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October 30, 2020

Gusto VS Zenefits Comparison: Which Is Better?

	Gusto	Zenefits
Features	Excellent	Good
Pricing	Starts at $19/month + $6/month per person	Starts at $8/per employee per month
Ease of Use	Excellent	Excellent
Customer Support	Excellent	Fair
Reviews & Complaints	Excellent	Good
Integrations	Good	Poor
Best For	Small businesses looking for easy-to-use benefits administration and payroll processing	Small- to medium-sized businesses that need to scale their HRMS, BA, and payroll solutions with company growth
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Gusto and Zenefits stand out among other payroll and HR processing software apps as two of the most popular solutions. High-quality software solutions that streamline your businessâs processes usually include helpful features and competitive pricing, which both Gusto and Zenefits have in spades. But, which one of these products suits you and your business needs the best? This article provides you with definitive conclusions on the showdown between Gusto VS Zenefits.

Gusto VS Zenefits

Gusto focuses on payroll processing and benefits administration (BA), while Zenefits boasts a strong HR management system that bundles together companiesâ HR and employee data. Smaller businesses will enjoy Gusto’s simple interface that can handle 1099 contractor payroll as well as payroll for W2 employees. However, these companies can consider Zenefits as they grow and need to refine their HR management processes. Use Gusto for simple payroll and BA processing, but consider Zenefits for better business scaling and HR features.

Itâs clear that each of these software solutions has clear strengths that shine in different business niches. But how can you determine what your company needs the most from a payroll app? Before you choose between Gusto and Zenefits, it’s helpful to learn more about their best and most prominent features — and the companies theyâre most targeted towards.

Letâs compare each product in detail to see which one makes the most sense for your business.

Gusto Overview

Gusto combines processes to manage payroll, new employee onboarding, and benefits administration into one sleek package. Businesses that are especially new or staff fewer than one-hundred employees are best off with Gustoâs âCoreâ — or lowest-priced — tier package. This is because Gusto was initially created to simplify HR and payroll processes for startup and small businesses.

Gusto’s 401(k), HR, benefits administration, and new hire onboarding services all use a platform that exists on the cloud. This cloud platform automates services like Gusto’s AutoPilot payroll process. This process saves literally countless hours on payroll calculations, deductions, and withholdings. Other services that Gusto offers to streamline your business’s processes include options to file taxes and communicative, highly rated customer support.

Gusto makes itself available to business owners nationwide in every state. If your business happens to staff employees across various states in the U.S., Gusto can also support them as a platform. Gusto does limit its health benefits capabilities to certain states, as well as its reporting and time-tracking capabilities.

Pros

Highly rated customer support
Excellent integration with business platforms
âOne-stop shopâ employee dashboard
Cloud-native automated payroll processes
Transparent pricing with zero hidden fees

Cons

Health plans limited to certain U.S. states
Limited reporting and time-keeping capabilities
Poor scalability with company growth

Zenefits Overview

Zenefits, like Gusto, uses a cloud-based platform to offer its services to business owners. But Zenefits targets more medium-sized businesses that are looking to grow even larger.Â Zenefitsâ bread and butter is its HR and benefits administration service, which it wraps up nicely in an easy-to-use, intuitive interface.

Launched in 2013 as a San Francisco startup, Zenefits has used a software-as-a-service business model to centralize its services for businesses’ off-the-shelf use. A SaaS model works best for growing businesses that need a smarter method of streamlining the way they process HR and benefits administration. This still holds true for smaller businesses, although Zenefits isn’t valid for use if you staff fewer than five employees.

Pros

Completely cloud-based platform
Excellent HR and BA capabilities
Easy-to-use mobile app version
Package tiers scale well with company growth
No base rate for any pricing tiers

Cons

Invalid for extremely small (<5 employees) businesses
Requires purchase of payroll processing add-on
Benefits features limited to 26 states

Features

The main, eye-catching features of Gusto and Zenefits are similar, but there are several key differences. Both platforms have easy-to-use interfaces that allow for customizable features and a range of services. Gusto tends to dominate the payroll processing side of the feature battle, whereas Zenefits is in its greatest element with HRMS and HR data connectivity capabilities.

Payroll

Gusto’s payroll processing solution comes built-in, whereas Zenefits requires its users to pay an additional amount for a new module. Zenefitsâ payroll services are also a relatively new addition to its suite of tools, whereas Gustoâs payroll solution is much more mature and arguably more robust.

Time-Tracking

Zenefits slightly edges out Gusto when it comes out to tracking employees’ time worked. Gusto’s two, higher-tier ‘Complete’ and ‘Concierge’ plans do offer basic time-tracking capabilities. But Zenefits links time-tracking capabilities directly to its payroll systems, which allows for a more seamless way to pull information for the end-user.

Reporting

Zenefits is the clear winner when it comes to reporting capabilities. Its “Business Intelligence” reporting system allows access to about 50 premade reports based on categories like HR, attendance, and benefits, which are simple to access and use. Gusto, on the other hand, offers relatively barebones reporting services with just 11 premade reports. Gusto does offer basic reporting tools for payroll journals and summaries but lacks the advanced and customized reporting system that Zenefits boasts.

Paid Time Off (PTO)

Both Gusto and Zenefits allow for paid time off policies on any plan, although some options are only available under certain plans. Gusto only allows you to add in holidays if you’ve purchased their ‘Complete’ or ‘Concierge’ plans, which are also necessary for employees to request paid time off directly from their program portal.

With Zenefits, vacation and sick days are available under all plans, but you need to be using Zenefitsâ payroll add-on to set your sick and vacation days as well as accrued sick and vacation days.

Benefits Administration

Benefits administration is typically simpler and more straightforward with Gusto, which lets you view the benefits you already offer employees, the ones you don’t, and the ones you’re enrolled in. Gusto manages all BA tasks in one location to make it easy to manage your benefits. Zenefits, however, will charge additional fees to merge your BA with its program if you already use a broker. If you don’t already use a broker to administrate your benefits, Zenefits does let you connect with a broker to compare plans and choose your coverage.

Employee Portal

Zenefits’ employee portal stands out by offering a desktop as well as a mobile app version for employees. Zenefits’ portal merges company HR features with its HRMS for ease of access to all HR data. Gusto does not offer a mobile-based employee portal, but still provides an easy-to-use dashboard for employees, complete with a sidebar navigation pane.

Pricing

Both Gusto and Zenefits do a great job of being transparent and up-front about their pricing options. With Gusto, business owners can choose between three tiers of plans that steadily increase the per-month/per-person rates. Zenefits’ per-employee rates are higher, but are incredibly easy to understand and offer a free 14-day trial version in lieu of a guided demo.

A key difference between the pricing options these products present is the base rate and per-person/per-month structure. When it comes to a direct comparison, Zenefits offers business owners a cheaper pricing model that doesnât include a base rate. Gusto pricing tiers are marginally more expensive since they include a starting base rate of $19/mo on the âBase package in addition to their per-person/per-month rates.

Gusto Product Pricing

Basic:Â

$19/month base price + $6/month/person
Basic payroll features
Best for teams of 1 or 2

Core:Â

$39/month base price + $6/month/person
Payroll and benefits administration
Employee onboarding
Best for small teams

Complete:Â

$39/month base price + $12/month/person
All the features of the lower plans
Permissions
Time management tools

Concierge:Â

$149/month base price + $12/month/person
All the features of the lower plans
Access to certified HR pros and resources

Screenshot of Gusto’s pricing page, captured 10/29/2020

Zenefits Product Pricing

Essentials:

$8/month/employee
Core HR functions
Time tracking and scheduling
Mobile app

Growth

$14/month/employee
All the features of the lower plan
Compensation management
Performance management

Zen:

$21/month/employee
All the features of the lower plans
Well-being
Employee surveys
People hub

Screenshot of the three Zenefits pricing plans

Screenshot of the Zenefit’s pricing page, captured 10/29/2020

Ease of Use

Gusto and Zenefits both consider business ownersâ need for simple-to-use user interfaces. Zenefits gets bonus points for its social-media savvy that is apparent from its mobile app. Zenefits offers a robust suite of HR programs that run more smoothly than those of its industry counterparts and provides a great mobile application to boot. However, HR enthusiasts and experts will note that Zenefits can limit their customization options for their user interface.

Gusto, on the other hand, sports a host of major features easily accessible from its main dashboard. Business owners and employees can both enjoy a modern user interface complete with a dashboard and sidebar navigation tool. Unfortunately, Gusto requires users to manage the software implementation process themselves, which can be troublesome for the non-tech-savvy.

Customer Service & Support

Gusto’s customer service and support is one of the product’s most highly touted features. Gusto offers clients different ways to get in touch with customer service reps, including phone calls, emails, in-software support, and help and resource centers. The company also offers a dedicated team of HR and compliance experts for businesses that have upgraded to its ‘Concierge’ plan, but even with the basic ‘Core’ plan, Gusto’s communicative representatives are always quick to respond between 6 AM – 5 PM (PT), Monday through Friday.

Zenefits’s customer service is a mixed bag. Although it maintains a B+ rating from the Better Business Bureau, the bulk of customer complaints on the site have to do directly with customer service. This is likely due to the software-as-a-service business model that Zenefits relies on, which typically sacrifices industry and niche expertise for quicker, more responsive service representatives. Unfortunately, this means it’s not always easy to get an answer to your specific payroll, HR, or tax question if you contact Zenefitsâ customer service.

Reviews & Complaints

Gusto and Zenefits both enjoy generally positive reviews from their end-users across the board. Gusto maintains an average rating of 4.7 stars out of 5 on Capterra based on more than 2,000 ratings, with Zenefits close behind with an average 4.1 out of 5 rating based on more than 670 reviews.

Negative user reviews for these two programs are few, but there are several complaints levied against both that you should be aware of. As far as complaints toward Gusto go, by and large, the biggest issue for users is the limited reporting capabilities, followed by a lack of private payroll processing options and an inability to scale well for growing businesses.

When it comes to Zenefits, there are multiple complaints regarding its poor integration with certain platforms such as QuickBooks. Zenefits also has a track record of withdrawing its fees and funds from client payrolls even after businesses stop using the service.

Integrations

Both Gusto and Zenefits have good track records for integrations and partnering with recognized applications. Each platform also has an application programming interface — or API — that is ready for use by tinkering software developers. Notable, though, is Zenefits’ history of not playing nicely with other platforms (in particular, popular ones such as QuickBooks for accounting purposes).

Gusto has a conversely stellar record of integrating with notable platforms such as Xero, QuickBooks, and TSheets (time-tracking program).

