What Are Your Digits?

Sure, it’s one of those questions that makes you squirm a bit, but knowing your business credit score is important. Those fickle numerals offer many benefits beyond just helping to obtain a loan. Let’s break down what a business (or trade) credit score is all about.

The basics:

1.     What credit agencies look at: Amounts owed to suppliers and lenders, legal filings from courts and company information from state filing offices, public records, credit card companies, collection agencies, corporate financial information and marketing databases.

2.     Where you should be: Business credit scores fall somewhere between 0 – 100 (75 or more is considered ideal) and are based on a company’s creditworthiness.

3.     Why it’s important: Generally speaking, strong business scores help protect personal credit scores and limit personal liability. You’re also more likely to receive higher credit limits with lower interest rates.

While building business credit may not have been top of mind when you were writing your business plan, keeping your digits in pristine order will be valuable when you want to grow or need to make major changes.

Source: http://www.manta.com/resources/tip-of-the-day/what-are-your-digits/?su=hq344mgu9vl41l&utm_medium=Email_Marketing&utm_source=Newsletter&utm_campaign=TOTD&utm_content=TOTD_ReDesign_LM_Test&utm_term=15816

New One-Stop Resource for Identity Theft Victims

Website Lists the Critical First Steps

News about data breaches at banks, stores, and agencies is an everyday occurrence now. But if your private information has been compromised, it doesn’t feel commonplace to you.

The sooner you find out, and begin damage control, the better off you’ll be. IdentityTheft.gov, a new website, offers step-by-step checklists of what to do right away, and what to do next, depending on the information that’s been stolen or exposed. It lists warning signs indicating your identity was stolen, and gives websites and phone numbers for organizations you’ll need to reach. And, it has sample letters for disputing fraudulent charges, correcting information in your credit reports, and getting business records relating to the theft.


Check out IdentityTheft.gov, bookmark it, and print out the checklists, as your first line of defense against identity theft.


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Paying your friends through an app? Read this.

Imagine you’re at a restaurant with your friend. She pays the check, and says you can pay her back. Do you:

a) write an IOU on a napkin?

b) pull out a wad of cash and give her exact change?

c) take out your phone and pay her through a mobile payment app?

If you answered c), this post is for you.

Like apps that let you pay at stores with your phone, “peer-to-peer” payment services can be a convenient way to pay friends. But before you use one — or use one again — check the app’s settings for available security features.

Here are some features to consider to make your account less vulnerable:

·         Two-factor authentication: This requires you to enter a password plus something else — like a code sent to your phone —  to prove it’s really you.

·         Pin code: Look at creating a pin to send a payment — like a pin you might use at an ATM.

·         Social media permissions: If a payment service is linked to social media, it could broadcast your payment history to your network, so make sure you check those permissions.

As with any kind of money transfer, make sure you know who you’re dealing with before you send any money. Also, know that setting up your payment account with a credit card could offer extra protections.

Check your account statements regularly. That way, you can make sure someone else isn’t using your account and running up the bill. If you find unauthorized charges, report them to the payment service right away. And if your phone is lost or stolen, treat it like you would a lost credit or debit card, and learn how to remotely cut off access to your account so someone else can’t use it.

Source: http://www.consumer.ftc.gov/blog/paying-your-friends-through-app-read-0?utm_source=govdelivery

Journaling for Success

If you’ve ever started a sentence with ‘Dear Diary,’ you already know the importance of journaling in your personal life—recording moments in time you never want to forget (and perhaps a few you do). Keeping a collection of the positives and negatives can act as an irreplaceable personal guide, and the same can be said of business journaling. Corral the business chatter rattling around in your head and harness it into well-organized thoughts for increased self-awareness and to strengthen decision-making.

To get started, you can:

·        Log new ideas.

·        Sketch out short-term and long-term plans.

·        Record what works, what doesn’t and why.

·        Contemplate issue resolutions.

·        Track progress on specific projects.

·        Evaluate past efforts.

This process doesn’t need to eat up all of your time, just start jotting thoughts down on paper. Track learning curves, accomplishments, stumbles, all-out failures, and—most importantly—preserve those wild and precious ideas. Keeping a business journal encourages a more focused approach, and could become a go-to when evaluating where your business strategy has come from and where you want it to go.

Source: http://www.manta.com/resources/tip-of-the-day/journaling-for-success/?su=hq344mgu9vl41l&utm_medium=Email_Marketing&utm_source=Newsletter&utm_campaign=TOTD&utm_content=TOTD_ReDesign_LM_Test&utm_term=15755

Look to the IRS for Tax Help in the Event of a Disaster

June 1 marks the start of hurricane season. When a hurricane or other disaster strikes, the IRS wants you to know you can count on us for help. We can help you prepare for, and recover from, the destruction it causes. Here is some of the key disaster-related help and assistance you can get 24/7 on our IRS.gov website:

• Make a plan.  Check out our IRS.gov page Preparing for a Disaster. It’s dedicated to help you plan before a disaster hits.
• Federally declared disasters.  Special tax law provisions apply when the federal government declares a major disaster area. These rules can help victims recover financially after a disaster. For instance, the IRS may grant more time to file tax returns and pay tax.
• Faster refunds possible.  You may be able to get a faster refund from losses suffered in a federally declared disaster area. You can claim losses related to the disaster on the tax return for the previous year. You make the claim by filing an amended return in most cases.
• Disaster declarations.  Refer to Tax Relief in Disaster Situations. That page has a list of the latest disaster declarations and any related disaster tax relief.
• Around the Nation.  The Around the Nation section of IRS.gov provides local tax news. It primarily includes IRS tax relief that applies to major disasters.
• Disaster relief.  The IRS has many resources to help those who provide disaster relief. For more on that topic visit our page Disaster Relief Resources for Charities and Contributors.