Honor Services Grows to Michigan

Honor Services now provides cloud payment solution consulting to Michigan! PCI compliance must be established firmly on all payment systems to avoid steep fines. Are you ready?

Why We Focused on Safety for Honor Services Office Invoicing

Safety was our number one priority when we developed our Invoicing solution. We partnered with First Data Merchant Solutions and PayPal to ensure you had the best solution for processing online invoices.

First Data and PayPal Secure Payments

First Data
This is the largest acquirer processor in the world. Over a trillion dollars in credit card processing happened last year through this processor. If you do a lot of invoicing or have a high dollar value and wish to receive online payments, this solution is for you. A credit check and monthly fees may apply.

PayPal
Ease of use is where PayPal is making strides. Simply sign up for an account, tie it to your business account and you are up and running. This is a simple solution for those who do infrequent billing. It has no monthly fee, but the processing fees can be a bit higher.

Case Study (A Day In The Life Of Jasmine)
As Jasmine sat at her desk she was troubled because she was sending invoices using a Word template and had no idea how much was owed to her or when the invoices were due. Her Do-it-Yourself tactic had backfired.

She quickly subscribed to Honor Services Office and immediately noticed the difference. She was able to add taxes, fees and items she sold, within minutes. After choosing between First Data or PayPal for her processor, she was in business. She sent her clients invoices and had a surprise bonus, she was reminded when the invoice was overdue.

She resent the overdue invoice by editing the invoice. She went to Ledger Management and saw the payment automatically added to her books. "That was so easy" she said to herself.


Honor Services Office is fully PCI compliant!

Honor Services Office Now Available!

Naperville, ILL, March 19, 2014 /Honor Services Office/

New technology is available to help small businesses efficiently manage clients, quickly prepare invoices, and successfully reach prospects through e-mail marketing. Honor Services Office, the company and the software, makes it easy to grow business, grow clients from anywhere.

"We heard many small business owners who were not in the human capitol industry ask for software that could help them with their business needs" said Stan Washington, founder and President of Honor Services Inc. and maker of the original platform Career Coach Office. 

Pardon Our Dust
"Over the next few months, we will be migrating all accounts over to this new platform which is much easier to use and has some new twists" Washington said.

Contact Management  - Updated Auto Reminders to make sure you remember to contact potential client and clients thusly building your relationship
Email Marketing Campaign - Updated Click-Thru stats to enable you to see how successful your campaign is.
Client Management  - Added Private Notes to keep your conversations documented.
Online Invoicing - Updated Customizable Invoices with personalized notes and "Subscription" invoicing in Daily, Weekly, Monthly and Annual Billing intervals.

If you have questions about your account then, please feel free to contact us at (888)611-7725 or email support@careercoachoffice.com.

http://www.careercoachoffice.com/mproducts.php

Expiring Tax Credits and Being Prepared for Year End 2013

By: Stan Washington
Date: December 04.2013

T'is the season to be jolly, thankful and prepared! Yes it's that time of year where we want to relax and enjoy in many festivities, but are you prepared to relax? I remember one year I worked extremely hard and was too busy to focus on taxes.  My accountant asked for my documents and I had a pile of garbage.

She looked at me and shook her head with a despondent stare.  Her retort was "Come back to me when you are prepared." Okay, she wasn't that harsh but it felt that way!

Start Preparing for Taxes NOW
Why not start collecting your documentation now.  Before you schedule your next party, schedule time for collecting documents and summarizing your year. I have included tax credits to prepare you for your conversation with your accountant. You should schedule a meeting before the year ends.

Expiring tax credit full document: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43124.pdf

Bank Statements
I don't know about your bank, but mine makes it easy to access statements online for one (1) year. This means you need to collect your statements from last December until now if you haven't done so already.

Other Considerations
Have you done charity work? Do you have miles listed for business expenses? Have you tallied all operational expenses? Are you missing tax credits you are unaware of? Do you have an opportunity to get a credit in the next three weeks? Are you aware of the filing date for next year? (There is a two week delay extending the start of the season to February 04, 2014). Is your hardware fully depreciated? Should you purchase computer and other hardware now?

Filing season link:http://www.irs.gov/uac/Newsroom/2014-Tax-Season-to-Start-Later-Following-Government-Closure;-IRS-Sees-Heavy-Demand-As-Operations-Resume

Being prepared will help you reduce your heartache and headaches!

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Visit http://www.careercoachoffice.com to do online invoicing today!

Is Technology Too Confusing to Use?

