0Open Source Accounting Software

By Unknown | At 1:50:00 pm | Label : Business , Software | 0 Comments

GnuCash

GnuCash is a free software accounting program that implements a double-entry bookkeeping system. It was initially aimed at developing capabilities similar to Intuit, Inc.'s Quicken application, but also has features for small business accounting. Recent development has been focused on adapting to modern desktop support-library requirements.

GnuCash is part of the GNU Project, and runs on Linux, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, Solaris, Mac OS X, and other Unix-like platforms. A Microsoft Windows (2000 or newer) port was made available starting with the 2.2.0 series.

Programming on GnuCash began in 1997, and its first stable release was in 1998. Small Business Accounting was added in 2001. A Mac installer became available in 2004. A Windows port was released in 2007.

In May 2012, the development of GnuCash for Android was announced.This is an expense-tracking companion app for GnuCash, as opposed to a stand-alone accounting package.

Features

• Double-entry bookkeeping
• Scheduled Transactions
• Mortgage and Loan Repayment Assistant
• Small Business Accounting Features
• OFX, QIF Import
• HBCI Support
• Transaction-Import Matching Support
• SQL Support
• Multi-Currency Transaction Handling
• Stock/Mutual Fund Portfolios
• Online Stock and Mutual Fund Quotes
• Built-in and custom reports and charts
• Budget
• Bank and Credit Card reconciliation
• Check printing

Small business accounting features

• Invoicing
• Accounts Receivable (A/R)
• Accounts Payable (A/P) including bills due reminders
• Employee expense voucher
• Depreciation
• Mapping to income tax schedules and TXF export for import into tax prep software (US)
• Setting up tax tables and applying sales tax on invoices

Download GnuCash HERE

0Retailers Will Love the Apple Pay Era

By Unknown | At 3:46:00 am | Label : Business , News , Technology | 0 Comments

Apple Pay Era

Retailers should be particularly excited for Monday debut of Apple Pay, which promises to be an excellent tool for separating shoppers and their money.

Apple (AAPL) mobile payment service will let iPhone users buy things by simply pulling out their device. Researchers have long found that shoppers spend more the further they get from handling actual currency and tend to better remember cash transactions. These tendencies help explain why credit card balances tend to bloat and why casinos use chips in place of money. It’s also why companies such as Starbucks (SBUX) encourage customers to load money onto apps or prepaid cards.

Behavioral economists have a term for this dynamic: decoupling. The card or app or casino chip mentally separates the consumer from his bank account. The payment is both delayed and bundled with other charges so it does not seem so painful. Citibank tested the research in 2009 and found a mobile “tap to pay” pilot program significantly boosted both the number and size of consumer transactions.
Buying things without cash is simply more fun. Richard Thaler, a behavioral economist at the University of Chicago, proved such transactions are more pleasurable experiences (PDF). Anyone who has ever walked away from an Uber ride knows this feeling well. With credit card data embedded in the apps settings, someone using the service never actually pays or even tips at least not in any physical way.

The question with Apple new payment service is whether it’s an additional degree of distance from credit cards or merely taking the well established place of plastic in the psychology of shopping. Apple Pay does not require any swiping or tapping, which seems to suggest a new level of abstraction. With a fingerprint on the iPhone button and a little wave at the cash register, the deal is done. “Now paying in stores happens in one natural motion,” Apple says in its pitch. “You don’t even have to look at the screen.”

Some 220,000 stores are already set up to accept the payments, including Bloomingdale, Foot Locker, Macy, McDonald, and PetSmart. The list also includes RadioShack, a retailer desperately in need of a revenue boost. The other brick and mortar companies in that troubled camp J.C. Penney (JCP), Sears (SHLD) would do well to get onboard.