The Key Differences Between Gusto & Zenefits

Gusto and Zenefits both do a great job of simplifying your businessâs internal processes and helping you stay organized. Of course, we wouldnât be comparing these two solutions if they didnât have at least a few differences. Here are the biggest differences between Gusto and Zenefits that will help you decide which solution is best for your business:

Payroll Capabilities: There are no two ways around the fact that Zenefitsâ payroll act isnât quite as together as Gustoâs. Payroll is, after all, a relatively recent addition to Zenefitsâ suite of tools. Zenefits started as an HR management system and is still catching up to Gusto in terms of robust and operational payroll solutions.
Customization: Zenefits again pales in comparison to Gustoâs extensible, customizable user dashboard. One of the areas this issue arises most prominently is in Zenefitsâ HR processing solutions, which are restrictive to HR managers who are used to adding features of their own and fine-tuning their options. Gusto has a history for robust simplicity and takes the win when it comes to overall customization.
Benefits Administration: Gusto’s benefits administration is decidedly more straightforward than Zenefits’. This is due in large part to Zenefits charging an extra fee for companies who already use brokers to administer benefits. Gusto charges no extra fees for benefits administration and will make it easy to manage all your benefits from one localized dashboard.
Security: The big difference between Gusto and Zenefits’ security measures is encryption standards. Gusto relies on the highest-level encryption technology to transmit data: 256-bit Secure Sockets Layer transmission. The company uses SSL to protect sensitive employee data and makes constant backups in multiple locations of its critical data. Zenefits encrypts data using Transport Layer Security and layers its resting data with AES-128 technology. Zenefits uses two-factor authentication to grant access to data, whereas Gusto makes implementation of this added security layer optional.
Pricing: The pricing models between Gusto and Zenefits are quite similar. Both offer tiered levels of service packages that offer exponentially greater features. However, Zenefits does edge Gusto out when it comes to overall affordability. Gusto slips in a base rate for each of its three packages in addition to its per-person and per-month fees, whereas Zenefits does not include any base rates with any of its packages.
Employee Portal: Zenefits’ employee portal stands out by offering a desktop as well as mobile app version for employees. Zenefits’ portal merges company HR features with its HRMS for ease of access to all HR data. Gusto does not offer a mobile-based employee portal, but still provides an easy-to-use dashboard for employees, complete with a sidebar navigation pane.

Which Is Best For My Business Needs: Zenefits Or Gusto?

Zenefits and Gusto overlap in many ways, but each fills a niche that caters to a different kind of business. The best product for you will depend on what your businessâs immediate and long-term focuses are, and what youâll be using the product for most often.

Gusto is best for…

Companies that need to streamline payroll for fewer than 100 employees
Business owners who need easy-to-reach customer service reps
Companies handling 1099 contractors as well as W2 employees

Zenefits is best for…

Companies that need to scale their HRMS processes
Business owners who want an emphasis on mobile app usability
Companies that donât need to integrate with many platforms

Gusto VS Zenefits Comparison: The Final Verdict

Gusto is renowned for its seamless combination of payroll processing, new hire onboarding, and HR and benefits management services. Gusto medical, vision, 401(k), dental, and savings plans are all easily accessible through the companyâs benefits options. And the best part is the transparent pricing model and structure that Gusto provides its clients.

Zenefits shines brightest with its HRMS and HR data aggregation, benefits management options, and robust add-ons for payroll to boot. For business owners who are just starting to build out their HR infrastructure but are also focused on growth, Zenefits may be the perfect choice. Zenefitsâ HR management is structured for novices and is easy to hit the ground running with. Their all-in-one system for managing employees offers the benefits of a professional employer organization, and its pricing structure includes no base rates for any tier packages.

When ultimately stacked up against each other, though, Gusto comes out as the winner with more consistent quality, reliable features, and well-rated customer service. Unfortunately, Zenefits’ overall quality is weighed down by serious integration issues, a constant stream of complaints regarding customer support service, and relatively barebones payroll processing options. Gusto, while limited in certain areas such as reporting and health care coverage, has an all-around more customizable and complete package to offer small-sized, up-and-coming businesses.

The post Gusto VS Zenefits Comparison: Which Is Better? appeared first on Merchant Maverick.

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October 29, 2020

Flex Your Franchise Muscles: The 8 Best Gym Franchises To Open Right Now

If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur with a passion for fitness and healthy living, you may have thought about getting into the fitness industry. While owning your own gym or fitness studio can certainly be rewarding, an easier way to enter the industry is to buy into a gym franchise. Whether you’re looking at buying an existing franchise or opening a new franchise location, it’s important to know the lay of the land â which franchises are out there, how much investment is required to buy into the top-performing franchises, and so forth.

With this article, we fill you in on the best gym franchises around â the parts of the world they serve, the amount of initial investment required to buy into them, and any unique benefits they may provide to franchisees and/or customers.

Anytime Fitness

Initial Investment: $98,430 to $523,824
Number Of Franchises: 4,729 worldwide (2,405 in the US)
Regions Served: US (all 50 states), Canada, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, UK, Ireland, Spain, Grand Cayman, Poland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Qatar, Chile, India, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, China, the Philippines, Taiwan, Japan, Sweden, Italy
Unique Benefits: Club members can access the gym during unstaffed hours, thus saving you money on staff costs

Ranked #10 in Entrepreneur magazine’s Top Global Franchises Ranking for 2020 (after having topped the list in 2015 and 2016), Anytime Fitness is one of the world’s fastest-growing fitness franchises, with over 3 million members worldwide.

Founded in 2002, Anytime Fitness lives up to its name by staying open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The company’s security system allows club members to access the facilities even when staff is not present, thus letting you save money on staff costs.

Anytime Fitness franchise locations come in two forms: standard locations and Anytime Fitness Express locations. If you apply to open a franchise and are accepted, the company will decide which one your location will be based on your area’s population.

Planet Fitness

Initial Investment: $969,600 to $4,242,500
Number Of Franchises: 2,039 (1,900+ in the US)
Regions Served: US (all 50 states and Puerto Rico), Canada, Australia, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Panama
Unique Benefits: Special rules apply at Planet Fitness locations to make “regular” people feel welcome

Planet Fitness has trademarked its “Judgment Free Zone” mission statement as part of its drive to establish its welcoming brand identity. To that end, the company’s locations feature something called a “Lunk Alarm” to discourage things such as grunting, dropping weights, and passing judgment on others. It’s in keeping with CEO Chris Rondeau’s statement that “We’re going after the 80% of the population that doesn’t have a gym membership.” Just be aware that this will require you to take an interventionist approach with suspected grunters!

As of October 2020, according to Planet Fitness’s website, the company states: “We are not currently accepting new franchisee applications for US expansion.” Currently, for US entrepreneurs, the only way to get a piece of the Planet Fitness action is to buy an existing franchise location.

Orangetheory Fitness

Initial Investment: $608,172 to $1,800,322
Number Of Franchises: 1,369 (1,178 in the US)
Regions Served: US (all 50 states and Puerto Rico), Australia, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Germany, Guatemala, Hong Kong, India, Israel, Japan, Kuwait, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Spain, United Arab Emirates, UK
Unique Benefits: Orangetheory’s setup can make use of smaller studios

Founded in 2010, Orangetheory Fitness offers members structured workout sessions at fixed times led by trainers. Members wear heart rate monitors during workouts so that they can keep an eye on the effects of the training in real-time. Orangetheory’s heart-rate training is designed to produce an “afterburn” effect in which your metabolic rate stays elevated for up to 36 hours after your session.

With 1,369 locations across 22 countries, Orangetheory’s unique fitness philosophy has spread quite a bit in just one decade.

Jazzercise

Initial Investment: $2,415 to $21,750
Number Of Franchises: 8,456 (6,443 in the US)
Regions Served: US (all 50 states), 32 countries worldwide
Unique Benefits: Opening a Jazzercise franchise costs a fraction of what it costs to open a full gym franchise

Jazzercise is more than just a relic of ’80s culture (though you’ll come across some real retro gems if you search for Jazzercise on YouTube). This venerable fitness franchise â created by Judi Sheppard Missett back in 1969 â maintains nearly 8,500 locations worldwide. Because the main requirements are an instructor and space to conduct dance workouts, you’ll need far less initial capital to start a Jazzercise franchise than you would if you were opening a traditional gym franchise.

According to Jazzercise, those who sign up for classes stay with the program for an average of seven years. Accessible for both customers and franchisees, Jazzercise is a tempting franchise to buy into if you want to make a smaller initial investment.

Crunch

Initial Investment: $255,500 to $2,320,500
Number Of Franchises: 274 (229 in the US)
Regions Served: US (30 states in all regions of the country), Canada, Australia
Unique Benefits: Crunch tries to make workouts entertaining

Crunch (also known as Crunch Fitness) was franchised in 2010 and, like Planet Fitness, presents itself as a judgment-free place to work out (its slogan happens to be #nojudgments). Along with more traditional workouts, Crunch offers such classes as “Twerkout” and “Stomp: The Battle” to inject some fun into the routine.

If you envision owning a franchise with a flair for edgy and fun fitness, look into Crunch. Though the company currently has franchises in just 30 states, Crunch is looking for franchisees in all 50 states.

Club Pilates

Initial Investment: $167,967 to $280,446
Number Of Franchises: 594 (584 in the US)
Regions Served: US (35 states), Japan, South Korea (coming soon in Germany and Singapore)
Unique Benefits: Offers fitness classes appropriate for all ages

Launched in 2007 and franchised in 2012, Club Pilates offers fitness classes grounded in Pilates. It utilizes unique exercise equipment, such as TriggerPoint, TRX, Barre, Bosu ball, EXO-Chair, and more, meant to help customers realize the “Contrology” fitness philosophy developed by Joseph Pilates in the early 20th century.

(That’s right: Pilates is named after a guy named Pilates.)

Club Pilates strikes a note of inclusivity, stating in its FAQ: “Everybody Needs Pilates! Club Pilates members range from teens to seniors. With nine signature class types and four different class levels, Club Pilates has a workout that will work for you.” With such a broad target demographic, Club Pilates can attract a wide range of customers.

9Round

Initial Investment: $106,175 to $150,275
Number Of Franchises: 741 (539 in the US)
Regions Served: US (41 states), Australia, Canada, Japan, Costa Rica, Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon, Kuwait, Mexico, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, the UK, Ireland, Singapore, Indonesia, Spain, Ecuador, Argentina, Guatemala, Colombia
Unique Benefits: 9Round offers two different ownership models for franchisees

Founded by pro kickboxer Shannon Hudson in 2008, 9Round specializes in unique 30-minute kickboxing-themed classes that start every three minutes â gym-goers won’t need to make an appointment. Along with the kickboxing program, 9Round offers personal trainer assistance, nutrition guidance, and online meal planning.

9Round offers two different ownership models for franchisees: the Semi-Absentee Owner model, in which you have a manager handle the heavy lifting (so to speak), and the Owner-Operator model, which requires you to take on a more hands-on role.

Snap Fitness

Initial Investment: $144,798 to $478,762
Number Of Franchises: 1,248 (729 in the US)
Regions Served: US (48 states), Australia, Belgium, Canada, Egypt, Georgia, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the Philippines, Spain, Taiwan, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, UK
Unique Benefits: Offers high-intensity MYFIT workouts to members and non-members alike

Snap Fitness is one of the more traditional gym franchises around. Founded in 2003 by Peter Taunton, the franchise offers members 24/7 access and real-time heart rate tracking and a continuous count of your calories burned. Membership includes access to high-intensity 18-minute MYFIT workouts led by a remote instructor. Non-members can attend MYFIT workouts so long as they buy a group fitness pass.

In a world of ever-shifting fitness philosophies, if you’re looking to get in on a back-to-basics fitness franchise, Snap Fitness is one of the more formidable ones, though its number of US franchise locations has declined a bit in the last few years.

Learn More About Buying A Franchise

Now that you have a better idea of what constitutes the lay of the land in the world of gym franchises, you might be looking for further actionable information. To learn more about becoming a franchisee, Merchant Maverick has some helpful resources to give you a leg up as you get started.

