Personal Finance Tips » Finance Planning

ABCs Of Construction Project Management

admin — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 11:47:00 +0000

Project management is the art of organizing and managing resources in an efficient method which completes the project at hand in the way it was meant to be. A project is a temporary task which creates either a product or service, so managing each individual one is a unique process. It’s important to recognize all the dimensions needed to complete a project and act on them in an orderly fashion.

Construction project management differs from the general term of project management in the way that construction project management specifically refers to organizing a project regarding the area of construction. Also, much of construction project management is done digitally through software to ensure that nothing is left out. This works because sometimes it’s easy for a project manager to forget a thing or two when he or she is stressed out from the time limits or budgets given.

Project management software helps individuals in keeping track of a complicated project which might easily become confusing if all the components are not kept organized. Things that need to be taken into consideration are appointments, communication, resource allocation, and more. Even people like subcontractors and employees need to be thought of and remembered to check up on their work progress and receive pay. People also use the software to make sure that various deadlines are met and that the overall project is completed on time, and that the many requirements previously calculated in construction estimating like staying in budget are met.

If you are interested in doing some research or feels that construction project management software if needed in your job, then looking at online construction software websites which rates different types of software according to requirements is a good first step. Once you know which construction project management software is right for you, then purchasing is the next step. However, if you’re thinking of starting a business, then perhaps your very first concern should not be construction project management. The step before finding project management software is acquiring a good construction estimating software, and there are plenty of websites regarding that as well out on the internet. A website which satisfies both of these needs and more is http://www.web-based-software.com/reviews.asp. You can find a plethora of software regarding every aspect of construction that one could possibly need.

With a little bit of luck and some useful software to aid you in your company, it’s time for you to succeed.

Master the Personal Budget

admin — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 09:30:10 +0000

Making a budget plan is one of the most important decisions a person can make.

Personal Finance Software Review of Quicken Product Offerings

admin — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 19:59:29 +0000

In this article I would like to conduct a personal finance software review of the Quicken product offerings designed for personal use. There are several personal finance software products on the market that do wonderful jobs of helping families manage their finances, but I am most familiar with Quicken as I have been a user of its products for over eight years. I have been completely satisfied with the features Quicken provides and would like to review and compare the benefits that its product offerings deliver.

Quicken Starter Edition

Formerly known as Quicken Basic, the Quicken Starter Edition is an excellent solution for individuals who will be using personal finance software for the first time. The three main features the Quicken Starter Edition delivers are: (1) balancing of your checkbook electronically, (2) tracking how you spend your money by being able to categorize purchases, and (3) monitoring and updating all your investment and banking accounts in one place. It basically provides a “one-stop shop” for all of your personal finance concerns.

Quicken Deluxe

Although the Quicken Starter Edition is a fantastic product, I believe the average family considering a personal finance software product should start with Quicken Deluxe. The reason is that, in addition to offering all of the features of the Quicken Starter Edition, Quicken Deluxe provides the capability to download banking and investment account transactions automatically. This makes reconciling your checking account, as well as your other accounts, extremely simple. In addition, Quicken Deluxe allows you to create savings goals and track their progress, store statements and records electronically, and plan for a new home, a baby, or retirement. For most families, this is the best place to start.

Quicken Premier

For those families who manage their own investments and require additional tools to monitor and measure their progress, Quicken Premier is the perfect solution. Quicken Premier offers all of the wonderful features from Quicken Deluxe plus several others, including: (1) generating various investment performance reports, (2) analyzing and optimizing your portfolio with special tools, (3) generating Schedule A, B, and D tax reports, and (4) setting investment alerts to notify you when certain conditions are in place. A truly remarkable tool for the do-it-yourself investor!

Quicken Home & Business

The three software solutions above are all excellent choices, but if you own your own business, none of these will be sufficient for the additional monitoring and record keeping required of you. Enter Quicken Home and Business. Though not as powerful a solution as Intuit’s QuickBooks products, it is the perfect choice if you have a small business with no payroll requirements, or especially for a part time business. In addition to providing all of the wonderful features of Quicken Premier, Quicken Home and Business allows: (1) tracking and categorizing of both business and personal expenses, (2) creating customized estimates and invoices, (3) generating profit and loss reports, (4) tracking vehicle mileage and other Schedule C items, and (5) monitoring upcoming bills and unpaid invoices. If you are considering a small part-time business, this solution is perfect to get you started.

In conclusion, Quicken offers a wonderful lineup of products that are designed to meet the varying needs that different families require. This personal finance software review has aimed to provide you with a basic overview of each product to help you decide which solution would be most appropriate for your family. Hopefully this discussion convinces you of the incredible value personal finance software delivers to its users. I can only speak from personal experience.

