Like the saying goes, “The only things certain in life are death and taxes.” Unfortunately, small businesses know this saying all too well.Unlike employees who look forward to their refund every April, small businesses loath the approaching spring, knowing they will have to pay Uncle Sam its share of their profits. Each year, small businesses struggling to turn a profit in an increasingly competitive business environment must pay taxes in order to keep their doors open.With dwindling profit margins and tightened lending restrictions, however, many small business owners find themselves between a rock and a hard place when it comes time to pay the tax man. Although a business may have steady sales and revenue or thousands of dollars in inventory, banks and traditional lending institutions simply aren’t handing out small business loans like they were in year’s past, leaving small business owners with few funding options to pay their tax bill.Thankfully, peer-to-peer lending, or social lending, has solved this growing dilemma. These modern social lending marketplaces have connected millions of borrowers with individual investors. Borrowers receive low-interest, fixed-rate loans that can be paid off in two to five years, while investors are able to benefit from decent returns in an economy with sinking bond and savings rates.Thus, it’s a win-win situation for both small business owners in need of immediate funding and investors looking to make a small profit while helping others.From Desperation to Exultation: One Man’s Venture into Peer-to-Peer LendingJohn Mitchell is an Ohio-based small business owner who found himself in such a predicament just last year. As the owner of the only hardware store in a small town, John’s store flourished the first few years it was open.After getting his inventory levels, pricing models, and management just right, he decided to expand his business by opening a second location in a neighboring town. John sunk all of his profits into opening his new store, which meant he was short on funds come tax time. However, knowing the success of his business, he thought he would simply get a small loan from the bank that housed his accounts and provided him with the initial loan he used to launch his business four years earlier.Unfortunately, he witnessed first-hand the effect the recession has had on lending regulations as the banker he’s known for years denied his loan application. If he couldn’t get a loan there, where could he?On the brink of despair, John took to the Internet to research loan options. After digging through forums and trying a few different searches, he ran across peer-to-peer lending. In less than a week after going through the quick and easy application process, he received a personal loan at a low rate for the amount he needed. A week later, John sent a check for the full amount to the IRS, and less than eight months later, he was able to pay off the loan with the profits from his new store!If you are a small business owner who has found yourself in a similar circumstance, peer-to-peer lending can do the same for you as well, but how does peer-to-peer lending work?How Peer-to-Peer Lending WorksA breakthrough product or service emerges every generation, and in the early 2000′s, the emerging breakthrough was social networking. From helping in the organization of overthrowing political regimes to staying in touch with friends and family members, social networking has had a profound effect on our daily lives. Now, it’s changing the small business financing landscape as well.Peer-to-peer lending is a modern social networking solution for small businesses in search of a way of securing alternative funding. The goal of peer-to-peer lending sites, such as Prosper and Lending Club, is simply to connect individual investors with those in need of funding, and these sites are becoming an increasingly useful tool for small business owners who are unable to secure funding from traditional lenders.Rather than jumping through endless hoops only to be denied by a bank, small businesses can receive funding via peer-to-peer lending in no time at all by following three simple steps:Step 1: Create a Profile and Loan ListingThere are a myriad of peer-to-peer lending networks to choose from, so your first step is to research the best ones and create a profile and loan listing on the site you choose. The loan listing is essentially a cost-free ad that indicates the amount of money you need and your desired interest rate.Step 2: Let the Bidding Process BeginAfter your listing goes live, investors have the opportunity to begin bidding on your listing, providing you with the interest rate and loan amount they are willing to offer you. A major advantage of this bidding process is the fact that it can intensify as more and more lenders begin competing for your business.When this happens, interest rates will begin dropping, potentially allowing you to obtain a much lower interest rate than you expected. It’s important to note, however, that your credit score, income, and debt-to-income ratio plays a role in the lending decision process.Step 3: Funding and Paying Back the LoanAnother benefit of borrowing from peer-to-peer lenders is that you can accept several bids to receive your requested loan amount. For instance, if you ask for $10,000 in your loan listing to pay your business taxes, you can acquire the amount from collecting $2,000 from five different borrowers.This makes it much easier for borrowers to receive the money they need. However, instead of making five separate payments, you would only make one payment, because the peer-to-peer lending site is responsible for dispersing the money to lenders until loans are repaid in full. They simply charge a small fee for this service.With increased lending regulations, banks are tightening their purse strings more than ever before, making it much more difficult for small businesses to receive the funding they need to expand their business or even pay their taxes. Thankfully, peer-to-peer lending has proven to be a worthy competitor in the small business lending marketplace. If you are a small business owner and find yourself unable to pay your taxes as April approaches, or backed taxes for that matter, a peer-to-peer loan is an ideal option.