The 5 Best Ways To Get The Financing You Need To Start Or Grow Your Franchise
The Step-By-Step Guide To Buying A Franchise
How Franchises Work: The Complete Guide For Entrepreneurs

The post Flex Your Franchise Muscles: The 8 Best Gym Franchises To Open Right Now appeared first on Merchant Maverick.

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October 28, 2020

22+ Tax Preparation Service Marketing Ideas To Get More Clients

Most tax preparation services & tax professionals would agree that there’s nothing like finding a new client. New clients not only bring in immediate revenue, but also lifetime value since they are likely to return year after year. And in an industry built on trust, new clients also represent potential word of mouth referrals.

But it’s hard to find a good client if you don’t have new inquiries coming in.

Some tax professionals – especially those with a large, national brand – have a reputation and client base that brings in referrals and inquiries with nothing but a visible office.

But for most tax professionals and preparers, you have to go out and market your service to get a quality pool of potential clients.

I’ve consulted on search marketing for several local insurance agents* and many local service professionals. Based on those experiences, here are some tax preparation service ideas that you can use to bring in more clients.

*I’ve found that some local insurance agents are highly constrained by their national company franchise agreements. Tax professionals are often in a similar setup with the large national franchise brands. These constraints come with major marketing advantages, but also force you to be creative with your supplemental digital marketing. Some of these tactics might be unavailable for your service, but some just need a bit of tweaking.

Create City-Specific Website Pages

For many clients, regions are too big and neighborhoods are too small for the right tax professional, but they do want a local service in their own city.

That may sound obvious, but most professional firms that I’ve worked with still don’t focus their marketing on individual cities within a region. It’s a lot of work. It’s tedious. But it can still be worthwhile.

Make sure that every city page is actually about that city and includes all your services. Make your page structure “scalable” so that you can easily expand your service area as needed.

Create Niche Service Pages

Lots of clients have specific services and/or expertise that they want.

This is particularly true in an industry like tax preparation. For basic tax prep, there’s Turbo Tax and the 1040EZ form at the library. Lean into hyper-specific services and expertise.

Instead of listing your services & expertise in a giant list, make detailed pages about each expertise. Try to rank for searches like “tax [service]”.

You can use Google Suggest for ideas. Go to Google and type in “tax for” and hit space, but not enter. You’ll see some suggestions.

You can do this with the entire alphabet and as many modifiers as you can think of.

Create pages that match those search queries to show up when people search.

If you want to take this to the next level, you can use a tool like SEMrush’s Keyword Explorer to provide phrase match search terms in bulk.

Just type in a broad term and see what it’s comes up with.

Create Local Guide Pages

Create resource guides for people moving to or living in your city. Create lots of them.

Use Google Autosuggest to understand what people are searching for in your city.

Find niche tax questions, which vary State by State and jurisdiction by jurisdiction.

Make a local version for popular tax questions. You can also search for ideas outside of Google. Check out my guide to researching content here.

Develop Your Local Citations & Reviews

You should already have a Google My Business profile so that you can show up in Google Maps.*

*In fact, if you are a local professional who can’t run your own website, your Google My Business profile will be your primary search marketing tool.

But you can take it to the next level to show up even more prominently.

First, you can build your Google My Business profile with photos, posts, and full listing details.

Second, go to every local business listing site and make sure that your Business Name, Address, and Phone Number match exactly. Whether it’s on the Yellow Pages, Yelp, or elsewhere – everything must match. These are called your “local citations” and Google uses them to confirm the relevance of local business.

You can use SEMrush’s Local Listing Management Tool to audit all these listings quickly.

Third, create a local review strategy. Having diverse, unique, and regular reviews on your Google My Business page is the number one way to get more views (aka calls & inquiries) from Google Maps. There are many ways to get reviews, but you can use follow-ups emails, retargeting on social media, and many other methods.

Getting creative with reviews is how you’ll leapfrog other local competing tax professionals in search.

Fourth, you need to make sure your categorization is comprehensive and complete. Many listings offer varying and multiple business categories. If you are a tax professional with multiple services, makes sure you are listed in every database.

Steal Ideas from Large Local Competitors / Businesses

I’m not a fan of brainstorming. I think that it’s more effective to build off ideas that have already worked.

No matter your size, you can always look to larger competitors or larger businesses for inspiration.

With tax preparation marketing, make a list of local businesses that you *think* are being creative – including companies in different industries.

Like local listings and keywords, I then use a marketing tool like SEMrush to spy on those competitors. Type in the URL of a competitor below to see an example.

Here’s what you’ll see.

It looks like a lot. But drill down and categorize each link. You’ll quickly get a sense of what they are doing. You’ll see where they are posting on social media. You’ll see which media outlets have accepted press releases and what types of digital marketing they’re doing.

The trick here is *not* to copy cat them. Instead, take the general idea of what your competitors have done and make it your own – or, make it better.

Work with Local Publications & Blogs

Every city, no matter how small, has an interest in themselves. In Atlanta, where I live, we have a Curbed blog in addition to the AJC Blogs, Atlanta Business Chronicle, and dozens of smaller neighborhood newspapers and real estate blogs.

Find those and become a regular fixture. All local publications & blogs act on tips & press releases. Very few have a “boots on the ground” journalists. If you can be the place to provide inside information, free images, and consistent write-ups, you’ll earn attention and links.

In the tax arena, any statistics, trends, or data that you have can easily translate to free PR, which can then translate into links to your website or service profile.

That extra attention and those links will help every other idea on this list. Google loves links. Social media users find URLs via links.

Your city pages, service pages, and everything else on your website will benefit from more inbound links.

Use Hyper-Local Facebook Ads

A local business has one massive advantage against national brands trying to operate locally – you live in your city and understand it.

Facebook allows for hyper-local advertising. You can run ads that show within a radius of only a few miles. It’s tedious to set up, but it’s relevant and effective.

Learn how to create hyper-local targeting for demographics and geography to find lots of interested clients. Lean in to local tax problems.

For example, if you live in State affected by the SALT cap – talk about that. If you serve one of the cities with a wage / income tax – talk about that.

Whether it’s 529s, childcare, energy credits, find out what makes *your* area different and talk to the exact people that those tax considerations affect.

You can run small, targeted campaigns that show multiple places at once.

Use Hyper-Local Google Search Ads

Google Search ads are famously effective and famously expensive. The best client is someone who searches for “tax preparation in [city]”.

But that search click will be very costly.

In fact, some of the most expensive searches on Google are for tax queries.

You’ll be competing with huge, publicly traded national brands with near infinite budgets and an army of advertising professionals.

But like Facebook, you have an critical local advantage with Google Quality Score. Google will show ads higher if they are more relevant even if they don’t have the high bid.

Like Facebook, it’s tedious to set up, but if you can set up a hyper-local campaign, you’ll be able to get Google Search traffic that large competitors can’t bid on.

The key is to run landing pages that perfectly match your ads, and run ads that perfectly match specific, local keywords.

If you offer tailored or niche tax products, this strategy can be particularly useful.

Use Hyper-Local Google Display Ads

Google’s Display Network also offers opportunities for local advertisers who are willing to put in the work.

Google serves banner & text ads on some of the best ad locations on the Internet. Many placements are expensive for bulk ad buys.

But again, Google would rather serve a relevant ad with a low bid than an irrelevant ad with a high bid. That’s your opportunity to set up a hyper-local campaign focused on specific demographics in a specific area.

Even if you have a small market, you can always use Google’s Retargeting setting to solicit more reviews & referrals.

List on Locally-Popular Tax Websites

Tax & financial websites are a dime a dozen. They will send traffic to your listing. But they are expensive and require a lot of legwork.

The key is to find a few key financial websites that are popular in your area – and list on those.

You can use Google Trends, client interviews, SEMrush, or simply looking at the Google Search Results to see who is more popular for your city / neighborhood.

List on NextDoor & Local Forums

NextDoor is one of many local social media websites & forums. They are hard to find and hard to join, representing an opportunity for any local, enterprising tax professional.

These networks are interesting because they are specifically local and extremely relevant for professional services.

They also have an accessible, affordable, and useful local advertising service.

Automate Social Media Monitoring

Like Reddit, people often start their professional search on local social media with open-ended, specific questions.

It’s impossible to spend all your time on social media. But it is possible to automate both posting and listening on social media.

Take advantage of Twitter alerts, IFTTT, Zapier, and other tools to automate your social media presence and find great leads.

Contribute to Local Wikipedia

Wikipedia is a known resource for everyone. It relies on contributors – and authoritative contributors for local cities are often sparse.

Look for opportunities to use your website as an authoritative source for Wikipedia. A tax agency is well-positioned to provide historical documentation, legal background, and more for Wikipedia entries.

Don’t be over-promotional or spammy, but you can look to increase your presence there for the links and the potential exposure.

After all, if people are using Wikipedia for research, it’s a great place to have your website & brand.

Identify & Market Popular Client Sources

Take previous & existing clients and try to understand where those clients came from and how they found you.

See if there is a way to build off that success. It sounds cliche and obvious, but the key is in the execution. I’ve worked with plenty of professional firms who knew where they got clients from, but never thought about increasing that channel.

Cross-Promote Local Professionals

Local financial professionals usually have an incredible offline network, but have a poor online network. That’s the same with real estate agents, therapists, and other professional services. If you are investing in your online marketing efforts, try to develop a relationship to cross-promote as many local professionals as possible.

Cross-Promote Local Businesses

As an tax professional, you have the opportunity to stand at the nexus of lots of businesses & people. The key to most tax professionals is referrals. Try promoting other businesses in an effort to simply be top of mind for when the need for a tax professional happens.

Remember that even a link to your website from their website will dramatically help your other online efforts.

Coordinate Offline & Online Marketing

Take what your other marketing channels and drive them to specific landing pages with tracking. Create a marketing funnel rather than direct call to action across your on and offline marketing.

Use Events To Get Social Media Attention

Events like pro bono, Q&A sessions, seminars, college recruiting events are staples for many tax professionals. But events have a bonus effect online.

You can list them on multiple platforms to get extra exposure. Facebook is the best place for this tactic, but it also works on Google, Instagram, and event apps like Meet and Four Square.

Use Video Tours To Hack Social Media

Like events, most social media gives preference to video in their feeds. Take interesting video tours of tax issues with behind the scenes explainers.

Video can be hard, but that means you will get a competitive advantage if you can pull it off. Create “evergreen” videos about topics that will last.

Post the file natively to Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. Pay a small budget to boost it. And look for opportunities to embed it on your website.

Use Digital Referral Fees for Word of Mouth

Referral fees are also a staple of professionals’ marketing. But they don’t get the same reach as digital referral codes.

Whether you use a simple bit.ly link, manually hand out custom codes (i.e., client numbers), or use a software service – digital referral codes can help you move limited physical word of mouth to unlimited digital word of mouth.

Find & Sponsor Local Charities

Sponsoring local charities provides a few marketing benefits.

First, you can likely get a link to your website, which will help your other efforts. For many professionals, it’s the cheapest, simplest, and best way to promote your local listing & get links. You get long-term value for a short-term fee.

Second, you can tap into a well-networked organization with lots of word of mouth potential.

Third, you can tap into neighborhood goodwill to help with soliciting reviews to help with your Google My Business efforts.

Next Steps

There are a lot of marketing ideas out there for tax professionals and tax preparation services. You don’t have to do all of them. You just have to do one or two well.

Find the one that fits your interests & resources and give it a try. Learn based on your initial experience and improve.

