Finance


How to Select the Right Collection Agency

Collecting receivables is an important step in ensuring a healthy cash flow for a business, and more so for a home-based business or solo entrepreneur. But how do you choose the right collection agency? American Profit Recovery suggests making sure that the qualities are factors when deciding to retain a third-party collection agency: Member of [...]

California running out of $10,000 tax credits

A boon for new homebuyers, scheduled to last through next March, will be out of money long before that. Time is running out for California residents wanting to take advantage of a $10,000 tax credit. The state set aside $100 million to help home buyers purchasing newly built homes, hoping to jump start the moribund [...]

Keeping Costs Low For an Internet Business

Hiring a Web developer to build an e-commerce site from scratch can cost at least $5,000, and often far more. But there are cheap alternatives for those willing to do much of the setup themselves — many of which don’t require much time or technical savvy. For an e-commerce novice, an all-inclusive service may be [...]

Top 5 Signs You May Be Charging Too Little

Number 5: Your client mistakes your daily rate for an hourly one. Number 4: You’ve won every job you’ve ever pitched for. Number 3: New clients are always asking what “the catch” is. Number 2: You never run out of work, yet you are subsisting on beans and ramen noodles. Number 1 sign you may [...]

Three Tips for Financing Your Franchise Purchase

Now is a good time to borrow the money to buy a franchise, say small-business lenders. Banks and finance companies are “flush with capital,” which puts start-up franchisees in a good position, says Reginald Heard, national accounts manager for CIT Small Business Lending in Livingston, N.J. Many local bankers who shied away from franchise loans [...]

A cosmetics company’s creative cash flow

Without credit, I had to come up with a fresh approach to funding my cosmetics startup. The bill was more than $60,000, due in 30 days, and I had no idea how I’d cover it. There was no way the contract was going to pay off by then, but there was also no way I [...]

Look To Microlenders For Funding

If you only need a small amount of money to start your business, one option to consider is to obtain a microloan. Originally intended as a way to fight poverty by lending small amounts of money to entrepreneurs in developing countries, microlending is becoming a popular source of capital for startups launched by middle-class entrepreneurs [...]