I’ve mentioned it before, but with tax season heating up, this product has had some buzzing discussions take place (no, I don’t mean that Buzz), and warrents a closer look.

Free is Good

First of all, Outright is free. That’s a popular price for items preferred by Gauchos. According to Kevin from Outright (who responded to a comment on this FreelanceSwitch post):

[...] this is Kevin from Outright.com. Just wanted to let you know that the core service will remain free. We will add other paid services (like the online 1099 filing service we launched last month: http://outright.com/contractors/1099) but the core bookkeeping will stay free. Hope that helps.

It does help, Kevin. Tracking and reporting income and expenses in an effort to estimate and stay prepared and keep your taxes on track, or playing catchup at the beginning of April, is usually a difficult and time consuming activity. By automating this process, small businesses can spend more time making money and less time accounting for it.

By the way, all information you keep on Outright is encrypted, so your data is kept secure.

The Live Feed

Many small business owners and consultant will tell you how important it is to use a real, living, breathing tax pro when tax season rolls around.

I’m not going to suggest that Outright might replace getting a real pro to help you. But, if you’re truly running on a shoestring budget, Outright will likely save you a lot of time and frustration. It will help you organize, compute, and report the information necessary if you elect to use a service like TurboTax, H&R Block, or another desktop or web-based product to file your taxes.

If you’re still going to use a bookkeeper, tax consultant, or accountant for help filing your taxes, that’s great. Imagine the time you’ll save when you walk in and drop a highly organized file on their desk with all the reports you’ve provided. You’ll save additional money by paying for less of their time. And, by empowering them to focus on finding additional tax deductions — instead of having them babysit you while you get your basic tax needs in order — they might find a way to save you even more.

Simple

Outright is dead simple to use. I was impressed with its easy navigation and its ability to import data from credit cards accounts, PayPal, eBay, invoicing apps, CSV files, and more.

Once such data is imported, Outright offers flexible and powerful reporting features. These include profit & loss statements, 1099 reports, plus reports on income and expenses by customer, vendor, and category.

Outright helps you to know what deductions you can take at tax time, reminds you about deadlines, helps you to avoid late fees, and has a knowledgeable user community helping to answer each others questions. You can even pay your estimated taxes via a secure payment portal.

It also supports users living in several countries outside the US.

Effortless

If you’re a Freshbooks user, as more and more small businesses and freelancers seem to be, you can link your Freshbooks account to Outright and it will import all of your data. Set the dates you want to import (it defaults to importing only current data), and then in literally a few seconds you’ll be ready to run profit and loss statements and expense reports. Think of Freshbooks as your cash register and Outright as your bookkeeper.

Outright also integrates with shoeboxed, a web product offering free and paid services for managing business receipts. (Use the Outright referral link to get $10 off annual plans.)

Nothing to Lose

Keep in mind that Outright is intended for sole proprietors and single-member LLCs who file a Schedule C tax form.

If you fall into that bucket, then there aren’t many, if any, good reasons for you not to give Outright a try. It will only make your tax season easier and it’s a useful year-round tool for figuring out estimated taxes.

Surprise! No more tax season surprises.

Ways for Small Businesses to Save Money: Part 1

Ways for Small Businesses to Save Money: Part 2

Ways for Small Businesses to Save Money: Part 3

Today’s post focuses on online web apps that you can use to save money and create efficiencies in your work flow.

Collaboration

Finding easy-to-use tools to communicate and collaborate with clients and staff can create more cost-efficient processes.

Zoho – Zoho provides a whole host of ways to work and collaborate online. I’ve tried many of their products in my own business and I mentioned their project management tool in Part 1 of this series. Prices vary by product, all have a freemium level to try out.

OfficeMedium – A web-based collaborative suite built with efficiency and convenience in mind. $6 per user per month, $1 per GB per month.

Basecamp – One of my favorites for collaborating on and managing projects. Pricing starts at $24 a month, first month free.

Wizehive – Another file-sharing, project-managing, collaboration portal that gets high marks from the likes of TechCrunch and Lifehacker. First workspace is free.

Google Wave - Innovative way to have small team discussions and develop documents. Free.

Meeting and Presentations

Clear communication between all parties and coordinated focus from all levels is a big win in getting actual work done. Nothing really gets done in meetings, but sometimes they are a necessity. Many modern products facilitate the ability for remote conversations to happen in real-time, making them more informative and saving time.

TinyChat – It’s simple. TinyChat is awesome. Meet with clients or friends in your own browser-based video chatroom. Just create a room and invite people. You can even require Twitter/Facebook ID for login. Save yourself a drive, a flight, or many unnecessary phone calls. Free.