This post originally appeared at 22+ Tax Preparation Service Marketing Ideas To Get More Clients via ShivarWeb

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October 27, 2020

Chaseâs New Mobile Card Reader Takes Aim At Square & 5 More Small Business News Stories You Need To Know

Welcome to another week of Merchant Maverickâs essential news roundup for small business owners.

This week, JPMorgan Chase announced its own mobile payments reader while a survey hinted that office spaces will shrink in the future. Read on through for the weekâs top five must-know stories for small business owners.

JPMorgan Chase Announced A Mobile Card Reader

In an effort to broaden its business services, JPMorgan Chase announced the launch of a new card reader that can take payments on the go. Dubbed QuickAccept, this mobile payments platform will allow merchants to ring up credit card payments via a mobile app or a contactless card reader — much like tools offered already by Square and PayPal. Unlike those other services, however, Chase’s new platform will deliver merchants the money made from sales on the same day for free (Square, for comparison, charges ~1.5% for instant transfers).

To work alongside the new payments platform, Chase also announced a business checking account called Business Complete Banking. Nothing is really special about this checking account, although you will need to open one if you want to take advantage of QuickAccept.

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Why this matters to you: Competition is almost always welcome, and Chase’s new platform could provide some spark to the world of mobile payments. If QuickAccept’s free same-day funding takes off, merchants might wind up with more avenues for taking credit card payments cheaply in the future.

Over 75% of CEOs Expect Office Space To Shrink In The Future

In a survey of 171 CEOs across America, Fortune magazine and Deloitte found that 76% of those polled expect their company will need less office space in the future. Growing acceptance of smaller office space could be because many are finding remote work isn’t so bad after all — 40% of CEOs in the survey said employee productivity has gone up due to remote work.

Interestingly, Fortune/Deloitte’s survey comes on the heels of a different study about returning to work by workplace technology startup Envoy. That survey found that 73% of US-based employees worry about their health and safety at work. So even if some companies are ready to fully return to the office, most employees may be less keen to follow suit.

Why this matters to you: The COVID-19 pandemic will almost certainly shape how humans work together in the future. And while shrinking office spaces will impact commercial real estate negatively, there are some benefits to smaller office footprints worth noting. For instance, Americans are still driving less on the roads, even as more and more places are reopening. Remote work can also help reduce overhead costs.

Facebook Revealed Plans To Beef Up WhatsApp Business

In an effort to squeeze money out of its WhatsApp messaging platform, Facebook is set to make several additions to the business side of the service. To start, businesses will be able to sell products to customers within chats. Facebook didn’t say how exactly the in-chat shopping feature might be implemented, but it is supposed to work alongside businesses’ “existing commerce and customer solutions.”

Facebook is also launching a hosting service in “the coming months” that will include the ability for businesses to manage their WhatsApp messages. Finally, Facebook noted that some WhatsApp services for business customers will cost money, although specifics haven’t been revealed yet.

Why this matters to you: WhatsApp is a messaging platform that reaches over two billion people worldwide. The upcoming features for WhatsApp will especially be a boon for small businesses that sell online — in fact, Facebook says that the in-chat shopping experience is meant to “help many small businesses who have been most impacted in this time.”

Further reading: Has Facebook Finally Broken WhatsAppâRadical New Update Now Confirmed, Forbes

Outlook For Restaurant Isn’t As Bleak As Previously Thought

Despite the damage the pandemic has done to restaurants, there is hope yet. Moody’s moved its outlook rating for the restaurant industry from “negative” to “stable” last week. The investor service predicted that there will be “slowly improving business conditions” during the next 12 to 18 months and that the industry’s operating profit will grow by around 15% in 2021.

However, restaurants aren’t out of the woods yet. A recent Bloomberg report discussed restaurants that have opened up outdoor dining during the pandemic must innovate once again to survive the cold winter months. For many, winterizing an outdoor space may be too expensive — outdoor headers often cost between $1,000 and $1,500 a pop.

Why this matters to you: A glimmer of hope for the restaurant industry shines a beacon across the entire economy — businesses that serve food have been hit hard during lockdowns. Still, it’s important to stay vigilant. COVID-19 remains a deadly virus, and coming up with safe protocols while remaining profitable will be a tall order for many small businesses, including those beyond the restaurant space.

Further reading: Off-Premise Sales and Non-Traditional Payment Options are Top of Mind for Restaurant Franchisees in COVID-19 Landscape, TD Bank

Entrepreneurship Is On The Rise

Alongside a rise in joblessness has come a rise in entrepreneurship. According to data by the U.S. Census Bureau, new businesses filed 1.5 million Employer Identification Number applications in the third quarter of this year — an 82% jump year-over-year. The Midwest and the South both saw steep rises in particular.

MBA applications are also soaring as people look to boost their professional skill set. A survey of the top 25 US business schools by Poets & Quants found that the number of applications is up an average of 22.6%. USCâs Marshall School of Business leads the pack with a 66.4% increase in applications.

Why this matters to you: The drastic unemployment stemming from the COVID-generated recession is almost certainly encouraging more and more to try their hand at running a business. If you’ve recently started your own business, or are seeking an MBA to help with a business venture, you are not alone. There are plenty of others out there who will (hopefully) succeed right along with you.

Further reading: Entrepreneurship Is the Vaccine for Urban Economies, Bloomberg

The Latest From Merchant Maverick

The Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Injury Disaster Loans struggled to adequately help many small businesses during the early stages of the pandemic. Learn what exactly went wrong from our readers’ perspectives:

Top 5 Reasons Why Small Businesses Were Denied Government Funding During The COVID Crisis

Something Good…

A Texas farm has been in the news recently for helping special-needs children play and hang out with animals that require special needs, too.

Run as a non-profit organization called Safe in Austin, the farm is home to over 150 animals who are injured or need some type of additional support. Among the residents include a rescued turkey born with a claw abnormality and a calf with a birth defect that fused its legs and spine together.

“There is something absolutely magical about watching a child with differences come out here and say, ‘Theyâre just like me,’ ” said Safe in Austin founder Jamie Wallace-Griner. She added: “We have animals that are blind or deaf, have diabetes, cerebral palsy, deformities, missing limbs, broken spines â¦ they all become part of our family.”

Do you have a story idea, tip, or press release for the Merchant Maverick news team? Shoot us an email: [email protected]

The post Chaseâs New Mobile Card Reader Takes Aim At Square & 5 More Small Business News Stories You Need To Know appeared first on Merchant Maverick.

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October 23, 2020

What Is Facebook Pay & How Does It Work?

By now, you’ve probably heard of Facebook Pay — yet another new way of sending and receiving money. People use it most often to transfer funds between family and friends, but can it also be a good option for online businesses?

The answer is yes, it can. Read on to learn more about Facebook Pay, then decide whether it’s right for your own small business.

What Is Facebook Pay?

Let’s face it: People are doing more and more of their shopping online. And anything that makes it easier for them to find and pay for the things they need sounds mighty attractive.

Launched in 2019, Facebook Pay is still a relatively small service â but one with big plans for growth. Right now, it’s available in the United States on Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram, and it’s also available, primarily through Facebook, in some other countries in Africa, Europe, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East as well as Canada. Plans are underway to add Facebook Pay to WhatsApp soon.

If you’re already using Facebook or Instagram as a part of your online sales strategy, it’s worth taking a look at Facebook Pay. After all, the more payment options you give your customers, the easier it can be to make sales to them.

How Does Facebook Pay Work?

Facebook Pay works in a fashion similar to other friend-to-friend payment options, like Venmo and Zelle. The difference (right now at least) is that Facebook Pay is available only to people who use Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram.

When people sign up for Facebook Pay, they agree to let Facebook store their credit or debit card information. That means they won’t have to pull out their wallet and enter all those numbers each time they want to make a purchase or donation within a Facebook setting. Facebook Pay works for:

Friend-to-friend payments
Donations to charity and friends’ fundraisers
Purchases on Instagram
Purchases on Facebook’s Marketplace
In-app game purchases
Tickets for events

When you sign up for Facebook Pay and enter a valid credit card, debit card, or Facebook gift card, you’ll be able to exchange payments with people in your network and make contributions to their fundraisers. And they can do the same with you, all without leaving the Facebook or Messenger app or having to enter their information each time they want to buy.

Does Facebook Pay Cost A Fee?

If you’re tired of watching processing fees from third-party providers eat away at your profit margin, you’re going to love Facebook Pay. You’ll never pay any fees to send or receive payments this way.

When Should You Use Facebook Pay?

Facebook Pay is a simple, seamless, and secure payment option for anyone who uses Facebook or Instagram to pay for purchases, donate, or send money to friends and connections. It makes sense to use Facebook Pay when:

1) When You Have Something To Sell

List your handmade items or the unique things you offer for sale through your business. Post pictures and information on your Facebook or Instagram page, then invite your friends and followers to send you payment via Facebook Pay.
Post a link to your online store. Let your friends and followers know the kinds of things you’re offering, then tell them where they can go to get more details. Tell them how they can contact you to place an order â direct message and posting a reply on your page are two easy options â and let them know Facebook Pay is an easy way to exchange payment.

2) If You See Something You Want To Buy

You’ve been browsing through Facebook Marketplace and found something you can’t resist. Message the seller and ask if he or she accepts Facebook Pay, then send payment quickly and conveniently, for free.
A page you follow posts an announcement about a new item for sale. Send a direct message or post a reply indicating your interest, and ask if you can send payment via Facebook Pay. It’s a fast, free, and safe way to complete your purchase.

3) When You Want To Support A Fundraiser

A Facebook or Instagram friend posts information about a birthday fundraiser for a worthy cause. Don’t worry about finding your wallet. If you’ve signed up for Facebook Pay, your credit or debit card information is already stored, so you can support your friend and the good cause without going to any trouble.
A nonprofit you follow posts on its page about a special need or donation drive. Or maybe you are just feeling generous and want to make a donation even when the group isn’t asking for anything right now. It’s easy to support the causes you care about when you are signed up for Facebook Pay.

4) If You Owe Money To A Friend

You went out for dinner and split the check? No problem. If your friend is on Instagram or Facebook, you can use Facebook Pay to transfer cash to cover your share of the bill before you’ve even left the restaurant.

Sending Money Via Facebook Pay

Using Facebook Pay is pretty easy, whether you’re the one sending or receiving money. The first thing you’ll need to do is sign up for the service. So head on over to your Facebook account settings â you can get there by clicking on the triangle at the top right of your screen. (It’s probably right next to the notifications icon.) Next, click Settings and then scroll down until you see Facebook Pay in the menu on the left side of the screen.Â If you want to use Facebook Pay on Instagram, go to Settings, then Orders and Payments, to enter your payment method. If you’ve already saved payment information to either Facebook or Instagram, that payment method will be available to Facebook Pay right away.

Facebook says that more than 99% of payments are processed immediately, and any payments that don’t process are reviewed within 24 hours.

Receiving Money Via Facebook Pay

If you want to set up your own account so that you can receive payments via Facebook Pay, the first step is to sign up for the service yourself.Â Your next steps will depend on how you’re using your social media account to sell.

If You Sell Only To Your Contacts…

Many small businesses sell successfully on Facebook and Instagram using simple techniques. If your sales plan involves posting information and photos about items you have for sale and then connecting with your friends and followers who indicate interest, you can ask them to pay via Facebook Pay.