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How to Enhance Your Business With Phone System?
Business phone systems – whether for a small business or for a large corporation – are an essential part of how you communicate with your employees, your customers, potential customers, suppliers and other stakeholders. Business Phones are available in a variety of configurations, off with a long list of standard as well as advanced features.Efficient and affordable telephone communication solutions give your business a competitive edge. There are quite a few factors you will have to consider when evaluating and deciding on the business phone ideally suited to your nature and size of business. Please remember that an efficient business telephone can provide your employees the extra help they need to be more productive.There is no denying that choosing a phone system for your business can be a bit overwhelming because of the technicalities involved when comparing one phone system to another.KSU (Key System Unit) less Systems – These phone systems are indeed the best choice for small businesses having fewer than 10 employees. KSU-less system entail low initial investment as all that you need to purchase are only the phones. A KSU-less system is not permanently wired into your office, which makes it easy to shift to a new location. The one drawback of a KSU-less system is they are not expandable,Key Systems – KSU (key system unit) systems are typically for businesses with 10 to 40 employees. Key systems come with a phone cabinet that houses routing software, and it uses the public switched telephone network (PTSN) or landline system to route calls.PBX (Private Branch Exchange) Systems – These phone systems are better suited for midsize companies with more than 40 employees. PBX systems will give your organization advanced functionality, and are also highly customizable. These are fairly expensive systems and you can purchase the equipment outright and install it at your office. Alternately, you can consider hosted PBX systems where equipment is owned and managed by the provider of the system. This option can drastically cut down system costs while still offering the advanced functionality that most businesses would want from a PBX system.Voice over IP (VoIP) – VoIP phone systems can offer significant cost savings as well as many advanced and useful features. VoIP runs over Internet lines and routes your calls over a data network. VoIP systems come in several different varieties – IP-PBX, hosted VoIP, virtual PBX, and other options. VoIP systems use some combination of internet and landline connections to route calls. The drawback in using VoIP is that you are abjectly dependent on an internet connection to receive and place calls- sometimes you may experience network outages and/or limited bandwidth that can impede your phone services.Telephone systems are no doubt pricey but when you consider the true advantages of an office phone you will better appreciate their cost-effectiveness, an appropriate business phone structure can help your employees do things that were not possible before, and that can improve the way you conduct daily business transactions. This apart, it will also enhance employee productivity. Consult with your local service provider or supplier to ensure that your phone system’s features and capabilities will meet your company’s short- as well as long-term business goals.
Head This Way – To A Better Lifestyle
Better lifestyle – healthy living is expensive if you have money you can live better (food, homes, cars..etc.).Do you desire a better lifestyle?All of us have dreams of living a better lifestyle. We want to have money, the mansions, the cars and the parties but how do we get there. A better lifestyle does not happen by just wishing. In order to get a better lifestyle we need to put ourselves in the position to achieve that lifestyle.Money helps us all to create a better lifestyle to have the cars, the house and all the luxuries we dream of. How do we achieve this money? We all have to find the method that works for us individually. Some people may choose to save every nickel and dime in hopes of one day living the dream lifestyle. Others may want to live their better lifestyle now. These are persons who are the go getters and the self-starters. I agree why wait for later when you can live the better lifestyle now. I personally started living my better lifestyle when I realize that working my regular nine to five job was not making my dreams come through. The reality of my spending and life needs empowered or motivated me to join others in the search of wealth and money making ideas. I branched out and became one of the joyfully employed persons who used the power of the internet to turn a profit and motivate others towards having or going after a better lifestyle.Remember that you do not have to start off big but you at least need to make that first step to achieving that goal of having a better lifestyle by attempting to find solutions to increasing your money making abilities. Just think about it who seems to have it all? The wealthy right they always seem to have it put together. They can afford the stylist who makes their clothes look flawless and put together. Their bodies look so great and in shape and we desire that, but why do they look so great is because they have the wealth to live that better lifestyle. They can afford the pay that chef to source and cook the best healthy food for them. In addition they have personal trainers that they pay big bucks to tone, stretch and slim their bodies making them look incredible. It’s a great lifestyle and you too and can have it. You just have to have that desire and crave to get that better lifestyle.Get started with a better lifestyle…So you have the desire to get that better lifestyle I suggest you too look around at options because the last time I checked no one gained wealth by sitting on their bums. You might also want to check into options that are less time consuming like an internet based business that train and assist with startup and at times have a client base built in. Sometimes reaching for that better lifestyle might seem hard or unattainable but nothing comes easy you have to be willing to work hard for what you want. You can only enjoy the fruits of your labor only if you have put in the time. I take this opportunity to remind those of you of the story of the ant and the grasshopper. The ants worked right through summer gathering food for storage and making their homes ready for winter. The grasshopper spent his days playing and frolicking in the summer sun. He laughed at the ants for working so hard but when the first winds of winter blew he found himself hungry and cold. Grasshopper was not laughing anymore. He had to rely on the kindness of the ants to make it through winter. The point of the story is that if you fail to prepare now you might be one of those people like the grasshopper depending on the kindness of others to survive and not being able like the ants to enjoy a better lifestyle.. Prepare and work hard to get that better lifestyle and do not make laziness and procrastination get in your path of achieving the dream lifestyle. Start today!