Creating a Personal Budget For Your Monthly Living Expenses Using Excel

admin — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 11:48:21 +0000

Are you disorganized when it comes to your personal budget? Maybe you are just looking for ways to improve your organizational skills when it comes to budgeting and paying your living expenses each month. Creating a personal budget for your monthly living expenses is a great way to keep track of all of your debits and credits.

The Excel software program is a great way to help you organize all of your living expenses and make it easier to simplify your bill paying process each month.

To get started, you need to have the excel software program installed on your computer and you also need to have all of your monthly bills and bank statements in front of you to begin to create your personal budget.

If you choose to list your monthly bills and expenses alphabetically, do so before you begin to create the personal budget. If you wish to list them by date, organize them in chronological order by date. Set these aside.

Open up your excel program on your desktop. Once in the program, open a new document, then click to open up a new worksheet. You will want to save the worksheet right away. You may name the worksheet whatever you want, but try to name it something you will remember such as “My personal budget” or “Jane’s personal budget.”

From the top of the worksheet you will see a number of lettered boxes and numbered columns. Take your cursor and place it in the first box (A) highlight the corner of the box and pull the box to the right for about the length of four columns. This is where you will write the names of the bills either alphabetically. Proceed to enter in all of your bills.

Create headers at the top that will have the following categories such as due date, date paid and amount paid. You can add other notes or categories that will better help you to better organize or keep track of your monthly living expenses.

You can create a “grand total” box at the bottom of the spreadsheet and place the amount of all combined bills at the bottom. You can highlight all of the entered amounts and select the auto sum button to have the excel program configure all of the amounts for you. Save all changes.

By using an Excel software program to create a personal budget for your lifestyle, you will soon realize how easy it is to keep track of all your expenses and make your busy financial life work for you.

A Sample Website Marketing Plan For Your New Site

admin — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 00:05:08 +0000

You’ve put in the research, the time and the effort and your new website is finally live. Now the problem is, how do you get people to come and visit it? Whether your site is a blog, an e-store or an informational portal on your favorite topic, you need to plan how you will market your site and get traffic to it. Read on for a sample website marketing plan that will be a good start for any new site.

Step 1: Keyword Research

Since your site is already complete, you should already know what your topic is and who makes up your target audience. If you don’t know what exact related keyword phrases they are typing into the search engines though, you are basically flying blind.

To solve this problem, enlist the help of online services such as nichebot or wordtracker. These allow you to access databases that will show you the exact phrases people are typing into the search engines when looking for related information on your site’s topic. With these keywords, you are then ready for the next step of this web site marketing plan.

Step 2: Article Marketing

In order to get traffic to your website you need to let others who might be interested in your site’s topic know you exist. One of the best ways to do this is through article marketing. Basically, what you need to do is use your keyword list you created and use those keyword phrases as the titles and topics of interesting and well written articles. Then, you offer your articles to other online publishers for republication through services such as Ezine Articles.

In return for allowing them to republish your articles on their site, they will give you a link to your site at the bottom of your article. This is known as the “bio-box”. Use the bio box to give people a reason to come to your site and include a link to your site. It is also useful to link back to your site using keyworded anchor text that will help with your site’s optimization.

Step 3. Start Bookmarking And Tagging Your Pages

Many people now turn to social bookmarking sites such as Delicious not only to keep track of their favorite webpages but also to find more websites about their favorite topics. Make certain to create a free account at one or more of these services and add information about your website to them. Almost all social bookmarking sites will ask you to “tag” your listing with keywords that are relevant to your site. You’ll want to turn to your keyword list again to make sure you use the same phrases people are actually searching for.

Social bookmarking will not only help you get more targeted incoming links to your site – which can help with your search engine rankings and bring your free traffic – it can also start bringing targeted visitors to your site right away directly from the sites you are listed on. To be most effective, social bookmarking should be a daily or at least weekly part of your website marketing plan.

Why Use Excel For Corporate Budgeting?

admin — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 14:30:17 +0000

In recent years, there have been numerous calls for company to move away from Excel-based Corporate Budgeting to Business Performance Management/ Business Intelligence (BPM/BI) systems. Reasons cited include:

Slow throughput time due to the complexity of the budget. Challenges in maintaining data accuracy during consolidation.

Despite the repeated summons to move away from Excel-based Corporate Budgeting, today about 70% to 80% of all corporations (from big corporations to small companies) continue to make use of Excel for their budgeting. So what makes these budget managers stand behind Excel and remain loyal to using it as their primary budgeting tool?

