Property Management Business

Property management refers to managing the properties of landlords. You will be working on their behalf in taking responsibility of their portfolio. It can certainly be a lucrative and rewarding career and will provide you with many benefits. In order to get yourself started, consider these simple tips.
The first thing that you need to do is to check what the legal requirements are going to be in the state in which you live. Some states might necessitate that you get a real estate license while others will require that you get a separate license in order to manage properties. Many states will offer classes that you can go on and that will keep you up-to-date with state laws regarding Property Management.
Make sure you get a dedicated phone line that you can use for your business. It is going to be very important to you to get all of the hardware sorted out and therefore you will need a phone line, a computer with an Internet connection, and a fax machine. You will also need certain pieces of software on your computer such as spreadsheet software like Windows Excel.
It is important that you talk to a lawyer. This will be to ensure that you have all of the necessary legal paperwork ready to go. That you will be signing leases and management agreements, you will be hiring repairman, you will be sorting out tenants and possibly evicting them, and you will be doing all sorts of other duties.
Of course, you will also need to get a post office address. It is important that you have a dedicated P. O. Box so that tenants and other associates are able to mail rent and other such details to you. Constantly having tenants appear at your home in order to drop off their rent is not only a hassle, but it is very unprofessional and therefore you will want to avoid this particular situation, particularly if you are dealing with some difficult tenants.
Now you will need to actually start looking around for properties that you can manage. One of the best places to look will be adverts by owners that have properties to rent. Real estate agents will also provide you with some excellent leads. Spend as much time getting touch with relevant parties to build up your management portfolio.
In addition, get a Property Management website sorted out. Not only will this be extremely helpful in allowing you to manage everything together, but it will also make you appear much more professional as well.

Read More

Tips for Home Selling on A Budget

You may think your budget is too small to get your home ready to sell, but there are many creative ways to deal with this situation. Houses sell all the time when the sellers were faced with this challenge. It would be nice to be able to put lots of money into the project, of course. Making your home more attractive to buyers, however, can be done on even the smallest budgets. It's necessary to look at your home carefully and objectively. Then you leverage the available knowledge that is easy to find on the net. You'll discover that there are many surprisingly cheap ways to proceed. It's just a matter of defining your goals and then putting them into action.
Don't look for huge and expensive tasks, but instead find little areas that are more realistic for you to work on. Consider what prospective buyers will notice when they come through your house. Your front door and porch must be in decent shape, as this is what people will see right away. If the door looks good and does not need to be replaced, then that is great. Painting a door makes a big difference, and so do enhancements like a new knocker or numbers for the address. You might need a new bulb or light fixture on your porch as well. The new look of everything will be noticed and it makes people feel the house is newer. Your walls need to be free of blemishes, for example large holes from big nails, etc. Hopefully your walls will be freshly painted if they need it. Yet another little trick of the mind, for effect, is to stash away any personal pictures. The rationale for this move is that it removes your family from the house and allows them to see themselves living in the home. Consequently, you should take down all of your personal pictures, such as those of your family and friends. Actually, it is best to have the walls clear of any unusual art or posters, etc. This has to do with giving the buyer a chance to envision the space, in their mind.
The upstairs bathrooms can have unique issues that will make an impact on people looking to buy. A lime build up on your glass shower doors is not attractive, but it happens over time. It's easy to fix this lime problem by using a good lime remover. This will return your glass shower doors to a pristine condition. Bathtubs are another area for concern because they can become stained, and these stains may not be possible to remove. It isn't practical, especially on a budget, to simply buy and install a new bathtub. Nevertheless, getting the tub refinished is an easy solution. Many folks aren't familiar with this technique, but it's easy to find someone - usually through your home improvement center - who can do this for you reasonably. People may only glance inside the bathrooms, but if everything looks clean, bright and shiny then it will pass. Showing your home is where the whole selling process starts and making a large impact is paramount. There are many different ways to put a positive effect on your home however it all begins as soon as the buyer shows up to the outside of the home. Most sellers don't have a hard time with this part, so make sure you spend time on the front yard and exterior.

Read More

Accounting Services For Small Businesses

Accounting services for small businesses, gives the necessary edge in today's constantly changing business environment; a business owner should consider seeking this professional service without delay. As a business owner, you face do-or-die options which you could avoid with expert advice; you would be relieved to know that not "all hope is lost".
Floundering small-time enterprises are vulnerable and easy targets, with their jugular exposed. Is this your situation now? You may seek the help of a reputable accounting firm to help you navigate the turbulent tides of recession and uncertainty of current investments. You will be towed in, if need be, until the storm blows over.
Consider the variety of concerns that hound most business owners:
o Is the product and service being offered still relevant and valued by the client?
o Have there been changes in the number of competitors and prices being offered?
o Are there enough qualified and motivated team members in your company?
o Is there enough capital so you can adapt the business to meet the needs of the future?
From a recently conducted survey of small businesses in the Toronto area, here are some responses to floundering businesses:
o Over 50% had branched out into a totally different business;
o Over 25% had focused on improving products and services,
o Remaining 25% resorted to adjusting infrastructure, technology or staffing, and increasing marketing. Marketing efforts included more time with customers and more use of the Internet and social media.
Whatever you choose to engage in, you must take a careful look at your financial situation and plan on how to realize your immediate goals. If you are off to a shaky start, better rethink your business plan rather than go down deeper. Don't scrimp by going DIY if you don't have adequate accounting skills; you will lose more. This may sound simplistic, but commonsensical: financial housekeeping, such as tidying your books, is a necessary first step to recovery.
Let me tell you at this point that, as a small business owner, you cannot just accept promises, but need to look at a company's profile and its performance track record. How many years of experience have they had? What are their clients saying? The Internet is a good source of well-kept secrets of negligent accounting for small businesses, in case there are any. Social proof is a valid tool, at most a weapon, for clients who have been hoodwinked by unscrupulous individuals.
As you engage the services of a firm specializing in accounting for small businesses, you will realize that maintaining some form of order for your accounting needs allows you to focus on the more urgent needs of business operations. Proper bookkeeping is like good housekeeping; neat books, like a neat house, allow you to see everything in their proper perspective. Accounting services for small businesses, can really get tricky, but they can become launch pads for success in the hands of professionals.

