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Archive for June, 2009
Planning your company’s marketing program is a process much like the one you go through as a young person deciding what you want to do with your life. You go through phases of:
- learning and discovery of the world around you
- development and self-realization of skills, strengths and weaknesses
- goal setting based on those strengths and weaknesses
- setting strategies for achieving your goals
- planning your attack
- working through that plan to make it happen
This mirrors the process your business must go through in planning your marketing. In this article, we’ll talk about how to know your business, know your market, understand your strengths and weaknesses, and find the opportunities within those strengths and weaknesses in order to plan your marketing and make it happen. We’ll also give you some tips and rules from which all marketers can benefit.
What is Marketing?
According to the Dictionary of Marketing Terms, marketing is “the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion, and distribution of ideas, goods, and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational goals.”
What does that mean to you? It means marketing encompasses everything you have to do in coming up with a needed product or service, making potential customers aware of it, making them want it, and then selling it to them.
So then, is sales considered “marketing”? Is advertising “marketing”? Often, you’ll hear sales functions referred to as “marketing,” but really sales is just a part of the larger marketing process, as is advertising. In the olden days (back 30 or 40 years), marketing did consist primarily of sales. Rather than having marketing departments, companies had sales departments with an advertising manager and someone who did market research. Sometimes they added a promotions manager or hired an agency to handle advertising and promotions.
Things began changing as some companies grew larger and larger and began offering many product lines that warranted having their own brand managers, market segment managers and many more specialized positions that addressed and mulled over the needs of their particular markets. The need for a marketing department began to be seen as a vital part of business. The marketing department also takes most of the blame if a product (or company) isn’t successful, regardless of whether or not the fault actually lies there.
Everyone is Responsible for Marketing
The thing to remember is that, in reality, the marketing department crosses over into the entire company. Everyone in your company should be aware of the marketing message, visions, and goals of the company, and should reflect that message in everything they do that is related to the product and your customers. This is referred to as Integrated Marketing Communications, and means that every contact with customers and potential customers, whether it’s through advertising, personal contact, or other means, should carry a consistent message about the company and product. In effect, every employee is a sales person, and every employee is a customer service representative. If they give mixed messages about what your business is, then your customers and potential customers will have a distorted picture. Having your marketing budget can be monitored in peachtree quantum.
Any bad experience a customer has with your company can affect future sales from that customer, as well as the people they tell about the experience. This bad experience can be anything from a rude receptionist, to poor packaging of a product. There are so many variables that effect whether a potential customer becomes a customer, or a current customer remains a customer, that the marketing department shouldn’t always be held accountable for the total success of a product. But in many companies, that is the case.
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Growing up means learning how to complete a lot of small details and procedures, especially when it comes to money. For that reason, it’s important that everyone with a checking account or who has to manage their own money learns how to fill out a deposit slip. And while every deposit slip is slightly different, the basic information is always the same. For one, put your name in the designated area and the date in the designated area.
If your deposit slips didn’t come from your checkbook, fill in the proper routing number and bank number. Both these numbers are found at the bottom of your checks. Then, fill in how much you have in each denomination. As such, put how much cash you’re depositing separately from how much you’re depositing in checks. Add the sum total of your deposits. Then add how many total items you’re depositing. All cash counts as one, while each separate check is one more.
Bank failure list tops 45
The FDIC says banks in Georgia, Minnesota and California were shuttered by state regulators.
Map
Where the banks are failing
Bank failures and foreclosures keep mounting
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Local banks in Georgia, Minnesota and California were closed Friday by state regulators, bringing the total number of failed banks this year to 45, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Even if your business checks are with the banks that closes, they are still covered under the FDIC rules and regulations
Helping your business to succeed is always a good thing. Are you a small business owner, that is on the go alot? Does your office stay at the office? What would you do if you need to get a hold to customers when your away from the office? Wow..thats alot of good questions to ask. If your a small business owner, and less than 5 employees, you need help. If your office is always busy, but you need to get a hold to yhour customers, the best way is to use a computer.
