This week in Support, a subscriber asked a really great question: What is the best way to enter daily sales data from a POS system into WorkingPoint? If you manage your retail sales in a point-of-sale (POS) system, you maybe asking the same question.

Recording your daily sales in WorkingPoint is easy. Follow these simple steps to keep your inventory, sales totals and cash up-to-date:

1) Create a Contact to Track Your Retail Sales
By creating a single contact to track all of your POS activity, you will be able view the sales history all in one place.

2) Create an Invoice to Record Each Day’s Sales Activity
Most POS systems provide you with a Z sales reports. The Z report is the final report of the day. It provides you all of your sales information and resets your POS system so its ready to capture the next days sales.  Using this report, create an invoice to capture your sales activity for the day.

Use your  items in WorkingPoint to track sales of individual items. This is important if you track inventory: by selecting individual items you can manage accurate inventory levels easily with WorkingPoint. If you don’t track inventory, consider using items that are organized per service so you can track sales categories still. At the minimum,  you can lump your sales into a single “Retail Sales” item for non-taxable sales and another for taxable sales so you can accurately capture your sales and sales tax liability.

3) Compare your totals in WorkingPoint to your Z Report.
Once you have added all of your items, discounts, additional charges, compare your invoice totals to your Z report. If they match, move on to receiving payments. If not, find any discrepancies and correct where needed.

4) Receive Payments By Payment Method to the Invoice.
Use Receive Payments on the invoice to record the actual payments received. For example, if you received check payments, enter the total of your check payments as one receive payments entry (You can record each check if you want), enter the total cash you received as another Receive Payments action, same with credit cards, etc.

After all the payments have been received, your invoice balance should be zero and the status Paid in Full.

Stuck on how to do something in WorkingPoint? Check out our Online Help Center or email me at support@workingpoint.com.

The WorkingPoint Community is made up of small business owners, like yourself, and we want you to get to know each other. We’d like to introduce you to Jack Bonner at JVB Sports:

JVB Sports provides sporting products to customers at a great cost. They also make jerseys, embroidery, etc… and sponsor teams from different sports and charity events.

Don’t have a profile for your small business? Learn more or Sign up for an account and create your free company profile today!

The WorkingPoint Community is made up of small business owners, like yourself, and we want you to get to know each other. We’d like to introduce you to Louise Woodward at Tees by Weez:

Louise provides Custom Screen Printing and Embroidery in Holderness, New Hampshire.

Don’t have a profile for your small business? Learn more or Sign up for an account and create your free company profile today!

Yesterday I wrote about a subject near-and-dear to my heart: the changing nature of work and the workforce as a result of the transition out of old (Industrial Age-based) economic models and into new (Information Age-based) ones. Today I spotted a couple of items that further expounded on this point.

The Conference Board released results on January 5th of a study in which they have found that 45% of respondants are satisfied with their jobs, and 55% are not — revealing the lowest American job satisfaction levels in two decades. The numbers get more interesting when you examine how they shift among different demographics (for instance, dissatisfaction levels are much higher among younger workers), but what’s even more interesting is the media coverage of this news.

An article on StartUp Nation touts this news as a great opportunity: it’s the perfect chance for people who are miserable ‘working for the man’ to throw off their shackles, and bootstrap their way into a new venture. Forget the past, forget the assumptions of older generations: there is no such thing as job security, so stop clinging to the J-O-B and go find a way to do what you care about doing.

The flip-side, of course, is the cover of BusinessWeek inspired by and covering the results of the same Conference Board research, entitled (in classic doom-and-gloom fashion) “The Disposable Worker.” (Ouch.) The subtitle says it all: “Pay is falling, benefits are vanishing, and no one’s job is secure. How companies are making the era of the temp more than temporary.”

This coverage is a classic example of that old saying (typically attributed to Abraham Lincoln, though some historical accounts dispute that fact): “Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” Is this change an exciting opportunity? Or is it a frightening disruption? As usual, the answer is: “Both!”

BusinessWeek’s article talks about lack of healthcare, temporary work, and no perks for an increasingly large number of workers. No matter how legitimate some of the issues they raise may be (and I’ll quickly concede that point — especially for things like healthcare, where the current system actively stacks the deck against individuals), their coverage is heavily skewed by a big business-centric perspective that assumes a healthy economy is based on centralized organizations fostering paternalistic relationships with employees. In other words, they are assuming that the way things worked in the Industrial Age is the way things should continue to work, even in an Information Age.

