Impress your business contacts with customized stationery. In addition to branded letterhead, nothing reinforces quality and professionalism like custom address labels and creative business cards. For added impact, coordinate the designs and production of all your stationery elements. A common and consistent theme is not only powerfully effective, but can be cost effective as well. Best of all, repeated exposure of a consistent theme across multiple platforms increases the chances of remaining memorable.

Beginning with your address label designs, reproduce your logo, brand or message onto other elements of your business materials. Using the same color scheme, design and even the same print vendor can reduce costs and eliminate unforeseen problems and surprises. Price estimates will often reflect a discount for multiple production elements like envelopes, stationary, address label designs and creative business cards.

Quality assurance is another important factor when you decide to impress your business contacts with customized stationary. Some items such as corporate apparel or large signs often require the use of individual flat colors. Other print pieces will utilize a four color process or a digital print method. For consistency and a professional appearance, it’s wise to use simple, common, basic colors in your creative designs. Colors that reproduce in the same tint or shade across all print platforms are best. Colors such as orange and green are notorious for being impossible to match from one print piece to the next.

Consult your printing professional for direction on color options and technical advice. And consider designing and printing all of your collateral together in combination. Not only does it cut costs, it increases consistency and diminishes the chances of any unwanted surprises.

So, how do you protect your data?

Over the years I have tried many different methods for backing up my computer files. Back in the 90s, I would burn files to CDs whenever I got a “hunch” that something might be getting ready to fail me. Then in the early days of this site, I got a Firelite external hard drive and while I could schedule how often I wanted to run backups, more often than not, the program just didn’t work as advertised.

Then last year, after one too many close calls with data loss, I decided there had to be an easier way!  After researching a variety of online backup options, I decided to sign up for the free Carbonite trial (which did not even require a credit card – another plus). Within days  it was apparent that I had found the solution that worked for me – I didn’t even wait for the 15 day free trial to end – I gladly paid $54.95 for the year.

Why Carbonite works for me.

• First, and foremost, they give you a free 15-day trial to let you really make sure their product is a good fit for your needs.
• It is real time -  within minutes of downloading a file or modifying a file Carbonite has identified the new file, put it in the queue, and has sent it up to to the backup server. Note – the very first time you set up your files for back up it is going to take hours, but once you get going, it is pretty close to immediate!
• It is automatic. I am juggling waaay too many things to remember to schedule a back up for my files. Carbonite takes the stress off me, because it backs up my files automatically.
• Carbonite is secure. They use the same encryption technology used by the online banking industry.
• I can access my files from anywhere. If I am working on my laptop in my favorite Starbucks and need a file from my desktop computer I can get it. Simply login to Carbonite, go to Remote Access and get whatever file you need for the day. No remembering to put something on a flashdrive, it’s there.
• The file recovery process is one-click easy. Nothing complicated here – a simple click of the restore button and you are back in business. With some plans you even have the power to decide which files are restored first, saving you even more time.

Put to the test, Carbonite came through.

Actually, Carbonite passed the test with FLYING colors. About a month ago a nasty computer virus managed to get past my virus protection and did some pretty crazy stuff to my system files. The only solution was to reformat my entire computer. I was a little stressed about possibly losing data, but since I could see every one of my files from my laptop through the Carbonite interface, I was confident all would be fine.

Once my hard drive had been reformatted I simply logged into my Carbonite account, installed the Carbonite software and ran the recovery program. Granted, it took about 12 hours to restore all my data, but EVERY last file made it! Talk about relief. That was 15 years of business and personal files that I could have potentially lost.

Carbonite is one of my essential tools for business – and at $54.95 a year, that is a small price to pay for the peace of mind that comes with knowing my files are there – where ever and whenever I need them.

End of Year Bookkeeping Checklist:

1.Record Transactions: Make sure you’ve recorded all the transactions from your credit cards, bank accounts and receipts. And don’t forget to check your online accounts, like PayPal, eBay and Freshbooks. Record every expense and dollar received for your business, no matter how insignificant or questionable.  It’s better to have everything written down and recorded so you’ll be able to make the most from deductions—because if you don’t record it, it doesn’t exist.