WebEx and GoToMeeting - I think most people are familiar with these sort of online meeting tools, but it’s worth making sure.

Dimdim – Claims to be the iPod of web conferencing, by which they mean to say that it’s the easiest way to have online meetings. They also claim that “Dimdim Pro – our flexible, professional version for up to 50 participants – or Dimdim Webinar – our powerful, event version for 1000 participants is available for about 1/10th the cost of WebEx.” That’s a mouthful, but it sounds good. Dimdim Free is (you got it) free, and let’s you meet with up to 20 people. Paid upgrades (for meetings with more than 20 people) start at $19 a month.

Marketing

Need a website? Business cards? Don’t have much to spend? Here’s the cheap way to ride in style.

Squarespace – This platform is becoming hugely popular with businesses large and small. Create your own website and host it for $8 a month. They look good and do good.

Wix – Oh, did you want to build your own Flash website? Oh, and you want to be able to design it with a simple drag & drop interface? Okay. Wix lets you do that. Or, designers can use it to give their sites a little something-something. Free entry level site.

Moo - Make your own business cards — and make them memorable. Customized business cards start at $21.99.

FreeCRM.com – Free Customer Relationship Management and sales team automation tools.

Highrise - Another product brought to you by 37Signals, the makers of Basecamp. Highrise is a popular CRM platform for managing leads, contacts, and deals.

Chatter – Salesforce.com’s innovative new social network and brand monitoring tool, that simultaneously lets sales teams and customer service teams engage in social media while also providing business managers with ways to track those teams. Pricing hasn’t been released yet, but the guess is ~$50 per user per month.

Promote

If you want to take advantage of social media channels to get the word out about your business, here are 3 awesome and affordable ways to do so.

Emma - Create, send, and track email marketing campaigns and online surveys. Pricing varies by business size.

Wildfire Interactive – Get more leads by creating a social media campaign to engage with online audiences. Pricinge starts at $5 per campaign.

Animoto – Create stunning, ‘killer’ videos that are automatically generated via your images and a couple of clicks. Use them to explain or promote your service. Create a personal account and spend $3 per full-length video, or $30 to create an unlimited number of full-length videos. For higher quality, upgrade to the business solution for $249 a year, or $99 for a 3-month trial.

Research and Knowledge Sharing

If you’re a researcher or have ever been part of a collaborative research group, you know how much time you can save by have the right approach to organizing and documenting research. With the proliferation of online content, this is especially true.

Diigo – Provides powerful research and sharing tools to analyze, organize, and archive. Price = free. Plus, free upgrades to premium accounts for educators.

MindMeister – real-time brainstorming and mind-mapping tool with offline and mobile access. Free Basic account, upgrade for unlimited mind-maps, enhanced security, and business-level solutions.

File Sharing Tools

For when you need to share really big work files that are too big for email.

Dropbox – I love Dropbox. It’s the easiest way to share and sync files ever. Get 2GB of space for free and use it to sync files on Windows, Mac, Linux, and iPhone.  Upgrade to the Pro 50 for $9.99 a month or $99.00 a year and get 50GB of space.

SendSpace – Unlimited uploads and downloads of a file, secure exchange, use for files up to 300MB. Ad supported Free version works great, Premium levels are ad free and faster.

Finance and Timetracking

Outright – Like Mint, but for small businesses. It’s free! Provides online bookkeeping, help managing taxes, 1099 e-filing, tax estimates, and support services for entrepreneurs and bookkeepers.

Freshbooks – A terrific way to track time and invoice clients. Send estimates, track contractor and employee hours on projects, track expenses, build reports, and bill your clients with professional invoices. Upload your logo and customize with your company’s branding. Manage up to 3 clients for free, or upgrade to manage additional clients or give access to staff.

Harvest – Great time tracking device for freelancers, small business, and professional services. Nice design, easy to use. Pricing ranges from $12 – $90 per month.

LessAccounting – Stress-free accounting for small businesses. Invoices, taxes, accounts receivable, accountant access, and integration with Highrise, Paypal, and Basecamp. Plans start at $12 per month and up.

Feedback and Surveys

Wufoo – Makes forms easy, fast, and fun. Create application forms, contact forms, registrations, surveys, and more. Free for up to 3 forms, $9.95 per month for 10 forms.

Usabilla – Usability testing without all the drama — and expense. Free for 5 pages and up to 25 participants per test, then it goes up to $49 a year for 10 pages and 250 participants per test.

Development

Atlassian - Collaboration and code development tools, $10 per product for 10 users.

Komodo - Open source multi-language code editor. 21-day free trial.

