e-lifeandwork: Learn New Skills Online | Online Courses & Real-World

With the economy being as uncertain as it is today, it’s no wonder that a lot of business owners are looking for ways to improve cash flow for their companies.  Here are a few tips that you can use to manage and track the money that flows in and out of your business:  1. Factoring Invoices  Invoice factoring is an innovative, business-friendly alternative to traditional bank-backed financing methods. It gives your small business immediate access to the working capital you require, without debt to pay or any other strings attached.   Take a look at the following factoring benefits:  Save Time And Money: When you’re factoring invoices, a private factoring company purchases your pending invoices, or invoices that haven’t been paid yet by your customers. The factoring company pays a percentage of the total receivable amount, and takes on the burden of collecting payment from your customers. This saves your business significant time and money that you would’ve...

Most Americans now teleworking from home want to keep doing so, with more than half saying they would work remotely after the pandemic, a new Pew Research Center report finds.  The national survey of U.S. adults reveals that while the coronavirus may have changed the location of our jobs — whether in an office or from home — it hasn’t significantly reshaped our work duties and culture for a majority of employed adults.  “Another third said they’d want to work from home some of the time. A very small share want to go back to the office full-time,” said Juliana Horowitz, associate director of social trends research at Pew Research Center and one of the coauthors.  As for meeting on web platforms, “a majority see that as a good substitute for in-person contact,” Horowitz said. “We don’t see ‘Zoom fatigue’ in our survey.” Videoconferencing and webinar fatigue showed up among an estimated 37% of those surveyed, she said.  Among workers who remained in the same job but sh...

To say that Covid-19 has thrown businesses for a loop would be an understatement. Yelp recently reported that, of the more than 160,000 U.S. companies that have closed since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, 60% are now shut down for good. With businesses across the country struggling to keep their doors open, scaling your company in this economy might seem like a pipe dream. Not necessarily, says Charles Gaudet, CEO of growth consultancy Predictable Profits: “While we are in a challenging environment, you will find companies in every industry having their best year yet. Those succeeding are adapting, looking for the opportunity and using data to make fact-based decisions.”  If you’d like to join the ranks of companies that aren’t letting Covid-19—or future crises—stand in their way, take these three steps to scale your business now:  1. Identify where your growth will come from.  In a strong economy and with a strong product, sales practically make themselves. These...

By Jennifer Barnes, the CEO of Optima Office, Inc, which provides accounting and HR services, from CFOs to bookkeepers, on a part-time basis.  In the first quarter of this year, a U.S. Chamber of Commerce study found 80% of small business owners felt comfortable with their cash flow, but by April, that number had dropped to only 59%. On average, businesses have 27 days of cash flow. Because of the novel coronavirus pandemic, many companies shut their doors. For a business, running out of cash while trying to pivot through this volatile and highly competitive market can be devastating. Here are seven tips for improving your business’s cash flow during this difficult time:  1. Leverage automation within your current systems.  If using an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, make sure your accounting team is trained on all its automation features so they can spend less time on manual data entry. This frees them up to focus on more value-add tasks that help grow your...

Most people want to save as much as possible for retirement, and oftentimes that means listening to the experts about how, exactly, to plan for your senior years.  Unfortunately, though, there's a lot of not-so-great advice floating around out there, and some of the most well-known retirement rules no longer apply to today's workers. As you're planning for retirement, you may be better off steering clear of these outdated guidelines.  1. The 4% rule  The 4% rule has been around since the mid-1990s, and it states that you can withdraw 4% of your total savings during the first year of retirement, then adjust your withdrawals each year after to account for inflation.  While the 4% rule is still a good benchmark to get an idea of roughly how much you can spend each year in retirement, it has its flaws. For one, bond yields have dropped dramatically over the last couple of decades, so your retirement investments may not grow as much as the 4% rule assumes. In other word...

More than half of people do not think income protection is important, a new survey suggests.  A further 12 per cent don’t understand the value of an income protection policy, according to research from Shepherds Friendly.  This is despite finding fewer than a third of people could rely on their savings if they lost all sources of income, suggesting the vast majority would benefit from a policy paying out a regular sum if they were no longer able to work due to illness or injury.  Some four in ten could afford their current lifestyle for up to three months, and 12 per cent would only be able to last a month. Families are even less likely to have a savings buffer, with just 19 per cent of households with children saying they could rely on the money they’ve saved. Some 18 per cent say their finances would last them no more than a month.  Visit Money Marketing‘s Protection Zone for more  Shepherds Friendly chief executive Ann-Marie O’Dea says: “The consequences of ...

Host of the Make Meaning Podcast, Owner at Your People LLC PR/Marketing company, Founder of the Make Meaning Movement, Author of 8 Books.  My son wanted to run a half-marathon for a while. As a high school cross-country runner, he longed to pass the 5K mark and run clear to 13.1 miles. But he knew it would take planning and preparation. So he did some research to figure out the best way to build up to running such a long distance and devised a plan to follow over the course of several months. Since most major races are sidelined or canceled due to the pandemic, he created a course of his own and set a date in later summer.  Every week on his calendar was flagged with a new purpose, which helped him get to his goal mile by mile and day by day. After four months of thoughtful, planned training, he ran his 13.1 miles, with all the exhilaration and satisfaction of a job well done.  His step-by-step, planned approach to achieve his goal is quite similar to how I g...