If You Sell On Facebook Marketplace…

Once you connect with someone who is interested in purchasing an item from you via Facebook Marketplace, you can use Messenger to set up payment using Facebook Pay.

If You Have A Facebook Or Instagram Store…

Facebook Pay is designed for individual use, according to a Facebook representative. So it’s not available as an official payment option for your online store. However, you can connect with your customers through your page or via Messenger to set up payment using Facebook Pay.

No matter how you arrive at the point of sale, once you have someone interested in buying something from you online, let the buyer know that you can accept Facebook Pay. The buyer can arrange payment via Messenger.

And once your buyer sends payment via Facebook Pay, how long will it take until you receive the money? Facebook says that more than 99% of payments are processed immediately, and any payments that don’t process are reviewed within 24 hours. The money will be transferred to your registered account right away, although it’s up to your bank to post funds to your account.

Is It Safe To Send & Receive Payments With Facebook?

Facebook Pay links with affiliate partners and third parties to facilitate payment transfers. However, Facebook Pay’s privacy policy emphasizes that only limited personal information from users will be shared. Specifically, Facebook Pay can share your card numbers and other payment method information, your transaction history, or a copy of your identification, according to legal requirements, or to prevent fraud.

Beyond that, these measures have been put in place to protect Facebook Pay users’ information:

Anti-Fraud Technology Monitoring: You’ll be alerted if unauthorized activity is detected.
Customer Support: Report unauthorized transactions via email 24/7 or by live chat between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m., Pacific Time.
Data Security: Payment data is encrypted for storage, and payment methods are not shared with buyers, sellers, or merchants without consent, and payment information is stored separately from account data.
Verification Methods: Use a PIN or biometric devices like fingerprints or facial recognition, whatever you use to protect your device.
Transaction Notifications: Receive in-app notifications when transactions process.
Privacy Related To Purchases: Transactions are confidential and not shared to users’ Newsfeeds, unless they choose to share

Facebook Pay VS PayPal

Facebook Pay can be a convenient payment option under some circumstances. However, compared to a bigger payment processing system like PayPal, Facebook Pay is probably best suited for small online businesses without an official storefront who rely on one-on-one contact with buyers through social media or who sell at least occasionally in person (at craft fairs or farmer’s markets, for instance) and want a fast, convenient, and no-fee way to accept money from customers.

Of course, there are other no-fee options you can use, too. An online service like Venmo or Zelle offers many of the same benefits â quick, secure, and free payment with fast delivery â without limiting your audience to those who use Facebook and Instagram.

For bigger businesses or for those that want to open an online store, choosing an option like PayPal may be a better move for you. Of course, if you start taking payments through PayPal, be aware that you’ll have to give PayPal a portion of each sale.

Should You Use Facebook Pay For Your Business?

With so many easy and convenient options for taking payments online, it can be hard to decide which one is best for you. The good news is, you really don’t have to choose just one. Because you can set up a free account on Facebook Pay, and you can receive payments with no fees, you don’t really have anything to lose by trying it out.

If you regularly connect with customers on Facebook or Instagram, let them know about all the payment methods you can accommodate. After all, the easier you make it for the customer to pay, the more likely you are to complete the sale and pocket the money.

The post What Is Facebook Pay & How Does It Work? appeared first on Merchant Maverick.

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October 23, 2020

Revenue-Based Financing: What It Is & When It’s The Right Choice For Your Business

Entrepreneurs looking to build their companies from the ground up often face difficulties getting traditional debt-based financing. Banks, and even many alternative lenders, prefer to do business with companies that have at least six months of operation under their belt, and preferably two to three years. And that’s before you factor in things like your creditworthiness.

One way around the debt-financing conundrum is to enter the world of investor financing. While equity financing is probably the more well-known method of investor financing, another option is revenue-based financing.

What Is Revenue-Based Financing?

Revenue-based financing grants investors a regular, ongoing percentage of a company’s income in exchange for a cash infusion. The investors receive scheduled payments until they’ve collected an agreed-upon amount of money from the new business.

Because this model relies on the business generating revenue, investors will want to see that you’re capable of producing the strong margins necessary to both continue to grow and pay them back. That means businesses planning on a slower growth model, or those that may not be revenue-positive for an extended period of time, are generally not a great fit for revenue-based financing, which is most frequently seen in the tech sector and adjacent businesses.

Funding amounts typically range between $50,000 to $3 million, with repayment expected in three to five years. Repayment caps, which are expressed as a flat multiplier, represent the total amount your investor is expecting to reclaim from you. This rate typically ranges from x1.35 to x3, although higher caps aren’t unheard of. In some cases, the investors may instead use a date or sustained rate of return as cut-off points.

How Revenue-Based Financing Works

Let’s say you’re an enterprising tech entrepreneur who has a great new app idea with explosive growth potential.

You’re even generating a little bit of revenue from your early customers, but need money to grow. You approach an investor or investment group that offers revenue-based financing, and they like what they see (your average monthly revenue has been $16,000, with strong gross margins). You’re not profitable yet, but you’re on the right track. The investor clears you for $1 million in revenue-based financing.

Interestingly, the $1 million generally will not be handed over to you in a lump sum but will function a bit more like a line of credit. In other words, you can draw upon it more than once, so long as your total draw doesn’t exceed the limit (note, however, that there may be restrictions on when and under what circumstances you can draw).

Let’s say you managed to secure a cap of x2 and eventually use all of your “credit.” The total amount you’d be expected to repay would be $2 million ($1 million x 2). You and your investor settle on a payment plan of 6% of your monthly sales, which have risen to an average of $40,000. You’d be paying around $3,200 a month. Assuming your revenue stays at that amount, you’d be paid off in a little over five years. If your revenue increases, you’d be paid off sooner. If it decreases, it would take longer.

Revenue-Based Financing VS Merchant Cash Advances

If you think revenue-based financing sounds a little bit like a merchant cash advance, you wouldn’t be too far off the mark. At their core, both are hedging on your future sales. Both are collecting a percentage of those future sales. Both have indeterminant term lengths due to being revenue contingent. And both are relatively costly ways to finance your business.

That said, there are a few differences between them, namely in terms of scale and scope. Merchant cash advances tend to be based solely on your credit and debit card sales, not your revenue. Payments are usually made daily rather than monthly, and the expected time until settlement is usually much shorter. At this time, merchant cash advances are also available to more companies than revenue-based financing, which tends to be aimed specifically at high-growth businesses like tech startups.

Revenue-Based Financing VS Venture Capital

Revenue-based financing sits adjacent to other types of investor-sourced financing like venture capital. Both tend to heavily favor high-growth industries like tech, and both tend to cater to entrepreneurs who normally would have trouble obtaining debt-based financing.

That’s where most of the similarities end. Venture capital is equity-based financing, meaning that you’re selling shares, or at least the option to buy shares. In other words, you’re giving up some of your ownership in your company. This model typically assumes that you intend to sell your company somewhere within a five to seven-year window. Revenue-based financing, on the other hand, does not transfer ownership to the investors. You’re also not expected to sell your company (in fact, doing so would likely complicate your arrangement).

Venture capital financing typically takes place over a series of rounds, with your company being able to access additional rounds of funding after they’ve hit specific milestones. Revenue-based financing generally isn’t as regimented, although there may be conditions upon when you’re able to draw on your funds.

When Revenue-Based Financing Is Right (Or Wrong) For Your Business

Revenue-based financing, like most investor-based financing, is not as widely available as debt-financing. This means most businesses won’t have the luxury of deciding whether or not it’s right for them–it simply won’t be an option.

For businesses that do fall into the revenue-based financing niche, you’ll need to weigh the opportunity cost of not taking the money against the financial cost of taking it. Will the growth financed with these funds, minus the burden it puts on your revenue, outpace the growth you would achieve without it?

Let’s look at some pros and cons:

Advantages Of Revenue-Based Financing

You don’t have to give up equity in your business.
Payments are a proportion of your revenue, so they increase or shrink with your business.
You’ll have a longer repayment term than you’d be able to easily find on the alternative market.
You may be able to access higher borrowing amounts than you would be able to with most loans.
Your credit rating and time in business aren’t as big factors as they would be with many other forms of financing.

Disadvantages Of Revenue-Based Financing

Only certain types of businesses are eligible for this model.
It’s not cheap. You can easily end up paying back twice as much as you borrowed, or more.
You won’t be able to raise as much money as you potentially could with venture capital.
You need to have revenue.
It’s not well-regulated.

What You Need To Qualify

Besides being in an industry supported by this kind of financing (namely tech), you’ll need to meet a few other qualifications.

You don’t need to be profitable, but you do need to be generating revenue with gross margins of 50% or more. Your gross margin is equal to your revenue minus the cost of the goods you sold. Take that number and divide it by your revenue. If it’s 0.5 or higher, you may be a candidate.

But not so fast! You’ll also need to demonstrate that you’ve hit a revenue threshold for three or so consecutive months. That number may differ from investor to investor, but it’s usually somewhere around $15,000. You also don’t want to be servicing any debt, so make sure you’ve settled any loans before seeking revenue-based financing.

And last, but certainly not least, you’ll need to find an investor or investment group that offers revenue-based financing.

Where You Can Find Revenue-Based Financing

Using equity financing as a model, you may expect it to be really difficult to find investors dealing in revenue-based financing. While it’s a relatively new model for financing with a limited number of players, there are a surprisingly large number of revenue-based financing investment groups that prominently advertise their services online. This includes entities like Alternative Capital, Decathlon Capital, and Lighter Capital. The ones with a strong web presence may even allow you to apply online. As a general rule, we recommend dealing with lenders and investors who are transparent and disclose the terms of their services upfront.

Learn About Other Financing For Businesses

With revenue-financing being an option only for a small minority of businesses, most of you will probably want some idea of the alternatives available to you if you don’t qualify. Luckily, you haven’t even come close to exhausting the possibilities.

Check out our other features for entrepreneurs:

How to Get A Small Business Loan: The Step-By-Step Guide
6 Financing Options for Up & Coming Entrepreneurs (Plus 4 Expert Tips To Get You Started)
14 Types of Alternative Financing for Small Businesses
What is a Merchant Cash Advance?

The post Revenue-Based Financing: What It Is & When It’s The Right Choice For Your Business appeared first on Merchant Maverick.

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October 23, 2020

LAMP Stack Explained

If you are shopping for website hosting or browsing technology news, you are likely to come across the term “LAMP Stack” somewhere.

It refers to how a web server is set up and what software it uses to perform specific functions. Here’s a cartoon that explains it in broad strokes.

What Does LAMP Stand for?

LAMP stands for Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP.

Each part of the stack is a piece of software that helps the server run a web application (such as a website content management system like WordPress).

Linux is a computer operating system. It’s the software that runs the server just like Windows runs your PC or iOS runs your iPhone.

Apache is web server software that translates server requests into specific instructions for the server. When you type in a website URL, your browser sends a request to a web server. Apache is the software that takes that request and tells the server how to fulfill that request.

MySQL is database software that stores all the information for a website application in a structured format. For example, the text of this post is stored in a MySQL database. When you visited this URL, my server went and retrieved all this text from the database.

PHP is a scripting language that carries out the server’s instructions. It’s a programming language that will go and get information from your database and construct it in a specific way to fulfill the original request. When you visited this URL, PHP was used to pull all the text, images, fonts, links, etc into a set of files to be delivered to your browser.

What Is a LAMP Stack?

