Happy 2012 everyone, I hope the end of the last year was both productive and fruitful. As we enter the Year of the Dragon, I wanted to take a quick look at an area of interest for us here at WorkingPoint – funding and growing your small business.

The current environment is far from friendly to small businesses like our customers – cash is scarce and many business owners who have excellent credit and a great idea and unable to pursue their dreams because they can’t raise the capital required. Over at Entrepreneur.com they are doing a four part installment on the outlook for small businesses in 2012. I found this part interesting, especially regarding the increase in the usage of crowdfunding as a viable means to raise the cash you need, indeed “One business raised almost a $1 million from more than 13,500 backers in December 2010, setting a record.” Also of interest is the fact that more and more people are turning to small community banks for loans, eschewing the national chains.It is going to be a tough year from the look of things, but the general sentiment is that we are through the worst.

What do you think of the year to come? How are you raising funds this year to grow or start your business? Let us know in the comments.

Top Sources of Small-Business Financing in 2012 (Entrepreneur.com):  http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/222540 (Part 1: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/222539)

Do you own your own business? Sell goods or services? Have a website? Read on this post might just be for you!

When I was browsing the net earlier this week looking for cool services (like ours!) that I could share on the blog I came across this web-based service that aims to make creation of mobile product/service catalogs a breeze.

Introducing AppGreen (www.appgreen.com) a web based service that aims to make it very simple to create and share your own mobile (read: iPad/Smartphone etc.) catalogs of the products you provide. The app is in a FREE (private) beta at the moment, just stick in your email to get on the invite list and start soon you can start creating your catalog without spending a dime (we know how much it would cost to pay a developer to do this for you)! You don’t have to have any programming experience to start making your own catalogs; and as it is all stored in the cloud, you don’t have to do any installation, maintenance or storage of data.

One of the features that really caught my eye is that they have over 100 pre-designed templates that look really good, making it a breeze to simply add photos of your products and have a finished product with a minimum of effort. You can also track how effective your catalogs are at doing their job with sales tracking built into the apps.

Read more: http://www.appgreen.com/take-a-tour.html

Sign up here: http://www.appgreen.com/signup/T8vH6

Let us know what you think of this (or anything else!) in the comments below.

Happy Holidays

The WorkingPoint Team

On November 15, 2010, President Obama declared November 19 the first ever, Entrepreneur Day. This holiday is set to honor those Americans who are fueling new economic growth during this troubling economic times by starting a new business, starting a small business, running a business. It’s purpose is to honor entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurship, and entrepreneurship in all it’s forms!   WorkingPoint was recently lauded in the NYT Small Business Blog and YoungMoney.com for being “a truly stripped-down, intimidation-free means for getting organized.” that simply blows our competitors out of the water when it comes to starting and running a new business.

According to YoungMoney:

“WorkingPoint – which is based in San Francisco – is a small company itself. It has only five employees, so it knows the challenges that a small business faces.
And it was with those challenges in mind that the company’s developers made an accounting program that streamlines the entire practice of bookkeeping. All the actual number-crunching happens in the background; the user only sees invoices and profit-and-loss statements. Other kinds of web-based accounting software are available. The Times tested one program called FreshBooks; another offering from a company called Wave Accounting debuts this week. And there are desktop stalwarts like QuickBooks and Xero. But, the Times concluded, nothing matches WorkingPoint‘s program for ease of use. Already, 50,000 small businesses have signed up to use it, so the company must be doing something right.Different firms will have different software needs, and it may be smart to try out a number of options (including, yes, QuickBooks). But for entrepreneurs who are less than savvy when it comes to accounting, WorkingPoint‘s program looks like a good bet.”

On this day which celebrates entrepreneurs we are so happy to be recognized for helping people to start and run their businesses better! We are proud that we can help to heal the failing economy and to support small businesses which make up the bulk of new jobs being created and which drive innovation in so many fields!

What can you do on National Entrepreneurs’ Day?

1. Thank. If you know an entrepreneur, thank them for the ways in which they’ve made an impact on our economy thus far; the simple act of giving thanks can strengthen a connection or start a new one. If you’re an entrepreneur yourself, thank the individuals who brought you to where you are today. This is what National Entrepreneurs’ Day is all about.
2. Mentor. Perhaps there was someone who urged you to start your first business or helped you bring your first big idea to life; if so, they’ve played a part in making you the entrepreneur you are today. Return the favor and find an entrepreneur you can mentor through thick and thin.
3. Give. Kiva is an organization that promotes micro lending to alleviate poverty around the world. With corporate and institutional partners from Google to Ashoka, you can feel confident that your donation is going to reach a deserving entrepreneur somewhere in the world, and that, in turn, your donation will serve as a catalyst for change (if you doubt this, might I remind you that anything is possible?).
4. Pay it forward. You can help support fellow entrepreneurs by paying it forward with products, services, and/or your time. What’s easy for you may not be easy for another aspiring entrepreneur. Remember: a little help can go a long way.

Hello All,

As promised we are continuing to roll out new features into your WorkingPoint account. In mid-October we introduced customizable templates for your invoices.

Today we are excited to announce that you can now Track Time spent working on projects, along with your hourly rate, and apply it to invoices.

In order to start using this feature please make sure you have activated WPLabs by signing into your homepage,

Click on the “WPLabs” Menu item,

Choose “ON” from the drop-down and then click on “Save Changes”.

Now if you go to the “Items” menu (from the Main Page) you will see a Time Tracking tab.

We hope you are as excited about this new feature as we are, and please keep in mind that this is a BETA feature (hence it is in the WPLabs) and as such is a work in progress.

We look to our customers to provide feedback so that we can improve our products: Please feel free to drop us comments/bugs via the Contact Us form or by clicking on the orange support tab on the right of every page.

Thanks,

The WorkingPoint Team

Hello All,

We at Working Point are always on the lookout for cool new services and tools that make the small business owner’s life a little easier (much like our own!). We like services that transfer management of an individuals finances to the individual allowing them to make the decisions instead of paying someone to do it for them. To that end we wanted to draw your attention to a company that is getting quite a bit of buzz on the wires.

MoGro (www.mogro.com) is an online investing tool that makes the often formidable task of investing your money as simple and transparent as possible. Started by a former banker at JP Morgan, Brad Matthews, MoGro aims to make investing accessible to the masses by cutting out a lot of the specialized lingo, getting to the heart of the matter – making your money grow (MoGro – get it?).

The web based software uses complex algorithms to analyze the best investment strategy for you, based on a series of questions you answer. From the site “MoGro’s brilliant software, using the same technology found on Wall Street, handles all the heavy lifting for you. It sorts through dozens of investment options to develop an investment plan that fits you and your financial needs perfectly. MoGro will then seamlessly invest your money for you with long-established, SIPC insured investment companies. You don’t even have to lift a finger.”

MoGro is still working towards their launch but it looks very promising. You can go to their website and submit your email to get the latest info directly.

Try it out, we’re definitely going to!

The WP Team

http://www.mogro.com

Continuing in the same vein as the previous post – more on taking your business on the road. Food for thought over the weekend – enjoy it!

Fast Company - Low-Hassle Ways To Cloud-ify Your Work

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WorkingPoint is your small business online resource for all things related to Accounting, Invoicing and Financial Management. To learn more please read our FAQs. Questions? Contact Us.

Great article detailing a number of tools you can use to take your small business on the road! Check it out below:

Inc.com - 7 Ways to Work From Anywhere

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WorkingPoint is your small business online resource for all things related to Accounting, Invoicing and Financial Management. To learn more please read our FAQs. Questions? Contact Us.