Why does it make sense to put the burden of ‘taking care of employees’ on companies, and fostering a child-like dependency on behalf of the workforce? Wouldn’t it be better to make the goods and services that businesses have historically provided affordable and readily available to individuals, and then let individuals move freely from one employer to the next (which is already happening, anyway, and when it does employees have to change their health plan, roll over their 401K and cash out their FSA plan). Is this really about anything more than just breaking our old habits and forming new ones when it comes to how we work, what we expect, and what we need to tie all the loose ends together?

I strongly encourage everyone to read BusinessWeek’s article, but with a skeptical eye. Do you see another side to the dismal picture they are painting? I do. And it’s one that — with some updated attitudes and business practices on everyone’s part — has the potential of truly helping us move into the era of small business.

But then again, maybe that’s what they are really afraid of.

Alora Chistiakoff is an entrepreneur, content strategist and project manager who has been developing online business and technology for startups for more than a decade.  She co-owns The Indigo Heron Group, Inc., a content strategy firm in Austin, Texas

If you offer your products or services online, you’ll want to explore ways to get potential customers to your website. Search Engine Marketing can help.

Why is Search Engine Marketing (SEM) an Effective Form of Marketing?
Classical marketing techniques involve carefully targeting the segments of customers (consumers or businesses) who are most likely to want or need your product or service.  The reason is simple:  acquiring customers is not only critical to your business; it is costly in time, money, and energy.  If you are not effectively targeting in your marketing efforts, you will pay way more to acquire customers than the resulting sales to them would justify.

Advertising on a search engine revolutionizes the effort of marketing because it allows you to advertise to a potential customer in a highly-targeted manner.  Think about how cool it would be to only show your ad to someone who has just told you that your product or service is exactly what they are looking for.  And, oh by the way, they are looking for it right now. That is targeted advertising!

What is Search Engine Marketing?
Search Engine Marketing involves buying search terms or key words from a search engine so that when a user searches those terms your advertisement gets displayed.

When developing a SEM strategy, consider these four things:

1. Which search terms or keywords will I buy?
2. How much will I pay for each?
3. What text-based advertisement or creative will I display when someone uses that keyword?
4. What landing page on my web site will I send them to?

So, How Do You Get Started?
There are three large search engines:  Google, Yahoo, and Bing (Microsoft).  More searchers use Google so it is the largest search engine.  If you want to grow your ad operation in a short period of time, you may want to start there.  The other two engines, however, tend to be  more efficient.  If you do choose to start with Google, you can gain access to the Google AdWords advertising program from the Google home page.

Here’s a quick look at the process:

1. Set up an account.
2. Establish an initial set of keywords to buy.
   Think about how potential clients would search for your product or service.  Use those as your initial keywords, then use the Google keyword tool to expand your list.  You can find that at: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
3. Use Google’s ad guidelines to write your text-based ads.  You can find them at: http://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/static.py?page=guide.cs&guide=23305&topic=24052&subtopic=24053
   The ads are text-based, so they are very simple for you to create.

Analyzing and Measuring the Performance of Your Ad Program
Your objective in any ad program is probably to acquire customers at a cost that is less than the revenue you generate by selling your product or service to those acquired customers.  Search engine marketing is no different.  SEM uses a cost-per-click model.  You pay when a user clicks on your ad.  The search engine systems enable you to measure your ad performance in great detail.  Their systems enable you to measure cost of customer acquisition very effectively.  So, your objective is to run a positive return on investment (ROI) advertising program when you consider the cost of customer acquisition and the revenue that the acquired customers generate.  Because you are able to measure the performance of each search term you buy, you should also be able to manage each term to ensure you are driving a positive ROI with it.

A Few Words About Optimization
Once your ad campaign(s) are running, you can optimize your ad performance for each keyword by changing the text-based creative, the landing page, and the price you pay.  You also determine which search terms to continue buying.

One of the most valuable characteristics of SEM for small businesses is that any business of any size can participate.  You can also participate with any sized budget and it’s very flexible.   Once you have set-up your account, selected the keywords you want to buy, written the text that will be in your ad, and selected your landing page, you have great flexibility to start or stop and grow or shrink your SEM campaign.

The Cash Flow Statement shows you the changes in your cash as it flows in and out of your business over a given period of time. It helps you analyze the affects of your Balance Sheet and Income Statement activity on your cash by breaking out your spending into 3 main categories: Operations, Financing, and Investing. You can use the Cash Flow Statement to see where your cash is going and coming from and compare Net Income to Net Cash from Operating Expenses to measure quality of earnings.

The Cash Flow Statement is a great report to run at the end of the year so you can see how your cash was used. If you are working with a financial advisor, they may ask you for this report to help you evaluate your spending and offer suggestions or advice on how to manage your cash to meet your business goals.

