Category: Financial Literacy and Money

What’s The Best Way To Fund Your Start Up?

Two of the key focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy and Money, and Business and Entrepreneurship. No matter what your business idea is, figuring out how fund its startup is key. Likewise many new businesses don’t successfully get off the ground do to difficulties securing startup capital. The following contributed post is thus entitled; What’s The Best Way To Fund Your Start Up?

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Starting a business can be expensive. Whilst some companies can started from home with nothing more than a computer and a phone, others require specialist equipment, licensing, inventory, insurance, work premises and a team of employees. The right type of funding for you depends on your circumstances and the type of business you’ve got planned. Here are just three of the main options available when funding your startup.

Take out a loan

For most people with expensive startup costs, a loan is the best option. This can give you instant access to the funds you need, allowing you to get your business set up straight away. It pays to have a good credit score – this will allow you access to lower interest loans. Banks and peer-to-peer lending sites offer some of the cheapest interest rates. For some people, there may be specialist loans available such as these personal loans of veterans at https://personalloan.co/personal-loans-for-veterans/. Other options could include an equity release or accessing your 401(k) early. Borrowing money is the best option for those that want to get started as soon as possible – you’ll soon be paying off monthly loan repayments, so you want to be putting this loaned money into action quickly so that you’re making an income to pay off this loan.

Seek investment

An alternative option to borrowing money is to seek investment. This involves finding someone willing to give you the funds you need in exchange for shares in future business profits. Seeking out investment can be a longer process than taking out a loan, however unlike a loan in which you have to start paying back interest straight away, you won’t have to start paying shares to investors until your company is up and running making a profit giving you a little more time. You could seek out an individual investor or investment company willing to give you the entire amount you need or you could look into crowdfunding which involves raising the funds from lots of different people. The latter option is most popular and there are sites such as https://www.indiegogo.com/ for doing this. Encouraging investors to fund your business involves having a good business plan – you may want to hire a financial advisor to help you generate projected costs. Having business experience behind you can also help your cause.

Save up

The final option is to save up the funds yourself. By using your own savings, you won’t have to pay any interest fees or shares in the long run. It is however the longest way of raising funds and not ideal for people that want to get their businesses started straight away (it’s probably only best for startups that require a small amount of funding, otherwise you could be saving up for years). There are business savings accounts out there that can collect interest and allow you to build up funds more quickly – it’s shopping around at sites such as https://www.businesscomparison.com/bank-accounts to find the best account for you. Bonds and CDs can also be a good option.

How You Can Start Allowing Your Staff More Flexibility Today

Some of the key focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy and Money, and both Business and Entrepreneurship. A major key to running any business or organization is recruitment and retention of talent. A major part of talent retention is creating an optimal work environment. This contributed post is thus entitled; How You Can Start Allowing Your Staff More Flexibility Today.

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Allowing your staff more flexibility can be a fantastic way to build a better company reputation, make it more enjoyable for your staff to come to work, get a higher quality of work, and much more. It’s far more modern to allow your staff to work flexibly these days, as we all lead busy lives and may have appointments to keep up with, or may want to work from home for whatever reason.

Flexible working doesn’t just mean working from home. It can mean making the most of the commute and working from there, coming in a little later and making the time up later on in the day, doing some work in a cafe, and much more. Working flexibly can mean different things for different people. It won’t suit all businesses, but it can definitely help a huge number of businesses to move forward and get better results. Below is a quick rundown of what flexibility can mean for different businesses:

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• Flexible arrival and departure times
• Full-time work from home or location independence
• Choice and control in work shifts
• Part-time work from home
• Compressed shifts or workweek
• Opportunity for sabbaticals or career breaks (e.g., extended time off)
• Unlimited paid time off
• Caregiving leave

Staff who can work flexibly tend to take less sick days, feel happier and more productive at work, and become advocates for your business. They also feel more loyal to you and you should find you improve employee retention. Below are some ideas to help you implement more flexibility today:

Speak To Your Employees
Speak to your employees and see what they think about working flexibly. How do they think it could help and how would they like to do it? Getting their opinion will give you an insight into what they really want.

