Let’s face it, we all make mistakes. Even the savviest entrepreneurs make business blunders now and then, but the important thing is how they deal with them.

If you feel like you’ve made a small business slip up recently, then don’t panic – all is not lost. Read on for some of the most common start up mistakes and how to rectify them…

Ignoring the details

So we’re not all numbers people. In fact most entrepreneurs are big picture thinkers, so we’re great at coming up with ideas, having a vision and being creative, but when it comes to the nitty gritty details of running a business…..? Nnnnnnnnot so great.

Getting the numbers right is so integral to your business’s success that if you’re not confident getting them straight for yourself then you should definitely enlist the help of an accountant or financial adviser to take care of the figures. Many businesses start out with too little capital, so it’s important to outline your start-up costs so you’ll know exactly how much you need – try using a starting costs calculator. You should also create a budget to ensure the profitability of your business.

Trying to do everything and be everything

Whether you’re trying to cut costs, save time or keep control over every aspect of your business, it can be tempting to be a one woman show. However by trying to wear a million different hats at once you’re setting yourself up for a fall. 

Be realistic about what your strengths are and focus on the areas of running the business that you do well. For other tasks consider outsourcing or taking on new staff who have expertise in that area. While additional salaries may feel like a drain, in the long run you won’t burn yourself out and often two heads are better than one. Make sure your staff are all pulling their weight by tracking performance. Recognising their achievements is equally important, as the Business Insider recently pointed out, a happy workforce is a productive workforce.

Forgetting what works

One common mistake many new businesses make is not sticking with what works best. Rather than focussing on the most profitable part of their business, many are quick to introduce new products in the hope of riding the initial buzz of a successful honeymoon period.

The lesson? If you make ice cream and your best seller is strawberry flavour: keep making plenty of strawberry flavour ice cream. Remember too, that while a product may seem to sell itself, a solid marketing campaign is important to keep the customers coming in the long run.

Embrace social media to stay on the pulse of what your customers really want and communicate new product news. Get a good deal on your business mobile and you can even update Twitter and Facebook on the go. Don’t have a website? Step into the 21st century – if you’re not into ecommerce you’re missing a trick. Check out Chris Ducker’s guide to creating a simple but effective website.

Failing to plan for the future

Not thinking about what happens next is some companies’ biggest pitfall. While it’s important to focus on the day to day running of your business, it’s important to know where you’re going too in the future.

Think about your mission and vision – what drives your company? What are your aims? Consider where you are going and what steps will get you there. If you don’t already have one write out a plan and strategy – just seeing it written down can often spur you on when you feel stuck in a rut.

What business mistakes have you made? Tell us how you fixed them…

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Richard Hawkins writes on finance and entrepreneurship for a digital marketing agency.

A financial professional looking to refine his/her skills, expand contacts and grow their business can benefit from attending a conference. Luckily, 2013 is rife with corporate finance and accounting conferences. No matter where you are and what your particular needs, there is a conference available that will expand your knowledge and help you grow your business. Read on for information on some of the top conferences going on this year.

CFO Dimensions

August 21-22, 2013; New York

Proformative is hosting the premier corporate finance event of 2013. The CFO Dimensions Conference is focusing on the areas that their community of over 600,000 finance and accounting related professionals are most interested in: managing risk and driving growth from the CFO office.  Learn more about how to drive growth initiatives, increase the efficiency and performance of your team, implement the best practices for emerging and current technologies, and leverage professional connections. More information about the CFO Dimensions Conference can be found here: http://www.proformative.com/cfo-dimensions

AICPA Conferences

Varying Dates

The American Institute of CPAs is the world’s largest association of accountants. The organization hosts a number of conferences throughout the year and all over the country.

Accountants and CFOs in the healthcare industry may be interested in the Healthcare Industry Conference, taking place from November 14-15 in New Orleans. This conference provides information and techniques to help you stay on top of trends and provide the best service for your clients. You will have the opportunity to attend panel discussions, Q&As, and interactive sessions as well as network with professionals in your field.

Another industry-specific conference run by the AICPA is the 2013 AICPA Global Hospitality Conference. This conference takes place July 25-26 in Las Vegas and promises to offer technical and managerial knowledge applicable to today’s most pressing issues. You will be able to meet with a wide array of industry experts and engage in in-depth discussions on the latest regulatory and technological issues.