Here is a breakdown on the main report categories:

The flip-side of the typical ‘year-in-review’ posts that always surface across the blogosphere in December, comes the ‘new year predictions’ lists that accompany them. While most of them cover similar ground — things like the importance of mobile technologies, the increased emphasis on green and local, and the mainstreaming of social media — there is one list that I’ve found so far that discusses something else that is a topic of particular interest: small business workforce.

Steve King of Small Business Labs posted his 2010 prediction list this week, and the first and second items on his list were on this very trend.
Item number one:

The Shift to Contingent Workers Turns Employees into Entrepreneurs: Employers large and small are shifting from full-time employees to part-timers, freelancers, outsourced services, partnership arrangements and other forms of contingent workers. They are doing this to save money and increase business flexibility. Despite the economic recovery, 2010 will see the contingent workforce grow as companies continue to limit hiring of full time staff. Many of these contingent workers will create or work for small businesses.

Item number two:

Personal Businesses on the Rise: Enabled by the Internet and low-cost information technology, the number of personal businesses (one employee businesses) has grown twice as fast as the overall economy over the last decade and exceeds 22 million. With the unemployment rate remaining high and traditional employment options limited, 2010 will be another year of strong growth in the number of personal businesses. The growth in personal businesses will also result in an increase in overall small business formation and numbers in 2010.

Clearly I’ve written about this issue before, and it’s something that always stirs up a lot of controversy because it hits a lot of hot buttons for many people. Personally, I love these trends. Even more than that, I think these trends are ultimately beneficial in ways that most of us currently don’t recognized.

In the 17th century, to whatever extent workers were organized, it was on a guild model that was discipline centric. Whether a person was a blacksmith or a cobbler, their “peers” were other professionals within the same trade. In the most literal sense, they were competitors who had comperable skills and offered similar services. They were mostly what we would now call ‘freelancers’ who were responsible for their own independent businesses, from stem to stern.

With the rise of the Industrial Age, the shift moved away from individual contributors with specialized skills, to collection of skills brought together to work collaboratively as part of a larger enterprise. Because of the financial investment involved with building these enterprises (factories being the most obvious and common example), the rules for workers changed.

A paternalistic model emerged, where large businesses had to lure people to them. Companies would make long-term committments to their people — pensions, healthcare, education for the kids, mortages, and more — and the people would develop long-term (and sometimes even multi-generational) relationships with the company.

Now that was are in an Information Age, the employee model needs to be re-examined. And while plenty of people don’t like the idea of a contingent workforce (and I understand why), the fact is that is an employment model that makes far more sense for the rules that come with an information economy.

Geography is no longer the end-all-be-all of meaningful and well-paid work; large companies no longer have to stockpile human talent like cord wood in the event that the right spark of creative genius will occur for them if they just have enough people thinking big thoughts; and small motivated teams in garages are just as capable of creating lucrative, innovative ideas as multi-billion dollar corporations.

The reason I think that these trends are particularly valuable for entrepreneurs and small businesses is for one simple reason: this change is much harder for large businesses, with large investments, and large real estate holdings and enormous legacy systems (both techical and policy-based) to evolve to match. Small businesses simply have less baggage. This gives entrepreneurs, startups and small businesses an edge that the Fords and Proctor and Gamble’s of the world do not have.

Yes, there are always going to be employees who are simply looking to punch a clock in exchange for a paycheck: not everyone is cut out for the entrepreneurial life (and the fact that our education system is designed to funnel people into an employee role doesn’t help). The number and types of those jobs are going to continue to change and dwindle over time as ideas like Results Only Work Environments continue to gain momentum. But for entrepreneurs the value is in the flexibility.

Knowledge workers are not unlike tradesmen: we think nothing of assembling a plumber, an electrican, a carpenter, a roofer and a painter to build a garage. This is valuable work, and the individuals involved are often ‘freelancers’ who are each specialists in their fields. They have partners they like to work with, but they are individual contributors who must work together to accomplish large projects because it is unrealistic to assume that any of them would have all the skills required to do the whole thing themselves.

Knowledge workers are much the same: if you combine a project manager, a developer, a designer and a systems engineer to build a website, that is a valuable association of individual contributors who come together to deliver a project bigger than what each of them could do alone. Even better, unlike a construction crew, a web team is not hindered by geography, weather or super expensive equipment investment to get started.

Naturally, there are downsides to that model: once one job ends, you need to have another one lined up or money saved to wait out the time in-between work. This model requires developing different skills and exercising fiscal discipline in ways that may not always be necessary when working for someone else. This model also requires a dash of realism that many people who cling to the fantasy of “job security” are reluctant to give up: after all, your company could lay you off as soon as your current project is over with, too. The days of ‘guarentees’ are long gone.