0New Technology Transforms Wood Waste Into High Value Hardwood

By Unknown | At 2:12:00 pm | Label : Business , News , Technology | 0 Comments

Wood Waste Into High Value Hardwood

Wood is a hard, fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It has been used for thousands of years for both fuel and as a construction material. It is an organic material, a natural composite of cellulose fibbers (which are strong in tension) embedded in a matrix of lignin which resists compression. Wood is sometimes defined as only the secondary xylem in the stems of trees, or it is defined more broadly to include the same type of tissue elsewhere such as in the roots of trees or shrubs. In a living tree it performs a support function, enabling woody plants to grow large or to stand up by themselves. It also mediates the transfer of water and nutrients to the leaves and other growing tissues. Wood may also refer to other plant materials with comparable properties, and to material engineered from wood, or wood chips or fibber.

The Earth contains about one trillion tonnes of wood, which grows at a rate of 10 billion tonnes per year. As an abundant, carbon neutral renewable resource, woody materials have been of intense interest as a source of renewable energy. In 1991, approximately 3.5 cubic kilometres of wood were harvested. Dominant uses were for furniture and building construction.

Sawmills will soon be able to turn wood waste into high value hardwood products, helping them increase profits at a difficult time.

Company 3RT has partnered with Flinders University to develop a machine that cuts wood offcuts or softwood into strips, sticks them together, and presses them into blocks.

The aim is to increase hardwood supply sustainably, and create market opportunities for mills, that have been struggling with loss of access to native forests, labour shortages, and competition with cheaper imports.

3RT managing director Peter Torreele says the technology is in demand by the industry, and offers more sustainable and cheaper wood production.

"The problem that people do not buy hardwood today, or not enough, is firstly, it's becoming more and more scarce to get it, and secondly, it's very expensive, so we are basically producing the same type of hardwood for a third of the price."

He says the manufacturing unit, the first of which will be built in South Australia early next year, will cost between $3 million and $5 million.

There is also nanotechnology available to make the wood resistant to things like fire.

Now Mr Torreele is contacting mills to gauge interest and individual opportunities.

Timber Queensland welcomes the technology, stating sawmills have been looking for ways to utilise their unused wood fibre.

0Business Management

By Unknown | At 3:33:00 pm | Label : Article , Business | 0 Comments

Management in business and organisations

is the function that coordinates the efforts of people to accomplish goals and objectives using available resources efficiently and effectively. Management comprises planning, organising, staffing, leading or directing, and controlling an organisation to accomplish the goal. Resourcing encompasses the deployment and manipulation of human resources, financial resources, technological resources, and natural resources. Management is also an academic discipline, a social science whose objective is to study social organisations.

Management involves identifying the mission, objective, procedures, rules and the manipulation of the human capital of an enterprise to contribute to the success of the enterprise. This implies effective communication: an enterprise environment (as opposed to a physical or mechanical mechanism), implies human motivation and implies some sort of successful progress or system outcome. As such, management is not the manipulation of a mechanism (machine or automated program), not the herding of animals, and can occur in both a legal as well as illegal enterprise or environment. Management does not need to be seen from enterprise point of view alone, because management is an essential function to improve ones life and relationships. Management is there everywhere and it has a wider range of application. Based on this, management must have humans, communication, and a positive enterprise endeavour. Plans, measurements, motivational psychological tools, goals, and economic measures (profit, etc.) may or may not be necessary components for there to be management. At first, one views management functionally, such as measuring quantity, adjusting plans, meeting goals. This applies even in situations where planning does not take place. From this perspective, Henri Fayol (1841–1925) considers management to consist of six functions:

• Forecasting

• Planning

• Organising

• Commanding

• Coordinating

• Controlling

Henri Fayol was one of the most influential contributors to modern concepts of management.

In another way of thinking, Mary Parker Follett (1868–1933), defined management as the art of getting things done through people. She described management as philosophy.

Critics, however, find this definition useful but far too narrow. The phrase "management is what managers do" occurs widely, suggesting the difficulty of defining management, the shifting nature of definitions and the connection of managerial practises with the existence of a managerial cadre or class.