Start Using The Cloud
Using the cloud means your employees will be able to access data any time, anywhere. If you’re not currently using it, you’re already behind! What would you do if you lost important data, or there was a natural disaster? Cloud Migration Services can help with this, whether your employees want to start work on the commute or whether they’d like to do it from home.

Make Everybody Play By The Same Rules
Having flexibility in the workplace is great, but it can’t be one rule for one person and one rule for another. For example, you’ll find in many workplaces parents are allowed to leave early to pick up their kids, go to a school play, or take time off and have benefits for other family related things. Single people and those without kids should not be treated any differently! Have the same rules in place for everybody.

Allow More Flexibility Within The Workplace
Don’t have the mindset of ‘employees must be at their desks from the hours of 9-5’. Let them take breaks. Let them play games. Let them talk. Heck, even let them take naps. Make the workplace fun and flexible and you’ll seriously benefit.

Make A Gradual Transition
Do these things gradually so it’s not a shock to the system. What can you implement today to make the workplace more flexible?

Unexpected Disasters: Preventative Measures For Your Business

Two of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy and Money, and Business and Entrepreneurship. A key aspect of running any business is putting preventative measures in place to protect against unforeseen disasters and issues. The following contributed post is thus entitled; Unexpected Disasters: Preventative Measures For Your Business.

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Business owners tend to spend a lot of time creating an enterprise, however only a small portion of this planning to protect the business they have built. The examples to follow feature likely disasters that could occur when you least expect it, accompanied with solutions on how to avert these eventualities.

Power Cut

The lights cut out, pitch black fills the office, the familiar whirring noise from your PC’s slows down to a halt, complete silence ensues, you’re experiencing a power cut. What do you do now? The right answer is to prevent this situation from happening in the first place. Power cuts are destructive to a business’s livelihood. Hours of no power for your PC’s, lighting and equipment could prevent several of your employees securing sales deal, contacting new customers, submitting new stock orders, etc. Without power, your business is disconnected from a world that thrives on remaining connected by technology. Attempting to rectify this scenario without a plan in place is highly stressful for you and damaging for your company.

Prevent your business practices coming to a halt when the likely event of a power cut takes over. Instead, think about purchasing a backup power outlet to provide your company with a few hours of electric to keep your business running smoothly. In addition to this, hire a technology company who are experts in situations such as these, giving you an additional safety net when the lights go out.

Cyber Crime

Cybercriminals may wreck the progress and reputation of your business, steal your customer’s bank details and personal data, take private company information or just choose to cause havoc on your system. Protecting confidential information with a password is no longer a sufficient defense mechanism for shielding your business’s intel online. You owe it to yourself and your customers to avoid a cyber attack at all costs and maintain the relationships and integrity amongst customers you’ve worked so hard to gain. Although some business owners feel the event of an attack is unlikely because they’ve only just set up their business online recently, statistically, 30,000 websites are hacked every day. Some of which by using sophisticated software to assess the webs most vulnerable sites. This is one of the reasons why you need to seek adequate protection to suit an ever-changing cybersphere. A company such as Red Key Solutions can help to identify and defend your company from a cyber attack.

Natural Disaster

In consideration of yourself and your employees first and foremost, this affects more than your business livelihood, it affects lives. The safety and security of your employees is your duty as an owner and manager to ensure health and safety regulations are met.

Never assume your plan for a natural disaster is adequate. Consistently invest in improving your program by practicing your safety regime for different emergencies and strive to educate employees of any new policies or procedures to follow in the name of safety.

After the safety of your employees, your business is at stake. For instance, if a fire were to occur, how would your recover burnt documents? If there was a flood, how would you plan to fix a waterlogged server? If you’re unsure of the answers to these questions, there may be gaps in your disaster recovery plan. Consider options for backup servers located away from the building, storing information in cyberspace to protect your data. You could also apply for business insurance which includes safeguarding your business in the event of a natural disaster.