2.Double Check: Make sure you aren’t missing any income or expense transactions—it’s worth it to take the time to double check. Make sure you have a digital copy of receipts from any online transactions, whether they’re sales or outsourcing work to contractors or websites, so you have a record of all your transactions.

3.Proper Categorization: Here’s where it gets a bit tricky, but well worth the time in the end. Make sure all of your income and expenses have been properly categorized. Categorizing your income (for the most part all “Sales”) is not nearly as critical as those deductible expenses.  The Schedule C categories can be confusing but they make the difference; mileage under “Car and Truck Expenses” is deductible while “Other Expenses” are not.  Web services such as Outright.com can do most of the categorization for you; but when in doubt, ask a professional or hire a bookkeeper.

4.Don’t Forget Mileage: Any work-related travel can count towards deductions. Make sure you’ve recorded all the time you’ve spent in the car going to and from work-related sites—you can deduct $0.55 per mile for these trips! Your daily commute doesn’t qualify but regardless, for many, the deduction adds up to thousands.

5.Complete Your W-9’s: To properly file a 1099 for any contract or freelance work you hired, you must have accurate taxpayer identification, in the form of an IRS form W-9. Now is the time to request the W-9 form from your contractors as 1099’s are due January 31.

6. Pay Your Estimated Taxes: To avoid penalties when taxes are due on April 15^th, be sure you’ve paid enough in estimated taxes for the year. Final federal tax payments are due by January 15^th. The fourth installment of your 2009 estimated taxes should bring you up to at least 90% of what your final total taxes are for the year. If that’s still too confusing, pay the same amount as you actually owed from last year. Here’s how: Work with the IRS.

7. Triple Check Profit and Loss: Finally you should look at your profit and loss statement for the entire year.  If you can’t easily get one from your bookkeeping software, find another.  Do the numbers seem reasonable compared to how your income and expense totaled in prior years?   Yes, we’re effectively triple checking your income and those expenses.  Search your pockets for receipts, don’t neglect that credit card that was canceled because creditors are so stingy, and keep in mind that payment from your brother for some consulting.

Outright.com is the free online platform that manages all business finances, tracks income and expenses, and automates tax preparation. The company tracks over $1B in income from self-employed and micro-business transactions. They’re kicking off tax-time with their new W-9 automation to help get businesses organized for the months ahead. Visit them at www.outright.com to make sure you’re ahead of the game and not scrambling with important deadlines, looming as soon as January 31!

So, give your current cards a check-up!! Do they represent your current business offerings? What about the contact information? Name, email, phone, web address? What about social media profile? Whether you need to start from scratch or just update a current design, now is your chance to do it for free!

What Will Two Lucky Readers Win?

• 500 Business Cards
• Choose size: 2×3.5”, 2×3”, 2×2″;
• Choose paper: 14pt cardstock (matte or gloss coating) & 13 pt cardstock uncoated
• Choose Color: (4/4) Color both sides; (4/1) Color 1 side , B/W backside; (4/0) Color 1 side, black backside
• Shipping must be paid by Winner. Offer Valid for UNITED STATES SHIPPING ONLY.

How Do You Enter?

• Leave a comment on this post telling us how some shiny, new business cards will help you grow your business this fall or how you might use them. For example, I will be launching a new off-shoot of my Keystrokes Design & Marketing business this fall and need a separate set of business cards just for that purpose. I am thinking of going with one of UPrinting’s unique die cut business cards (however, this giveaway is just for their standard business cards).
• Get a second entry for being social – use any of the buttons at the bottom of this post to spread the word about the giveaway. Leave a separate comment telling me whether you tweeted, stumbled, or otherwise shared this post using one of the social buttons. Or you can post about the giveaway on your own blog.

Contest Rules

• You may enter by leaving your comment(s) below until midnight on Friday, September 11, 2009.
• You must use your real name and email address in the comment form below. If you don’t we can’t contact in the event that you win.
• We will be using Random.org to select two (2) winners.
• Remember, the cards and printing are free if you win, but you will have to pay for shipping only.

