Posts Tagged ‘accounting software fo small business’
How to sell your skills online
small business accounting software
You can easily make good quality videos like the one above, for example it took me about an hour to make the above video which is a short promo for an alternative to small business accounting software. The best way to make more money from the skills you have is to turn what you know into digital content and market it and sell it to a worldwide audience connected to the internet. You should build your own product as it will build your confidence and skills and give you a much higher return on your efforts as all of the margin is yours and even better still you will be able to understand what makes your customers buy and build it into your next product and sell more.
Take a closer look at YouTube and you will see that it is incredibly easy to upload a video and make it available for millions of people worldwide to watch and it is here I want to start with showing you how to sell your knowledge. The market for small business accounting software is so vast and very competitive yet I am still managing to easily use these platforms to advertise and sell my stuff.
I cannot stress enough that the key to a good video is to use a technique called storyboarding, it sets out what you will say, how you will say it and helps you develop the detail of your ideas. The best way to create a plan or storyboard for your video is to use a slide making tool like Microsoft powerpoint or Apple Keynote, if you are familiar with these already then you are off to a great start. I will now show you how to create your storyboard and produce your video and get it to market and sell it without having to spend any money what so ever, this is the best approach and helps you gain confidence and get as I say “the rope across the river”.
There is a great tool for producing videos that will stream from YouTube or are downloadable as a podcast or Quicktime or Windows Media Player video its called TechSmith Camtasia Studio and their site contains loads of really easy to follow tutorials that you should watch, but whatever you do don’t download the thirty day trial yet. I would wait until you are absolutely satisfied your storyboard is ready and you are one hundred percent familiar with the TechSmith tutorials befor downloading the trial as you want to get the maximum use of the free functionality.
Now you know what tools you need to create your videos and in the next few days I will be publishing to this blog (owners permitting) another and much more detailed lesson on storyboard creation using how I created and distributed my small business accounting software videos as real life examples of what is possible.
What is the Profit and Loss and how does it work?- Part 2 – Expenses
small business accounting software
The next section down, directly underneath the Income section and mostly in the case of folks who sell Products is the Cost of Goods line. Reports in most small business accounting software will display this as COGS
This line represents the actual costs (COGS) associated with the Products you sold in the period you report from your small business accounting software. The purpose of this line is to help folks who sell products calculate the gross margin or gross profit, in other words the amount of profit made after taking into account the costs directly associated with acquiring and selling the goods.
Subtracting the COGS line from the Income or Sales Line will give the Gross Margin. Gross Margin is often expressed as a percentage and to calculate the gross margin and express it as a percentage just divide the Gross Margin by the value of sales you made in that period. Now if you’re a Services Business life is a little more complex if you want to determine the Gross Margin you make on Services (and you should). The reports in some small business accounting software systems will help you determine this.
Visit the Small Business Heroes channel on Youtube for videos explaining the Profit and Loss and other accounting elements. Next row down under COGS you wil find the business running costs or (Operating expenses). Operating expenses details the costs of running the business over a period of time.
Expenses are often categorised into sections representing key functions such as Sales, Admin, R&D and other departments. As you can see these sections represent major functions or centres of activity in a business. These rows detail the amount of money spent in a given period.
The balances in these sections are derived from Expense Accounts and it’s really important that you know and understand that there are two major types of Expense in any business. These are Fixed and Variable expenses.
What is the Profit and Loss and how does it work?- Part 2 – Expenses
small business accounting software
In businesses that sell stock you will find a line directly below income called Cost of Goods. Reports in most small business accounting software will display this as COGS
This line represents the actual costs (COGS) associated with the Products you sold in the period you report from your small business accounting software. The objective of this line is to assist companies determine the gross margin/profit (the gross profit realised after acquisition of the stock).
To calculate Gross Margin subtract the COGS balance from the Income balance. Gross Margin is often expressed as a percentage and to calculate the gross margin and express it as a percentage just divide the Gross Margin by the value of sales you made in that period. Now if you’re a Services Business life is a little more complex if you want to determine the Gross Margin you make on Services (and you should). The reports in some small business accounting software systems will help you determine this.
Visit the Small Business Heroes channel on Youtube for videos explaining the Profit and Loss and other accounting elements. It is standard practise to the Operating Expenses (business running costs) directly below the COGS line. Operating expenses details the costs of running the business over a period of time.
You will often see the expenses section divided into categories associated with sales, marketing R&D and Administration. As you can see these sections represent major functions or centres of activity in a business. These lines contain the expenditure over a period in time.
The balances in these sections are derived from Expense Accounts and it’s really important that you know and understand that there are two major types of Expense in any business. These are Fixed and Variable expenses.