.
  • The screen is 4-inches wide and the resolution is 960×450, and present is a HDMI port as well as a micro-USB port.
  • It runs the Gingerbread android operating system and can handle different types of networks like WCDMA, CDMA, GSM, HSDPA, EDGE and others. Unfortunately it does not have 4G so the competition may have an edge on it.
  • The phone also supports corporate sync email, Gmail, POP3/IMAP embedded, push and Yahoo mail, an important consideration for business.
  • One more important consideration is the access to the android app market, which is well established, and expanding. All this goes for about $199 in stores.

Free Microsoft Accounting Software For Small Business And Nonprofit

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Accounting software will ease the paper work in a small business considerably, easing the proprietor’s workload and making time for more constructive activities, like how to make the business better rather than wasting time number crunching.

Download Your free trial at http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics/default.aspx

Features of Microsoft Accounting Software

Accounts receivable

  • This section can create about five different types of reports, which seems to fall short of industry standards.
  • In the section one can monitor shipments that are en-route. On can also create shipping labels, as well as estimate shipping costs.

Payroll

  • The software comes with an add on component that is obtained separately. The service is free only for the first year. The section has the ability to create about thirteen distinct payroll separate reports.
  • The section can also make the W-2, 941, and W3 tax forms. The features are incomplete though as one has to export the data to Excel, to finish editing the payroll the work in Excel is mainly manual.

Accounts payable

  • The accounts payable section makes it possible to create quotes as well as purchase orders.
  • Available under the vendor or customer lists. There is also the ability to make 1099 forms, under the payroll module available separately at extra cost.

Inventory

  • There is an inventory control management feature under the products and services tool-bar.
  • The feature can assign unique numbers to products, can set the desired inventory levels and determine the average costs for every product.

Banking

  • The banking feature lets one manage all accounting involving the business’ assets as well as invoices.
  • One can add accounts, sort account lists and change the account particulars.

Time based billing

  • The time based billing option can accept time billing items. It is however not possible to display the time tracked item or to track the same over different time periods.

Fixed assets

  • There is a fixed assets’ module that only reports on the assets and liabilities of the business.
  • It can show the net worth, the account balances, the assets locations and create about nine different types of reports on fixed assets.

Ease of use

  • This software closely resembles Microsoft outlook in style and most users will find it quite familiar.
  • There is a template for creating new accounts specific to one’s type of business. There is a quickstart window that is accessible through the start menu, this make sit easy to access functions such as receiving payments and invoice creation.
  • This software also eases the pain of creating accrual cash based VAT returns using rates that are changing. The change in VAT can be entered into the program and this can be dome even for changes that will be in the future.

What is missing?

  • The features present are unique and useful, but there are some more that would be needed fro a small business or individual.
  • These are: job costing feature to ease the process of estimating the amount it takes to do or manufacture batches of products or service provision.
  • A general ledger feature is also missing, this would create a consolidated financial information from all aspects of the business.

Best Laptops for Business Travelers and Majors in Year 2011 – 2012

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Best Laptops for Business in 2011 – 2012

  • Every business needs to have at the very minimum, some form of access to the Internet fro communication purposes, a document processor, spreadsheets and son on to be able to function properly.
  • It would be tempting for a business to get a desktop PC, but with today’s fast paced world and highly mobile workforce, it is more practical to get a laptop.
  • The laptop can enable one to take work with them wherever they go.

MacBook Pro

  • This well designed machine packs a 2.4 GHz core i5 processor, or the high performance i7 processor plus and 4GB of ram fro the 17 inch model.
  • There are two other offers with 13 inch and 15 inch screens also offered with dual core processors.
  • The machine features ultrafast I/O connections that achieve data transfer rates of 10Gbps.
  • Integrated radeon HD 3000 graphic processor makes viewing graphics intensive games, HD movies and 3D software possible. The price ranges from $1199 for the 13 inch up wards to $2499 fro the 17 inch version.

Dell Vostro V13

  • This is a well designed aesthetically pleasing machine, but packs some considerable computing power.
  • The machine has about 4GB of RAM, a 13 inch screen and only weighs about 4 pounds, with a curiously small form factor. It comes with support from the manufacturer in the form of an online data backup system, that is reliable and touted as being a “send and forget” data backup system.
  • The machine is not all plastic, the edges are toughened with zinc and the casing is aluminum.
  • It is powered by ultra low-voltage Intel processors to ensure energy efficiency and long battery life while providing a full laptop experience.

Sony VAIO VPCS111FM/S

  • This laptop comes with a 2.26 GHz Intel core i5 processor with turbo boost technology.
  • The RAM is about 4GB, and the storage space is a decent 500GB. The machine comes bundled with Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit.
  • The display is 1.3 inches wide, and capable of 1366×768 resolution powered by an Intel HD graphics card with 2263MB of video memory. There is also a high definition audio sound card, a camera, Bluetooth, and Wifi technology on the laptop.