Need some inspiration? Take a look at some of these very slick business card design round ups:

• 36 Cool Business Card Designs
• 45 More Creative Business Card Designs
• 18 Smokin’ Hot Business Card Designs
• Business Card Design: Better than a Plain Ol’ Business Card

No time to waste! Get your business on the fast track this fall and start by entering to win some slick new business cards.

UPDATED: The giveaway is now closed. The winners are Heather and Jane.

I was amazed. I was paying someone a lot of money to do exactly what I had done myself the previous years. He asked all the same questions the tax software did and I gave him all the same answers. He even complimented me on how organized I was! Right there is the secret! Get organized, know what you can deduct, and you may not really need that accountant.

The next tax season I fired him and went back to doing things my way. After almost 13 years of working for myself, from home as a freelancer, I have learned a few things.

1. GET ORGANIZED!

It doesn’t matter what system you use – find what works for you and stick with it! I am a big believer in the one basket method of filing. I store all my receipts and statements for the year in one big basket and then I designate a weekend in February and go through the entire thing – tossing what I don’t need, filing what I do need and entering tax related info into my almighty spreadsheet.

I now do all my invoicing to clients through FreshBooks. I can print out all the reports I need for the year very quickly and I know I am not missing anything. Additionally, FreshBooks now lets you track your time and expenses, making it even easier to grab the numbers you need at the end of the year.

I pay as many expenses as I can for my business using PayPal or one single business credit card for easy reference and documentation.

Once I have gathered all my numbers, I drop them into a spreadsheet with income, deductions by category and save it for easy reference as I go through the data entry process in the tax software. It was a pain to set up the first year, but easy after that.

2. KNOW WHAT YOU CAN DEDUCT

When you first start doing freelance, blogging or web work in general, it can be tricky to decide what you can deduct and what you can’t. The best rule of thumb to follow is this – if you bought in order to help you do your job, then you should be able to deduct it.

Some things you may have overlooked include:

• Internet access fees (ISP, cable, etc)
• Web hosting fees (if you have a web site you can deduct the cost of your domain name, hosting and any related fees)
• Fees for productivity tools such as FreshBooks, BaseCamp or HighRise, premium services you use (such as pMetrics for your web statistics)
• Software costs – any software you purchase for your business, including your tax preparation software, can be deducted
• Subscriptions to professional journals, premium user/niche forums, or similar services
• Books or e-books you purchased to help you learn new skills or gain new insight on your niche
• Fees for art (from iStockPhoto or similar) you may need for your website
• Fees for premium WordPress themes, templates or custom design work
• Advertising – purchase of business cards, banner ads, PPC, Facebook ads, etc
• Any business related bank or PayPal fees
• Credit card interest on business purchases
• You CAN NOT deduct the cost of your primary phone line to your home, however you may deduct the cost of your cell phone and its monthly fees and any VOIP or Skype fees you may have
• Office supplies – from pens, notebooks, paper and everything in between – if you use it in your office for your business, you can deduct the cost of it
• Repair fees – if your business laptop, computer, printer etc need to be repaired or replaced, you can deduct it
• Legal and professional fees – if you pay a bookkeeper, accountant, seek legal counsel for your business or anything along those lines, you should be able to deduct it
• Childcare – if you have kids and pay for childcare, private preschool, or similar while you are working, it is a deductible expense.
• If you have a dedicated space that you call your office (i.e. it has doors and no Legos or crayons in it), you can do the home office deduction. Be careful with this one – especially if you can not prove that it is used ONLY for your office.
• Meals & travel – again, use common sense. If you meet a friend for coffee or dinner and discuss business, document and deduct. Same goes for travel to work related conferences, meetings, and such.

3. DON’T PROCRASTINATE

Don’t wait for the last minute to get your taxes done! Get them started in plenty of time so that if you need additional guidance you can get it. If you do wait until the last minute (or even if you don’t), you might want to know that Amazon sells Turbo Tax as a software download which will save time and money.

