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Benefits of Hiring a Professional Accountant

Managing your business’s accounts yourself can be very tempting, especially if you want to save money. While there is a great benefit to be had in doing your own accounts, there is even more benefit in hiring a professional accountant to manage your business’s accounts for you. This article will tell you what those benefits are.

If you do decide to hire an accountant, choose one carefully, because they may end up being your financial partner for many years to come.

Here are the benefits of hiring a professional accountant:

Errors in Accounting Can Be Disastrous

If you are a business owner and you are trying to manage every single aspect of your business, including accounting, it can be very easy to miss important details or to overlook things. As your business and profits begin to grow, managing your finances can become very difficult. Unless you are a qualified accountant, it is almost guaranteed that you will make mistakes.

When you do make mistakes in your business’s accountants, the consequences can ruin you financially. The most common mistakes made by businesses managing their own accounts are tax-related, and the penalties for mistakes of this nature can be extraordinarily high.

By hiring an account, you can ensure that every single tax return is completed to precision. You can also ensure that your business’s books are kept up to date.

You Save Yourself Time

Time is the thing that most business owners find themselves short of. You may manage your own accounts to save yourself money, but remember, as a business owner, you are paying yourself for the time that you spend working on your accounts, and time is money. When you hire an accountant, even if they charge a lot per hour, they will take a lot less time than you would to go through your accounts, which in the end saves you money.

By allowing an accountant to manage your finances, you give yourself the time to focus on other areas of your business that may need attention. You might be surprised at how much time you actually save when you hire an accountant.

Record Keeping

Accountants will keep meticulous records of your business’s financial history. This can prove to be incredibly useful. Keeping records of every single purchase that your business has made will help you to save money in the future. In fact, accountants will be able to highlight areas in your business that you can save money.

Meticulous financial records will also allow you to identify if employees have been behaving recklessly with your money, which does happen.

You Can Outsource

Accountants do not need to be paid members of staff. Hiring an accountant and paying them a salary, as well as offering them benefits, may be impossible for your business. Thankfully, you can outsource your accounting. Accounting agencies exist everywhere from Idaho to Florida, so you should have no problem finding one for your business. But whether you hire an Idaho CPA or Florida CPA, remember to research them thoroughly, and read their testimonials and reviews. When you outsource your accountancy, you pay them only for the time that you need, which could just be a few hours a week.

When your business has grown in size, you can begin to think about employing full-time accountants. Until then, make do with outsourcing. It is a powerful asset and, employed properly, can save you a lot of money.

Tax Audits

A tax audit is when the Internal Revenue Service investigates your tax return to make sure that everything is as it has been reported. While tax audits are not common, it is always worth having an accountant on hand just in case. This goes back to the previous point we made about errors in managing your own financial records. If you do make a mistake and it is highlighted in an audit, you will have penalties to pay, and with the IRS, ignorance is never a defense.

Annual Statements and Quarterly Financial Reports

For anyone who holds shares in your business, you will be expected to produce annual statements and quarterly financial reports. If you do not handle these properly, you can lose precious investors. An accountant, ideally, will have a length of experience in this area of accounting, and thus, will be able to satisfy your investors with well-drawn-up financial statements and reports. Quarterly financial reports can also attract investors.

Forming a Bigger Picture

Your accounts are not a burden – they are a great asset. As we mentioned earlier, an accountant will be able to save you money by examining your accounts. They will also be able to identify areas of your business that need growth and will tell you how you can reach those areas effectively. Many people have a very two-dimensional idea of what an accountant is. They do not just ‘file tax returns’ – they are planners, organizers, and key to your business’s success.

Assisting With Financial Decisions

If you have an investment that you want to make in your business, or in another business, then an accountant will advise you as to whether or not it is sensible, and whether or not it will benefit your business. It can be very easy when an opportunity presents itself to rush into it headfirst, but when you are managing your business’s finances, you need to slow down and give it some thought. An accountant’s advice when it comes to making financial decisions for your business is invaluable and should always be sought.