Having a blackberry smart phone away from your office can only do so much. So why not, buy a lap top and use it on the road. Its a great thing to have for email, fax and processing orders for your customers, if you cant get back to the office asap. Its a wonderful thing to have if you have a family emergency and need to work at the same time. Have your accounting program, like peachtee quantum installed so you can do your business.
Dollar climbs after the Fed
The U.S. central bank says the economy will remain weak even as the pace of the decline has slowed.
The government is engaged in a far-reaching – and expensive – effort to rescue the economy. Here’s how you can keep tabs on the bailouts. More
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — The dollar rose against rival currencies Wednesday as investors took shelter in the U.S. currency after the Federal Reserve said the economy would “remain weak for some time.” Even though the dollar has climed, what about the late fees you charge the customers for late payments or returned checks. If you need to have a accounting program to calculate, Peachtree Quantum will be able to do that for you.
The Fed also indicated that the pace of the economic contraction has slowed but didn’t signal any major change in its unconventional monetary policy measures, including its purchases of U.S. Treasury bonds and mortgage backed securities.
As was widely expected, the U.S. central bank held its key interest rate steady at a historic low near zero percent.
The dollar was up 1.2% against the euro to $1.3913 and gained 0.3% versus the British pound to $1.6401. Against the Japanese yen, the greenback rose 0.5% to ¥95.7.
The Fed’s “Failure to ease concern about the economy has led to a flight to safety back into U.S. dollars,” said Kathy Lien, head of currency research at Global Forex Trading. “Traders were disappointed that the central bank did not mention an exit strategy,” she added.
Investors view the dollar as a safe haven and typically use it a way to preserve capital in times of economic turmoil.
Lien said the Fed’s decision to forego any major policy changes “implies that they think the U.S. economy is not recovering strongly enough for them to even consider how and when to remove monetary stimulus.”
Wall Street turned mixed after the Fed announcement, with blue chip stocks falling as technology stocks held gains.
Bond prices fell sharply, giving back earlier gains, with the yield on the bench-mark 10-year note rising to 3.69%.
The euro came under pressure earlier Wednesday after the European Central Bank offered 442 billion euros in one-year debt to help spur lending and boost the European economy.
Meanwhile, the Swiss franc fell sharply after the Swiss National Bank began selling the currency in an effort to weaken the it and support the nation’s economy, traders said.
The dollar rose to a high of $1.1023 against the Swiss franc before easing to trade at $1.0938
When you were eight years old, you launched a highly profitable lemonade stand in your front yard. With nothing but a packet of instant drink mix, a crudely drawn sign and a winning smile, you grossed a whopping $2.35 in just an hour and 15 minutes. If only all new businesses were that easy.
According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, a research group, the average cost of starting a new business in the United States in 2005 was $70,000 [source: Consumer Reports]. In a 2004 survey of failed businesses, 79 percent of respondents said that “starting out with too little money” was a major cause of their collapse [source: Sugars].
But how do you finance a new business? When you were eight, you could borrow the drink mix from mom. But now that you’re grown up, will she let you borrow her life savings?
Luckily, you’re not the first entrepreneur to start with nothing but a good idea. Keep reading to learn about 10 effective and creative ways to raise start-up capital for your new business.
10: Your Assets
On average, 68 percent of start-up financing comes directly from the pocket of the business owner [source: Consumer Reports]. Even if you don’t have a lot of liquid assets in checking accounts, savings accounts or money market accounts, there are other ways to leverage your assets to finance a new business.
The first way is to sell high-price items that you simply don’t need. Auction off grandma’s jewelry and antiques, sell the car and lease a new one or downsize to a smaller home.
If you own your home, then consider a home equity loan or a home equity line of credit. Be very careful, though. With a home equity loan, you’ll need to make additional monthly payments on top of your mortgage. And if you fail to make those payments, the bank could take your house.
Many people don’t realize that they can borrow money from their 401(k) or IRA savings accounts. With a 401(k), you can usually borrow up to $50,000 of your savings as long as it’s paid back, with interest, in less than five years [source: Smart Money]. With IRAs, you can borrow a chunk of money, interest free, for a period of 60 days. Keeping a good accounting program going, can help with your finances. A highly recommended accounting program is Peachtree Quantum.