Aslam Salam is the owner of Biz Pros. Aslam and his family operated a retail business for several years, so he understands small business issues. He also held senior accounting positions at Best Foods, CTV and CDS before opening his own practice in 2000.
Aslam's success is attributed to the personal attention and knowledge he brings to his clients. He gets involved with his clients and offers advice and tips to help his clients run successful businesses. Aslam helps his clients to reduce taxes and increase their profitability.

Read More

Look at the New Relationship Between Accounting and Business Intelligence

With the struggling economy, all companies are focusing on any possible ways to increase revenues and decrease expenses. Executives are under pressure to make decisions which will greatly affect the well-being of their corporations. Historically, executive decision making has been strongly led by finance. Many board rooms have always had seats at the table for Chief Executive Officers, Chief Financial Officers, and Chief Operating Officers. Recently, however, a new chair has been pulled up to the table for Chief Information Officers.
One major area of growth for CIOs is Information Management, specifically, Business Intelligence (BI), also known as Decision Support. BI is a field which focuses on turning data into information by applying knowledge, technology, and analysis. BI technologies can be utilized for historical analysis, present analysis, and predictive analysis. Business intelligence encompasses data warehousing, which allows for massive quantities of data, often obtained from many separate source systems, to be housed in one location, which is available for querying.
One of the source systems providing a plethora of rich data is the financial system. Financial systems are often used for each financial transaction and the sum of the data then feeds into a system that is used to manage the General Ledger. The financial transaction data feeds the GL, and then the GL data often feeds the costing system. These systems generate financial statements such as the balance sheet and the income statement.
The financial data is incredibly useful for numerous types of analysis which can benefit not just finance, but multiple departments in an organization. The top summary of financial data would be the Balance Sheet, the Income Statement, and the Statement of Cash Flow. By analyzing these statements, a good understanding of the current climate in an organization can be obtained. These high level reports are not as good, however, at pointing out more specific problems and potential solutions.
In the past, once executives would analyze the high level reports, they would have more detailed analysis manually compiled by employees and then have summaries presented to them. With new technology, executives no longer have to hear all of the news second hand. Innovative reporting allows executives to get the overall climate of the organization with summary statistics and graphical representations, and it also allows them to dig in on their own through cube technology which provides drill-through capability right into the detailed data. This technological advance in reporting capabilities allows for quicker analysis, quicker answers, increased internal transparency, and overall quicker and more informed decision making.
Another large piece of business intelligence is an emphasis on process improvement with a focus on automation. Manual manipulation of data always creates increased risk for integrity, whether the mistakes made are intentional or unintentional; when manual adjustments are made, errors are inevitable. Eliminating as much, if not all manual manipulation from the point of data entry to the point of reporting allows for the most pure form of the information to be relayed to decision makers.
While many of the priorities for finance and business intelligence seem aligned, process improvement may be the largest point of contention. The premise of automating a task is that if there are consistent rules which can be applied to a process, those rules can most likely be programmed into a system to take the initial data and create the final product. While the programming code can be unbelievably complex and detailed, it requires very strict adherence to rules. Accounting principles, as established by governing boards such as the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), are not strict rules, instead they are flexible guidelines. This slight disagreement in principles for BI and Accounting can create a bit of friction; however, if BI and Accounting teams can have clear and consistent communication it is possible to find and continuously represent a middle ground between the BI rigidity and the Accounting flexibility both internally and externally.
Since BI is young, many organizations are just learning how to embrace the new concepts and technology. Historically, finance has been the one of the main sources for analysis and reporting within an organization, so the introduction of BI is a huge change and it is one that is viewed by some as threatening. It is important to consider, however, that BI contains and analyzes data for an entire company, not just with a focus on finance, but also with a focus on operations, quality, etc.. BI architects and analysts, therefore, must have many skills outside of just the financial realm and typically do not contain highly focused certifications such as that of CPA or CMA. BI architects and analysts rely on the subject matter experts for much of their initial and ongoing development. The goal of BI is to make it easier for other employees and managers to do their daily tasks by removing manual tasks and allowing them to put more of their undivided attention on the concepts that require their more focused skill sets. The new relationship that must be formed between accounting professionals and business intelligence professionals within organizations is one that may take time to perfect; however, it is worth working on because the outcome can be highly beneficial for all parties involved.
Since BI is young, many organizations are just learning how to embrace the new concepts and technology. Historically, finance has been the one of the main sources for analysis and reporting within an organization, so the introduction of BI is a huge change and it is one that is viewed by some as threatening. It is important to consider, however, that BI contains and analyzes data for an entire company, not just with a focus on finance, but also with a focus on operations, quality, etc.. BI architects and analysts, therefore, must have many skills outside of just the financial realm and typically do not contain highly focused certifications such as that of CPA or CMA. BI architects and analysts rely on the subject matter experts for much of their initial and ongoing development. The goal of BI is to make it easier for other employees and managers to do their daily tasks by removing manual tasks and allowing them to put more of their undivided attention on the concepts that require their more focused skill sets. The new relationship that must be formed between accounting professionals and business intelligence professionals within organizations is one that may take time to perfect; however, it is worth working on because the outcome can be highly beneficial for all parties involved.

Read More