You Buy Experience

You may be a first-time business owner and may also be a novice in matters of business. An accountant, however, will have experience, and that is exactly what you are paying for. When you are struggling to make a decision, confused, or just need some advice, then an accountant is the best person to ask. They likely deal with tens of clients at one time, so are well-versed in business.

Accountancy is an unfortunate part of being a business owner. Rather than burdening yourself with stacks of paperwork, hire an accountant, and you will immediately begin to save yourself both time and money. Thank you for reading this article, and please visit us again soon.

May 14, 2021
Effective Solutions That Will Drive More Customers to Your Business

Although technology takes a massive role in today’s business world, many shops and other businesses remain with physical stores. So many individuals use the internet to obtain products and services that many of the ways to attract customers take place online. However, you must still think about how to attract customers to your building whether your business is also online or not.

When it comes to physical stores, location is usually everything. If you are in a highly populated place, it may be slightly easier to get people to notice you and come in. If you are hidden away from society in a corner, this may prove challenging and you may have to put additional efforts to be noticed. In this article, we will provide you with effective solutions that will drive more customers to your business, to increase your store’s chances of success.

Remodel the Building

A great idea to attract more customers is to remodel the building. Although this is a big step, your business may lack the necessary appealing features to invite people to come into your store. If you have not done this in some time, perhaps it is time you do it now and make it look modern and inviting. You can completely change the look of the building or simply freshen it up. Adding a few unique decorative features will automatically make people more curious to see what your business is about.

Make Use of Signs

Maybe the location of your business is poor and people cannot see you, or maybe the building is in the middle of bigger properties, which results in people not being aware of your existence. Of course, this will make it difficult for people to come into your building. If you live in Texas, for example, it may be worth visiting a Houston sign company to invest in a sign for your building. There are many different signs you can choose from with a variety of shapes and colors. Displaying a neon sign right above your building will surely capture the attention of potential customers whether it is day or night.

Pay Attention to the Windows

You may have heard the term ‘window shopping’. This essentially entails individuals walking past shops and starting at the windows. This is one of the reasons you should pay great attention to the windows of your store as this is how individuals from outside get the first peek into your business. They should be welcoming and attractive to potential customers as it will increase the chances of them coming in.

Create a Website

Creating a website is just as important to attract individuals into your physical store. The majority of customers will look up information online whenever they are in need of a service and/or product. They do not necessarily need to be out to find out about your business. As long as you have a good website in place and clearly detail your information, address, and contact details, you should automatically find more customers are coming to you.

Increase Social Media Presence

Again, the online world can greatly benefit your business. Whether you have a website or not, you should increase your presence on different social media platforms. Millions of individuals utilize these to communicate and to find services. One of the greatest advantages of social media that a simple website does not provide is the ability to engage with your customers any time you want.

This is great if they have any questions about your service or if you want to promote any sales or discounts to incite people to come to visit you. You may want to use different platforms, depending on what your audience prefers or just one if you are sure you can reach your target cohort. We recommend a variety of platforms and having someone manage these for you.

SMS Marketing

Using a range of marketing strategies is an effective solution to drive more customers to your business. SMS marketing is a popular approach as it works wonders when done correctly. The majority of individuals own at least one phone, and this is always in their possession, meaning that you can quickly reach them with one text message. These messages should be kept short and informative and ultimately remind customers of your existence. You can encourage them to come in by giving them a discount if they show the text message when purchasing something.

Create a Sale

A great way to attract more customers to your place is by giving them a reason to come to you. People love a good bargain. When clients think they can get a product for lower costs they will make the effort to come to you. You can use some of the tactics discussed above, such as social media and SMS marketing to let your target audience know that this is happening. A good idea is to put a time limit on the sale, as it will encourage them to come to your business quickly as they will know they want to miss out on the chance.

