Express Invoice Super Options: New Invoice Customization

Our goal in developing an invoicing program has always been to produce professional documents that any business can use. To obtain a professional looking invoice we know it's important to do the following:

• keep the clutter to a minimum
  
• line up edges and blocks of text to keep the invoice looking clean
  
• be organized
  
• above all, value simplicity over flashy elements
  

One of the most requested features for Express Invoice is for complete customization of the final look of the invoice. One way to go about this would be to let the customer drag and drop the various pieces they need onto a template and generate the invoice from their vision, but we strongly feel that by giving more options we would violate the criteria laid out above. So, we compromised. While we want your business's invoices to stand out from the crowd, we don't want you to get carried away with colors, clip art, borders, fonts and kittens (you'd be surprised at what we've seen out there).

On the Invoice tab of the program Options, you will now find a button for more invoice options, giving you the choice to add certain design elements and invoice options such as including a remittance slip, shading every other line behind the items list, or whether to show the discount column on the invoice. The options make Express Invoice even more versatile than before, making it a perfect fit for an small business, freelancer, or contractor needing an invoicing solution.

Need more small business solutions, such as accounting software, employee management software, or an automatic telephone attendant? Be sure to check out our other business software, all of which comes with a full, free 14-day trial.

Home Business: More Software to Help Business Run Smoother

Software for Getting Your Home Office Running (Part 5 of 5)

Once you have your accounting software in place and your telephone system set up, it is time to think about the other types of software that might help with your specific type of business.

For instance, if charging by the hour, you might benefit from HourGuard timesheet software to log the time you spend on projects for each customer for easier billing.

Use Reflect customer database to save, organize, and cross-reference information about your clients, and set reminders for yourself on events you should follow up on.

Another work-from-home profession is transcription, where Express Scribe digital transcription playback software, FastFox text expansion software and TexTally word counter can all be extremely useful in improving your efficiency.

Those examples are just the beginning of possible business applications that can help you run your home office more efficiently. Your time is a valuable commodity when you are getting a business off the ground, so it makes sense to find ways to streamline as many processes as you can. Some other software programs you may want to consider are:

• CardWorks business card designer
  
• Express Invoice invoicing Software
  
• HourGuard timesheet recorder
  
• Express Scribe transcription playback software
  
• FastFox text expander software
  
• Inventoria inventory management software
  
• Copper point of sale software
  
• Barillo barcode software
  
• Reflect CRM software
  
• FileFort data backup software
  
• MEO file encryption software
  
• Bolt PDF Printer
  
• Doxillion document converter
  
• Express Zip file compression software
  
• FTP client software
  

Home Business: VoIP Phone System

Software for Getting Your Home Office Running
(Part 3 of 5)

Another key component to setting up your home office, after your accounting system is in place, is the phone system. You've likely heard about VoIP, which has been growing in popularity, and with good cause. As an entrepreneur the important thing to know is that VoIP can save you a lot of money on phone bills.

VoIP stands for Voice over Internet Protocol, and what that means is that the call information travels over the Internet instead of through traditional telephone landlines. Essentially, the only cost for sending information over the Internet is the Internet connection; the transmission itself costs nothing. That means calls between VoIP users will frequently be free.

The only cost associated with VoIP calls come from connecting to other telephone networks that service cell phones and landlines. Even in this case, there are significant cost savings because the VoIP phone providers can use the Internet to travel long distance, and then switch the call to a standard phone line in the local area of the destination, and you pay only for the local call, eliminating long-distance charges. The benefit to this is that you can increase the reach of your business, because you won’t be worried about your long-distance phone call budget.You business can potentially be more functional—providing new opportunities to increase your productivity and responsiveness.

With that in mind, here’s an example of the cost savings. For your home office, the telephone line and long-distance charges using a traditional landline phone system can cost upward of $100 per month. Compare that to the cost of using a VoIP system, where the total cost can be as low as $3.25 to $4.30 per month, a savings of more than 90%! With those savings, the initial cost of a business-oriented softphone will be paid for in less than a month.

A VoIP phone, or softphone like the Express Talk softphone only takes a few minutes to set up and will work with any VoIP provider. Express Talk is designed for professionals and has all the features you expect from a business telephone including do not disturb, conference calling, and even the ability to record conversations. It can be used with a USB phone to give the feel of a traditional phone, or with a headset, or microphone and speaker setup—which you may already have—making the cost of setting up your office with VoIP only a matter of buying the software.

Next: Phone System Enhancements

Home Business: Accounting and Invoicing Software

Software for Getting Your Home Office Running (Part 2 of 5)

You've got the idea for your business and are swarming with ideas about how to get started. You may think that bookkeeping and accounting is getting ahead of the game at this point—first you need clients. But that's not true. You need to keep track of all your expenses and payments right from the start. Setting up accounting software to manage your accounts out of the gate can save headaches caused by trying to find these details later.

One of the advantages of running a business out of a home office is the tax deductions you can take. But to take advantage of those deductions, your records must be in order. Deductions are retroactive once you have paying clients, so accurately tracking the expenses leading up to that first client is extremely important.

You need a flexible, easy-to-use accounting program or you won't use it. Ideally, it will also handle your invoicing to making record keeping even easier, which is one of the things that Express Accounts accounting software offers. Express Accounts is available for Mac and PC, can be installed and ready to use in less than 5 minutes.

