Five Options for People Looking to Finance Their Small Business

Even the smallest of the small businesses needs some sort of investment to set off and succeed. The Internet might be a low-cost medium, but even an online business requires sufficient funds for marketing and search engine optimization purposes. Many entrepreneurs with brilliant ideas fail to launch a business.  Even those who do, never manage to realize its true potential because they don’t have the capital to invest. Money makes money, which means you need to have some money in order to make more money.

If you are one of those entrepreneurs with a great business plan, and waiting for the right time when you will have the funds or capital to invest, then you should stop waiting and go for one of the following options to get the capital to launch your company right away:

Bank loan

Banks are of course the first resort for small businesses looking for a loan. The only problem is they are less likely to lend money for a start-up, as compared to an established enterprise. Still, you can visit different banks and discuss your requirements. 

Friends & Families

If you are looking to start a small business online, you usually will need significantly less amount of money as compared to starting a brick and mortar store. Searching out conventional loans from banks or venture capitalists sometimes is not necessary, especially if you’ve got someone affluent enough in your friend or family circle to invest. The biggest advantage is the convenience, as they will be lending the money on much easier conditions when compared to a bank or angel investors. 

Angel Investors & Venture Capitalist

If you have the kind of idea or a prototype that you can sell to some of those “angel investors” or venture capitalist firms, you might be able to raise a big amount of money for your company, except that you will have a little less control on your business. They will be lending on tough conditions, but that’s the only way to find investment for a high risk start-up with lots of potential. You will have to do a lot of convincing though, since venture capitalists or angel investors are business savvy people who won’t put their money in a half-baked business plan. 

Partnership

If you are looking to start a small business and you have got some savings to invest, but you’d like to have some more financing or someone else to share the risk, you can always look for a partner. There are different types of business partnerships, for example, general partnership or limited liability partnership. In case you are getting into a partnership, remember to discuss and include everything in the agreement, because partnerships can result in misunderstandings and disputes. 

Government Funding

There are many government funded programs and grants for small businesses in different parts of the world, especially in particular sectors like IT or agriculture (depending on the government policies). You can always check with your local small business authorities, and see if there’s a financing program available. 

Bio:

Natasha Mesty is a business and finance student. Starting your own business requires lots of planning and hard work in the beginning, but this planning and hard work can pay off in spades once your company starts to earn.  

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How to Make Sure You Hire a Good Financial Planning Consultant

Financial consultants are necessary assets of the company who can help the business decide better ways to improve its financial condition. They are sought by many types of businesses to obtain professional advice on how to properly plan and manage the monetary aspects of the company. Some individuals also require financial consulting services to provide analysis on their needs and guide them in reaching their financial goals.

When hiring a financial consultant for your company it is important to be cautious as choosing the wrong people would end up losing all your investments.

Here are a few tips on how to secure your finances by hiring the right financial consultant or advisor.

• Understand what specific services you require.

Knowing the specific type of service you want from a financial advisor will help you choose the right professional for your needs. Financial consultants offer services in different forms such as investment consultants for businesses and individual financial advisors. If you are able to determine your specific need, then you proceed to seeking for a company that will provide professionals who can offer these types of services.

• If you chose to hire private consultants, investigate about their skills and educational background.

You must be able to seek services from professionals who are knowledgeable and not just graduates of any financial course. Although educational background is important, the skills of the person must be given the utmost importance. You can’t avoid people who have too much confidence in themselves but when it comes to performance they are not good enough to help you. So, hire someone who has skills in long term financial management.

• Check online for companies that offer financial management services.

Make a list of those that you think might be able to help you and make appointment with the ones you are interested in. They must be able to present to the clients a license and other credentials that will prove their authenticity. Choose professionals who have more experiences as these are the type of people who have already encountered different types of financial situations from clients.

• Do not narrow your choices with experienced professionals only.

Although experience is very important when hiring a financial consultant there are also professionals who might have not encountered certain financial situations but are knowledgeable and resourceful enough to help you reach your financial goals.

• Ask referrals. It is also a good idea to ask referrals from friends who have done his or her financial planning successfully.

Make sure that you will ask them what these professionals have done to help them achieve their goals. You may also ask about their credibility and reliability. Ask about the consultants’ market knowledge. Make sure that they can provide reliable professionals advice on how to make a great deal of your business’ finances to stabilize or improve its financial situation.

Financial advisors or consultants are good communicators. You will know how knowledgeable they are if you start to ask questions and they would present the answers to you professionally without doubts. These kinds of professionals maybe found in companies that are credited by the law, so it is important that you will be able to find these companies and obtain the best financial advice for your business or personal finances.