Encourage People to Tell a Friend

Word of mouth is one of the oldest and most effective solutions to increase the number of customers to your business. You may have a great social media presence and an amazing website as well as a number of positive reviews online from previous customers. However, nothing attracts more people than existing customers referring your business or product to a friend. Most of us trust the judgment of our friends and family more than we trust online reviews from strangers, making this approach highly important. A great way to encourage this is by offering a discount or a free product to a customer if next time they visit they bring a friend with them and the friend makes a purchase.

Attracting more customers is usually the primary objective of any company. Without individuals buying your products or services you will not make a profit. The information on this page should provide you with effective solutions to be more noticeable and attract more customers to your business.

May 14, 2021
How A Virtual Telephone Number Can Help Your Business Development?

Heard about virtual telephone providers before? Virtual communication is no longer a thing of the future – the virtual age is now. A virtual telephone provider will promote a virtual phone number, but how do they differ from the phone number we know and use daily? Here is what a virtual telephone number is and how it can help you and your business develop.

What Is a Virtual Telephone Number?

A Virtual telephone number is basically the same as a regular telephone number. They are, however, not connected to a physical cellular device, or telephone line in any way. Gone are the days of having to use a telephone number for an individual, specific device, with a dedicated line of wires. A huge downside of this system was that incoming calls to that number could only be sent to that one particular destination, and in the case of business phone numbers, a business would have to set up hardware that would configure routing rules, voicemail, and extensions, which was time-consuming on both the consumer and business end.

With the introduction of a virtual phone number for a business, the days of endless “let me refer you, please hold” responses are severely cut down. The physical limitations that an old school phone system imposes disappear and businesses are now allowed to have better flexibility and control in the way they process and receive calls.

When virtual phone numbers are used in conjunction with cloud phone systems one can purchase them directly from the cloud service provider. This way everything can be managed through an admin portal. Having a multitude of virtual phone numbers for your business allows you to set and adjust the destination of each number and modify them in real-time without having to wait for your service provider to get around to the task.

How A Virtual Phone Number Benefits Your Business

Link Employees Across States to Streamline Incoming Calls

So what can it do for your business? So much. Does your company have multiple branches scattered around the country? A virtual phone number can Connect Communications Services and unify your business with ease. If you have departments that are across different states or cities, or if your business has multiple office branches, a virtual phone number can bring together your dispersed workforce. Rather than having all incoming calls ringing a phone in just one office, a virtual phone number enables and allows the incoming call to ring the phones across multiple separate offices.

What does this mean? You are able to decide on whether the destination of a virtual phone number will be a call to queue or if it will ring a group. This means that the virtual number will call all of the necessary representatives’ phones, who are either responsible for answering calls placed in the queue or group option. It does this all at the same time or successively – you decide. Depending on which of the call strategies you choose, either queue or group, a representative anywhere, completely regardless of their physical location, can then answer the call and provide assistance to the customer or consumer.

Employ A Local Phone Number Where You Have A Lot Of Clients

If your business headquarters are located in one part of the country, but your biggest customer base has developed elsewhere, you can let your clients call you with a local phone number, making you even more desirable and growing your market further.

Having a virtual phone number for your business can help you establish a presence in an area where you are not located, increasing your market reach and presence across the country, all the while keeping the cost of all your incoming calls to a minimum. You can do this by buying a virtual phone number from your service provider and setting the destination to the phones in your offices. This is a possibility even if your business is not in the area serviced by the numbers area code. This makes it easier and more desirable for people to call you.

Fully Enjoy Geographic Flexibility And Remote Working

As you now know, a virtual phone number means that you don’t have a fixed phone line. This means that you have geographic flexibility, which means that you have the freedom to play around with remote working, something put into the spotlight due to the pandemic.