There are dozens of other conferences provided by the AICPA. For more information, visit: www.cpa2biz.com/Conferences

CFO.com Conferences

Varying Dates

CFO.com is known for providing information relevant for finance executives on a daily basis. Their conferences bring this information to the offline world, allowing CFOs and other relevant professionals to network and expand their skills.

CFOs employed by small to medium sized private companies have much to gain from CFO Playbook for Private Companies West. This San Francisco based conference runs June 2-4. It echoes a similar CFO.com-run conference in Miami (held this year on October 27-29) and is focused on the particular challenges that face CFOs in privately held companies. Learn more about how to handle rapid expansion, manage finance in a family-owned firm, drive innovation, and more. Expert speakers and private company finance chiefs will be on hand to share their own strategies and best practices.

The eight annual CFO Rising West conference is another CFO.com event that features seasoned financial executives. Running from October 6-9 in Scottsdale, Arizona, this conference discusses strategies for navigating the changes happening in the corporate finance world. Networking opportunities abound while you attend panels and roundtable discussions run by experts in the field.

CFO.com has several other conferences and networking events running in 2013. For more information, visit: http://www3.cfo.com/conference

Corporate finance and accounting conferences allow their attendees to interact with experts in their fields. In a rapidly changing financial world, attending conferences is one of the best ways to keep up with new technology and ideas. They are also a great way to meet others in your field, perhaps creating relationships that will pay off for you and your company later on down the road. No matter your reason for attending a 2013 conference, you will return home equipped with the great new strategies and ideas.

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• License: Image author owned

Sarah Jackson is a freelance business writer, editor and blogger who is looking forward to some great events herself in 2013 and only some of them are work-related!

If any aspect of your billing involves Microsoft Office or Excel, it is time for you to stop the manually formatting and move to the simplicity of online templates. Online billing programs already have a large variety of clean and professional looking templates that you simply choose and use. 

They also store all of the critical contact information for your clients and suppliers, so you only need to enter it during the initial setup. The same will apply to your product and/or service descriptions. All the information will be in the software, so you just need to select who ordered what to generate an invoice.  

These online billing software programs usually come with the option to email the invoice directly to the client, which is highly recommended. This way you can request a read receipt, so you know they have reviewed it. It will also save the time and cost associated with traditional mail.

Many of these free online billing software programs can also generate all of your necessary financial reports. By entering all of your payables, receivables, and payments into the software it will calculate your accounts payable list, accounts receivable list, cash flow statement, and income statement in a matter of minutes.   

Since all of the information is online, it can be easily accessed from anywhere that has internet service (which is pretty much everywhere these days). You won’t need to run back to the office, every time that you need to make a budgetary decision. Online billing software immediately updates every report each time you enter a new invoice, so you can feel confident that you are analysing the most up-to-date information.

Now, how much money will this really save you?

That depends. It will save you on office space, paper, envelopes, and stamps, as well as time, but it could be much more than that. If you are on the road and an opportunity for investment suddenly arises, but you need to act fast and you only have your cellphone on you, what do you do? Wouldn’t it be great if you could login and view your cash flow statement to ensure you have the funds? The flexibility and convenience online billing provides is where the real savings comes in. You will always be able to see exactly where you are at financially, regardless of where you are at physically.   

The article is posted by Gerwyn Wallto. You can find other related articles here.

Many small business owners find themselves wearing several hats, including an accountant’s visor. Keeping track of a business’s records can be difficult if you have other tasks tugging at your attention, but staying organized can help. To keep your accounting tasks running smoothly, use the same strategies accountants do to stay organized. Here are some methods to keep in mind.

Accounting Software

Accounting software allows accountants to stay organized by taking over much of the detail work. As software becomes more comprehensive and intuitive, accountants can rely on them to complete more and more tasks. This reduces their workload and allows them to focus on solving more complex problems.

Business owners can mimic accountants in this by purchasing their own accounting software. Programs like QuickBooks and Peachtree can be easily understood by most business owners. They can also be integrated with other software, allowing data to be transported to spreadsheets and databases quickly. This flexibility helps reduce the risk of mistakes and reduces the amount of time accountants and business owners have to spend sifting through data.