Here are some of the key features of Express Accounts:

• Create journal entries for payments, purchases, receipts and deposits
  
• Create and send invoices from inside the application
  
• Set up alerts to track unpaid invoices and make sure nothing falls through the cracks
  
• Standard reports including Profit & Loss statement and Balance Sheet
  
• Email or fax reports and invoices directly from the program
  

Express Accounts is particularly ideal for your start up business because it allows you to track expenses without having to pay extra bookkeeping costs or for expensive software with features you'll never use. Express Accounts will also grow with your business; it can track all the business expenses of multiple businesses with your original software license, and across several locations. Setting up your home office with Express Accounts ensures you'll have software that is easy to use, and that you can use for years to come without any additional investment.

Next: VoIP Phone System

Software for Getting Your Home Office Running

Have you recently decided to take the plunge and become the entrepreneur you’ve always wanted to be, or are in the beginning stages of a new business venture? No doubt you are worried about startup costs. There’s a fine line to walk when it comes to using the highest quality tools to start your business with a solid foundation while searching for cost savings, and it's possible the threat of spending too much money is holding you back. Setting up your business office can be done efficiently—spatially, time-wise, and monetarily.

It may be hard to imagine, but you might be surprised by how good it feels to be running your own venture once your office is up and running. So, whether you’re a sales person, a lawyer, a teacher, a healthcare professional, a carpenter, or a builder—any profession at all—let’s get started setting up a home office.

The essentials for an office space are a desk, a phone, and a computer. After that, it’s all about the software, and finding the right tools for your needs. One of the beautiful things about software is that it can do a lot of work for you, helping you not only start out on the right foot, but also to project a very professional front for your small business that can help you compete with larger, more established organizations. Plus, if you do your homework, it can cost a lot less than you might think.

There are two major aspects of running a business that you need in place at the start: a bookkeeping system and a good phone system. Both sound expensive, but they don’t have to be. In fact, you could actually save money on a phone system and still have more features than your current setup.

For the next few weeks, we’ll be running a series of blogs about the software you need for setting up your home office:

• Accounting and Invoicing Software
  
• VoIP Telephone System Software
  
• Phone System Enhancements to Help You Sound Professional
  
• Other Software to Help Make Business Run Smoother
  

In the meantime, take a few moments to peruse our business software. There are a wide variety of tools for helping you in all aspects of your business, all designed to get your business off to the strong start you’re looking for.

Inventory Software Frees Up Time for Other Tasks

Hospitals and pharmacies are required by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to maintain a detailed and accurate inventory of all the drugs and medication that they stock. Keeping track of their entire inventory can be a very time consuming task, especially if the pharmacy is not up to date with the latest technology. Peter McNulty, Pharmacy Operations Manager at Salem Health, has had a significant reduction in the time spent maintaining and tracking inventory by transitioning from a manual system to Inventoria Professional Inventory Management Software.

Prior to using Inventoria, McNulty was manually recording his inventory in a log book, which was a huge drain on his time, requiring several hours daily to keep records accurate and up to date. Inventoria greatly simplified the way McNulty runs his business, "I estimate we save two hours per day in staff time that can now be used in providing direct patient care."

McNulty has found not only significant reductions in the time required to record and maintain DEA records, but greater control over the distribution processes in real time making Inventoria an ideal solution for tracking inventory movement of Controlled Substance Drug Distribution in an acute care Hospital setting.

"Setup was very easy, it required about eight hours of staff time to load items, record beginning inventory count, add customers and give user access," noted McNulty. "I especially like how quickly reports are generated and the ease of saving the report on a daily basis which makes it easy to comply with DEA record-keeping regulations. Inventoria is easy-to-use, requires minimal maintenance and has a high value in comparison to most other programs in this category."

Inventoria stock management software allows businesses of all types and sizes to track and manage inventory at a single location or across several locations. With this complete inventory management system you can manage stock levels by category, location and supplier, transfer stock between locations, set low level alerts, even generate and send purchase orders to vendors directly from within the program.

Video Editing Is Easier Than You Think

Are you guilty of using your video camera to record and then letting all of those videos sit unused in a closet or on your hard drive? If the reason you put off doing anything with all of those video recordings is a fear of how much work it will be, then we have the answer for you—VideoPad Video Editing Software.

In early December we released a new version of VideoPad with more transitions and effects, plus a variety of other improvements including a new overlay track that will allow you to extend the same text over one or more video clips, making things like scrolling credits a breeze. And now we have just updated a two-part VideoPad video tutorial series to walk you through many of the features you will need to transform all that video footage into truly memorable home movies to cherish and share. VideoPad is easy to use in itself, and with these tutorials it’s now even easier.

The new tutorials cover the basics: adding media to your movie, working with the sequence, and exporting your finished movie. They also cover the fun stuff, like placing transitions between clips, and adding effects. You’ll also learn some tips for working with VideoPad, so you’ll always be able to achieve the finished product you imagined.

So what are you waiting for? Check out the VideoPad video tutorials, download VideoPad, collect up your SD Cards and other video recordings out of hiding, and get started. You will be making your own movie masterpiece within minutes.