Auditing And Accounting

Small Business Marketing Forecast in 2011

Marketing the small business can certainly raise the revenue and establish the company worldwide. Of course Small businesses must be flexible in order to be successful. When economic times change, business firms must change their sales forecast. The marketing and finance departments can work together to provide a meaningful sales forecast.

As a new year begins small business should keep track on all these for sales accurate prediction and promotion.

Study the economic data and find out how much are sales in your particular line of business (retail, manufacturing, etc.) expected to drop or rise?
Confer with your marketing department and sales force. What are they experiencing out in the field?
Based on your particular line of business, adjust your sales forecast up or down? For example, some businesses are recession-proof and actually do well in a recession. Other businesses, such as those offering luxury items, will not do well in a recession.

When discussing about Small Business Marketing Forecast in 2011, the results tend to show there will be remarkable improvement in online marketing tactics. The reason behind it is online marketing is cheaper. Small business firms may not have the resources of big businesses, but things like online and social media help level the playing field.

With social media only growing stronger, we're starting to see more companies using email to drive a conversation within social media. Companies always link to their social media properties, such as their Face book, You Tube, and Twitter pages, as well as blogs and email marketing campaigns.

Simultaneously, there seems to be some relatively untapped, cost-effective digital options like online videos, as well as increased mobile advertising, as viable marketing options this year.

Small companies are putting energy into their websites and e-mails also.

Researches say

45 percent of businesses plan to use online video in their marketing in 2011, vs. 28.4 percent in 2010.
35.9 percent of small businesses surveyed plan to use mobile advertising in 2011, vs. 21.3 percent in 2010.
Approximately 15 percent say group deals and social couponing sites like Groupon and LivingSocial are beneficial to business.

Other key results say

Nearly half of SMB owners plan increased ad spending for 2011; just 29 percent said that for 2010.
Twenty two percent say trying to understand online advertising frustrates them.
Sixty four percent report having a website, up nearly 20 percent from the surprisingly low 53 percent last year.
Fifty percent say they plan to devote more resources to trade shows in 2011.
Traditional media types such as direct mail (24.9%) and newspapers (19.2%) also should see increased resources in 2011.

Significance of Accounting Payroll

Payroll Accounting is important for an Employee and the Employer, which deals with the payment of your employees and paying the appropriate taxes to the government. The payroll system is the most frequently updated part of financial record in most of the organizations. Nowadays even a small business can manage this system with the online processing sites.

Payrolls are considered to be the lifeline of any organization. It consists of procedures and mechanisms ensuring that an accountant processes the employee salary information in complete manner with accuracy. Also allows the business owners to create a function that is easy for them to understand and use. Usually small businesses run their payroll systems like that of the larger organizations.

In many organizations there are several pension plans, offered to their previous employees based on the duration and the importance of their responsibilities. It is very important for an organization to maintain and manage their payrolls. If the payrolls are kept by the organization in an efficient manner, it would keep the employees, in the healthiest state of mind.

If there is any occurrence of issues in the payrolls of the company, then it may lead to the employee dissatisfaction having a direct bearing on the efficiency of their services. Thus the Payroll accountant has to take care of the payrolls right from the salaries and wages such as paid vacation, insurance coverage of the company. They must properly integrate the pay records with the payroll and the benefit systems.

A manual payroll system requires that the payroll to be processed by hand and is therefore a considerably slower procedure. But an automated payroll system enables the employer to process its payroll through a computerized system which makes the process faster by reducing the errors that occurs in manual system. This may be considered as one of the demerit that the employer must invest in for the payroll software and maintain it.

Small Business Marketing Forecast in 2011

As a new year begins small business should keep track on all these for sales accurate prediction and promotion.

Study the economic data and find out how much are sales in your particular line of business (retail, manufacturing, etc.) expected to drop or rise?
Confer with your marketing department and sales force. What are they experiencing out in the field?
Based on your particular line of business, adjust your sales forecast up or down? For example, some businesses are recession-proof and actually do well in a recession. Other businesses, such as those offering luxury items, will not do well in a recession.

Simultaneously, there seems to be some relatively untapped, cost-effective digital options like online videos, as well as increased mobile advertising, as viable marketing options this year.

Small companies are putting energy into their websites and e-mails also.

Researches say

45 percent of businesses plan to use online video in their marketing in 2011, vs. 28.4 percent in 2010.
35.9 percent of small businesses surveyed plan to use mobile advertising in 2011, vs. 21.3 percent in 2010.
Approximately 15 percent say group deals and social couponing sites like Groupon and LivingSocial are beneficial to business.

Other key results say

Nearly half of SMB owners plan increased ad spending for 2011; just 29 percent said that for 2010.
Twenty two percent say trying to understand online advertising frustrates them.
Sixty four percent report having a website, up nearly 20 percent from the surprisingly low 53 percent last year.
Fifty percent say they plan to devote more resources to trade shows in 2011.
Traditional media types such as direct mail (24.9%) and newspapers (19.2%) also should see increased resources in 2011.

Accounting Basics: The Balance Sheet

One of the fundamental components (for want of a better word) of accounting is the Balance Sheet. The balance sheet is often referred to as a statement of financial position. It can be described as a snapshot that shows the company's financial position at any given moment. Listed in the balance sheet are the company's assets, liabilities and owners equity.

If you view the balance sheet as a two column worksheet, the assets would be in the left column while the liabilities and owners equity would be in the right column. The two columns must be equal.

You won't be able to determine the company's profitability from the balance sheet. What the balance sheet will show is the solvency of the company. Analysts will look at various ratios (i.e. current ratio: current assets / current liabilities) to determine the company's financial well being.

Future entries in my Accounting Basics series will describe each of the components of the balance sheet.

Accounting Basics: Current Assets - Cash

Cash is normally the first item listed under Current Assets on the Balance Sheet. What does cash include? Cash includes any deposits available in the bank as well as anything on-hand which might include bills and checks or money orders to be deposited.