Happy Fourth of July!

Happy Fourth of July! Be safe out there...

Women-Owned Businesses

These statistics on women-owned businesses fascinated me. The information was reprinted from the January/February 2006 issue of Office Solutions magazine and was originally compiled by the Center for Women's Business Research.

• Rate at which employment at women-owned businesses is increasing: 24%
• Expansion rate of employment at all businesses: 12%
• Percentage faster revenues are growing in women-owned businesses than all businesses: 17%

With so many resume writing businesses being owned by women (the vast majority of them are sole proprietorships), resume writers should take heed of these figures!

QuickBooks Plug-in

Is your resume writing service one of 2.6 million small businesses using QuickBooks to maintain your financial records? I heard about a new product from my credit card merchant account provider that may interest you.

The SmartPayments™ products introduced by Hypercom intergrate electronic payments into QuickBooks Accounting software that may save you time and resources.

SmartPayments products are Microsoft Windows plug-in applications designed to capture transaction data from many popular Point-of-Sale (POS) applications. These products allow your business to process payment card transactions, automatically transmit the data to First National Merchant Solutions (my merchant account provider) and simultaneously update your QuickBooks Accounting software.

The integrated solutions support multiple users, include robust reporting features, and are set to auto-close your daily credit card transactions.

If you're interested in more information, call Hypercom at 888-679-0240. (It's possible the product works with your credit card merchant account provider too.)

I use Mac products exclusively, so I haven't tried this, but I thought it might be of interest to resume writers who process a large number of credit card transactions each day (for example, resume writers who subcontract their writing out to other resume writers.)

When Mother Nature Attacks...

Just yesterday, I talked with my insurance agent after receiving my business insurance renewal policy. I wanted to make sure that my coverage was still adequate, since it had been a couple of years since I'd looked at it.

Good thing. A huge, fast-moving storm moved through today, packing 80- to 100-mile-per hour winds. We lost two of our mature trees in our yard (see photos), although it could have been much worse. Neither tree hit the house -- although the way the wind was blowing in (straight from the west), the one in the back yard should have crashed into the house. Instead, it fell to the south, taking out the fence, but sparing the house.

Although we didn't have damage that would require filing an insurance claim, I'm glad that I have business insurance (in addition to our regular homeowner's insurance). If the tree had come into the house, we'd have business interruption coverage that would help replace the lost income from not being able to work while the home was being repaired.

As I told my husband MANY times today ... it could have been a lot worse.

Let our loss be your gain -- take the time to double-check your insurance coverage. Make sure your limits are adequate for your equipment, and consider business interruption coverage.