Learning to be flexible and take advantage of what the information economy can offer will make the difference betwee those who succeed in the new era, and those who flounder. That is, of course, why even USA Today has called this The Era of Small Business.

Alora Chistiakoff is an entrepreneur, content strategist and project manager who has been developing online business and technology for startups for more than a decade.  She co-owns The Indigo Heron Group, Inc., a content strategy firm in Austin, Texas

What happens in your business when your clients are late paying their invoices? If you’re like most small businesses, this causes a domino effect: if my client doesn’t pay me, I can’t pay my team (vendors, contractors, etc.).

It is not uncommon to hear small business owners discuss this problem. And just as common is an assumption that this problem is biggest when it comes to dealing with other small businesses. Yet, according to a recent article on BusinessWeek, it’s actually large companies (with 1,000+ employees) who are most commonly deliquent paying their bills.

Quoting the results of Experian’s Business Benchmark Report for December 2009, BusinessWeek’s article discusses some of the reasons that it is not uncommon for larger organizations to be the worst offenders when it comes to paying the monthly bills. The short version is pretty simple: because they can.

While I have no doubt that is at least partially true, I think there are other factors at play as well. And from my time inside enterprise environments, there are several other steps I make a habit of doing specifically to help manage some of the risk involved.

Payment Structure
Instead of charging by the hour (which is usually not the best solution for entrepreneurs, anyway), charge by the job. Forget hourly accounting and daily charges if at all possible, and simply bid the job. Obviously that’s not always possible, but if it is, then the advantage to you is that you can change the payment schedule.

Charge one-third at the time of contract signing, one-third at the time of a specific (ideally based on a project milestone), and one-third at the time of completion. There is, of course, still risk in this, but setting up a payment schedule that includes a large first installment does help mitigate the danger.

Invoice Due Date
Tighten up your due date on your invoices. Even if you are on net 30 terms with your client, put the invoice due date 15 days out instead. Many places prioritize invoices by due date, and if you are on net 30 terms, many of them will not even think of moving you to the top of the To Pay stack until day 29.

Get Contact Info
One of the things that the BusinessWeek article didn’t mention is that a common problem with large companies is a lack of personal accountability thanks to complex processes, systems and diffused responsibility. The best way to get around this is to get a name: who should you speak to about your invoices? And then build a relationship with them. Start with an introduction — in person, if possible, but over the phone if nothing else. Do it long before the first invoice is due.

Introduce yourself and start off by asking them if there is anything they need from you. Double-check with them about their process, and make sure they know who to reach if they have any questions. While the phrase “it’s all about relationships” has been extensively over-used in recent years, the fact is that it’s true. So take advantage of it.

Late Fee Schedule
When all else fails, be sure that your contract includes a late fee schedule. A client not paying you on time damages your business, and can sometimes drain your bank account, so make sure that you are getting some compensation for that on the back-end, even in the worst case scenario.

Write it into the contract that the lawyers approve and everyone signs. If you decide to waive it as a show of good faith at some point, that’s up to you and part of your relationship-building. But at least if you’ve included it, you have a leg to stand on if the client leaves you holding the bag for too long.

The truth is, there is no easy way around it: clients who pay late cause a lot of pain in small businesses. And while BusinessWeek’s story only discussed a couple of reasons that it happens, the bottom line is that it does happen — and small business owners who count on contracts with large enterprises need to make sure they’ve covered their bases. And the time to do that is, as always, up front. Not after the fact.

Alora Chistiakoff is an entrepreneur, content strategist and project manager who has been developing online business and technology for startups for more than a decade.  She co-owns The Indigo Heron Group, Inc., a content strategy firm in Austin, Texas

The Balance Sheet can be your company’s most important decision-making tool. The Balance Sheet report conforms to the standard accounting format by showing all of a company’s assets, all the liabilities, and the owner’s equity.  Because the Balance Sheet uses a standard format, you can consistently compare your company’s financial position from one quarter to another, or compare your company’s Balance Sheet with another’s.

Asset’s Section

The Assets section is meant to show you the total worth of all your company’s property or assets. The total of all of your company’s assets appears at the top of the Assets section. In the Assets section of the report, all of your assets are listed in order of liquidity (which means how quickly that asset could be turned into cash, if need be).  The assets that can be turned into cash the quickest are listed first, such as a bank or savings account. Fixed assets, such as a vehicle or equipment, appear farther down in the Assets section.

