WorkingPoint works the same way you do business. Take bills and expenses for example.
Sometimes you purchase goods/services for your business on credit from a vendor – who in turn sends you a bill that you pay at a later date. The benefits of recording the bill and paying for it in two steps are:

1. It lets you enter each step as you make it so your books are accurate at any given time
2. WorkingPoint tracks how much you owe and when you need to pay it
3. You get more time to hang on to your cash or to earn it in some cases

Sometimes, you pay cash or use the company debit card to purchase things for your business and you simply want to:

1. Record the cash that went out
2. Categorize your expense so you know what you spend your money on
3. And do both at the same time

However you buy your goods/services, WorkingPoint can help you record your purchase quickly and easily without a lot of fuss. Our new video series shows you how WorkingPoint can make tracking and paying bills a breeze and recording expenses a snap. Our first video shows you how to use the Bills List to manage your bills and gain insight into your Accounts Payable. Check it out:

The day you started your business, you probably started a list of the things you “absolutely had to do”.  If you’re like most of us, you initially dealt with the legal aspects necessary to protect your business and your shareholders.  Then came the infrastructure issues; selecting DSL and telecom providers, and buying and connecting your computer to the Internet.  In these early days of the life of your company, you also found the time to work on your product and service offerings and began courting customers! And, somewhere along the way, you remembered that you needed to create a web site… well, someday.

If you’re like the owners of most small businesses thinking about building a web site, you faced an intimidating gauntlet of technical and creative issues – all of which cost more money than you really wanted to spend – so you deferred the decision and put it off to another day.

I have great news for you; that day has come!  Today, just take ten minutes (maybe even less), and create a Company Profile on WorkingPoint. It will establish a web presence for your business – indexed by Google, etc, so it’s searchable – for FREE!   Our system will walk you through the process of creating your “starter web site”.  It will show you how to upload images to post, describe your business, and link to your blog, Yelp, and Twitter accounts.

Not only is it fast and free; you can immediately tell your customers about your new site through our partner, VerticalResponse, a leading provider of email marketing solutions.

I strongly recommend that you leverage this free WorkingPoint feature – and get your business on the web today!

I had the opportunity to participate in this week’s Software Business 2009 conference in San Diego, CA.  My first role was as part of the keynote panel discussion, “Market Trends and Opportunities”, which featured the CEOs of two SaaS (software as a service) companies, WorkingPoint and Websense, as well as a widely-respected Venture Capitalist from Hummer Winblad Venture Partners.

We each gave brief presentations about our businesses and responded to questions from the audience. The questions that were posed to the panel were sophisticated, from an Information Technology perspective, and explored how each of our companies dealt with a range of critical challenges:

• How we leverage Cloud Computing while continuously advancing the security of your data
• Continuous development of our core – and premium – product feature sets
• Continue to add new business partners who offer complementary services – that combine to increase the power and value of your WorkingPoint solution.

You’ll note that the theme of the challenges in our industry is “Continuous Improvement”, and I’m delighted to report that we received extremely high marks – “Best of Class” achievements in every category discussed with participants at the conference.

I look forward to maintaining our leadership position as the premiere provider of complete online business management systems for small businesses.  Thank you for your continued support!

At the end of yesterday’s post on mission statements, I challenged you to:

1. Start thinking about your mission.
2. Write it down.
3. Share it with others.
4. Put it into action.

I hope you have been inspired to tackle #1: take a look at the reasons you do business and #2: craft a mission statement for your company. For #3, you may be wondering, “how can I share it with others?” Here’s a quick and free way to get the word out.

First, Establish an Online Presence.

• If you don’t have a website, set up a WorkingPoint Profile web page. It is super easy to set up from within your WorkingPoint account and it’s free! Read more
• If you already have a website: Great!

Next, Add Your Mission Statement to Your Web Page.

• In your WorkingPoint Profile, scroll down to the “About your company > Company Overview” section and add your mission statement there. Be sure your Profile is set to share with “The World.”
• For businesses with existing websites, add a page to your website and feature your mission statement. Then, create a WorkingPoint Profile web page from your WorkingPoint account. It’s easy and free to set up! Link your website to your shared Profile page (Company Information & Industry > Website URL) and increase your link juice.

