by Staff Writer | Apr 18, 2018 | Small Business |
As a small business owner or manager, you know how important it is to the business for invoices to be paid on a timely basis.
Today, it’s rare for an accounting department to mail out physical invoices to business customers. Most invoices are emailed. While emailing means instant delivery, there are several potential pitfalls with emailed invoices that should be addressed.
Physical payments—i.e. checks—are still common, as there are no fees associated with checks. However, alternate ways of accepting customer payments can help with timeliness.
The more efficient you are with your internal processes and the better your business leverages today’s technology, the faster invoices will be paid.
Here are ten ideas for how to get paid faster. (more…)
by David Little | Apr 12, 2018 | Small Business |
Journalists and bloggers are in constant need of relevant, authoritative and timely information.
When a reporter decides to write about a topic, there’s no substitute for getting input from experts on whatever they’re writing about.
As a small business owner or manager, you are, by definition, an expert in your field.
You’re probably also an expert in some of things that are related to your business. For example, you might be highly knowledgable in a facet of business technology or business finance.
How can your expertise get matched up with the needs of a reporter in a way that will benefit both your business and the reporter’s career? (more…)
by Staff Writer | Apr 9, 2018 | Business Technology |
Do California small business owners need to concern themselves with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)?
After all, the European Union is a continent plus an ocean away.
At the very least, small business owners should be aware of what the GDPR is.
At most, California small businesses that process and hold certain types of personal data about European Union residents, a.k.a. data subjects, should consider taking action. (more…)
by Derek Calanchini | Mar 15, 2018 | IT Security |
In April of 2010, Steve Jobs wrote a detailed open letter called Thoughts on Flash. It was his rationale as to why iPhones and iPads would probably never support Adobe Flash. And they never have.
Adobe will end development and support for Flash in 2020, ten years after Steve Jobs’ letter.
In the meantime, Flash continues to pose a security risk to small businesses and to computer users everywhere. (more…)
by David Little | Feb 24, 2018 | IT Support |
The quality and value of outsourced IT support and managed services ranges widely across different provider organizations.
There are several factors that play into the level of quality that an IT support organization delivers. These include: (more…)
by David Little | Feb 14, 2018 | VoIP |
As with many industries, the business telephone sector has its share of low cost providers.
I recently got a call from a businessperson in the Sacramento area who went with a low cost VoIP provider to save some money.
The caller told me that he immediately found the provider’s customer service to be “non-existent”. The provider blamed the office’s internet connection for voice quality problems, even though the internet was working fine and had plenty of available bandwidth. (more…)
by Staff Writer | Feb 7, 2018 | Sacramento Area |
Sacramento region wineries are fewer and farther between compared to those of the Lodi area, which about 40 miles to the south. In fact, Sacramento’s Cabana Winery has announced that it is moving to Lodi.
In the Sacramento region, it’s about quality and not quantity. Here are nine Sacramento area wineries to check out. All nine are within easy driving distance of downtown Sacramento–just off of I-5, I-80 or Highway 50.
At the bottom of this post is a Google My Map in which all the listed wineries are pinned. (more…)
by Staff Writer | Jan 18, 2018 | Internet Service |
Before buying or renting a home, condo or apartment it’s a good idea first find out whether your personal communications lifeline—your mobile phone—has a decent signal at the location.
Similarly, before moving to new office space, it’s a good idea to find out if your business communications lifeline—the location’s business internet service options—are sufficient for your employee count and for how the internet will be used.
The way or ways in which internet service is physically delivered to a building correlates to potential speed. That’s why it’s good for a business owner or executive to be familiar at a high level with the information found below. (more…)
by Staff Writer | Jan 5, 2018 | VoIP |
VoIP hasn’t always been the easy-to-manage and reliable business service that it is today. At one point, business VoIP was plagued with problems that resulted from low bandwidth, inadequate routers and improper network configuration. These problems ranged from jitter to dropped calls.
Over the past four decades, VoIP has evolved from an experiment to the most common type of new business phone system implementation.
Just as Salesforce has brought enterprise-level CRM functionality to small and midsized business, VoIP has brought enterprise-level telephone system features to SMBs.
Before VoIP, small business phone systems had feature sets that were frozen in firmware. The systems were subject to hardware obsolescence. This has all changed with VoIP. (more…)
by Staff Writer | Jan 3, 2018 | VoIP |
Before covering the recent 916 area code split, we’ll start with a little area code history.
In 1947, area codes were introduced to the United States and Canada. The 916 area code was one of the original three area codes in California, along with 415 and 213.
US states and Canadian provinces that were only assigned one area code for the entire state or province had a “0” in the middle of the assigned area code. States and provinces that had more than one area code assigned to them had a “1” in the middle of each of the area codes. (more…)