A LAMP stack is just one of many ways to configure a web server. Like your home PC or smartphone, a server needs several pieces of software to simply function.

And like smartphone apps or PC games, different web applications need different requirements. LAMP is one set (or “stack”) of software that meets those requirements.

For example, if you want to use WordPress to build your website, WordPress requires either PHP 7.4 or greater, MySQL 5.6, and Apache.

But you can also substitute NGINX for Apache and MariaDB for MySQL. It’s all just software choices. They all have different strengths and weaknesses.

What Is a LAMP Stack Used for?

LAMP stack is kind of like the 3 bedroom / 2 bathroom house or 4-door sedan for web server configurations.

It’s sort of the “standard” web server configuration, not because it’s the best for every situation, but because it’s the most versatile, most well-documented stack with the largest user base and the most stable history.

All the pieces of the “stack” are also free and open-source, so it’s widely available and accessible for everyone.

LAMP is most well-known among non-developers for running website content management systems like WordPress, but it’s used for nearly every type of web application imaginable.

LAMP Stack Alternatives

There are a myriad of LAMP stack alternatives. Each of the four parts of LAMP can be changed out for a different piece of software.

Plus, there are now stacks available that do not require an operating system like MEAN or the universe of Javascript frameworks.

Here are a few of the most common stacks that substitute pieces of the LAMP stack.

WISA – Windows, IIS, SQL, ASP. It’s an all Microsoft-owned stack for companies that rely on Microsoft for all their IT needs.

WAMP – Windows, Apache, MySQL, PHP. It’s a way to run a traditional LAMP stack on a Windows server. It’s useful for trying WordPress on PCs.

LEMP – Linux, NGINX, MySQL, PHP. The “E” comes from “Engine-X”, which is how you pronounce the software. It’s a popular alternative for WordPress websites that speeds up server requests compared to Apache. This website (running on InMotion’s WordPress plans) uses a LEMP stack.

Next Steps

There is a lot that goes into choosing the right stack for your web application. Sometimes that means tweaking the stack to get the best performance for your web application and sometimes it really depends on what expertise / resources you have available.

A LAMP stack is popular because it’s mature, stable, and well-known. Most any popular hosting company will support it. You can also install it on most cloud hosting and VPS hosting options.

This post originally appeared at LAMP Stack Explained via ShivarWeb

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October 23, 2020

Top 5 Reasons Why Small Businesses Were Denied Government Funding During The COVID Crisis

The PPP/EIDL funding process upended the small business community these past few months as places scrambled to stay open — and solvent — during the COVID pandemic shutdowns and closures. Since March, Merchant Maverick has been paying attention to reader comments to try and put our finger on the pulse of the everyday business owners’ experiences.

In Early October, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said in a press release that the government provided 5.2 million PPP loans worth $525 billion to small businesses, which saved 51 million jobs. Congress also added another $20 billion to the Economic Injury Disaster Loans program and made the (up to) $10,000 advance forgivable.

Despite those numbers, the PPP and EIDL programs failed to give a lot of business owners the help they needed. What went wrong? Why were small businesses denied those funds? And what does the future look like in terms of government COVID aid?

Keep on reading to find out the top five reasons why small businesses missed out on government loans during the coronavirus pandemic.

1) Issuing Banks Failed Big Time

The first, and most challenging, hurdle for many small business owners involved problems with the actual banks issuing the loans. It’s important to understand that the Small Business Administration (SBA) itself does not directly lend money; it relies on partner banks and lenders to actually provide the cash. Instead, it smooths out the lending process by guaranteeing all or a portion of the loan, making the process less risky in general.

When the PPP and EIDL programs launched, partner banks were unprepared to deal with the volume of applicants.

Banks were overrun with applications within hours
Funds were depleted quickly
Paperwork was filed too slowly, and without a good system for tracking applications

According to reader comments, Chase Bank and Bank of America, in particular, struggled with serious issues around applicants and applications. But in general, nothing about the rollout of the SBA loans was well-thought-out, and that left many banks scrambling to come up with their own internal policies amid confusion. The general chaos within the banking community meant that many business owners, even when filing applications correctly, missed out on their piece of the PPP or EIDL funds.

Our reader Naomi wrote:

This PPP is such a farce on so many levels. We applied early with Chase, tried to check on the status and was told that they aren’t in charge of approving the loans and don’t even have access to the applications. Essentially, they said that the applications automatically go directly to the SBA and the SBA reviews the applications. When we called the SBA, they told us the exact opposite: That the bank approves the applications and likely didn’t get to ours before the funds ran out — essentially that it was just sitting there for two weeks! … The process generally has just been unbelievably inequitable from the start and not transparent … Shame on the US Government.

Reader Kim replied to Naomi, writing:

Well said! I went through the same thing. Waiting, wondering, worrying… no answers, then BAM the money is gone. Then to hear Chase and the SBA gave millions to businesses that, no doubt, have countless resources at their disposal. Resources that actual small businesses wouldn’t even qualify for. Shame on Chase and shame on the SBA as well.

Chase Bank was not alone in its failure to handle the SBA disaster loans rollout. Bank of America also came under heavy scrutiny for the way they processed their loans, resulting in a lawsuit from four small businesses that allege Bank of America prioritized businesses needing larger loan amounts so they could maximize their own profits. Our Merchant Maverick readers experienced the same kind of forced delays in filing loan paperwork that are cited in the lawsuit.

Our reader Monica said, “Shame on you, Bank of America! All documentation submitted and confirmed. Then nothing! After 30 years as a small business banking customer, we are disgusted. Enjoy the $18 billion you will make while screwing your small business clients.”

The financial toll of COVID has affected all business owners, but it’s been particularly hard on those that provide essential services. Karen, a physical therapist and owner/founder of a clinic in Issaquah, Washington, wrote:

As an essential healthcare business, we’ve remained open and have been providing care to our critical needs patients and many front-line responders in the COVID-19 crisis. Located in King County, we’ve been struggling since the original outbreak in Kirkland, Washington only 6 miles away. We applied through Bank of America for the Payroll Protection Plan within three hours of the process opening online on April 3, 2020. We uploaded our supporting documents within four hours of the email request for them. As of today, we’ve had no response from BOA and can only assume we won’t be receiving any Federal assistance… I’m not sure what future opportunities may arise to fill this critical gap in funding for small businesses, but as a front-line health care provider, I certainly hope some priority will be given to businesses like ours.

Jocelyn, another physical therapist from Redmond, Washington, replied to Karen:

Like you, we applied for the PPP through Bank of America (our business bank for 21 years) on day one and did not end up getting any funds. All along the way, it seemed there were delays on their end. We would jump whenever they requested information, but then days would go by before we would get another email. Eventually, the money just ran out and we were out of luck. There is no one to give us any information. Now learning that BofA funded some larger businesses that used up millions instead of the small businesses like ours makes me really upset. I’m not optimistic about having any chance the second time around either.

2) SBA & Lender Technology Floundered

Another huge complaint about the PPP/EIDL process surrounded the major technology glitches that prevented people from navigating the application process with ease. Errors abounded, the most of common of which were:

Small business owners never received log-in information
Websites were overrun with traffic and timed out
Applications failed to upload at all
Users received error messages during the process and didn’t know how to proceed
Applications were resubmitted due to website error and then flagged as suspicious

Even during the second round of funding, technology issues ran rampant. The SBA’s processing site experienced extreme slowing. In a comment to Fortune, the SBA said: “SBA notified lenders yesterday that pacing of applications into the E-Tran system would occur, meaning all lenders would be able to submit at the same rate per hour. The pacing mechanism prevents any one lender from submitting thousands of loans an hour into the E-Tran system. If a lender goes above the pacing limit they will get timed out.”

A handful of Merchant Maverick readers encountered a similar technology issue: Accidental flagging of potential duplicate applications. If computers timed-out and a small business resubmitted, there was a potential for a double-submission. Or in one reader’s situation, she submitted applications to two separate businesses but it was still flagged as a duplicate. Corina wrote, “I had to call and ask them to reinstate the main application for my larger business.”

A reader named Smith wrote:

Today, I received the following email with the subject line: Multiple SBA Economic Injury Disaster Loan Applications. ‘We received multiple applications from your business for economic injury as a result of Coronavirus (COVID-19). Your earliest application will continue to be processed and we have withdrawn [other] application number from active consideration.‘ Does this mean I’ve been denied? I only submitted one application.

Reader Anne wrote:

My business was initially declined because the system though I’d applied multiple times. Turned out it was because, in the system, my application showed the same numbers for my bank account and routing number. There were a number of people from my bank who made the same mistake when applying, so it showed multiple accounts applying for the loan — which were considered duplicates — when it was really multiple people applying who use the same bank. My guess is there’s a bug in the application software, but no use focusing on that to resolve.

Our reader Valerie ran into similar problems with her EIDL loan after receiving mixed messages from the bank. She wrote:

After I confirmed my identity and approved the amount, it wouldn’t let me review and sign the documents. I received an email saying I was approved for an amount and it gave me the option to select the maximum amount or a lower amount. I checked the [bank] online about 3 hours later, and now the status shows declined and they will email me with the details. I am so confused, because they emailed me and told me that I was approved.

3) The SBA Wasn’t Prepared

News agencies widely panned the rollout of the SBA disaster loans with a slew of adjectives, including chaotic, sloppy, bumpy, flawed, glitchy, messy. An article from NPR outlined many of the problems surrounding the program and some of the questions that small business owners still have about the funds. In general, users found that the SBA guidelines were too vague or they failed to answer questions in a timely manner. Phone lines went down — phone numbers that worked for some didn’t work for others. Misinformation and exhaustion reigned.

Merchant Maverick reader Micah captured the frustration many of our readers encountered during the EIDL process. He wrote, “[I] just received a denial email. After jumping through so many hoops and re-entering my bank info, they just decided to deny me.”

David wrote, “I got an email on 5/10 that my EIDL was being processed and created the account, gave verification and bank info… and today, I went to check on it and the status has gone from processing to DECLINED! It says I’ll get more info by email.. I was really counting on that money, especially when they said it was processing.”

Reader Hollie responded to David’s situation with her own experiences, writing that the same thing happened to her with her EIDL loan:

I got the email from the SBA saying congratulations your application is processing. It gave me a loan amount that I was approved for. I accepted the amount. Created the account, verified my identity, and put in my bank info… Then boom: Next day, Email saying I was denied. It also said it would send via email the reason for denial. Welp, that email never came. I’ve called and sent them emails asking what happened, but have yet to hear back. That was two weeks ago.

4) Unqualified Businesses Snatched Funding Not Meant For Them

Shake Shack. The Laker’s. Potbelly. A handful of successful hotel chains. When the funds were dispersed and the scrutiny started, small business owners who had been left out of the two rounds of funding were irate to learn that some businesses that didn’t seem to meet the criteria were walking away with the bulk of the resources. The backlash, however, prompted many of the larger companies to return the money.

Readers responded with frustration to the news that big businesses walked away with the money that small businesses had been promised. During the first round of PPP loans, reader Lee wrote:

Our government has scammed us. I applied to Chase for an SBA loan during the first week. Our banker walked us through it. A few days later, he finally answered, after texting and calling him constantly. He said the program ran out of money, so our application was in the queue for the next release. Then, today, I heard that Shake Shack got $10 million! They have way over 500 employees. I can’t wait until November.