Additionally, Intuit, the makers of TurboTax are giving away $300K in small business grants and some more cool stuff. You can get all the details at Sparkplugging.com.

Remember, I am not an accountant or tax professional, so be sure to do your research and use common sense when filing your taxes, but hopefully this article has helped you identify ways to make tax time less stressful and deductions you may have overlooked.

Photos: StockXchng

Today, January 20th, 2009, TotallyHer is teaming up with some of the smartest business women on the internet to bring you a community service project in honor of President-Elect Obama’s Inauguration Day.

B.A.D. :: Business Advice Day

Join the following business pros and get your questions answered for free:

Liz Strauss, Anita Campbell, Kelly Phillips Erb, Jessica Smith, Kelby Carr, Susan Payton, Miranda Marquit, Elizabeth Potts Weinstein, Kelly McCausey, Lucretia Pruitt, Char Polanosky, Barbara Jones & Wendy Piersall.

For example, some of the questions you can ask me at 2:00 p.m. (EST) include:

• What do I need to do to get a website up and running?
• What is the best way to customize a WordPress template?
• How can I get web design or development clients?
• How much should I charge or how should I quote web design projects?

For complete details on how to participate (free), more information on each of these ladies, and the day’s complete schedule go to TotallyHer.com and visit the B.A.D. feature.

If you can’t afford to hire someone to look after your marketing and PR, you’ll have to promote your venture yourself. A great way to get the word out about your new business and add value to your well-crafted brand is to start a blog. Here are 11 reasons why you might like to try it.

1. Blogs are unofficial – A blog is basically an online journal, where you can write about whatever you like and other people who read it can leave comments. The beauty of blogging is that it’s really informal. There are very few rules (beyond basic etiquette and being polite). You don’t have to stick to your official brand line if you don’t want. By writing about your business in a laid back and off-the-record style, you’ll be able to create a friendly and approachable feel for your online venture. Writing in the first person also helps to create an atmosphere of openness and honesty, both great values for a business brand.

2. A blog gives you freedom of expression – You don’t have to toe the company line on a blog if you don’t want. Of course you’ll be blogging about your business, so you’ll always be ‘on brand’ but if you want to create a more relaxed tone and to present your business to some of your customers in a new light, then a blog could really help you. For example, you should use a different writing style to describe what your business does on a blog than in, say, a funding proposal to your bank.

3. Let the business come to you – One of the great benefits of creating online content is that it’s searchable by the many search engines out there. It’s amazing to think that people all over the globe sitting at their computers can simply tap a few words into a search engine and find you instantly. By blogging regularly you’ll be creating loads of lovely content for search engines to pick up and to let potential customers have access to your information.

4. Blogging can be done for free – If you want, you can create an entire blog free of charge (apart from your time) using online software from some of the major providers. WordPress and Blogspot are two you might want to investigate, and you can keep your business card in your wallet. They have loads of different styles to choose from, allowing you to create individual and personalized pages relevant to your business and your customers.

If you want to take your blog in-house and have it designed there will be costs in terms of design and hosting. These vary hugely, but need not be expensive. You might also want to buy your own URL, but the costs associated with that need not be high.

5. Blogging is fast – If you can write an email, you can write a blog. If you want to get a message out there to your customers quickly, a blog post can be written up and issued to the world in a matter of minutes. Want to tell your customers about a new product, service or development in your business today? Blog about it.

It’s also important to note that a blog needs new content if it’s going to succeed. If you don’t keep adding fresh material to your blog on a regular basis search engines will not rate it as highly as other, more regularly updated blogs.

6. Plugins can do a lot of the work for you – Once you’ve set up your blog (and as long as you keep on adding fresh content) there’s a lot of technology which will work behind-the-scenes to keep your material organised and to keep people coming to read your content and learn about your business. Spam-blockers like can help reduce the number of bogus comments you might receive. And if regular visitors want to subscribe to your blog, they can have your fresh content delivered automatically to their inbox for free via an RSS feed or a regular email.