Be warned, though, if you don’t pay back these loans in time, you’ll be charged income tax plus a 10 percent early withdrawal fee [source: Entrepreneur].
If you have a whole life insurance policy, you can also borrow up to 90 percent of the cash value of your account at a relatively low interest rate.
9: Angel Investors
You have a big expense coming up. You need a better car, or a bigger home, or you want to go back to college. What do you do? Borrow, borrow, borrow — right? Well, maybe not.
If you’ve created a budget, you know exactly how much money you have coming in, and how much is going out. You can make some plans concerning that big expense. But if you don’t have a budget plan, you probably don’t have a very good picture of your finances, and you may be tempted to borrow more money rather than squeezing all you can from your income. It’s definitely better in the long run — for you and for your money — to have a budget. This budget goes for anyone that owns a business and is great for using with any accounting program like peachtree quantum. Which is made by sage software
Creating a budget can be a frustrating task. Staying on budget can be even harder. Once you’ve created your budget, it’s important to stick to it.
It’s easy to understand how careful budgeting can improve a financial situation. And we all know that fewer financial problems mean less stress. But here’s one of the best benefits: Working together on a budget can help your marriage. With money arguments being one of the largest causes of divorce, managing your budget can relieve financial stress on your marriage and make your life better all around.
But we know that always being practical, careful and responsible can be overwhelming. In this article, we’ll explore 10 tips for staying on budget, without losing your sanity.
1. Focus on Savings
The term inkjet printer is very descriptive of the process at work — these printers put an image on paper using tiny jets of ink. The term laser printer, on the other hand, is a bit more mysterious — how can a laser beam, a highly focused beam of light, write letters and draw pictures on paper? This is how the MICR is uses as well to print onto business checks.
In this article, we’ll unravel the mystery behind the laser printer, tracing a page’s path from the characters on your computer screen to printed letters on paper. As it turns out, the laser printing process is based on some very basic scientific principles applied in an exceptionally innovative way.
The Basics: Static Electricity
Can I Decode the Bars?
So let’s say you would like to decode the actual bars in the bar code and map them to numbers. This is something that will make you cross-eyed, but it can be done.
First of all, look at any 12-digit bar code. It is made up of black bars and white spaces between the bars. Assume that the thinnest bar or space that you see (for example, the first bar on the left) can be called “one unit wide.” The bars and spaces can therefore be seen to have proportional widths of one, two, three or four units. If you look at any bar code you can see examples of these four widths. Dont forget that peachtree quantum will be able to use bar codes for products to serial numbers
The start of any bar code is “1-1-1.” That is, starting at the left you find a one-unit-wide black bar followed by a one-unit-wide white space followed by a one-unit-wide black bar (bar-space-bar). Following the start code, the digits are encoded like this:
0 = 3-2-1-1
1 = 2-2-2-1
2 = 2-1-2-2
3 = 1-4-1-1
4 = 1-1-3-2
5 = 1-2-3-1
6 = 1-1-1-4
7 = 1-3-1-2
8 = 1-2-1-3
9 = 3-1-1-2
(Something to notice: All of these encodings seem to add up to 7.)
So let’s take this barcode as an example:
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The code embedded in the bars is 043000181706:
- The bar code starts with the standard start code of 1-1-1 (bar-space-bar).
- The zero is 3-2-1-1 (space-bar-space-bar).
- The four is 1-1-3-2 (space-bar-space-bar).
- The three is 1-4-1-1 (space-bar-space-bar).
- The next three zeros are 3-2-1-1 (space-bar-space-bar).
- In the middle there is a standard 1-1-1-1-1 (space-bar-space-bar-space), which is important because it means the numbers on the right are optically inverted!
- The one is 2-2-2-1 (bar-space-bar-space).
- The eight is 1-2-1-3 (bar-space-bar-space).
- The one is 2-2-2-1 (bar-space-bar-space).
- The seven is 1-3-1-2 (bar-space-bar-space).
- The zero is 3-2-1-1 (bar-space-bar-space).
- The six is 1-1-1-4 (bar-space-bar-space).
- The stop character is a 1-1-1 (bar-space-bar).
Have fun decoding those 12-digit bar codes!