Extensive preparation for a likely catastrophe is just as necessary as the time and effort you invest in your business’s growth. Failing to prepare for the unexpected events could leave you without a company altogether, which is why it’s detrimental to implement a strategy to save your business from future harm.

How To Keep your Company’s Reputation Intact

Two of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy and Money, and Business and Entrepreneurship. When building a business, it’s critical to protect your company’s reputation as companies often grow and falter based upon public opinion. The following contributed post is thus entitled; How To Keep your Company’s Reputation Intact.

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There are few things related to your company’s reputation that is easy. They take years to build, yet they can be damaged in an instant. And once you’ve lost your good standing with the public, then it can be difficult to get back. So part of your job as an entrepreneur will be to work hard to make sure that all the news coming out of your business is positive. But how do you do that? We take a look at five ways to keep things looking positive, always.

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Own Up To Your Mistakes

It would be nice if everything were always moving in the right direction for your business, but that’s not going to happen. Stay in business long enough, and you’re going to make mistakes. Literally every company in the world makes mistakes! The important thing isn’t to avoid making errors in the first place; it’s to ensure that you’re handling them in the right way. A business that tries to cover up their mistakes will raise doubts with the public. Of course, if you’re only apologising for mistakes once you get found out – like Facebook – then it’s time to consider whether you’re doing something fundamentally wrong.

Tackle Disruptive Issues

You’re not always going to hire employees who are team players, or who have the greater good of the business at heart. From time to time, you’ll have an employee that seems to create an endless amount of troubles for your venture. While you’d like to ignore these problems, you can’t – employees have a lot of power to cause your business harm if the problems aren’t resolved peacefully. If an employee threatens to spread malicious, untrue bad press about your business, then work with a law firm; the services from George Birnbaum, for example, include settling employment-related disputes. It’ll be your best hope for limiting the damage that a disgruntled employee can do.

Stay Friendly With Other Businesses

When you’re a business owner, it’s not about striding out there all on your own. It’s about building bridges between yourself and your client and other businesses. If you’re constantly trying to climb over other companies on your way from the time, then you’re not going to make any friends. So don’t bad mouth your competitors. It might feel good for a moment, but trust us, you’re the one who’ll come off worse for all your talk.

Work with PR Firms

Sometimes, you’ll be hit with bad press that seems difficult to overcome, even if there’s not a grain of truth to it. If that happens, then you’ll be well-served by working with a PR firm to make sure the situation is handled carefully. It’s always possible to get the truth out there, but not always on your own.

When In Doubt, Stay Quiet

Finally, remember that there’s much value in staying quiet! If you think that your mouth might cause your company harm, then keep it shut – it’s better to say nothing rather than something that’ll get you in trouble!

Moving, Money and Marketing: Boost Your Business from Small to Mighty

Two of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy and Money, and Business and Entrepreneurship. When building a business, it’s important to know when your operations are growing in size and scope, and how to properly adjust. The following contributed post is thus entitled; Moving, Money and Marketing: Boost Your Business from Small to Mighty.

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When it comes to growing and expanding your business, you realise there are a million different options available to you. You want to ensure you make the right decisions when it comes to creating a bigger and better business. You want to be successful, no matter what, but you realise it is going to take time and patience to achieve. Whether you want to move office buildings, reassess your budget or widen the spread of your marketing campaigns, you can truly transform your business from small to mighty gradually over time. Use the following ideas as inspiration and get on the right track today.

The Big Move – Get Real with Real Estate

Moving your business from a small and poky home office to a brand spanking new building is a huge step to make. Investing in business real estate might be the way forward for you, in which case you should explore your options online today. You need to make sure you have the money, legal representation and necessary plans in place before you choose to grow your business in this way.

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Boost Your Budget

Choosing to boost your budget and start spending more on your business is another possibility you might want to explore. If you find yourself with extra income each month then think of effective ways in which you could spend this money. Whether you hire more employees, branch out on your product line or improve the quality of your product components.

