As an Accountant and Home Business Owner, I can’t stress how important it is to keep good records of your Home Business Income and Expenses. Keeping good accounting records will help make it easier for you and your tax accountant come tax time. It will also be easier to come up with the proof of your expenses incase you get audited.

During tax time, I see many clients who have home businesses like yours. One of the main problems is that many of them do not keep good accounting records. They just stuff their receipts and invoices in a shoe box and forget about them until tax time.

The reason why they don’t keep good accounting records is because they don’t have the proper accounting software and a good filing system. Having both is very essential to keeping your accounting records organized.

Today, I am going to recommend an affordable and easy to use accounting program that will help you to keep your business transactions organized. That software is called Quickbooks.

With QuickBooks, you can keep records of your Income and Expenses, Keep your Bank and credit card Accounts Reconciled, and keep track of how profitable your business is doing. It is very important to know how profitable your business is doing so that you can see where you stand. This makes it easier to make business decisions that will improve your financial position and lower your taxes.

Quickbooks comes in several different versions. I recommend one of the following Quickbooks programs for anyone in the home-based business industry.

Quickbooks Pro-PC Version

Quickbooks Pro-Mac Version

Quickbooks Pro-Online Version

Many people are concerned with Saturation and competition when marketing their business on the internet for the first time. I am here to tell you that you don’t have to worry about market saturation if you figure out a way to have you stand out from the crowd.

When you first start to market online, you need to determine how you stand out from the crowd? What makes you different from everyone else. However, many people fail to do this when starting out and decide to copy someone else. Its understandable that people are trying to copy everyone else because they have all been taught the concept of duplication and think that they can have success copying some other successful marketer.

I just want to let you know that it is not easy to copy other people and therefore it is easier to just be yourself and develop a personal brand. Developing a personal brand will not happen overnight. It is an ongoing process which you can improve over time. You can start out by comparing how other network marketing leaders brand and position themselves to get an idea on where to start. You want to use the same approach as the brand managers of large corporations.

There are six things you want to consider when developing your brand.

1. What is unique about your services

2.Why would someone do business with you?

3.What makes you different?

4.What are your greatest Strengths and Weaknesses?

5. What have you done to stand out? (This could be during your career or school)

6.What have you done that you are most proud of? (Doesn’t have to be related to business)

If you ask yourself these questions while developing your brand, you will more easily be able to pin point your qualities and uniqueness so that you can develop a strong personal brand. Having a strong personal brand is what will make you stand out from the crowd and have people doing business with you as opposed to doing business with someone else.

I was recently reading a blog post explaining The Law of Attraction. This post reminded me of a movie called the Secret which talks about the law of attraction. It is also in book version as well, but I am going to share with you a video clip of the first 20 minutes of The Secret.

With the law of attraction, you will attract what you think about. If you have positive thoughts, you will have positive results, but if you have negative thoughts, you will have negative results. This is true for both your business and your personal life.

Enjoy the presentation and share it with others.

Today I would like to talk about something that is overlooked in the home based business industry. The Tax Benefits of Owning a Home Based Business.

If you are an employee and reading this post, you probably understand that you don’t have that many deductions other than Home Mortgage interest, Real Estate Taxes (That is if you own a home) charitable contributions and employee expenses (reduced by 2% of your Income ). And those Schedule A deductions are phased out as your W2 income increases over a certain amount.

Owning a Home Based Business has many Tax Benefits. You are able to deduct your cell phone, internet, office supplies, mileage, and a portion of your home that you use exclusively for business. Just to name a few. You are already paying for some of those expenses (ex Cell Phone and Internet), but are not able to deduct them unless you own a home Business.People who own a home business typically pay a smaller percentage in taxes than those who don’t own a home business.

If you don’t own a home business yet, I encourage you to look into starting one as soon as possible so that you can start saving money in taxes. Some of you might be thinking that you can’t afford to start a home business because it is too expensive. Not always. There is a business that I recommend that you can start for under $100. You don’t need to drop your life savings or take out a huge loan to start this kind of business.

The Business that I recommend is Network Marketing. I recommend this business for several reasons. For one, you can earn an income on the efforts of your team. It is like owning  your own business with employees working for you. But instead of having employees work for you, you are helping the people you really care about obtain financial freedom.

As you build up your team in your network marketing business, you are able to take time off from your business and still make money since the income is residual. You can make money off the efforts of the people you brought in a year or two ago and they can do the same for themselves as well. By the way, you are not required to quit your job when you get started in a Network Marketing Business.

You can’t do this with most businesses. As a tax accountant, I make money for the hours that I put in and bill to the client. If I don’t work, I cant bill the client and therefore don’t make any money. This is the case whether I have my own practice or if I work as an employee for an accounting firm.

If you are a realtor you only make income when you sell a home and that is it until you sell another home. You don’t get paid for a home that you sold one year ago.

So if you want to take advantage of the Tax Benefits and the Time Leverage and Freedom that Network Marketing provides you, I recommend that you get started with a Network Marketing Company today or remain being a slave to the IRS.

So would you like to create a WordPress blog header without spending a butt load of Money? You can by downloading Free XHeader software.

I know that this blog post is going to piss off some of those blog designers that charge hundreds of dollars for a simple blog header, but why pay for it when you can design one for yourself for free.

Having a good blog header is key to having  success in this industry. Your blog header is the first thing that people see when they visit your blog.  If they don’t like your blog header, they will go somewhere else.

I have put together this video that will show you how to download and use XHeader and how to upload it into your hosting account and set it up on your WordPress Blog Header.