HP mini 311

  • This netbook comes with an 11.6 inch screen, a large keyboard, HDMI ports and ships with Windows &7.
  • The graphics is powered by Nvidia’s lon graphics chip and the processor is an Intel atom N270 CPU, plus about 1GB of RAM.
  • The netbook is offered with the option of a slightly faster N280 Intel atom processor, a white lid design and wireless features such as Bluetooth and WiFi.
  • The graphics capability can handle HD video smoothly, but can only do basic gaming. The graphics chip can also handle some flash streaming, which is important for netbooks that are mainly used to access online cloud services rather that do the brunt of the work offline.
  • For a price of about $399, obtaining a 1.6 GHz processor, 1GB RAM, 160GB of HD space and an integrated Nvidia lon graphics chip, the device is a solid choice for entry level netbooks for business use.

How to Start a Business Blog: Tips for Writing to Grow Your Business

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Blogs now had become phenomenal.  Blogs had been also a source of information nowadays. Moreover, people use blogs for promotion and advertisement, which will now be an effective way to create popularity on business. If you are planning to be involved in the business industry but thinking of the most effective yet cheapest way to do it, it is advisable for you to consider making a business blog.

While browsing the internet, we can find that blogs today are considered the no. 4 tool from generating sales leads. Blogs will be more effective if you know how to use it properly.

These simple tips of how to create a business blog will surely aid you in starting and keeping a business growth.

How to Start Business Blog

  • First, you must already have compiled thoughts about your blog. Set your goals, terms, conditions, and let those goals influence the content of your blog.
  • Second, make some innovations on how you will separate your blog with the others. Trying some new site’s status will help you earn more visitors in your blog.
  • Be sure to make your blog a more informative and useful blog, to be able to do it, you mention some useful sites and links on the web to also offer your reader some helpful tips, you have not only told them about your business rather you also made your blog a more of information source.
  • To be able also to start a business blog, you must know how blogging will benefit your business. Blogs are the cheapest way of advertising, and promoting. In addition, networking is a very common hobby of all people, if you keep your blog active, readers will find an interest with your blog.
  • Know also the primary purpose and goals of your blog.
  • Choose writers and authors of your blog. It is important that you hire the willing and the well-skilled writer. It is also wise to get samples from them.
  • Come up with your blog’s initial content.
  • Create a management plan. To enable your blog to be a good visiting page you must always keep your thoughts and plans on track. Keep a certain plan and execute them. In that way, your blog will be organized with one purpose. Avoid encountering misinterpretations about your readers. Keep everything you say clear and understandable.
  • Have a draft. Rate your blog. Then if you think that, it is excellent enough then you are ready now to start a business blog.

To maintain a good blog, be sure to update them always, as readers love reading new thoughts and gaining new knowledge. The same is through with your clients; they also love to trust those who are innovative. Keep in mind that over-all rating of your business will be depended on how you run your blog.

A blog in general can be highly effective and a low cost type of strategy. All you need to do is plan, commit and dedicate your time to have it successful.

Setting up A Business on Facebook: How to Create & Setup Business Page

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Setting up a business page on Facebook is a great idea many businesses and shops have already realized. In addition, that is a great idea indeed. Nowadays, there is simply no bigger community in the whole world than the Facebook community is. If you know and use Facebook already, you know what we mean.

Many of those, you have created their own website in “Causes” or made a “Community”, have already collected hundreds of thousands of Facebook users to join them. There are the same statistics for games for example. In addition, games communities are good, as they know each other. If you become a good friend for many in any of the Facebook games for example and many people know you, you can as well come up with some business pages offering them to your friends. This way you will be much more likely to accept your invitations or sharing of ads than if you would only come to attack them with ads or such. Online marketing on Facebook has never been more successful than in these years. That is why; slowly you will even find your small grocery shop on the corner having its own website and community on Facebook.

So, now let us help you a little bit with the setting up a business on Facebook and to see how it will give your business an extra pushing for your business through Facebook, let more and more people know about you:

What you need for making your business visible on Facebook

  • A Facebook account, possibly not new, you can use it far more well if you have many people know you.
  • You will need a name of your business if you did not have it before.
  • You will a couple of attractive photographs.
  • You will also need some business or E-marketing ability, with the ability to write some attractive slogans and positive things about your business. You will need the skill to come up with some discounts in the good time.

How to make a business account on Facebook

  • After you go to the Facebook, you need to click on “Advertising” at the bottom of the page among the text links.
  • Then click on “Pages” which you will see on the top of the advertising page.
  • Go and find the option:”creating a page”.
  • Then go to the “Type of business” look for and then click on “Local”.
  • Type in the name of your business in the “Name of Page” section.
  • Do not forget to check the mark on “Do not make my page visible at this time” as your page is still in the process of creating.
  • Make the Security check as is usual nowadays at every sites.
  • Click on “Create Page”.
  • Click on “I already have a Facebook account” if you do so, if you do not you will need to create one.
  • Then you will need to give your username and password of your personal Facebook account and login.
  • Now, you can add photos, write freely about your business, and come up with fresh marketing ideas.
  • If you feel you are ready, do not forget to click on “Share” afterwards, to make your site visible for everyone.

It might feel complicated but in real, it is not. Go and give a try with creating your business on Facebook whatever it is. You do not need to own your shop or any business in order to create your business page. Might be, that Facebook will be your ultimate push in realizing something you have only dreamed of before.