Magic Marketing Methods

Improving your marketing methods is another excellent way to grow your business. Reaching a wider audience or targeting more of your demographic could bring your business huge successes. As long as you entrust the work with a reputable digital marketer, you will be able to see results in a short space of time.

Great Growth

There is nothing wrong with having a small business, but there are many ways in which you can grow your business for the better. Hiring more employees will take the pressure off you a little bit or outsourcing some of your tasks to external companies. Choose the growth method that is right for your business and stick to your guns.

Terrific Timing

Timing is everything when it comes to expanding your business and transforming from small to mighty. Make sure you have the money, support and time to make everything work. Waiting a little longer might just help you to gather more of the essentials you need.

So give your business the power to move up and grow over time. You don’t have to make huge life changing steps just yet, but if you lay out the potential plans you will find it much easier to make the move. Whether you want to relocate your offices, grow your workforce or take your time to make the correct decisions, you need to do what is best for your company. As long as you have people on hand to advise and help you along the way, you will find the journey smooth and seamless.

Common Mistakes Many Entrepreneurs Make When Starting Up

Two of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy and Money, and Business and Entrepreneurship. When starting a new business, particularly if you’re a novice in terms of the whole process, some mistakes may be made early on by nature. If possible, it would advantageous to avoid those mistakes you can see them coming. The following contributed post is thus entitled; Common Mistakes Many Entrepreneurs Make When Starting Up.

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Starting a small business isn’t always easy. In fact, it very rarely is. There are just so many decisions to make, things to think about, and things to do, and all of this results in pressure that can cause a lapse in judgment. Mistakes in business are opportunities to learn, but risky ones at that. While some errors are simple to resolve, other could ruin your company before it really begins. To stay safe, here are some common entrepreneurial mistakes that you should avoid.

1. Skipping The Planning Phase
Once you’ve decided to launch your own startup, the idea of researching and planning can seem incredibly boring and tedious. Despite this, it’s an essential first step toward business success. Without a rough plan, you’ll be operating in the dark, which will like result in many more mistakes later down the line. Make sure you consider every area of your company and set realistic targets.

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2. Insisting On Working Alone
A common misconception about entrepreneurship is that every business owner does everything on their own. Thankfully, this is far from realistic. Even attempting to work completely by yourself will lead to stress, wasted time, and exhaustion, all of which will leave you of no use to your company. Instead, you should learn to delegate effectively and focus on the most important work.

3. Pricing Products Too Low
Being a new business doesn’t mean that your product is less valuable than others on the market. In fact, if you’ve played your cards right, yours should actually be worth much more. With that in mind, you should make sure that you price your products fairly, instead of giving them a massive discount As long as your product lives up to the cost, there’s no point in going cheaper.

4. Assuming You Know Everything
No one ever knows everything about business, especially first-time entrepreneurs. With that in mind, you may want to find yourself a mentor or consultant to offer their wisdom and advice. Ideally, you should opt for someone with experience in a number of successful startups, like Jos Opdeweegh. You should also keep up with business news by reading blogs and newspapers.

5. Providing Poor Customer Service
Your product may be the best on the market, but, if you or your employees treat your customers poorly, they’re going to stop buying from you. This can ruin large and established businesses, so you can guarantee that your small company would see some damage. To prevent this, you should constantly aim to improve customer service, by asking for feedback and suggestions.

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6. Neglecting Your Marketing Strategy
Unless people actually know who you are, they can’t buy from you, and your business will be over before it’s even begun. For this reason, you need to dedicate some time and money coming up with a killer marketing strategy. This should start to target potential customers before your startup even launches, ensuring you have customers on your very first day.

Mistakes are made every day in business, but, to keep your new startup safe and successful, should try to avoid those listed above.

What Henry Ford Can Teach Us About Being An Entrepreneur

Two of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy and Money, and Business and Entrepreneurship. Henry Ford was one of the great ‘Industrial Titans’ whose visions laid the groundwork for the modern automobile industry and literally helped shape modern America. A lot can be learned from how he built is empire. The following contributed post is thus entitled; What Henry Ford Can Teach Us About Being An Entrepreneur.