If you want a financial consultant that would fit your preferences, you can choose someone who specializes in the financial aspect that fits your needs. This is to make sure that he or she can help you how to manage your finances so that you can reap all the benefits in the future. Choosing the right financial consultant will help your business save money and personally keep your investment safe.

Author Bio: Jolie is an expert financial consultant who has served the finance industry for more than a decade already. To give tips to businesses that need financial assistance, she writes financial articles online. Her works on payday loan are among the most read by internet users.

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Do You Plan to Help Finance Your Childrens' Weddings?

Wedding Dress For Happy Couple in Love (Photo credit: epSos.de)

With the average wedding now costing $27,000, tying the knot has never been more expensive. Although over a third of couples are choosing to finance their big day completely themselves, many parents still wish to contribute to the cost. Even if there is no hint of a wedding in sight, if you have daughters in their teens or twenties – or sons for that matter - you may want to consider how you will save money to put towards their future wedding.

When to start saving

One thing that’s for sure is it’s never too soon to start saving; before you know it they’ll be grown up and engaged and it’s easier to put a little money away each month than to have to find extra money within the space of a year. It’s popular for parents to start a wedding fund after they've put their kids through college, as once this financial obstacle has been cleared you obviously have more available cash. However, this is not necessarily practical if you have a large family of widely varying ages, in which case you may have to juggle the two. Either way, the best course of action might be to participate in a dedicated regular saving scheme, looking at your current earnings and outgoings to determine a realistic amount that can be saved each month. If you do have a lump sum of money available to invest for the purpose you might wish to invest in a portfolio of bonds and stocks, which can potentially provide much greater returns; though there is inevitably an element of risk with these.

Don’t jeopardize your retirement

A couple of 14-carat gold wedding rings. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

While you want your daughter’s wedding day to be the best of her life, it’s important to be realistic about how much you can afford to contribute. It would be foolish to save for her wedding at the expense of your retirement; if you can’t give as much money as you would have liked, it doesn't mean you are letting them down and they’ll more than understand. Your children will be well aware of the current financial crisis and the negative impact this will have had on your savings accounts and pension plans. If your daughter is recently engaged, sit down with her and her fiancé and explain how much money you are able to provide; this means they can plan a wedding within the budget they have available to them, rather than basing it around additional money that you can no longer afford to give. Remember after all that for the majority of weddings the costs are now split three ways between the bride’s family, the groom’s family and the couple themselves, so you should not feel under any undue pressure to foot the whole bill.

Avoid getting into debt

On a similar note to that above, don’t be tempted to get into debt to help finance a wedding. While this might seem like your only option if the prospect of a wedding is suddenly thrust upon you  and you have not had the chance to prepare specific savings, it’s important to keep in perspective that it’s only one day and not even your child’s wedding  is worth getting into debt over. It might seem easy enough to make a payment on a credit card or to take out a loan, but when you consider the interest rates you will be charged for the privilege of doing so, the money you owe will quickly mount up. You wouldn't want your children to get into debt in this way, so follow your own advice. Use the rule of thumb that you will only pay for what you can afford to do so in cash; by paying with cash you can also usually receive discounts on your purchases, with everyone from florists to photographers ready to do a deal with you.

Be aware of the true costs

Before generously offering to pay for a number of items relating to the wedding, be aware of exactly how much they will cost. It might be hard to believe, but the average wedding dress would set you back $1,355, photography now stands at $2,186 and wedding cakes cost almost $500, so that’s over $4,000 before you have even considered the cost of the venue, catering and hiring a car for the day. These figures are based on the findings of the 2012 American Wedding Survey; more details of which are available online and makes useful reading if you feel out of touch with how much it now costs to get married. 

However, don’t let your knowledge of the true cost sway you into upping the amount of money you decide to give your daughter and your son-in-law to be. Rather than offering to pay for specific items it is probably wiser to offer a set amount of money which they can spend as they see fit.

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How Much Does a Bachelor Degree Cost Around the World? - Infographic

Here is a great infographic depicting the cost of a bachelor degrees around the world. It’s interesting to see the costs in some countries. Also what you chose as your major will impact for the rest of your career what your income will be. Many parents do not realize the education their children are getting, for an insane cost, will lead to a poor paying job.