Reader MC shared a similar sentiment:

I understand that the PPP came with no user manual and is extremely confusing. But it doesn’t excuse some blatant and grotesque approvals of loans to filthy-rich businesses. Take the Los Angeles Lakers as an example. They were approved for $4.6 million although their estimated value is $3.7 billion! Why in the world did they apply in the first place? It’s truly, truly appalling.

Reader D. Hewett wrote:

I work financing small business loans. I’ve been working and following up nonstop on programs to try and help other business owners. I filed end of March… There is no place to check for your loan application. If small business owners don’t die of the coronavirus trying to get promised funds will kill them. Meanwhile, large, large corporations got millions of dollars while little small business owners are getting denied unemployment? No word on EIDL, denied or turned away from PPP. Haven’t received stimulus checks. I am one of those, and this shows me the ineptness of our government in every way from managing the coronavirus to disaster loan programs.

5) Simple User Error

Lastly, another common thread among the denied was good old-fashioned user error. Thanks to hugely mixed messaging, and confusing and conflicting information from banks and the SBA, the process wasn’t smooth to start with. Compounded with technology issues, many small business owners made simple mistakes in the application process that slowed down the process or precluded them from receiving funds at all.

Many readers reported being told to fix issues, only to have the money run out in the meantime. Others had their credit pulled (and their credit score affected by the pull), but suffered from small errors that prevented their applications from fully going through. Faulty log-ins, wrong bank information, missing information — all of those things contributed to loan failure. One reader was frustrated when she accidentally entered zero on her loan amount and was unable to receive help from the SBA to correct the amount.

Some small businesses that were denied because of error were allowed to submit reconsideration letters, although it is unclear how many of those went on to receive funds.

The Future Of Government Aid During COVID

As this article goes to press, more COVID relief is being discussed, but there is no further news about the government’s plans for the small businesses still in need of aid. With the November presidential election mere weeks away, it is apparent that COVID aid is an election issue and a government bargaining chip. However, while Federal aid may be in limbo, small business owners may also want to check out other forms of funding, including what their local governments are offering in terms of grants — as many state, county, and city governments are dispersing funds from the CARES Act to local businesses.

Follow Merchant Maverick on Facebook or Twitter for more news content related to the pandemic. Comment on social or on this article about your experiences or venture on to check out our COVID-19 hub — we’ll also be posting any need-to-know stories there.

Do you have a story idea, tip, or press release for the Merchant Maverick news team? Shoot us an email: [email protected]

The post Top 5 Reasons Why Small Businesses Were Denied Government Funding During The COVID Crisis appeared first on Merchant Maverick.

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October 23, 2020

Getting Paid With PayPal: How To Create & Send PayPal Invoices

When talking about online payments, PayPal is probably one of the first payment platforms to come to mind. Most of us already have a PayPal account — whether it’s to fund that auction purchase on eBay or to send money to friends and family around the world. But as a small business owner, there is so much more that PayPal offers, including invoicing.

If you’re a small business owner that’s looking for an easy and affordable invoicing solution, you’re in the right place. PayPal invoicing allows you to easily customize and send invoices, as well as receive payments from your customers. If you’re not yet in need of full accounting software for invoicing and payments, this option from PayPal may just offer exactly what you’re looking for.

In this post, we’re going to introduce you to PayPal invoicing. By the end of this article, you’ll know what PayPal invoicing is, how much it costs, and whether or not it’s the right option for your business. If you’re ready to send your first invoice, we’ll also be breaking down how to customize your invoices and send them to customers so you can get paid more efficiently.

Keep reading to learn more about this PayPal service.

What Is PayPal Invoicing?

PayPal invoicing allows you to create professional invoices in just minutes. There are no software downloads required, and you can create and send your invoices from your computer or mobile device. You can customize your invoices by adding a logo, custom fields, and contact information. The process is quick and easy and is a great way to invoice clients and customers without paying hefty software subscription fees or fumbling with a clunky, hard-to-use UI.

How Do PayPal Invoices Work?

You can create printable invoices without even signing up for a PayPal account. However, to take full advantage of all of the features of PayPal invoicing, you’ll need to sign up for a free PayPal Business account.

Once you’ve created an invoice, you have three ways to get it to your customer. You can send the invoice directly through email. You can also create a link that can be shared with the customer. Once the customer receives the invoice, they can pay it instantly, giving you fast access to your funds. If you prefer to send your invoices another way (i.e., by the US postal service), your invoice can also be saved as a PDF and printed.

Customers can pay their PayPal invoices using a credit card, debit card, or PayPal account. Eligible users can also pay using PayPal Credit, which allows you to get your funds immediately but gives your customers up to six months to pay off any purchase of $99 or more. A PayPal account is not required for your customers to submit payment with a credit or debit card.

PayPal invoicing also helps you keep track of your sent and paid invoices. You can track payments, view billing history, and even send payment reminders for unpaid invoices. Other features include recurring invoices, partial payments, and tips. You can also create a custom billing app with PayPal Invoicing APIs.

How Much Does PayPal Invoicing Cost?

To take advantage of every feature offered by PayPal invoicing, you have to sign up for a free PayPal Business account. Sending invoices is completely free — you do not have to pay a dime to send unlimited invoices to your customers and clients. There are no setup fees or monthly fees to use PayPal invoicing.

However, you will be required to pay a fee once the invoice is paid. The fee is 2.9% of the invoice, plus $0.30 per transaction for US-based transactions. For transactions outside of the US, the fee is 4.4% plus a fixed fee based on the currency.

Once your client pays the invoice, the fee will be deducted and the remainder will be added to your PayPal Business account. You can then keep the funds in your PayPal account and spend them using the PayPal Business Debit Card, you can initiate a standard transfer to a linked bank account for no additional cost, or you can initiate an instant transfer to a linked debit card or bank account for 1% of the amount transferred (maximum fee is $10).

How To Create & Send An Invoice With PayPal

Are you ready to send your first invoice? You can get started in no time at all with PayPal invoicing. Just follow these simple steps, and you’ll be on your way to getting paid.

Step 1: Sign Up For A PayPal Business Account

You can download and print paper invoices without signing up for a PayPal account by using PayPal’s invoice template generator. But to get access to all features, it’s best to take a few minutes to sign up for a PayPal Business account. It’s completely free and very easy.

First, visit the official PayPal website and click “Sign Up.” Then, you will be given the option to sign up for a Business or Personal account. For invoicing, you’ll want to sign up for a Business account.

Next, follow the prompts and input the required information. This includes the email address you use to log in, a password, your business contact, business name, business address, and phone number. You will also need to include your business type, description of products and services, and monthly sales.

To secure your account, you will also need to provide the last four digits of your social security number, your date of birth, and your home address. Note that a credit check is not performed, so your credit score will not be impacted by signing up for a PayPal Business account.

Once this information has been provided, you will then be taken to the PayPal Dashboard. From here, you can view your PayPal balance, link your checking accounts and cards, send money, request money, and perform other tasks. In this article, our focus is on creating and sending an invoice.

Step 2: Open The Invoice Dashboard

There are two ways to start creating invoices from the PayPal Dashboard. You can use the Invoicing Quick Link directly on the dashboard, or you can navigate to the “Pay & Get Paid” tab, then select Create & Manage Invoices.

Once you’re on the next screen, you can click the link to create an invoice if you want to jump in immediately. For the purposes of this tutorial, we’re going to set up customers, inventory, and other information first by clicking on the Settings option.

Step 3: Add Your Business Info

Under business info settings, you can add, edit, or remove your:

Company logo
First & last name
Company name
Address
Email address
Phone number
Website
Tax ID
Additional info (i.e., business hours)

You can apply these settings to a single invoice or to all invoices created in PayPal. In this section, you can also select your template. There are three invoice templates:

Quantity: This template allows you to input the item name, quantity, price, and tax. You can add an optional description.
Hours: This template includes the item name, quantity, price, and an optional description.
Amounts Only: This template features the item name and price only.

Later, you can customize these templates by adding or removing fields and changing currency.

Step 4: Add Inventory

Once you’ve saved your changes under the business information settings, navigate to the Items list. While you can also add items manually to each invoice, this is a more efficient way to create invoices, especially if you have a specific list of products or services at set prices.

Select Add a New Item. From here, you can add the item name, description, price, currency, and tax. Once you save the changes, the item will be added to your list and can be added to your invoices.

Step 5: Add Customers

Now, we want to go back into settings and add your customer information in the Address Book. This is particularly useful for recurring customers that frequently make purchases.

Under Settings, go into the Address Book. You can add information for each customer by clicking Add new contact. For this section, you can add an email address, business name, first and last name, phone number, shipping and billing addresses, and a memo to yourself, which won’t appear on your invoices.

Once you’ve added information for your customers, you can access the Address Book to make changes, delete old customers, or add new customers. Instead of typing in the customer information every time you create an invoice, you can now pull this information directly from the Address Book. You still also have the option to input a customer’s information directly into the invoice. You can also bypass adding all of this information and use just an email address to send your invoice.

Step 6: Create Your Invoice

Remember the invoice dashboard we navigated to earlier? We’re going to go back to that and create our first invoice.

Let’s look at each section and break down how to complete and send your invoice.

Bill To

In this section, you can add a customer from your address book, input customer information, or enter the email address of the recipient.

Templates

If you would like to use a different template, you can choose from the three options directly in the invoice.

Company Info

If you need to add a logo or make changes to your business information, it can be done here.

Items

Add items from your item list, and the total amount will be automatically calculated for you. You also have the option to add new items not found on your item list.

Message To Customer

In this section, you can add an optional note to your customer. You can also add terms and conditions or a reference number if you choose.

More Options

In this section, you can add up to five attachments. You can also add an internal memo that will not be viewable by the recipient of the invoice.

Invoice Information

Your invoices through PayPal invoicing are in numerical order beginning with number 0001. If you’ve used a previous invoicing program or have another system in place, the invoice number can be changed.

You can also edit the invoice date from the default (the date the invoice was created) and the payment terms. In this section, you can also add discounts and shipping charges.

Payment Options

In this section, you can allow a partial payment or allow the customer to add a tip. By default, these options are turned off but can easily be turned on by selecting the relevant checkbox.

Step 7: Preview Your Invoice

Once you’ve filled out all information on your invoice, you have the option to go ahead and send it to your customer. However, PayPal also allows you to preview the invoice so you can see how it will look to the customer. This is a great time to make sure the invoice looks the way you want it to and that all information you’ve added is accurate.

After you’ve reviewed your invoice, you have several options:

Save the invoice as a draft that can be viewed, completed, and sent at a later time.
Edit the invoice.
Get a shareable link to the invoice.
Download and print the invoice.
Send the invoice.

Step 8: Getting Paid & Additional Steps

Once you click “Send,” you’ll be taken back to your invoice dashboard. From here, you can view information at-a-glance, including the customer name, invoice number, invoice amount, due date, and status. There are several things you can do to your invoices directly from this dashboard.

Some of the actions you can take include: Sending a reminder, editing the invoice, recording payment (if a payment was made outside of PayPal), canceling the invoice, or archiving it.

Once your customer pays the invoice, payment will automatically be recorded and the funds transferred to your Paypal balance. Your list of invoices will be automatically updated accordingly to show that the invoice was paid.

Through the Invoicing dashboard, you can also set up recurring invoices for repeat customers.

Simply choose the Recurring Series option, open a new invoice, select the frequency of invoicing, and create your invoice as you normally would. Invoices will automatically be sent as scheduled until you cancel or update them.