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Everyone should know who Henry Ford is and why he’s famous. He was the mastermind behind the giant corporation Ford, and his legacy lives on to this day. But, what a lot of people don’t know is that his journey was extremely rough. It’s certainly not a story of some young buck having a bright idea and shooting to success right away.

No, Ford went through plenty of hard times, which is why he’s the perfect person to study as an upcoming entrepreneur. If you’re thinking of starting a business – or have started one that’s failed – then you should pay attention to Ford’s story. Here are a few things you can learn from what happened to him:

Persistence Is Key

Unbeknownst to many, but Ford actually failed twice before he managed to successfully launch his Ford Motor Company. The two previous times, he struggled with juggling finances and promoting the business. Both times, he ended up losing money and had to file for bankruptcy.

Did this stop him? No! He came back a third time and look at what happened. The moral of the story is that persistence is vital. If you have an idea that you believe in, then don’t give up. Don’t let your failings take over and make you feel like you can’t succeed. Try again, learn from your errors, and you may end up getting it right.

Bankruptcy Offers A Second Chance

There’s a stigma surrounding the concept of bankruptcy, and it’s been around for years. Personally, I blame Monopoly! When you’re made bankrupt in that game, you lose all your money and are out of the game. So, we grow up assuming that this holds true for real life; file for bankruptcy, and that’s it, game over.

In reality, as Henry Ford has shown, bankruptcy can be helpful in some situations. As it explains on NY-Bankruptcy.com, it’s a debt solution to help you pay off creditors and get them off your back. Yes, there are plenty of hard times that come when you’re bankrupt. However, it doesn’t mean you’re left with no money and no home/job. A lot of the time, it can be used to give you a second chance. So, if your business ever fails and you’re made bankrupt, don’t take this to mean your chances of success are over in life!

Marketing A Business Is Essential

During his second attempt at starting a company, Ford had most things nailed down pretty well. He managed to balance the finances well, and the actual product was excellent. The issue was that people didn’t understand what it was, because he hadn’t marketed it correctly.

So, we need to learn from his mistakes and ensure we always market our businesses as effectively as possible. Ensure the consumer knows what you offer, and how it can benefit them. There is some handy advice on entrepreneur.com that can help you improve your marketing skills and promote your company.

The overall thing to take from Henry Ford’s success story is that good things don’t happen overnight. It will be a grind, and you may fail more than once. But, learn from your failures and don’t let them dictate your passage in life. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, and try again.

3 Simple Methods Of Protecting Your Business

Two of the key focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy and Money, and Business and Entrepreneurship. Once your business is up and running there are several keys to keep it successfully afloat. The following contributed post is thus entitled; 3 Simple Methods Of Protecting Your Business.

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What would you consider to be one of the most important, life-long activity a business can participate in? Raising profitability for shareholders? Exercising staff comfort and working satisfaction? Having a positive impact on the world? Valid answers all. However, there’s one essentially vital activity missing from this list, something that should be shouted from the rafters. A firm should desire to protect itself. It should know how to conduct security. Not only for its own preservation, but for the health and protection of its employees, customers, and general processes.

Protecting your business can be done, but it can feel dizzying to do, particularly if you’re a small firm. Thankfully, all you need to do is keep yourself updated and knowledgeable in modern requirements, and you’ll be golden. Consider these tips:

Forwarded Address

Sometimes, especially in small business, you aren’t interested in making your business address public. This might be because you haven’t any front-facing customer support and it would be functionally useless to offer your address online or on your contact firms, or because the business is the same residence as your home, and you’re keen on protecting the living space of your family. There may be more reasons than these that you wish to use an alternate address to pick up your mail, and they are all valid. Thankfully, it’s possible to make use of cheap mail forwarding addresses in countries across the world, and you can find that functionality at yourvirtualofficelondon.co.uk/mail-forwarding-address. Remember, sometimes privacy is key for the protection of business assets, and this can serve as a wise first step towards that goal.