By: Stan Washington
Date: October 10, 2013

After meeting with a number of small business owners, it became very apparent they were not using technology to it's fullest. No offense to the dinosaur tools of paper phone-books and newspapers but I can't remember the last time I used either for my business needs.

Technology is supposed to make our lives so much easier, but is it making it more complicated?


I did an informal poll at a conference of small business owners and found some surprising results around technology.  This is my world and according to my narrow thinking, everyone was using it to its fullest! Well my technology utopia was shattered when I talked with people.

Business Website - I was thoroughly surprised to find a whopping 38% of the people we polled still have not invested in a website of some kind.  There are so many tools to build sites yourself, but then again we believe in technology!

Facebook Page - I was not as surprised to find 45% of those polled still did not use a Facebook page. Content tends to be the issue. Many small business owners don't like creating their own content to post.

Twitter Account - The low number of 43% of our poll takers using a Twitter Account was not a surprise.  Since they are afraid of generating content for Facebook, then they feel the same way about Twitter.

LinkedIn Page - Some of our poll takers did not even know this was an option for them.  They confused having a business page with being part of a discussion group.

E-Mail Marketing - This was another surprise to me.  Those who did not have a website used E-mail marketing to spread the word about their business.  I still wondered what they are using as a landing page to discuss their products and services.

We have seen as much as a 40% increase in business awareness of those who use e-mail marketing campaigns over those who use referral only.

Online Invoicing - Word documents converted to PDF was the prevalent method of doing invoices.  Many were still concerned about the cost of using credit/debit cards. What is the cost of not accepting this form of payment? According to CreditCards.com:

Credit card users surveyed in 2012 who used their cards to buy:

Clothing: 67 percent
Gas: 64 percent
Food: 64 percent
Travel: 62 percent

Credit and debit cards are here to stay.  Cost avoidance may mean business avoidance.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) - E-mail phone-books and lists were still the tool of choice.  Some said they tried CRM but felt it didn't do much for them. Our experience is different.

Jobs and business deals have a common number... 80% are found through relationships. Managing relationships through a contact management system keeps information organized and available.

Please visit us at http://www.careercoachoffice.com today to make sense out of technology.

My invoicing nightmare!

Excitement filled my mind when the day of business opening finally came to fruition.  All the days of planning, calculating and socializing was finally going to pay off. I had my business process practiced and I was ready for clients. Or so I thought…

When my first client appeared I was elated! Since my service was “pay first” I quickly had to send him an invoice to collect my funds. To my dismay, I had not thought of this part of my business! I quickly searched for invoice templates and found some free ones on the internet. 

THUS MY NIGHTMARE BEGAN!

I opened Word and created my invoice. Problem averted. I decided to make my invoices fancier so I used my Word prowess to do this.  ALL of my invoices were in word and at that time I also took checks. TWO BIG MISTAKES!

After waiting to receive checks or have them bounce, I found myself in a bit of a mess. My client received the work and I had not received payment. Then the end of the year hit and my accountant asked “how much did you sell?”

My answer was I don’t know! I spent two days sorting through a mass of Word documents trying to make sense out of my receivables. As an executive I had computer systems for all of this and now I was too busy to do “projections!”

BUSINESS NEEDS REAL SOLUTIONS

Once reality hit that I was in “business” I actually had to think like a business. When I looked at the cost of business solutions I found that none of them really fit my needs. I had to change my business to fit what I could afford. So I looked to FREE technology. THIS WAS MY THIRD MISTAKE!

Free software did not manage my business well. Yes I could collect a few contacts here and there but I could never totally understand my business. Since my background was in technology I hired some of the best cloud developers I could find to build what I needed.

INVOICING HAD TO HAVE DIRECT DEPOSIT

The very first thing we designed on Career Coach Office was a secure environment where your clients could enter their credit or debit information online without worrying. Once they clicked the pay button the approved funds would be directly deposited into your account.

SUBSCRIPTION INVOICING WAS A MUST

Many of my colleagues have subscription services for their clients so we added this feature.  This had to be simple as well. Set a billing date and an amount and you’re done. Daily, Weekly, Monthly or Annual invoices are sent without worry.

MULTIPLE PAY OPTIONS PROVIDES FLEXIBILITY

We looked around to find the highest used solutions.  We chose First Data for the direct deposit solution and PayPal for the less integrated solution. First Data processed over $800 Billion in transactions last year and PayPal is highly used because the signup process is very simple. Both solutions are secure and they quickly enable you to take credit and debit cards. They are Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliant.

try it for free: http://www.careercoachoffice.com