Current assets include assets that can be turned into cash within one year. These assets include your cash accounts, accounts receivable, inventory, and other current assets, such as pre-paid expenses. Pre-paid expenses are considered “current” because they represent goods or services you’ve already paid for, but not yet used.

Fixed assets include things like vehicles, equipment, office furniture, building improvements, and real estate.

Other assets include things like life insurance and royalties.

Liabilities & Equity Section

The Liabilities & Equity section is divided into Liabilities and then Equity. The Liabilities section is meant to show you the total of your company’s debts, both current and long-term. The total of all of your company’s liabilities appears at the top of the Liabilities section. In the Liabilities section of the report, all of your debts are listed in the order they must be repaid. The debts that are usually paid first appear at the top of the list, such as accounts payable, which usually must be paid within 30 days.  Current liabilities are next and include debts that are typically paid within a year. Finally, Long-term liabilities are listed, such as loans and mortgages, which may be due in a year or more.

The Equity section shows you the investment you put into your company and retained earnings you have accumulated. The formula to calculate your equity is:

Total Assets – Total Liabilities = Your Equity

Reviewing for Year-end 2009
When reviewing your Balance Sheet for the end of the year, be sure that your account balances look right to you. That is, is your Accounts Receivable account reflecting only open invoices, is your Accounts Payable account only reflecting open bills, does your credit cad account balance include all 2009 purchases and payments? If you carry inventory, is the inventory value correct?

If your account balances look good, you are ready to print your reports or save them as PDFs for your records.

The next and final report I’ll walk you through is the Cash Flow report. This one can be tricky to read but is a great compliment to your Income Statement and Balance Sheet because it shows you how your used your cash this year.

I recently met a lawyer/entrepreneur who has developed a communications training model based around the notion of questioning. As a litigator, his specialty was in preparing, examining and cross-examining expert witnesses, and so over the years he became, what can only be described as, an expert questionner.

Prior to meeting him, I hadn’t specifically thought about either entrepreneurship or leadership in those terms, but since meeting him, I’ve started to realize that the key to most understanding and development lies in uncovering the right questions to ask. And as I look around me, I see that questions are a common theme for entrepreneurs as we get 2010 off to an entrepreneurial start.

Getting Started

For new or prospective entrepreneurs — especially those who know they want to start their own business but who have not yet figured out what that could or should be — StartupNation offers a list of questions to ask yourself to find your passion.

Passion is a favorite topic among entrepreneurs, and for good reason: starting your own business takes a lot of time, energy and sacrifice. Loving what you are doing, believing in the value you are providing, and finding meaning in your goals can sometimes make all the difference between doing what needs to be done, or going out and getting a job at Starbucks just to have health insurance again.

Never underestimate the importance of passion. It’s not something you can fake. And being passionate about what you are doing is how you find the mentors, partners, collaborators and customers who are going to be necessary for you to grow your business — because people want to be inspired and motivated, and that can only happen when someone is passionate.

Building Your Business

If you’ve got a startup that’s still getting underway, VentureBeat has a list of questions for entrepreneurs to ask to help get through the difficult early stages of a new business. With a focus on the types of things that new businesses, new teams and new products need to keep in mind, VentureBeat’s list focuses on getting your venture out of the crib and up on its feet.

Growing Your Business

For those who have been running a business for a while, Business Know-How identifies the questions that are cricital for any leader to ask themselves. Think of these questions like hitting the ‘reset button’ and clearing the decks. They are designed to help you stop, think, remember and evaluate where you are, how you got there and what you need to do to change course based on updated input.

One of the hardest things for human beings to do is change habits. Yet, as entrepreneurs, sometimes our habits can kill our business. It’s often too easy to forget that what worked yesterday may not work today, and probably won’t work tomorrow. Often times, the entrepreneur is so used to handling day-in/day-out activity of the business that they lose sight of the forest for the trees.

Stopping, asking these questions, reconsidering your previous assumptions and then examining what has changed around you are all important steps for an entrepreneur to take to make sure that both you and your business remain relevant and competitive.

In reality, of course, no matter what stage your business is in, each set of these questions has value. After all, over time it’s not just our business, competitive landscape or customer base that can change — but our passion and interest as well. One of the hardest questions of all for an entrepreneur to answer may simply be, “Is this the business I want to be in anymore?”

Either way, the real lesson in all of these questions is: Never assume. Always ask. And start with yourself.

Alora Chistiakoff is an entrepreneur, content strategist and project manager who has been developing online business and technology for startups for more than a decade.  She co-owns The Indigo Heron Group, Inc., a content strategy firm in Austin, Texas