Web Hosting

Using web hosting services with a solid track record of confidentiality, privacy, DDOS protection ability, and trustworthy technicians can help the flow of your online traffic stay sustained well in the early months, at least before you are able to structure your own website via an in-house professional timeline of development. Be sure to research testimonials and the business practices of the firms used before you give them your money, even those that seem to be dominating the industry – it’s a good habit to get into. This goes for VPN’s, email and business administrative suites also.

Staff Practices

Staff practices are important to consider when it comes to protecting your business. Staying ahead of the curve means training your staff in your best security policies, in the requirements of the legal bounds you find yourself in. It might be expertly training and qualifying your staff in the matters of food hygiene each year, or perhaps teaching your staff how to properly handle and confidentially transmit important business files to the correct end recipients. Of course, none of this will work without the ability to vet your staff, to ensure they wish to perform the best and most appropriate job possible. After all, you are nothing without your staff, and your staff are nothing without the training your firm provides (at least legally speaking.)

With these simple tips, protecting your business is sure to be a daily task managed well.

Everything You Need to Know About Taxes

Two of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy and Money, and Business and Entrepreneurship. Whether it’s your personal finances or a business venture, understanding taxes is critical. Furthermore, having a tax-strategy can be a critical component to building wealth. The following contributed post is thus entitled; Everything You Need To Know About Taxes.

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As the old saying goes, the only certainties in life are death and paying taxes. All working citizens pay a percentage of their earnings to the government in order to contribute to the functioning of the country. The government spends these taxes on maintaining and improving the country, investing in technology and education, as well as purchasing products that benefit citizens in general. Main areas of expenditure include Major Health Programs (including Medicare and Medicaid), social security, and defense and security for the country as a whole. Tax payments are also used on transport and infrastructure. But it’s not so much how taxes are spent that you need to worry about personally. It’s how much tax you have to pay the government and how to make sure that you cough up the correct amounts on time. So, to help you along the way, here’s everything that you need to know on the subject!

The Importance of Paying Taxes

Besides the importance of paying taxes in regards to keeping the country ticking over, it’s also extremely important that you pay taxes in order to avoid huge fines and potential jail time. Here are some of the potential consequences of paying late or not paying at all.

● Late returns – if you file your return late, you will be charged five percent of your unpaid taxes for every month that your tax return is late on top of the total that you owed anyway.

● Failure to pay – if you file your return, but fail to pay the amount that you owe, you will be charged a failure-to-pay penalty. This amounts to 0.5 percent of the taxes that you owe per month you fail to pay. You will also begin to accrue interest rates on your unpaid tax.

Making the Process as Simple as Possible

As we have established, it’s extremely important that you not only file your tax assessment on time, but that you also make a payment on time. The percentages that you are charged may sound relatively small, but when you keep in mind the amount that you earn in an entire fiscal year, this sum can become pretty large and it can mount up over the months. But not to worry. There are steps that you can take to seriously simplify your tax paying process. The first step that you can take is to hire an accountant. This individual will take all of your financial information for the tax year and determine exactly how much you owe out in taxes. They may also be able to minimize this figure by deducting any work-related expenses that you may have incurred. Another option is to use tax software yourself. This is specially designed software that will help you to complete your return as quickly and conveniently as possible. If this sounds good to you, take a look at this Professional Tax Software Comparison Chart to determine which software will best suit your needs.

Corporation Taxes

Now, we have dealt with personal taxes, let’s take a moment to focus on corporate taxes. If you own a corporation, you’re going to have to pay corporate tax from your business’ profits. You can generally choose your own tax year, so you choose two dates within the year that you operate within – this makes paying taxes better suited to your professional schedule. If you know you have a particularly busy time of year where you’re run off your feet, you can arrange your fiscal year to guarantee that you won’t be focused on filing returns at this given time. Instead, you can schedule your tax file to fall during a quieter period. It is generally stated that we have the highest corporation tax in the world. While stated levels of tax may well be the highest amongst the world’s major economies, when you factor in deductions and other expenditures, corporation tax isn’t actually all too high.