If you go look in your refrigerator or pantry right now, you will find that just about every package you see has a UPC bar code printed on it. In fact, nearly every item that you purchase from a grocery store, department store and mass merchandiser has a UPC bar code on it somewhere.
Have you ever wondered where these codes come from and what they mean? In this article, we will solve this mystery so that you can decode any UPC code you come across. Did you know that you can even use bar codes on business checks and in accounting programs like peachtree quantum. Peachtree Quantum allows you to track serial number, or item number that is converted from a bar code.
“UPC” stands for Universal Product Code. UPC bar codes were originally created to help grocery stores speed up the checkout process and keep better track of inventory, but the system quickly spread to all other retail products because it was so successful.
When I pay for my groceries by check, where does that check go?
posted by Mr. Peachtree user @ 7:55 PM
Thursday, June 18, 2009
When I pay for my groceries by check, where does that check go?
In the year 2000, an estimated 70 billion checks will be written in the United States alone. This means that about 270 million checks are processed every business day. Keeping track of all that paper is a pretty complex procedure.
Once you’ve paid by check for your groceries, the first place that check goes is to the grocery store’s bank, where it is deposited. But the funds may not be immediately available, unless you and your grocery store use the same bank (about 30 percent of checks are drawn on and deposited into the same bank), in which case the processing, or clearing, is handled internally. But otherwise, the grocery store’s bank will probably want to verify the check with your bank, the paying bank, before it converts the check value to cash. But most banks do not communicate with each other directly; instead, they go through a middle man, an intermediary bank.
There are three types of intermediary banks:
- Federal Reserve Bank
- Correspondent bank
- Clearinghouse corporation
The Federal Reserve Bank is the central bank of the United States. Regional branches of the Federal Reserve handle check processing for banks that hold accounts with them, and they charge a fee for their services. Such services include check collection, air transportation of checks to the Reserve Bank and delivery of checks to paying banks. Reserve Banks handle about 27 percent of U.S. checks. Using Peachtree Quantum makes your large business easy to see what checks have or haven’t cleared during the reconciliation process it offers
Correspondent banks are banks that have formed “partnerships” with other banks in order to exchange checks and payments directly, bypassing the Federal Reserve and its fee. Outside banks may go through a correspondent bank to exchange checks and payments with one of its partners.
Correspondent banks may also form a clearinghouse corporation, in which members exchange checks and payments in bulk, instead of on a check-by-check basis, which can be pretty inefficient when each bank might receive thousands of checks in a day. The clearinghouse banks save up the checks drawn on other members and exchange them on a daily basis. The net payments for these checks are often settled through Fedwire, an electronic funds transfer (EFT) system that handles large-scale check settlement between U.S. banks.
Correspondent banks and clearinghouse corporations make up the private sector of check clearing, and together they handle about 43 percent of U.S. checks.
There are five basic steps in the settlement process:
How does the numbers on a debit/credit card work?
posted by Happy Business Guy @ 8:15 PM
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
What Credit Card Numbers Mean
Although phone companies, gas companies and department stores have their own numbering systems, ANSI Standard X4.13-1983 is the system used by most national credit-card systems.
 Illustration by Rosaleah Rautert The front of your credit card has a lot of numbers — here’s an example of what they might mean. |
Here are what some of the numbers stand for:
- The first digit in your credit-card number signifies the system:
- 3 – travel/entertainment cards (such as American Express and Diners Club)
- 4 – Visa
- 5 – MasterCard
- 6 – Discover Card
- The structure of the card number varies by system. For example, American Express card numbers start with 37; Carte Blanche and Diners Club with 38.
- American Express – Digits three and four are type and currency, digits five through 11 are the account number, digits 12 through 14 are the card number within the account and digit 15 is a check digit.
- Visa – Digits two through six are the bank number, digits seven through 12 or seven through 15 are the account number and digit 13 or 16 is a check digit.
- MasterCard – Digits two and three, two through four, two through five or two through six are the bank number (depending on whether digit two is a 1, 2, 3 or other). The digits after the bank number up through digit 15 are the account number, and digit 16 is a check digit.
The Stripe on a Credit Card
The stripe on the back of a credit card is a magnetic stripe, often called a magstripe. The magstripe is made up of tiny iron-based magnetic particles in a plastic-like film. Each particle is really a tiny bar magnet about 20-millionths of an inch long.