And That Ain’t All

There are so many great web apps out there that can be helpful to small businesses — there’s no way we can cover them all here. Please feel free to share your additions to this list with a comment.

Ways for Small Businesses to Save Money: Part 1 – Getting Started

Ways for Small Businesses to Save Money: Part 2 – Keep Going

And Now On To It

Okay, with that recap complete, let’s take a deep dive into focusing on web apps that can save you money. This is one of my favorite topics.

Many small business owners simply aren’t aware of all the online applications and products that exist today. These products provide some real opportunities for small businesses to save money on an ongoing basis. But there are also an incredible number of apps that can help a business to make money.

But first, let’s just back up and make sure you understand that the cloud following you around isn’t a black one.

Your Silver Lining: The Cloud

If you have a small business and you say ‘What’s the Cloud?’, then you better nod and say okay when I say blah blah browser-based software web app something something. If you don’t, you need to call me. We need to talk. Seriously.

The cloud is how you access and share your content from anywhere. I’m sure you know that the internet is actually nothing more than a series of tubes. Those tubes connect to a cloud, and in that cloud, mankind holds an amazing treasure — all the known information in the shiny, cyber universe-matrix.

Now, some companies want to charge you lots of money for outdated ways to interface and manage your content, data, and business.

Other companies want to set you off and running through a field of daffodils by providing you with free apps, or lower-cost apps, that offer a pretty incredible ROI. Don’t worry. They’ll still make money off of you, if they’re smart.

To complete your transformation into tech wizard, I’m going to take you on a little tour of cloud-based savings.

A love story, told in two parts. Act 1: Google. Act 2: Everything else.

How Google Empowers Small Business

Man. I don’t know why some people think that Google is ‘bad’. I just have to shake my head at them. Google has done more to empower small business than anything in the history of humanity. Google is probably the most innovative and creative company ever. Yet, people get so used to the phenomena around them they begin to take it for granted.

For at least 10 years now — arguably the portion of the internet timeline that’s mattered most — Google has provided the most efficient ways for small businesses ANYWHERE to get found. 60 Minutes is STILL doing color spots on this like it’s some new angle to the Google legend.

Google has always been on the side of small business. Here’s a list of ways in which Google products help small business.

Search

Allow me, if you don’t mind, to remind you what the internet was like before Google.

You couldn’t find anything. The end. Just stare at the period on the end of this sentence. That’s what it was like.

Now, unless you really mess something up, anyone can find your business. Pretty quickly. This is good.

AdWords

AdWords lets anyone advertise their business. This was the second great Google innovation. You no longer needed a big budget to get the word out.

Google AdWords allows for small-budget micro-advertising. Although it’s not as effective as it once way (in my opinion), it’s still one of the most important and popular ways that a small business can go about marketing themselves in an affordable manner.

Gmail

Next to search, Gmail might be Google’s greatest technological achievement.

Gmail redefined the email experience and it still puts other email platforms to shame. Gmail is still the one single app that many people find to be the most useful in organizing their business.

Here’s how to switch to using Gmail for business, which lets you use your own domain name for emails. Here’s a handy calculator to figure out how much you might save using Google Apps instead of Microsoft Exchange 2007.

Google Docs

Why would you pay good money to purchase and install Microsoft versions of products that Google now offers for free? They’re more stable, less issues between platforms, better security, and you can access them anywhere with just a browser window. (Google Gears will let you save and work on docs locally.)

Google Apps

Let me ask you a little question:

Who do you think has more valuable proprietary data — your company or Genentech? How about your garage-based business vs. Motorola? You vs. Salesforce? The Washington, District of Columbia Government?

They all use Google Apps.

The idea that you can’t trust web-based apps for security is outdated. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t backup your data to local locations. Go back, revisit tip 14, reread, rinse, return, repeat. Then think about what happens if your computer blows up. Or, your laptop gets stolen. Then watch the following video. And, as you do, let it continue to dawn on you that if enterprise businesses are using Google Apps to save money and achieve better security for both documents and email, your small business can do the same.

There are so many ways Google Docs can help a small business that it boggles the mind.

Still Not Convinced?

Okay, fine. I’m beginning to feel like a commercial here, but I fear I must press on.

I already mentioned Google Voice on Saturday.

Google Analytics

The most powerful (free) way to track what’s happening with your web traffic and learn about your website’s audience.

Google Wave

Part documentation tool, part discussion room, Google Wave is great for small team collaborations and discussions that allows things to happen in real-time.

Google Small Business Toolkit/Network

Get help with listings, updates, and insights. Find ways to make deliveries more efficient, and analyze and optimize your website. Stay up to date and discuss public policies and issues that affect your business. Connect with colleaques and run your business more efficiently.