Virtual numbers are a great tool to implement and can be very useful if you want to be reachable on your cell phone while you are away from the office. This is great if you do not want to share your personal contact details with the entire company and your clients. With the use of a virtual phone number service, you can set a number, separate from your personal number, to be receivable on your cell phone. This way your employees and clients can reach you by dialing a virtual phone number.

Evaluate The Performance of Your Campaigns

If you are running ads and sales campaigns, then you must evaluate the overall success of these campaigns. Instead of funneling all of the calls through the main line of your business, you can assign a different virtual number to every campaign you are running. This makes it much easier to track the popularity of a specific campaign just by looking at the phone numbers that have been dialed.

This way when the campaign is over you are able to download and review all business reports of past calls that have come through a specific virtual number. You could very well find that one of the data points will help you in evaluating the success of your campaigns and what sort to go with in the future.

A virtual number can really help increase and extend the reach of your business. From bringing your scattered workforce together, to providing new ways for you and your business to answer incoming calls, a virtual phone number allows your business to meet the requirements of your employees and to be accessible to your customers.

May 14, 2021
The Best SEO Tips For WordPress
WordPress is one of the most popular content management systems, used by everyone from bloggers to small businesses. WordPress offers an easy way to create and manage a website. Once you’ve settled on WordPress for your site, you’ll want to make sure you optimise it for search engine rankings. Here are some easy tips for WordPress SEO.
1. Use a specialist SEO company. The easiest way to be sure you’re getting your SEO right is to hire experts. A specialist agency will know all the best tricks to improve your rankings and will know all about any changes in algorithms and ranking factors, saving you a lot of the work of keeping up with an always-changing industry.
2. Check your site speed. Page loading times are an important step in improving your site. Faster pages make the site better to use for site users, but it also cuts bounce rate by not putting people off a slow site, and Google take speed into account for your search rankings. Choose a reliable host to avoid slow servers, and slim down anything slowing down your pages.
3. Don’t let Google index your site until you’re ready. If you’re in the process of starting up a WordPress site, you’re probably making all kinds of changes that can result in 404 errors and other problems that impact your search ranking. In the back end of WordPress, look for an option that disallows search engines from indexing your site. Tick this box, and play around with your site as much as you want without upsetting search engines. When you’re finished, uncheck the option, and your site will start to be indexed again.
4. Install an .xml sitemap plugin. These plugins are vital for WordPress, as they give search engines links to all your pages, allowing them to index your site much more quickly.
5. Install an SEO plugin. A good SEO plugin can do a lot of your SEO jobs for you automatically with no effort from you. You can use the plugin to manage or remind you to manage things like page titles, meta descriptions, keyword optimisation, categories, tags and indexing.
6. Block spam comments. There are lots of tools for WordPress to block spam, so make sure you’re using one. Spam comments can cause issues, as they contribute nothing useful and irritate site users. If they’re sharing dodgy links, this can impact your rankings, as the search engines will think you’re sharing questionable content. Search engines will also penalize your content for spam comments with low-quality keywords. Handle spam fast and get rid of it, to avoid being penalized by Google for somebody else’s spam.
7. Use internal links. When you’re creating new content, link to older content that is relevant to your current topic. This is useful for your readers but is also useful for search rankings. Internal links keep people navigating around your site, which tells the search engines that your content is helpful and your site is worth staying on. It also helps Google to find and rank more pages on your site, improving your overall rankings.
May 13, 2021
How To Maximize The Social Sales Through Influencers?

Influencer Marketing has become the primary social media tactic in the present scenario. All sorts of companies are giving vast importance to influencer marketing. This is because the conversion rate through this marketing tactic is far higher than others. Owing to this, brands are aiming to take advantage of influencer marketing. According to a recent report, influencer marketing is estimated to reach USD 24.1 billion by 2025. Through this, it is evident that the demand for influencers is increasing consistently. In this article, I’m about to show you how to elevate social sales by utilizing influencers.