Finally, Add Your WorkingPoint Profile URL to Your Email Signature (& anywhere else!).
If you are like most business owners, your missing an opportunity to get the word out about your company with your email signature. By offering more information about yourself (other than the standard name, title, company and phone number), you are giving your customers, vendors, friends – everyone you email with – more ways to learn more about you and your products and services.

Take a minute and add your web page URL to your email signature and including a 30 words or less version of your mission statement.

Check out Bob’s new email signature, below. By adding his mission statement and his WorkingPoint Profile URL, Bob is giving his contacts a clearer view of his business and a link to get more information. Like Bob, you can take your email signature from Boring to Soaring in no time at all.

Soaring Signature

Boring Signature

I love the scene in Jerry MaGuire when Jerry, the title character, has a crisis of conscience and “maybe” a mild case of food poisoning and then goes on to write his own mission statement (not to be confused with a memo) for the company he works for. His colleagues think he has had a breakdown but he called it a break-through. (Check out the clip below if you need a refresher.) Jerry’s colleagues didn’t agree with his ideals, so he left and started his own company. He took a risk, decided to live by his own moral compass and it paid off, big.

If you are starting up your business, most often you start with a business plan. Your business plan is important, it helps you to really plan out how you are going to be profitable selling your goods or services and you need one if you want to get a loan to start your business. But there is a step you should consider before you start on your business plan, and that is, craft your mission statement.

Why a mission statement?
Your mission statement is a guiding force and motivator that helps keep you inspired and reaching towards your goals to success. Your mission statement is a good way to communicate why people should do business with your company instead of a competitors. It’s also a tangible document that you can look at and read over and over again, especially on those days when you don’t feel like working at your business or your wondering which decision to make for your company.

So how do you write a mission statement?
A mission statement can be a few succinct words or a 500 page manifesto. It really depends on you. But your mission statement should address the core purpose and values of your business, including what you do, how you’ll do it, and who your customers are.  Here are a couple well-known companies mission statements:

Starbucks
To inspire and nurture the human spirit— one person, one cup, and one neighborhood at a time.

Nike
To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete* in the world.
*If you have a body, you are an athlete.

Microsoft
As a company, and as individuals, we value integrity, honesty, openness, personal excellence, constructive self-criticism, continual self-improvement, and mutual respect. We are committed to our customers and partners and have a passion for technology. We take on big challenges, and pride ourselves on seeing them through. We hold ourselves accountable to our customers, shareholders, partners, and employees by honoring our commitments, providing results, and striving for the highest quality.

Our Mission
At WorkingPoint, we started as a group of small business owners that wanted an application that would make our lives easier, better, more productive and then we wanted to share the tools that work for us with you. We have a heart for small business owners, like you, because that’s who we are. We think sharing is the greatest. Because when we share, we all win. Click here to read the WorkingPoint Mission Statement.

Perhaps it’s time you had a breakthrough. Start thinking about your mission. Write it down. Share it with others. Put it into action.

What’s Your Mission? We would love to hear it!

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 Jeffrey Conrad of Handyman Services Company, based in the Vancouver, WA area:

I have over 8 years experience in the general construction field. I love to fix anything from cars to house to anything between. I nave two wonderful kids that I enjoy spending time with, sometimes even bringing them on a job with me, given its OK with the homeowner. I learned most of my skills from my mom and have treasured that I spent my whole life chasing dreams when my mom taught me the one job I love, a handyman. I can help you with anything you may need so please give me a call so i can assist you in any way I can.

Don’t have a profile for your small business? Learn more or Sign up for an account and create your free 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 Peter and Meg Heitz of Shypoke, based in Calistoga, CA:

Shypoke is a family owned and operated vineyard and winery. We make hand crafted wines—and only a few hundred cases at that. Our family has farmed this same piece of land for over a hundred years.