Paying Corporation Tax

Almost all corporations are expected to pay the full sum of corporation tax that they owe over four set dates. Payments generally tend to be due on the 15th April, 15th June, 15th September, and 15th December. Paying smaller sums throughout the year lightens the load on businesses, rather than implementing the pressure of one huge payment date. It is highly unlikely that you will be granted an extension on this payment date, so make sure that you have the funds ready and waiting to be paid. If you fail to pay the full sum of your corporation taxes, you may find that civil and criminal penalties may be imposed upon you. These tend to be divided into four categories:

● Delinquency penalties
● Accuracy-related penalties
● Information reporting penalties
● Preparer, promotor, and protestor penalties

While most individual and corporate taxes are reliant on a mere self-assessment, many large and mid-sized businesses are monitored by the IRS and tax state authorities. If you are turning over a lot of money, you may find that you undergo regular audits to ensure that you are complying with the law and sticking to tax rules.

Hopefully, this has helped you out with a whole lot of information that you need to keep in mind when it comes to filing both personal tax and corporation tax. These are by no means minor issues, as failing to comply with tax law can see you receive serious fines and perhaps even face legal action. So, make sure that you are always complicit!

Your Credit Report Tells Your Life Story

Two of the focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy and Money. Building and maintaining a strong credit rating can significantly affect one’s financial health and open certain doors and opportunities. The opposite is also true. The following contributed post is thus entitled; Your Credit Report Tells Your Life Story.

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Over 65% of job applicants admit to embellishing the truth on their resumés. LIttle white lies here and there and optimistic descriptions of their tasks can move your profile from being at the bottom of the list to the top on the recruiter’s desk. If there’s one thing that most adults spend a lot of time improving, it’s their professional profile. So it’s surprising that less than half of the population care about their credit score. Indeed, almost 30% don’t know their credit score and don’t really see how it can affect their everyday lives. The most common interaction with the credit score is to check whether or not you are eligible for a specific loan or credit card agreement. Consequently, it appears crucial to draw a parallel with your professional profile. Indeed, in the same way than your resume can influence your career; your credit score can equally affect your financial situation. More importantly, you can manage what your credit score reveals about you.

Credit score breakdown

It’s a number, but it says a lot about finance management
The scale of the score for your credit report goes from 300 to 850 – although you can find specific credit card scoring systems that start at 250 and runs to 900. Ultimately, while it’s fair to say that a number might be meaningless at first, you need to understand what it means. Potential lenders and employers can ask to see your score and make an informed decision to trust you or not based on the data available. Ultimately, a score in the highest part of the scale, 781 to 850 implies you’re responsible with your money. While a score in the lowest range of the scale, 300 to 600 can put lenders and some employers off, as it shows you’re not managing your finances.

Mistakes remain visible for long
Unfortunately, lenders don’t only check your credit score, but your full report. The report is the equivalent of your financial resume. It shows all the major decisions you’ve made and can highlight some of your issues with debts or the law for several years. However, you can clear up your report gradually. If you’re worried about the time it takes to remove judgment from credit report information; you might need to get in touch with a legal expert to find out more. More judgment items are removed after 7 years from the date the lawsuit was filed, but there are exceptions. Additionally, some credit bureaus and creditors might choose not to report or mention all negative items.

People look at your finances, not your social privileges
Ultimately, there is an essential element that your credit score encourages. While a resume can suffer from stereotypes based on the education you’ve received or your race, a credit score is, as you know, only a number. The report might highlight your financial strategy and preferences, but more importantly, it showcases your priorities and the time you invest in finance management. Where discrimination is still present in the workplace, credit reports focuses on facts. Being only a number saves you from unfair preconceptions.

The bottom line, for many newcomers to the finance world, is that your credit report is not an enemy you should fight. It’s an opportunity for self-improvement – when the score is low – and for unbiased achievements. Your credit report might shut some doors but, in the grand scheme of things, it helps you to access opportunities that social, racial and gender discriminations would have made more difficult to reach.