The 6 Benefits of Using Excel for Budgeting

The current method of Excel budgeting is not without constraints. However, the advantages for using Excel as a primary corporate budgeting tool overshadow its limitations.

Excel provides budget managers with a lot of control on the format of the template. Budget managers can change the layout of template when the business environment changes. With a BMP/BI system, budget managers have to give up the control to design a template that meets their business needs. Budget contributors are familiar with Excel spreadsheet that requires no or minimum training to complete the template. However, they are usually too involved in their operations to find time to learn another application which is used only a few times a year. Budget managers and contributors could add new worksheets to store their workings and provide an audit trail on the basis for their budgeting numbers. The number of people involved in the budgeting process is not limited by the number of licenses paid. Anybody who owns a copy of Microsoft Office can be involved in the process. Companies do not have to constant upgrade their software so that it will work with the latest operating system. It is expensive to own a BMP/BI, which cost at least $50K (conservative estimate) and beyond, not to mention that IT support staffs are usually required in maintaining the system. Using Excel for corporate budgeting would relieve the company the problem of finding IT staff to maintain the BMP/BI system in the midst of a worldwide IT staff shortage.
Limitations in the current method of Excel Budgeting

At the present moment, there is no other alternative software that could match the benefits brought by excel in budgeting. Budget managers assume they have to operate within the limitations of Excel if they want to continue using it as their budgeting tool.

Now, we have developed a revolutionary method of Excel-based Corporate Budgeting that we promise that will wow budget managers and make them want to lay their hands on. We believe it’s a solution that every budget manager must know, even those who are currently using BMP.

In this revolutionary solution, we retain all the benefits contained in the current method of Excel Budget. We just added more benefits and also remove the limitations contained in the current method of budgeting.

Those who are working on the budgets do not have to follow strictly to the layout by the budget managers. They can change the sequence of the budgeting lines based on their preference. They could put advertising cost on the first line in the template followed by marketing cost and vice versa. You can easily transfer the budgeted numbers from the template to another worksheet and form a database simply by using formula. The database can be used to create pivot table for analysis and reporting. Analyze the budget numbers from different perspectives. You can analyze them by products, by channels, etc. Prepare reports and charts by special links which don’t have to worry which line the item is located. And even when the item changes row or columns, you will still get the right numbers for your report. No loss of details during the process of consolidation. The details from the lowest level i.e. numbers submitted by the different business units are captured into the consolidated database. The consolidation will automatically update the budget numbers from different business units, add new rows, delete old items and also change the numbers as the numbers in the template changes. Consolidation can be as quick as a few seconds to a few minutes, depending on the number of business units you need to consolidate. Analysis can be done at the highest level with the lowest level of details. For example, you can analyze staff cost by departments or even on a country level. You can even prepare pie charts to show the contribution from the different business units or countries.

What Household Budget Percentage Breakdown Is Typical?

admin — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 14:06:34 +0000

The typical American household budget percentage breakdown looks like the list below. For most of the categories a range is shown. A range makes more sense to help you see where your personal budget fits (or doesn’t fit.) If your budget doesn’t fit the typical American household budget, rejoice! The average American household budget is jacked up – we carry too much debt and we just don’t save enough. We’re so worried about our neighbor’s new pool, our co-worker’s new car and our friend’s new designer shoes that we spend more than we earn to try and keep up. But take heart! Review the percentages below, compare your household budget and then read on to find out how you can move yourself into the elite minority of Americans who have mastered where their money goes.

Typical Household Budget Percentages

33-38% Housing (59%-66% of this is on shelter – mortgage interest, property taxes, repairs, and rent, and other items) 15-19% Transportation (up to half of this is vehicle purchase – 2 cars per household average) 13-14% Food Budget (55% at home, 45% away) 0-2% Alcohol 0-3% Tobacco and related products 0-2% Caffeine related products 4-5% On clothing and related services (drycleaning) 4.5 – 6% on out of pocket Health Care 9% Personal Insurance and Pensions (breakdown: 1% life and other personal insurance, 7.5% Social Security, .5% investment 5% Entertainment 2.5% Charitable Contributions 2% Reading and Education 1% Personal Care products and services 2% Miscellaneous 4% Credit Card, Consumer Loan Interest

If your budget closely matches the above, here’s what you can do to fix that. Do these in order. Do not proceed to the next step until you’ve addressed the current step:

Stop using your @#!&*! credit cards! Make a down and dirty budget right away! Don’t worry about it being right at first…you can perfect it over time. Just do it! Cut back on your easy to identify, frivolous spending habits (3 dollar lattes, magazines, 450 extra satellite channels, etc.) If you’ve got some expensive habits you’ve wanted to quit for some time, now’s the time. For example, if you’re a hard-drinkin’, chain smokin’, coffee drinkin’ fool, you can reap a windfall of up to 7% or more of your income! Just cutting back to 2 drinks per day, only drinking coffee from home and quitting the cigarettes will net you a nice amount of extra cash and add years to your life! Refine your budget after eliminating what you can. Reduce your 401K and other investment payments (if you have any) to the minimum allowable to keep your 401K and/or other investment accounts open. If your employer has a stock matching plan, keep that in addition to the minimum to keep your investments accounts open (but only up to the minimum you need to get all the matching money.) You’re going to reap a whole lot more return on paying off your debts than you can ever hope to reasonably get from traditional investments. If you’re paying into a college fund for your kids – keep doing that – if you’re not and you really want to, hold off until step 6. Refine your budget to reflect the extra income available, if any. Build an emergency fund equal to 2% of your gross annual income. It should be a little hard to get to (like a separate checking account or mutual fund), but not too difficult (Certificate of Deposit.) Work this into your budget – it’s very important. You will not believe the amount of stress that will melt away when you do this. Pay off your debts – everything except mortgages. And don’t just move your revolving debt into a second or third mortgage – that’s bad. Pay them off using a rapid debt paydown system. Pay off any student loans (for future reference, these are a bad idea.) Pay off your car(s) too. If you’re not upside down on a car loan (your car is worth more than you owe) you can sell it and get a cheaper, paid for car. Throw a small (inexpensive but fun) party for yourself and your loved ones every time you pay off a debt. Take all the money you WERE spending to pay off your non-mortgage debt and start putting it into those investment accounts you put on idle. Make sure you’re investing at least 10% of your gross income. If you followed steps 1-4 exactly, you should have lots of breathing room in your budget now. If this is true and you want to invest more than 10%, go ahead, but be sure to reward yourself too and live a little. Grow your emergency fund to a level you’re comfortable with (2 or more months of income is a good start.) If you have young kids and you want to send them to college, start putting money into a college fund of your choice for them, if you haven’t already. Throw a bigger party than usual when this is done. Pay off your mortgage and throw your biggest party yet! You can start towards this by refinancing to a single fixed rate mortgage (your credit should be in pretty good shape having paid off all your other debts.) If it’s a 30 year mortgage, pay more than your monthly payment to dramatically lower the amount of interest you give to the bank. If it’s a 15 year fixed – wow! That’s excellent! When you’re totally debt free, regularly give away whatever you think you can afford. It’s good for the soul!

Easy? Not. Worth it? Doing the above will pay dividends in your life in many more ways than just dollars and cents. You will assure yourself a dignified and financially secure retirement. Do this well and you will also build a way for your kids and your grandkids to enjoy prosperous lives, and they will remember you with fondness and respect long after you’ve moved on to the other side. Now get started!

Budgeting, Forecasting and Tax Planning

admin — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 22:29:39 +0000

Corporate tax is a tax levied by various jurisdictions on the profits made by companies or associations. Tax will vary drastically from one jurisdiction to another. Allowances for capital expenditure as well as the total amount of interest payments that can be deducted from gross profits when working out the tax liability will both vary.

Tax rates will also vary and are determined on whether profits have been distributed to shareholders or not. Know that any profits that have been reinvested can not be taxed. For those in America the federal rate is 35%, but in 1999 Treasure announced the “check the box” systems there have been some corporations who can elect to be treated special and get to skip taxes.

If you need to save money for tax time you can use new software which will teach you how to budget properly. Budgeting software will help to provide you and your family with financial security and personal peace of mind. With the help of budgeting software you are able to reach long term financial goals and teach your children how to manage their money. Budgeting now will save you the headache later in life when you should be sending your children to the college of their choice, while enjoying an early retirement.

Budgeting software can also include additional features such as online bill paying, invoice generating, customer tracking, as well as accounts receivable and payable management. You can even find some budgeting software that is available to you in the form of a free trial.

When it comes to our business I’m sure we all wish we could see in to the future. This may seem like an unreasonable request or even a fantasy but the truth is that there are a few different programs that will provide you with the information that you need, known as forecasting software. It is easier if this software has the ability to create charts and graphs.

Forecasting software can works together with budgeting software so that you can analyze your current financial status, as well as the likely future. Forecasting software will predict the demand for your specific product or service. It will use this number to determine whether the amount of employees you have is sufficient.