Corporate Finance
The field of corporate finance deals with the decisions of finance taken by corporations along with the analysis and the tools required for taking such decisions. The principle aim of corporate finance is enhancing the corporate value and at the same time reducing the financial risks of the company. In addition to this, corporate finance also deals in getting the maximum returns on the invested capital of the company. The major concepts of corporate finance are applied to the problems of finance encountered by all type of firms.The discipline of corporate finance can be split into the short term and the long term techniques of decisions. The investments of capital are the long term decisions relating to the projects and the methods required to finance them. On the other hand, the capital management for working is considered as a short term decision that deals with the short term current liabilities and asset balance. The main focus here rests on the management of inventories, cash and, the lending and borrowing on a short term basis.Corporate finance is also associated with the field of investment banking. Here, the role of the investment banker is the evaluation of the various projects coming to the bank and making proper investment decisions regarding them.The Capital Structure:A proper finance structure is required for achieving the set goals of corporate finance. The management has to therefore design a proper structure that has an optimal mix of the different finance options that are available.Generally, the sources of finance will comprise of a mix of equity as well as debt. If a project is financed through debt, it results in causing a liability to the concerned company. Hence in such cases, the flow of cash has various implications regardless of the success of the project. The financing done by equity carries a lower risk regarding the commitments of the flow of cash, but the result of this is the dilution of the earnings and the ownership. The cost involved in equity finance is also higher in the case of debt finance. Hence, it is understood that the finance done through equity, offsets the reduction in the risk of cash flow. The management has to hence have a mix of both the options.The Decisions of Capital Investments:The decisions of capital investments are the long term decisions of corporate finance that are related to the capital structure and the fixed assets. These decisions are based of several criteria that are inter-related. The management of corporate finance attempts to maximize the firm’s value by making investments in the projects that have a positive yield. The finance options for such projects have to be done in a proper manner.
Financing Real Estate Development!
If you are new to financing real estate development you’ll have to change your thinking. No doubt you are very familiar the 15 to 30 year mortgage finance tool.You may even have used a ‘Line of Credit’ as an alternative way of financing as you increase you cash wealth. Both of these methods are used primarily for financing real estate property acquisitions.I can hear some of you say, “But I used these for redeveloping a house or a few apartments.”Well that is not what we, in the development world, mean when we say real estate development; we call that a renovation or a refit.So financing real estate development is financing a completely new development and mortgage financing is not the correct tool for the job.So How Do They Differ?The easiest way is to give you a quick comparison between a mortgage financing and financing real estate development.With a mortgage you essentially are buying property; be it land or a residential house on land, or an apartment … and you are buying it to own for the long term; that is 15 to 30 years.When financing real estate development you are looking at financing an entire project, of which the land is one tangible part and the other part comprise building Plans.At completing of the project you plan to sell all of what you have created and repay the financial institution what you borrowed for financing real estate development.You might ask, “What if I want to keep some of what I have created and not sell everything? Great question.The answer is simple. All the money you get from the sales of your product is paid back to the financial institution and you then take out a long term mortgage for the product you want to own long term.Just to be clear on that pointAll of the products you sell will include a profit. So by careful calculation and planning you can balance the number of products you retain, so that your profit is left as equity in the investment and the amount of mortgage borrowing is minimal.Depending on your taxation rules in your country, leaving money in the investment as suggested, is a way of not ‘realizing’ your profit in a cash form and so attracting tax. But naturally you should check out your local tax laws.Now back to financing real estate development.As mentioned earlier, you are not just buying land when financing real estate development. You are asking the financial institution to approve the purchase of the land, as well as the construction of the whole project.To arrive at the position where you can make a Financing Real Estate Development Application, you will need a set of approved development plans, costings and a Real Estate Development Feasibility Study.Many people who want to get into the development business, make the mistake of finding and buying land ‘first” and borrowing mortgage financing, which is what they are used to doing.Only to find out later that they will have to discharge the mortgage and borrow the correct funds for financing real estate developments all of which costs money.This can be taught to you the right way!