Accounting Apps

While accounting software does the heavy lifting, accounting apps are also a popular way for accountants to stay organized. Apps can take on smaller tasks anytime and anywhere, allowing accountants to quickly complete tasks on the go.

A popular accounting app that offers organizational value to small business owners is Shoeboxed.  This app takes over the tedious work of inputting data from receipts and business cards, potentially saving you hours every month. The app lets you submit documents with your cell phone, allowing you to input data in the moment instead of keeping track of tiny slips of paper. Apps like these let you record accounting data in the moment, improving accuracy and saving time.

Scheduling Software

Scheduling is a huge hurdle for both staff and freelance accountants. Scheduling helps keep staff accountants on task, both in the short term and long term. A daily schedule helps to make sure that all tasks are completed on time, while a long term schedule reminds accountants of upcoming deadlines. Freelance accountants are more likely to work with several different clients, making meetings difficult to schedule but important to remember.

Outlook is a popular scheduling software used by many accountants to stay on task.  The program can integrate other information types, including email and contact information, keeping you up to date without having to leave the program.

Communication Software

While the popular perception of an accountant paints a lone man slaving over an adding machine, a successful accountant must be an effective communicator. Keeping track of professional contacts and effectively keeping in touch with clients is crucial to be effective in this business.

For written communication, a program like Outlook can double as an e-mail organizer. Social networking can be another useful tool for organizing contacts. If you don’t have a LinkedIn account already, this site is a great way to make connections and keep up with your contacts. For verbal communication, Skype is difficult to beat. Video conferencing opens up freelance accountants to clients all around the world. For small business owners, it’s a heavily-used program for all kinds of business communications.

Filing

These days it is easy to forget that paper documents needs organization just as much as data. A successful accountant has a filing system in place for all his paper documents. This can be as simple as a filing cabinet filled with well-labeled folders. Every accountant has his or her own filing system, so experiment and find the one that works best for you.

Accountants can successfully complete many detail-oriented tasks by keeping a close eye on organization. A month or year-end accounting checklist can really help. No matter what kind of accounting tasks you are dealing with, staying organized will help you complete them quickly and accurately.

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Sarah Jackson is a freelance business writer and editor. She highly values efficiency and organization, but often feels like she could do better. When not making herself a little crazy with work details, she tends to her three children in San Jose, California.

Flat-rate Scheme

The government’s proposed reforms are to introduce a ‘flat-rate’ scheme, which will replace the current state pension; it’s thought that this will be in place by the beginning of 2017.  Of course, as time moves on, state pension age increases and the government has decided that it will first increase to 66 before finally settling on a retirement age of 68 so for most of us it could be quite a while before we see any of our pension funds!

Problems

The problem with changing the pension scheme and increasing the age of retirement is that it encourages those experiencing financial difficulties to take advantage of pension transfer schemes which are popping out of the woodwork.  Many of us wonder why we should wait until we’re 68 to claim money which we have worked so hard to save.  But these so-called schemes should more rightly be called scams – what they don’t tell you when they ask you to sign on the dotted line, is that by accessing your pension pot before the age of 55, you’re flouting the government’s legislation and will be taxed 55% on unauthorised access to your funds.  Not to mention, pension transfer schemes often charge a hefty commission in addition to the tax you’ll pay which could leave you with practically no pension at all.  It seems that with pension schemes, being patient is critical.   Your pension is there to protect you and provide for you throughout your retirement; it’s not a lump sum designed for spending in your 30’s, 40’s or 50’s, no matter how tempting that may seem.  The high tax charged on early liberation of funds is designed to prevent people from accessing their pension before retirement age, so that we’re not left with a generation of pensioners unable to provide for themselves in old age!

What’s in it for you?

Currently, basic and state pensions are confusing and most people aren’t able to plan for their retirement.  There are inequalities in the system too, thanks to means testing which is currently in place.  Under the new legislation, you’ll need to have made 10 years of National Insurance contributions to qualify for the lowest tier of the new pension plans, with individuals who have made 35 years of contributions eligible for the highest tier.  If you’ve made less than 10 years of contributions, you won’t be eligible for anything.  It looks like £144 a week will be the highest rate available through the new plans although of course, if you’re married, divorced or bereaved this amount could vary.  So how do you know if you’ll benefit from these new plans?  It’s thought that if you’ve taken time off from NI contributions, whether due to unemployment, childcare or disability, or if you have always earned low wages, then you will see an improvement under the new scheme.  Self-employed individuals will also benefit from the new legislation, although it seems that if you are a high earner, you’ll lose out when the new scheme falls into place.