Elevate Reach Through Ephemeral Content:

Giving importance to ephemeral content can help in many ways. The stories section of Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are denoted as ephemeral content. This form of content lasts only for a short duration and available only for a specific period. It is said that ephemeral content has a nearly 2x higher engagement rate than the standard posts. Users check the stories section as soon as they open the social application. This is because the stories section creates an urge among the people to view it as it is present on the top of the home page of a social platform. Hence, it creates a curiosity among the viewers to see what has been uploaded. Eventually, it results in a rise in the engagement rate of the stories. So, if you are about to hire an influencer, ensure whether he can come up with content that will fit perfectly for the stories section. Check his past stories section content.

If they seem to be intriguing, collaborate with him and ideate content for your brand. Post content on the stories section frequently so that you can remain in the memory of your customers. In every industry, many companies are promoting them vigorously on social applications. Hence, due to the prevalence of many companies, there are possibilities for people to forget your brand. So, posting content about your brand on the stories section frequently through your influencers can make you remain in the people’s memory for a longer period.

Instill Emotions Through The Influencers:

People always remember the content that evokes emotion in them. Influencers use to have this skill commonly. They managed to gain a vast reach and become closer with their audience by coming with content that evokes people’s emotions. Hence, you can also direct your influencer to craft content for your brands in a similar way. For instance, we shall consider that you want to market a motorcycle. Craft your strategy along the lines that a youngster gives the keys of his new motorcycle to his dad for the very first ride. The dad is moved by the gesture, which puts a smile on his face. Thus, such a form of content can help a product to connect with its target audience emotionally. So, ideate concepts for your brands along with your influencers in such a manner that can help you have consistent growth.

You can also try humor if it works well for your brand. Getting connected with customers emotionally is essential for brands to have sustainable development. So, ensure whether the influencer you are going to choose is well-versed in coming up with such content. TikTok is a social platform that has more influencers than any other social application. So, if you can easily find an influencer on this platform who matches your requirements. Influencers can also buy TikTok likes package to improve the engagement rate of their videos.

Keep An Eye On Your Audience:

Your task is not accomplished by finding an influencer with million followers and asking him to promote your brand. You must have a close look at the people’s reaction to your content. If content doesn’t seem to receive the anticipated reach, bring changes to your strategy. You can also have a deep look at the comments section. People are always free to post their opinion on social platforms. So, examine the comment section of your content, which helps you to learn how your target audience has perceived your promotional content.

Focus On The Micro-Influencers:

Micro-influencers are people who have followers between ten thousand to one lakh. The need for these influencers is increasing with time as the macro, and mega influencers are levying a heavy charge for promotions. One notable benefit of picking micro-influencers is that many have a solid follower base in a particular region. So, if you want to improve your brand reach in Virginia, you can examine the profiles of the micro-influencers who have a robust follower base there and promote your brand through them.

Wrapping Up:

Influencers are playing a dominant role in social sales. Promoting your brand through an influencer from your niche is also a commendable move as it enables you to get in touch with your target audience with minimal effort. Utilize the measures that are given above in your influencer marketing strategy and reap the benefit.

May 13, 2021
How ML and AI Tools Are Transforming Marketing in 2021?

In 2021, the times when guessing was the primary way to win a customer are long gone. Artificial intelligence tools and machine learning algorithms have already made a few major shifts in the marketing industry by now. By automating a large part of their work, marketers are now able to focus on creative assignments that require their psychological knack or empathy rather than simply mechanical work.

But as much as the COVID outbreak forced most businesses to go online, it also accelerated AI and ML development in the marketing field. The rapid growth of e-commerce generated even bigger piles of data, and customer needs have changed. The industry called for new solutions to keep up with the times. And while more innovations are totally coming in the future, we can talk about a few curious trends made possible due to AI and ML development.