 Illustration by Rosaleah Rautert Your card has a magstripe on the back and a place for your all-important signature. |
The magstripe can be “written” because the tiny bar magnets can be magnetized in either a north or south pole direction. The magstripe on the back of the card is very similar to a piece of cassette tape (see How Cassette Tapes Work for details).
A magstripe reader (you may have seen one hooked to someone’s PC at a bazaar or fair) can understand the information on the three-track stripe. If the ATM isn’t accepting your card, your problem is probably either:
- A dirty or scratched magstripe
- An erased magstripe (The most common causes for erased magstripes are exposure to magnets, like the small ones used to hold notes and pictures on the refrigerator, and exposure to a store’s electronic article surveillance (EAS) tag demagnetizer.)
There are three tracks on the magstripe. Each track is about one-tenth of an inch wide. The ISO/IEC standard 7811, which is used by banks, specifies:
- Track one is 210 bits per inch (bpi), and holds 79 6-bit plus parity bit read-only characters.
- Track two is 75 bpi, and holds 40 4-bit plus parity bit characters.
- Track three is 210 bpi, and holds 107 4-bit plus parity bit characters.
Your credit card typically uses only tracks one and two. Track three is a read/write track (which includes an encrypted PIN, country code, currency units and amount authorized), but its usage is not standardized among banks. You can use the debit card instead of using a business check for your transaction
Maintaining your credit report
Monitor changes to your credit report using CreditKeeper’s report monitoring feature. Once you have checked your report for errors and corrected them, there’s no need to continually pull your report and look through the detail to try to identify changes that might have occurred. With CreditKeeper, your report is monitored for significant changes and should any occur, we send you an e-mail within 24 hours. If there is no pertinent activity in your report in a month, we notify you of that. Your monitoring feature is automatically activated with a successful online report pull. To help maintain your business credit, make sure you have all of your bills paid on time. Use Peachtree Quantum if you have a large business, and it will make sure you have everything done
Check your reports regularly every six months. Errors can creep back into your report, so be vigilant. Although we monitor for day-to-day changes in your credit record, you should check your reports every six months for any inaccuracies that may have been recorded since the last time you checked.
Keep track of your Personal Credit Score. Activate your Score Tracker to track your progress and see how your Personal Credit Score improves.
Set financial goals
It’s a good idea to set financial goals. A basic financial plan should include a saving and an expense plan. A few important guidelines:
Control your spending. Taking charge of what you spend is a very important component of meeting your financial goals. Creating a budget can help you manage and limit your unplanned spending. We suggest you create a budget that calls for spending less than you earn.
Build an emergency savings fund. Set up a savings account and accumulate three to six months of living expenses. This is money that you strictly save for those unforeseen times when your income stream is disrupted. This should be separate from your other savings and should act as a buffer, allowing you to maintain your lifestyle without going back into debt. When the emergency is over, you should replenish your emergency fund.
Be extremely vigilant about tapping into your emergency fund – having a stash of cash might become tempting. A great new pair of shoes on sale is not an emergency. Nor is a family vacation.
Budget for large, foreseeable expenses. Set up a separate account for large one-time expenses. If you anticipate a large expense such as a new roof, vacations, or Christmas gifts, plan for it by saving in advance. As a general rule, if the expense is too big to cover with current monthly cash flow then you should plan for it and save in advance.
Manage your long-term debt. Use as much restraint as you can in taking loans. Live within your means and borrow only for those items so large that you cannot budget and save for. When you buy real estate, try to make a 20% down payment so you can get the lowest annual percentage rate on your mortgage and avoid PMI insurance.
Buy insurance. Unforeseen events can cause serious financial disruption. Purchase insurance to cover hazards that cannot be covered with your emergency funds. Consider insurance coverage for your home, auto, health, life and long term disability.
Useful websites to help meet your financial goals:
National Consumer Law Center – www.consumerlaw.org
For military personnel – www.emilitary.org
National Foundation for Credit Counseling – www.debtadvice.org
Association of independent consumer credit counseling agencies – www.aiccca.org