Your financial status is vital to your business, so it is important to cover all aspects, including tax information. There are tips you can use to lower your tax costs include write offs such as writing off 60% of your health insurance and writing off anything business related such as taking clients out to lunch.

File everything and keep record of all of your financial information. This will prove extremely helpful when tax season comes around.

Financial Planning (Organizing your Budget)

admin — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 13:42:18 +0000

A few years back a friend of mine accidentally saw one of my paychecks, he was shocked to see that he was earning more than me. He also noted the fact that his wife worked and mine did not. This particular friend had approach me a couple of times in need of a loan to get him through until his payday. Because I had been able to help him he had always assumed that I made more than he made. Once he realized that the situation was reversed he asked me how could we possibly being doing as well as we were.

I then asked him what type of budget he and his wife use for their household finances. He replied that they did not have a planned budget for the household bills. Well, I was surprised because this friend always seem to be very organized. I asked him how he thought he could manage his money without a budget. I explained that a budget is the cornerstone of knowing where you stand financially. I mentioned a phrase that I heard from my Dad years earlier…If you fail to plan, then you should plan to fail. I think he was a little offended and a little embarrassed, but he did see my point.

I told that for many years my household had operated on a budget and yes at first it was not easy. Starting a budget is the hardest part, the adjustment to being responsible to show where each dollar goes is not pleasant for most people. The longer you do it the easier it becomes because you start to take pride in sticking to your budget and you begin to see the fruits of your labor. I asked him to try by starting on the following plan, which is the same one I used when I started out. I told him to use it for 6 months and then we would see if it worked.

The plan is simple: Your money needs to be divided by percentage for uses. 33% for housing, 17% for transportation, 25% for monthly bills, 10% for donations, and 15% for savings and investing. I asked him to list all of their misc. spending and notice if any money was being wasted. The savings account is also utilized for emergency needs such as home or car repairs.
Right from the start my friend said that 25% would not cover his monthly bills. I told him that he would need to use the portion designated for savings and pay off the credit cards. It turned out that they were maxed out on several cards and that was the main drawdown on their income. At the end of 6 months I met with him and he said they had paid off three of the cards and had listed their monthly misc. expenses. With that list they had realized that they were spending about $250.00 per month on things that were not neccessary. That combined with the savings on credit card payments had allowed them to put $1,000.00 in savings. They will soon have all their credit cards paid off and will be able to place more money in the savings column.

This budget is a very simple example, the actual budget for each family requires a little fine tuning to match the current situation of each household. More advanced examples will be soon posted at Wongaa.com.

5 Year Personal Development Plan

admin — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 18:25:44 +0000

Why not sit down for at least 10 minutes today and create a 5 year personal development plan for yourself. Where would you like to be in five years? What do you want to have accomplished? Visualize yourself as successful and write down your passions of what it is you want to be do have in your life. Remember you can do anything the only limitations we have are the one’s we place on ourselves. Most people realize that personal development is a positive step in the right direction of improving one’s life in any area of your life. However many people do not take control of their lives and have no idea of what they would like to accomplish in the next five years.

A 5 year personal development plant will help you map out areas in your life that you would like to improve. What is it right now that you would like to change in any area whether it is a relationship, business, career. Are you stagnant in any of those areas and would like to see yourself somewhere different? You can sit down and make some long term goals of where you would like to be in five years. Your 5 year personal development plan will help you identify the the means to accomplish your long term goals. It will be like a map that you can keep in front of you at all times to constantly remind you of what you want to be do have, and will be a map for you to follow. It will map the steps you make along the way and you can evaluate the progress that you make.

Another thing that will help you keep track of your progress is a journal. When you take the time to set the goals you would like to achieve whether long term or short term; you should write down your progress in your journal. This will help you keep on track and stay motivated towards working towards what it is you desire. Plus when you reach your goals you can go back and read what it took you to reach your goals. You should always rewards yourself positively for sticking to your 5 year personal development plan and doing whatever it takes to reach them.

However when you reward yourself make sure your reward is not negative. If your goal is to lose weight and you have dropped the amount of weight you wanted to, do not sit down and eat a big piece of chocolate cake. This would hurt you in the long run; instead do something else that you would enjoy doing like going to a movie.

If you currently know what you would like to be do have in five years down the road, and have your goals written down then you are way ahead of the game. Most people do not know what they want to be do have and most of them are just content with their mediocre life. The complain about their life however they really do not know what they want to accomplish; if you do not know where you would like to be chances are you will not ever accomplish anything different.