Google Base

Make sure Google knows what products you have available.

Google Local Business Center

Google Business Solutions

An entire suite of ways to market, enhance, and track your online business success.

Despite All This …

Despite all they do to empower business, Google gets dinged by privacy advocates. With good right. If Google is going to live up to their motto of ‘Don’t Be Evil,’ they need to be able to take the heat of having their feet put to the flames with questions and criticism.

I bring this up, because many business feel their data is safer on their computer rather than ‘somewhere our there on the internet.’

For those that have privacy concerns about Google’s access to information, you do have a fair point. In response, I’ll say this: first of all, there’s always a keeper of information, history proves that. At least the current keeper has a primarily democratic and grassroots approach. Secondly, while their recent response to a cyber attack in China was the result of being provoked, their reaction put principles ahead of financial implications. Something we need more of in business.

My point? Don’t let your business suffer because you’re either too scared to enter modernity or you fear big brother. Big brother doesn’t care about you. If all you’re doing is working hard, you’ve got nothing to worry about. If you really want to save money for your small business, make sure you’re taking advantage of Google’s offerings. Plus, having your data protected by Google is probably safer than letting it just sit on an old disk drive.

That said, the only sure bet in life is that I’ll have more web apps to help your small business save money.

But, for now, I’m Googled out.

6. Buy Apple Computers

I am absolutely stealing this from Jason Calacanus for one very good reason — he is right:

“Buy Macintosh computers, save money on an IT department”

Really, if you’re running a startup and are looking to save money (as if there’s a startup that isn’t looking to save money these days), his post is an absolute must read. His track record speaks for itself.

But I’d like to add something to Jason’s point. Not only can you save on IT costs, but by using a machine that actually works and doesn’t crash all the time, you have a chance to be much more productive and spend less time troubleshooting issues. I used an array of MicroSoft, Linux, and Apple platforms for years — basically because I had the same thought as everyone else: I just need a word processor and internet access, so I can save some money by buying a PC.

Personally, I won’t be doing that ever again. I’m exclusively Apple now. As a result, I spend less time trying to install and fix things and can focus on just getting things done. I’m sure MS devotees feel otherwise, but I’m not the only one that’s had this experience.

7. Order Locally

If your business is based on selling products, see if you can find a more local distribution channel. That way you can save on shipping and freight costs.

8. Hosting and ISP

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen a small business that hired a design shop to build a website for them, only to  get outlandishly charged on a monthly basis when the design shop then bills them for hosting the website.

Now, I understand that most small business owners may not know any better. But I’m here to tell you: this is pure highway robbery.

Let’s say you had a shop build you a simple, static, HTML website in 2005. Then they charge you $125 a month to host it and set up your email accounts. If you want to update something on the website, they charge you. If you want to upload a new picture, they charge you. If you need support, they charge you. Get the picture? They’re overcharging you.

Most small business have a tiny web presence. Unless you provide access to sophisticated web-based tools or services, your small business probably has a 3 – 7 page website with some basic information about you, your team, and your services.

Guess what? You can get your own hosting with places like HostIcan for $143.50 a year. That includes unlimited hostable domains, unlimited disk space, unlimited bandwidth, and of course, unlimited email accounts. At this time, they are offering 35% off your first year, which brings the price down to $93.21. Buy multiple years and save even more.

If you only have one little site, take a look at Laughing Squid for your hosting. Laughing Squid is very well-known in the Bay Area and famous for their customer service. A Mega Squid account is $8 a month and gives you 2GB of disk space, 75 GB of bandwidth, and 25 email accounts. For most small businesses, that’s plenty. And $96 a year is a whole lot better than $125 a month.

ISP

In a similar vein, many businesses get too comfortable with what they’re paying for internet access. They don’t want to rock the boat. If it ain’t broke … and all that jazz.

Yet, as competitors continue to emerge in broadband, you may be able to find a better option. That option might be a similar service at a better price, or faster connectivity at a slightly higher cost.

If your business is web related, assuring a fast connection can improve productivity, and therefore, profits. It’s worth looking into. However, before you go and sign up, be sure to check with people in your community about the actual speeds and customer service they’re getting. Some plans don’t live up to their marketing hype. Ask around online.

Sometimes smaller carriers will offer better rates. Many carriers will be responsive if you tell them you’ve found a better deal, or even if you simply ask for one.

9. Marketing

Time to give your website a facelift? What kind of site is it? If it’s a blog or small website, hire a shop or consultant that can put you on a WordPress-based platform. That way, when you want to update or change content, you don’t have to pay your design shop just to change a phone number. You’ll have similar up-front costs for the design, but less for ongoing maintanance.