Cost of Bachelor’s Degree around the World

Planning To Buy a Car? Know Your Type First

English: Toyota Camry (left) and Ford Excursion (right). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Today, buying a car has become a necessity as opposed to earlier times, when it was a luxury. You need a car to go to work, to meet friends, to drop your children to school and for a lot of other things too. Once you've worked long and hard enough and saved up enough money to buy your very own car, you wonder which one to buy. With the constant stream of new cars pouring into the market on a regular basis, it turns out that you can take your pick depending on your requirements. There are various types of cars in the market and each type has its own set of advantages to offer. Here are a few types and their characteristics, which can help make your decision on the type of car you want to buy. 

1. SUVs: SUV stands for Sports Utility Vehicle, and buying one can give you some great benefits. This kind usually comes with a 4x4 wheel drive option for good off-road experience. Apart from this, SUVs are known for their spacious interiors, extra head room and leg room, high ground clearance and ample boot space. All these features are very useful in case of long drives and family trips. So if you’re a family guy looking to travel medium and long haul drives on weekends, an SUV is the perfect buy for you. 
2. Sedans: Sedans are regular sized cars with two rows of spacious seats. Sedans are the most economical cars around and are also ideal city cars. They have low ground clearance, which means that there is less risk of toppling over. Sedans come in various types depending on their structure and design. Hatchback sedans, notchback sedans, fastback sedans and hardtop sedans are a few among them. 
3. Coupes: Coupes are smaller versions of the sedan. They were traditionally described as “two door cars”, but these days they come with four doors too. One major advantage of buying a coupe is that it is inexpensive to maintain and can be parked easily anywhere since it does not take up too much space. Other than this, it is easily maneuverable, thus making for the perfect city car. 

Apart from these three major categories, there are a lot of other categories of cars available in the market. Furthermore, these categories are subdivided into full size, mid-size and compact cars, depending on their size. Now that you have a fair idea of the options available in the market, you can make your decision on what to buy. Remember to check online for a good car insurance quote before you actually go ahead with the purchase. Select the most suitable car insurance quote, draw up the papers, get your driving license and you’re all set to drive your very own car.

Author Bio:

Crowley is a car salesman with a leading company and has over two decades of experience under his belt. He also writes articles for his company – RSA Direct, which are published on the website. His recent write ups include “How to buy the best car for yourself” and “Getting the best car insurance quote online”.

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Handy Tips on Effective Tax Returns

taxes (Photo credit: 401(K) 2012)

After the back to back financial slumps in and after the year 2008, the structure of the world economy has greatly changed. There are millions all over the globe, who do not have a proper credit history. Hence it becomes a difficult task for them to get a loan. Besides getting the loan, one also needs to make sure that they manage their taxes in a proper way. In this article we will provide the correct tax planning tips that will help one to manage their taxes correctly.

Possessing the correct information on Taxes

Having the correct knowledge of the tax that you need to pay is the most important thing. There are various kinds of tax that one needs to pay such as local tax, federal tax, income tax and others. Often it is found that one finds it difficult to understand the nature of the tax and how much exactly they should pay. In such cases it is a beer idea to hire a professional who has a fair idea in tax returns. Such professional will also be able to help you to find ways to save on your taxes. There are numerous ways in which one can save on their taxes using legal methods.

Maintaining a Record of the transactions

Keeping a record of the tax payable is an effective way of managing your tax payments. That way you will not lose track of the amount of tax that you need to pay and the time at which you need to pay it. Many a times it is found that individuals inadvertently skip their tax and eventually end up paying more. Maintaining a folder or a file will help one to keep abreast of the tax returns that they need to make.

Hiring a Professional Tax Consultant

Hiring a professional tax consultant is of utmost importance. The entire scope of tax returns is huge and it is virtually impossible for an individual to get a proper idea of it. There are numerous ways in which one can benefit by hiring a tax consultant. The most important benefit of hiring professionals is that, they will be able to help you in saving money on your tax. Moreover they will also be able help you to easy ways of tax return.  Hence resorting to the help of a professional is certainly a great way to manage your finances.

On a Concluding note

On a concluding note it can be said that in order to manage your finances in the best possible way, you need to keep in mind all the above mentioned points. A recent study has shown that many individuals lose thousands in penalties for not paying their tax on time. Hence you should consider hiring a consultant to manage all the aspects of tax return. There are many tax consultants out in the market. Make sure that you choose an experienced one to address your needs.

Author’s Bio: Alisa Martin is a freelance writer, professional blogger, and social media enthusiast. Her blog Money Exchange Rates focuses on Finance bloggers. You can follow her on Google+

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