One habit of thought regards management as equivalent to "business administration" and thus excludes management in places outside commerce, as for example in charities and in the public sector. More broadly,every organisation must manage its work, people, processes, technology, etc. to maximise effectiveness. Nonetheless, many people refer to university departments that teach management as "business schools". Some institutions (such as the Harvard Business School) use that name while others (such as the Yale School of Management) employ the more inclusive term "management".

English speakers may also use the term "management" or "the management" as a collective word describing the managers of an organisation, for example of a corporation. Historically this use of the term often contrasted with the term "Labor" - referring to those being managed.

But in the present era management's use is identified in the wide areas and its frontiers have been pushed to a broader range. Apart from profitable organisations even non-profitable organisations (NGO) apply management concepts. The concept and its uses are not constrained. Management on the whole is the process of planning, organising, staffing, leading and controlling.

Management operates through five basic functions: planning, organising, coordinating, commanding, and controlling.

• Planning: Deciding what needs to happen in the future and generating plans for action(deciding in advance).

• Organising: Making sure the human and nonhuman resources are put into place

• Coordinating: Creating a structure through which an organisation's goals can be accomplished.

• Commanding: Determining what must be done in a situation and getting people to do it.

• Controlling: Checking progress against plans.

0Business Technology

By Unknown | At 3:16:00 pm | Label : Article , Business | 0 Comments

Business technology

encompasses a wide range of hardware, software and services that keep companies running and enhance operations. Technology plays into every aspect of a business, from accounting to customer communications to product design and development. The rapid forward movement in technology development over the last couple of decades has provided more powerful and less expensive options for companies. Business technology can help small business look bigger than they are and keep them ahead in a competitive marketplace.

The most visible sector of small business technology is the hardware, the desktop computers, laptops, printers, monitors, cell phones, projectors, servers, digital cameras, keyboards and mice that keep a business going on a daily basis. Laptops, an increasingly popular computer hardware option for business users, are more mobile than ever. Budget-conscious small businesses often purchase consumer hardware rather than enterprise hardware, but many manufacturers offer products designed specifically for small business users.

Software covers everything from the operating system that a computer runs on to image editing programs, accounting software and word processing applications. Most businesses run on either a Windows or Macintosh platform. Macs are particularly popular with entrepreneurs who deal with multimedia and video creation. Most businesses use an office productivity software suite such as Microsoft Office or openoffice.org that includes word processing, presentation and database programs that handle a wide array of common business tasks. Business software also includes more specialised programs such as CAD design tools for architects and recording software for audio engineers.

The growth of the Internet has marked a sea change in small business technology. Businesses use websites to advertise, provide information, sell products and reach new customers. Software as a Service (SAAS) is software that is delivered in an ongoing fashion over the web rather than through Cd's or downloads. Often it is paid for in a monthly or yearly service plan. This can be a more affordable and flexible option for small businesses compared to traditional methods of purchasing and using software.

Business technology is not limited to uses surrounding desktop and laptop computers. Technology also makes a mark with high-tech manufacturing robots, advanced microscopes and other specialised hardware and software. Many tasks that used to be done by hand are now automated and handled by specialised technology tools. For example, an independent machine shop may use computer aided manufacturing equipment that combines specialised software with machines to create parts to specifications. Innovative small businesses are also working in high-tech industries like nanotechnology and biotechnology and are on the cutting edge of creating new technologies.

The smart use of business technology helps small companies stay ahead of the competition by improving communications, making employees more efficient and tapping into effective marketing channels. Small business owners are often pressed for time and wearing many different hats. The use of business tools like accounting software, email, customer relationship management applications and smart phones can take some of the burden off entrepreneurs and help them make the most effective use of their time. Up-and-coming generations of workers are accustomed to a world full of technology. Small businesses need to adapt and keep up with new advancements.