Another option that may simplify processes within your business is the ability to create estimates. You can do this through the Paypal Invoices dashboard. You can even later convert the estimate to an invoice if your customer decides to move forward with the transaction.

Are PayPal Invoices Right For You?

Congratulations! If you made it this far, you now know just how easy it is to create invoices with PayPal. Once you’ve set up your system, you can easily invoice your customers in minutes and be on your way to getting paid.

Still on the fence as to whether PayPal invoicing is right for you? Consider using PayPal for invoicing if:

You operate an eCommerce business.
You don’t have an extensive amount of inventory to track.
You don’t want or need more complicated accounting software.
You don’t want to pay for invoicing upfront (only pay when you get paid).
You want an uncomplicated invoicing system to use on your laptop or on the go.

PayPal invoices aren’t for everyone. If, for example, you need a more advanced inventory system (as opposed to just an inventory list), you’ll want to look elsewhere for invoicing software. If you’re looking for more advanced features and customization options, you might want to look into other software. Unsure of where to start? Check out our top picks in invoicing software, or start your search with a reputable product like Square Invoices. Remember to take advantage of free trials and no-cost plans to fully explore each option before making the choice for your business. Good luck!

The post Getting Paid With PayPal: How To Create & Send PayPal Invoices appeared first on Merchant Maverick.

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October 22, 2020

How To Offer Gift Wrapping To Your Customers & Boost Your Online Store This Holiday Season

Finding the perfect gift is hard enough. The thought of wrapping it can be enough to throw even the most satisfied gift-giver over the edge.

Your online store can help with the first part of the equation, by giving customers great products at great prices. And if you can find a way to help with the second part, by adding a gift-wrap option to your checkout, you can not only ease your customers’ gift-giving experience but also increase their satisfaction and cement their loyalty to your brand.

The Benefits Of Offering Gift Wrapping To Your Customers

No matter the occasion â a holiday, birthday, anniversary, birth, graduation, housewarming, or just because â nothing makes a gift more special than beautiful gift wrap. The problem is, not everyone has the time, energy, interest, or ability to perfectly prepare packages.

Although many retailers offer holiday gift-wrapping services, the truth is that your customers are shopping for gifts year-round. And especially during times (like during a global pandemic) when it’s hard to deliver gifts in person, many customers will appreciate having the option to purchase, wrap, and deliver gifts with one click of the mouse.

Remember: The easier you make it for customers, the more likely they are to return to buy from you again. So why not test out offering gift-wrapping services, and see how it can affect your bottom line?

11 Gift Wrapping Tips For Your Online Store

If you’re ready to offer a gift-wrapping service as an option in your online store, remember that you don’t have to do everything at once. Read through the list below, pick something to try, see how customers respond, and then add another element once you’ve gained confidence in your abilities and seen how customers respond. Before you know it, you’ll be a gift wrapping pro!

1. Make Sure You’re Up For The Job

It should go without saying that if you offer gift wrapping services to customers, the packages you send out need to look top-notch. You want the wrapping to increase your products’ perceived value, and a sloppy wrap won’t do the job.

Maybe you’re a wrapping wiz, and you already know what you’re doing. But if not, don’t despair. Head over to your favorite video-sharing site and search for some wrapping tutorials. Practice a time or two to hone your technique before wrapping orders start to roll in.

2. Show Your Stuff

Don’t just tell customers you’re offering a gift-wrapping service. Show them! Add a photo of a beautifully wrapped sample package to each product page or at checkout â wherever the gift wrapping option appears. If there’s anything special about the wrapping materials you use or the things you add to the package, say so.

3. Offer Multiple Gift Wrap Options

You can increase the appeal of offering gift-wrapping services by giving customers a limited number of choices for how they’d like their gift to look. Maybe you can offer a choice of wrapping paper, or a couple of different types of ribbon. After all, the option to customize can make it feel more personal.

Don’t make it too complicated, though, because having too many choices can quickly become a negative for shoppers. And you don’t want to make gift-wrapping a headache on your end, either.

4. Give A Gift Message Option

Allow customers to enter a simple message to the gift’s recipient. It’s okay to keep the message short; you can limit the character count so you don’t end up with book-length messages. Just make sure that the recipients will be able to tell who sent them the gift, and why.

You may be able to simplify the process by suggesting a few options, like “Happy Birthday!” and so on, and prompting customers to enter only the “to” and “from” information.

5. Take It Easy On Yourself

Who is going to be the chief present-wrapper? If you are going to do it yourself or at least keep the wrapping in-house, make sure you’re set up to succeed. That means creating a wrapping station that is well stocked with everything you’ll need to wrap quickly, neatly, and efficiently, so this extra step doesn’t become too much of a distraction from everything else you’re doing to keep your business up and running.

At a minimum, you’ll need a large, flat surface that’s kept clear of clutter. Keep two kinds of tape nearby (clear cellophane and double-sided), ribbons, a good pair of scissors, boxes, notecards, tissue paper â everything you’ll need to get packages prepared quickly and ready to mail. As you ramp up and begin to offer wrapping services year-round, you may find it wise to invest in spools to hold wrapping paper rolls and a paper cutter to make the job neater and faster.

6. Pre-Wrap Popular Products

Every business has its busy seasons. Maybe yours is around graduation, or Mothers’ Day, another major holiday, or a certain month or season where your orders peak. Whenever it happens, that’s definitely not the time when you want to spend too much time wrapping gifts for customers.

So play it smart. Think about the way you know your customers tend to order, including what and when. If you know that your sales of a certain product tend to double around a certain holiday, go ahead and wrap up a few of those items now, before you get slammed with business. If you allow customers to make choices about wrapping paper and ribbons, you might need to hold off on the final steps. But you can at least place items in the gift box with tissue paper now, for example. When the orders start to rush in, you’ll be glad you planned ahead.

7. Keep Expenses Low

When you’re just starting, you may not need a lot of supplies. But once you see how your customers respond to the option of gift wrapping, you may be able to keep costs lower by buying supplies in bulk. The worst thing you can do is continue to buy individual ribbons and rolls of wrapping paper at your local store.

Eventually, as you do more and more wrapping, you’ll probably want to sign up for an account with a wholesale service like PaperMart, Nashville Wraps, or WrapSmart. That will allow you to buy larger rolls of paper and bulk up on other supplies at discount prices.

8. Customize Gift Wrap To The Occasion

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with starting small and testing the waters by offering limited numbers of choices for wrapping paper and finishing touches. As you become more comfortable with fulfilling your customers’ gift wrapping expectations, think about expanding your offerings and changing them by season.

Let’s say you sell a toy for infants. People may want to give that toy as a gift to the parents during a baby shower, when a baby is born, for a holiday like Hanukah, or for a birthday. Offering a generic baby print and a holiday print may be enough to cover your bases without overly complicating things. After the holiday passes, simply replace the holiday print with another fairly generic pattern to maintain the number of choices.

9. Consider Outsourcing

If your online store is hosted by a service like 3DCart, Shopify, Etsy, BigCommerce, or others, you may be able to partner with that host to make gift wrap easier to manage. With 3DCart, for example, you can download a free module that, when activated, automatically adds gift wrap options to your store.Â And it’s not a one-size-fits-all module. You’ll be able to customize the options you offer to your customers. For example, you can offer gift wrapping only during certain times of the year, adjust the price you charge for gift wrap, and omit the gift wrap option from certain products that might be a little too tricky to wrap.

If you use a shopping cart solution like Shopify or Amazon that offers fulfillment services, you may be able to outsource your gift wrap services as well. Shopify Fulfillment, for example, allows you to provide custom packaging for your products. You’ll probably have fewer options to offer customers, but it may be worth it to hand off wrapping duties.

10. Adjust Your Returns Policies

Any time you’re mailing out gifts for your customers, you run the risk of encountering product returns. That’s complicated by the fact that orders may be placed well in advance of when the product will be opened. A holiday gift, for example, could be sitting under the tree for at least a couple of weeks, and if it’s damaged or the wrong size, you should allow a couple more weeks for the recipient to return it to you.

If you haven’t already written up a return policy for your online store, there’s no time like the present! Add in some information about returning gifts, too. After all, when gift-giving enters the equation, you’re really working with two customers, not just the one who placed the order. That means you have two chances to get it right, make a good impression, and earn repeat business.

11. Add A Soft Marketing Touch

You don’t want your gift wrap service to be all about you. But could you add something inside the box that lets the recipient know where the present came from? A simple message saying “We hope you enjoy your new ____ ,” followed by your business name and contact information or instructions for returning or exchanging the gift, can be seen as an additional service — and not an intrusion — if it’s done right.

How Much Should You Charge For Gift Wrapping?

While complimentary gift wrapping is sure to please your customers, it may deliver a hit to your bottom line. Is the cost of wrapping worth the potential increase in sales and customer satisfaction? Or should you charge a reasonable fee when customers add a gift-wrapping service to their order? You may need some time to figure out the best approach. Think it through, start small, analyze the results, and adjust as you go forward. Here are some considerations and suggestions as you decide how much to charge for gift wrapping:

Know Your Costs

Anytime you add a service, you have to consider the cost. Do the math. How much will you spend on wrapping paper and other supplies per package? If your products vary greatly in size, it’s okay to use an average.

Don’t forget to calculate the costs associated with the person who will be doing the wrapping. How much time will that person need to wrap a typical package? You may be surprised at how much time you’ll be investing in gift-wrapping. Knowing the true costs upfront can help you decide if you should pass all or part of those costs on to your customers.

Consider Outside Costs

If you choose to outsource gift-wrapping duties to a fulfillment center, you’ll be able to see exactly how much each package costs to wrap. Maybe you can split the difference with customers, and adjust your prices slightly upward to cover at least half the cost. Or you may decide that the convenience is worth the price you’ll pay to outsource the wrapping.

Use Gift Wrap As An Incentive

If you want to offer complimentary gift wrapping to customers, one way to contain the costs is by setting a price threshold for the service. Suppose your most popular product costs $20. Offering free wrapping to customers who spend $25 provides an incentive for customers to shop a little longer. The extra $5 or more that they spend on your site may be enough to offset the cost of gift-wrapping â and may even result in a little extra profit in your pocket. Or maybe you can offer complimentary gift wrapping to customers who join a loyalty program, if you offer one, or agree to sign up for your mailing list. The point is, even if you don’t charge for gift wrapping, you don’t have to give it away for free.

Mix It Up

One way to keep costs down while still satisfying customers is by offering different levels of service. In this case, that might mean a free gift wrap service and a deluxe option that customers can pay for, if they choose. Keep the free option fairly basic, and charge enough for the deluxe option to cover your costs.

Extend The Giving

If you decide gift wrapping charges are a must for your small business, you can make customers feel good about paying for it. Just promise to donate a portion of the wrapping charges to charity â and post the total you’ve donated so far. Choose a reputable nationwide charitable organization that almost everyone can feel good about supporting, and you’ve developed a win-win for your customers and your small business.

Start Offering Gift Wrapping Services

You’ve already got great products and customers who want to buy from you. Adding gift wrapping services puts a great big bow on your offerings. Start small by offering gift wrapping for a trial period or around a certain holiday. You may be surprised by how your customers respond. At the very least, you’ll gain the data you need to decide if it’s worth offering year-round.

The post How To Offer Gift Wrapping To Your Customers & Boost Your Online Store This Holiday Season appeared first on Merchant Maverick.

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