If you’ve been putting money into traditional advertising and aren’t getting the results you once did, consider using email and getting involved in the social media scene instead. If you don’t know what you’re doing, don’t just jump into it by yourself and start spamming everyone. Ask around, read, or hire a consultant to set you off in the right direction. Let them train your staff on what does and doesn’t work online.

10. Hire Freelancers

If you can’t afford a full-time staff but need help, hire freelancers to get you through heavy workloads or to provide the skills you need to get the job done.

11. Postage

If you’re mailing payments, see if you can set up free payment transactions through your bank’s website.

If you need to mail things, try to coordinate shipping and mailing to take advantage of bulk rates.

12. Reduce Your Inventory

People aren’t buying as much as they used to, so you can free up your cash flow for other things if you reduce the inventory of goods you keep on hand.

13. The Four Day Work Week

For many small businesses, their biggest expense is employee hours. Going to a 4-day work week and cutting wages by 20% is one way to cut back. Your employees may not be too happy, but if it means the difference between staying in business or not, most of them will understand. Explain that things will go back to the way they were when business picks back up.

14. Back Up Your Data Locally

This is a no-brainer, but make sure you regularly back up vital digital work to an external hard drive. Or two. The financial repercussions of losing work or proprietary information are not worth the risk. This is something I’ve been writing about for a long time. It’s happened to me before, so believe me — the smaller your business, the harder it will be to recover from losing your work. Find a secure way to backup your data.

A 1TB drive costs like $100 now, so there’s no excuse.

To Be Cont’d, Again

I can go on and on with this stuff, but alas, our little blog is only so big. So stop back tomorrow when I’ll focus in on web-apps that can save your small business money.

Why?

Because we live in a world where you have to pay for stuff to … well, live. The 23 million + small business in the United States have been hit especially hard by a recession that continues to stink the place up.

So, today we have some ways for small businesses to save some cash.

1. Dump the Office

In many ways, offices are obsolete. Why pay rent if you don’t need to? Many workers are more efficient working from home.

When meetings are required, use open office spaces or coworking locations. You save money on rent, employees save money on commuting, and everyone is happy. Of course, this isn’t practical for all types of small businesses, but if you don’t need to rent an office, then with the technology available today, why bother?

Even if you sell products out of a storefront, many business have turned their home garages into inventory storage and moved their storefront onto eBay. The result is often increased sales and lowered overhead that yields greater profits.

2. Use a Project Management System

We’ve all heard it before. Time is money, right?

If that’s true, then the more efficient you become, the more money you make. This is especially true for small business that charge on a project basis. The faster you can get the job done and done right, the sooner you move on to the next project, and more importantly, the sooner you get paid. It’s amazing how the right project management tool can help keep work on track — especially when dealing with complicated, multi-phase efforts.

Project management systems are a key tool for any agency, small business, or startup. A variety of tools exist on the market. I’ve used many of them, and I’ve also worked for companies thatused only traffic managers and human project managers to keep things rolling. Without fail, a good team and a decent web-based project management system creates the greater efficiency.

Zoho Projects and activeCollab are two project management systems that get high marks from many. I’m personally not that huge of a fan of either one.

I’ve actually become a big Basecamp advocate. In my opinion, Basecamp offers the most flexible pricing. It is suitable for any size business, from the solo shop to the biggest of enterprise. It also gives the most bang for the buck.

Most importantly, it’s simultaneously the most flexible and simplest project management system I’ve worked with. Even not-too-web-savvy clients find it a pretty easy interface to work with.

3. Hello? People Still Use Telephones?

Really? Your office has a phone system? You know about Skype, right? Okay, good. What about Google Voice?

Do you still think you need a phone system?

4. Barter

Not only can bartering save you money, but it can also be fun.

Talk to business contacts, neighbors, and clients. You’d be surprised at who’s willing to barter these days. If you can’t find anyone you know, there’s always Craigslist — just be sure to avoid the shady types. Also, don’t forget, bartered goods and services should be reported as income on your taxes.

5. Power Down

Electricity is a huge cost of doing business for some operations. But, if there’s any way to cut back on power use, and there usually are, you should take advantage of them. It’s good for your bottom line, plus it’s good for the environment.

Make sure lights are turned off in unused areas, and if you have employees that continuously forget, use sensors to automate the practice.Turn computers, appliances, and machines off at night, and even if they have a power saving mode, unplug them or use a power strip to kill the power when they’re not being used.

It all adds up.

To Be Cont’d …

That’s a good start, but at Gaucho, we’re never done saving. Tune back in tomorrow when we’ll continue with more ways for small businesses to save money.