Chatbots Have Become More Elaborate

Today, chatbots are nothing new. For a few years now, they’ve been with us answering questions, solving problems, and giving us a company when we felt lonely navigating a website. Largely thanks to the virtual assistants, most people are used to communicating with AI-powered characters and accept this part of reality quite well.

From dimwitted, tongue-tied robots to quite nice interlocutors, present chatbots have become even more sophisticated and received a new life. Now, they can solve complicated issues, drive sales, and even more often, a standard customer call can go without the involvement of a human assistant. Truth be told, two of three people can’t even tell a chatbot from a real person. And in fact, AI-powered tools have become so elaborate that a few years ago Facebook had to discontinue their experiment because their chatbot invented its own language humans didn’t understand.

As creepy as it sounds, but chatbots are helping marketers in many ways. Along with collecting data, they process tons of tasks – from simple questions-and-answers to promoting products, influencing customer decisions, and improving their overall experience. If you can’t afford a professional stylist – no worries – as an AI-powered fashion chatbot will pick a killer look for you.

Given its value, more and more businesses are investing money and effort in this technology. It’s a matter of time when every company and organization adopts chatbots for their online spaces. As of now, it’s clear, if you’re not one of them, you’re missing out on a very lucrative opportunity.

Voice Search

“I remember how around six years ago I was spending hours reading silly phrases for Google. “Where to buy coursework”, “best hospital Texas where”, “cry me a river”. It made no sense to me back then, but now I feel proud of being involved in teaching their machines to recognize human speech”, says Charlotte, a part-time freelancer.

A worldwide transfer to mobile devices raised new needs. People craved more hands-free access to use their devices on the move, and machine learning made it possible. It started with random people articulating random phrases and all the way grew into smart assistants who can understand human speech as accurately as 95%, which is really close to an actual human.

In fact, over half of their search requests, people do in voice, and this is the trend marketers can’t ignore. It means adjusting their content and marketing strategies so that they could reach customers even through the focused voice search. It’s yet unclear how long it will take before voice-focused marketing becomes a necessity rather than innovation, but it’s worth thinking this out as soon as right now.

Better Data Analysis

The idea that machine-learning tools help marketers to analyze tons of data is not new. In the past, we’ve already seen how brands improve user experience and offer better personalization based on their research of customers’ behavior, purchasing patterns, and demographics. In 2021, however, this experience will go above and beyond these factors alone.

As technologies progress, marketers receive exponentially more data. This not only includes the information customers themselves eagerly provide, but rather collected in the background, largely through biometrics, voice assistance technologies, and IoT devices. Marketers are yet unsure how to make 100% use of this data, but it’s clear that we can expect a new, even higher personalization level of marketing messages in the future.

As of 2021, social media are about to take the primary spot among promotion channels. Due to a variety of ML-powered tools, marketers can collect and analyze data about what people think and say, effectively interact with the audience through different SM channels, and manipulate information to create the right impression about the brand.

Better Customer Experience through AR and VR

For years now, AR and VR tools have been gaining their share in a variety of industries, including video games, education, and design. In a wider sense, however, it is still perceived as something out-of-the-world and rarely has any practical implementation rather than for entertainment.

But the tendency is about to change, as more and more businesses are trying to embrace these technologies for their marketing purposes. And by now, there are even a few precedents. For example, IKEA launched an AR-assisted app where you can try on their furniture for your home interior before you actually buy it. Along with being pure fun, this is a perfect marketing move that helps you out to make the right decision and saves the company from a good deal of returns and paperwork.

Some fashion brands didn’t want to lag behind either, and you may see how Gucci, Zara, Vogue, and Burberry implemented AR and VR solutions in their stores and advertising campaigns.

Bottom Line

Considering everything said, AI and ML tools are fast in reshaping our reality, and marketers have to adjust. Along with much simplified processes, there are new customer needs to satisfy and new marketing challenges to meet. We don’t know what the future holds, but we surely know that marketing will depend on smart tech and the software even more.

May 11, 2021