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

Web Worker Daily Contributor, Meryl Evans takes a spin in WorkingPoint:
Read the Full Review

WorkingPoint is like a user-friendly version of QuickBooks, without the unneeded trappings that make it complicated for the lone worker or small business. The slick and well-designed interface guides you through the invoicing and billing process without standing in your way. WorkingPoint gives you your own secure login URL, and serves up a home page displaying an easy-to-use and customizable dashboard…The intuitive interface doesn’t require you to jump around to create a single invoice, like some other applications tend to do. Just about any new user can get right to work with WorkingPoint with little frustration in trying to figure out how to make something happen.

WorkingPoint lets you create a company profile with a public listing in its directory, a feature not seen in other invoicing apps. You can limit profile viewing to your company or other people using WorkingPoint. The profile can integrate your latest blog entries, reviews from Yelp! and Twitter tweets…

Let’s set the stage: you’re creating a specific profit target and have calculated a figure that represents 40% of your Equity (ROE).

You subtract your monthly expenses from your income – and find a huge gap between your profit and your profit goal!  What do you do then?  (No, it’s not OK to throw in your chips and go back to work for your old company…)  Your next step is to create a “Profit Improvement Plan”, which identifies things you can do to bridge the gap between your projected profit and your new target.

Here’s how to proceed.  First, write down the amount of your shortfall, and then answer three questions:

1. What can you do without?
2. What can you charge more money for?
3. What can you do differently?

Starting with the first question, make a list of everything your business can do without, and note the savings associated with each line item.  The total of these savings may be all you need to do to hit your new profit target.

If the cuts themselves won’t get you to your goal (they usually won’t), then take a hard look at question #2; what you can charge more money for.  While the owners of most small businesses are very reluctant to do it, consider raising your prices.  You don’t have to raise all of them (more on this in a later posting), but raising some of them should add enough to bridge the gap in your profit improvement.

If the total contribution of your cuts and increases doesn’t meet your profit improvement goal, then go to question 3.  Are there fundamental things about your business that you can change?  Can you alter your product or service offering, or the way you deliver it?  Can you partner with someone who also serves your customers – and cross-sell offerings to each other’s customers?  In considering the possible answers to question 3, it’s a good idea to talk with your advisors – people who understand you and your business but aren’t buried with the details of your daily operations.

If you’ve answered the questions and haven’t hit your profit improvement goal, go back to question 1 and start again!

If you do business with other countries, you can record exchange rate changes in your WorkingPoint account. These changes occur often due to the change in the value of a currency from the time you invoice your customer to the time you collect the money or from the time your vendor invoices you to the time you pay them.

Record your gain/loss on exchange rates in WorkingPoint with these easy steps:

For sales to other countries:

1. Set up a bank account for your currency exchanges called “Exchanges” or something similarly descriptive. Use this account only to record currency exchanges.
2. When you receive a payment from your customer, from the invoice, receive a payment for the full invoice amount and select the Exchange bank account as the deposit to account. This will close the invoice and mark it as paid.
3. From the Exchange bank account, transfer the actual amount of cash you received from your customer to the bank account it was deposited to (or wired to).
4. Using the Adjusting Entry form on the General Journal, record the difference of the invoice and the cash payment (transfer) from the Exchange bank account to the account you use to track your gain/loss (debiting and crediting each account so that the total cash received and gain/loss equals the invoice total and the exchange bank account balance is zero, if there are no other exchanges in progress).

For purchases from other countries:

1. Use the same Exchanges bank account you created in Step 1 in the Sales example above or create the account now.
2. When you pay the vendor for the goods you bought, from the bill form, record the payment for the full bill amount and select the Exchange bank account as the paid from account. This will close the bill and mark it paid.
3. Using the Adjusting Entry form on the General Journal, debit the Exchange bank account for the payment amount and credit your checking account where the funds were withdrawn.
4. Using the Adjusting Entry form on the General Journal, record the difference of the bill and the bill payment from the Exchange bank account to the account you use to track your gain/loss (debiting and crediting each account so that the total cash payment and gain/loss equals the bill total and the exchange bank account balance is zero, if there are no other exchanges in progress).

Stumped on how to handle a transaction in WorkingPoint? Contact us for help.