7. A blog post is more than one hit – If you pay for an advert in a magazine or on television, you’re relying on people to read that particular issue or watch that specific program. If your target audience misses that one chance to learn about you, you’ve lost them. But because most blogs archive all their content, everything you write remains online for as long as you want it to be available. That means it’s available for search engines to find and provides more opportunities for new customers to find you online.

8. Connect with the rest of the world – The worldwide web isn’t simply a place where people stick information for other people. It’s an incredibly complex, well, web really. It’s a whole series of computers connecting to each other, communicating with each other in new and exciting ways. A great way to tap into this mass communication tool is to create links to other places in that web. Search engines and the public love blogs which relate to other conversations and websites in other places. Again, showing that you are part of networks and relationships makes you look popular and well-connected and that’s a good thing for a business brand.

9. Blogging is interactive – A blog is more than a stream of your thoughts posted online. Blogging is often a two-way process. If you want to know more about what your customers think of your product or service, you can offer them the opportunity to provide feedback to you via your blog. That’s a huge advantage in terms of business development – customers discussion what’s so great about your business in the public domain. And if you are seen to enter into dialogue with your customers, your business image grows to become even more open and approachable.

10. Bad news can be good news – But what if a customer posts something negative about your business? Blocking comments or refusing to post feedback is generally frowned upon amongst the online community. It instantly sends out a message that you are controlling and not open to criticism. Just as good news spreads fast on the Internet, so can bad news. Much better is to allow people to provide constructive criticism. Your blog gives you the opportunity to put your side forward, plus it also allows other customers to leave comments too. Sure enough, if someone posts something negative about you on your blog, someone else will come to your rescue.

And in most cases, if someone has a real gripe with you, they’ll contact you directly to bring it up, rather than posting something negative about you on your own blog.

11. Complete creativity – The world of blogging is a vibrant and creative one. You don’t just need to write text on your blog. Take photos of your products and post them on your blog. Get people to review your service. Ask your staff to write about what it’s like working for your company. Post short films or slideshows of your latest promotional event or new services. Link to reviews in the press. And with each new technological advancement come new opportunities. There are almost no limits to what you can do online.

Guest post by Mark Brown, a writer for The Credit Letter where he discusses making money last longer and managing personal finances.

What monetization methods do you use? Take this quick poll and let me know.

[polldaddy poll="1138037"]

Now for the fun part. What monetization methods are working BEST for you? Leave a comment letting us know what type of site you have and what monetization methods are making the most for you. I will be including some of the reponses and the results of the poll in an upcoming post.

I immediately freaked out because it wasn’t exactly a high traffic day and I hadn’t made any significant changes to my plugin line up in quite some time. I went back and forth with tech support at Host Gator (who were very prompt) to troubleshoot the issue. What had happened was that my site was under attack. Their system knew something was wrong and shut down access to my site before any damage could be done (so far as I can tell).

They granted access to my IP only so I could go in and change up passwords, update the database and ban the IP address of the “intruder”. Once I gave them the indication that I had done everything, they turned the site right back on.

So instead of cursing my hosting company for shutting down my site last night, I am THANKING them! Thank you Host Gator for protecting my site!

For Christmas I got that Wacom Bamboo Fun that I was hoping for and let me tell you, I LOVE IT! The installation was ridiculously easy and getting started only took a matter of minutes. I’ll do a longer review of it soon, but I need to play with it a bit more before I can do a good one. I also got a new wireless keyboard which is a big change. It is the Logitech Cordless Desktop Wave Set and although it has a great feel to it, I am still getting used to the curvature.

While I haven’t finished my “formal” plan for 2008, I have started jotting down a few business related goals for 2008 like:

• Grow this site to more than 1000 RSS subscribers
• Create and release my first custom theme
• Grow my own sites to the point where they are my primary source of income and client work is just a bonus
• Add a premium content/subscription option to my Printables4Kids site

Administratively I need to continue working on time management and organization – I haven’t really found a system that truly works for me yet, but I’m am working on it. I know I need to outsource a bit more, but I have such difficulty relinquishing control of things.

Overall, I am really excited about 2008 – it’s going to be a great year – I just know it!