There are pluses and minuses to the proposed pension changes and whether or not you will benefit or suffer from the changes made depends on your work history and how many years of National Insurance contributions you’ve made.  For most people, the changes will be minor ones, with the main change being the increase of retirement age.

With the retirement age rising to 68, Kay Brown recommends staying away from pension transfer schemes as these will eat away at your pension. She instead suggests completing a pension review so that you can monitor how much you are paying into your pension.

To ensure your company payrolls run smooth, you’ll need to know exactly which type of Intuit Quickbooks product is right for you. Many newcomers to this highly popular accounting software automatically assume that the entry-level product offers enough features for their payroll requirements, but this isn’t always the case. While smaller companies may be able to get by on just the basic payroll service, more complex, larger companies will likely require more features.

Basic Payroll Service

The cheapest Intuit payroll service, basic, starts at just $19/month and is perfect for businesses and companies with just a single employee. If you are self-employed with no other employees working for your business, then you should consider using this form of Intuit Quickbooks. It’s simple, easy and offers everything you need for basic payroll and accounting. Some of the features include the ability to pay by either check or direct deposit, technical support, and easy paycheck. Best of all, their basic payroll service is one of the cheapest you’ll find at just $19/month.

Enhanced

A step up from the basic payroll service is the Intuit enhanced service, which starts at $29/month. For only an additional ten bucks a month, you get a number of beneficial features. Whether or not your company will take advantage of them, however, is another story. So, what’s included in the enhanced payroll version? Along with all of the basic features, you’ll also get year-end W2 tax forms, federal and state payroll tax automatically filed, and several other additional features. Having these additional tax features is a real time-saver that most companies will find well worth the additional price.

Full Service

The highest service offered by Intuit is their full payroll service, which starts at $79/month. As you can see, this is a pretty big price jump from the enhanced version, making some people skeptical of whether or not it’s worth it. The main differences between the full service and enhanced is the additional tax services Intuit offers. With the full service payroll option, they handle all of your federal and state filing for you. There’s no need to scramble through all of your documentations and past bank statements at tax time, as professional Intuit accountants will do the job for you. In fact, they guarantee that you won’t be penalized from them filing your company taxes.

Hopefully, this will give you a better understanding on the different Intuit Quickbooks payroll services offered. There are three different types, all of which have their own features. Carefully read over them here to determine which one is right for you.

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Sandra Rice is a content contributor for MyVAO. Sandra enjoys writing about new business software, how to manage payrolls, and much more. She recommends going to MyVAO.com to hire a great Quickbooks hosting service.

This test is a necessity to ensure that businesses can fully prepare for the chaos rush of the 2012 Olympics. Everywhere needs to stay open therefore employees need to still be able to get to work so testing the transport is essential.

With queues forming at petrol stations around Britain, furious retailers and motoring organisations accused the Government of “creating a crisis”.

Susie Tizard, 29, an accountant from Highbury, needed fuel to visit her father in hospital in Surrey. She said: “I saw someone walk out with a big tank of petrol, which is annoying. If they just filled their cars it’d be fine.”

“It’s an incredible honour to receive this award. It would not have been possible without the fantastic support and commitment of everybody at bet365.” Says Denise.

After recently investing £50,000,000 in Stoke City FC,  manager Tony Pulis said: “Everyone associated with Stoke City is indebted to Denise and delighted at this fully deserved honour.”

Denise’s father, who invested the start up cash into bet365, says he and all the family are incredibly proud of her.

Chris Lee, a partner at accountants James Cowper, said: “HMRC has finally woken-up and found itself in the 21st Century. Smartphones are in many cases an indispensable business tool and it is right that they should not be treated as a taxable benefit.”

HMRC used to insist that smartphones, such as iPhones, Blackberry and many Android devices, were subject to tax as a ‘benefit in kind’ where employees were allowed to use them outside work.

Now the tax authorities have decided they are ‘appy’ to waive the tax on new technology. The about-turn  follows a dramatic increase in the number of smartphones in the UK. The regulator Ofcom estimates that 47 per cent of all teenagers and a quarter of all adults in the UK own a smartphone.