1. Turn off the lights
Remember to hit the switch on your way out for that well-deserved lunch break. The energy savings from 10 million office workers turning off unneeded lights for 30 minutes a day is enough to illuminate four million square meters of office space.

2.Remove yourself from junk mail lists
The last thing you need is another office supply catalogue or credit card offer. But before tossing out junk mail, call the company and ask that your name be removed from its mailing list. Have contacts e-mail you instead. Almost 50 percent of all catalogues are never opened, yet nearly 62 million trees are destroyed and 28 billion gallons of water are used to produce them every year.

3.Send your monitor to sleep
Screensavers are designed to save your screen from burn in, not to save energy. Monitors are responsible for more than one third of a computer's energy consumption, so conserve energy by putting yours to sleep or powering off altogether when you're away from your desk for more than 10 minutes.

4.Use the stairs
Your brain gets exercise all day, so why not exercise your body? Get your heart pumping by taking the stairs instead of the lift. It's good for your health and saves electricity.

5.Make your printer's toner last
If you're printing rough drafts or documents for internal purposes, change the printer's settings to economy mode and avoid printing in color if possible. Economy mode uses up to 50 percent less toner and prints twice as many pages as higher quality settings. Printing on both sides slashes the number of sheets used by 50 percent.

6.Leave the car at home
Public transport may not be perfect, but there are alternatives: why not walk (if you live close enough), hitch a lift with a colleague or try going by bicycle?

7. Recycle paper
If it tears, it can be recycled: from magazines and manila folders to plain paper and post-it notes. Manufacturing recycled paper generates 74 percent less air pollution than creating paper from scratch and saves trees, water and energy.

8.Buy 100 percent recycled paper
When you're buying paper for the office, make sure it's 100 percent recycled and, ideally, non-chlorinated. The chlorine used for bleaching is one of the biggest polluters in the paper-making process.

9. Recycle and reuse office supplies
Washing and reusing the plastic plates and cutlery you get with takeaway food is an easy way to cut down on waste at work. Use mugs rather than disposable plastic cups and don't forget that things such as batteries, printer cartridges, DVDs and CDs can be recycled, too.

10. Curb phantom electricity
Many appliances still use energy even when they're turned off. Items left plugged into the wall, such as a mobile phone charger or laptop adapter, can leak more than 20 watts of power. Plug office equipment into a power strip instead and turn it off at night and on weekends.

If you have an auto-notify on your email system, please turn it off. Interruptions rob us of our productivity. Instead of letting the *ding* of each new email dictate the flow of your day, take control. Set scheduled times to check your emails and then stick with the program by resisting the temptation to take a sneak peek. Try checking emails at the top of the even hours: 8 AM, 10 AM, 12 PM, 2 PM and 4 PM. Setting specific times to handle email not only cuts interruptions but also allows you to know how much time you're spending on emails. Is email the best use of your time?

Tickle Yourself Organized
With tax season just around the corner, any shortcomings in your paper management system may really be rearing their ugly little heads. The good news is this: when you create an effective paper management system, it takes the stress out of finding your important papers, not only during tax season, but all year long. In the spirit of effective paper management, this month’s storage solution will help you stay on top of your important, actionable papers.

What it is: this month’s storage solution is the tickler file, a simple filing system made up of 43 folders—one folder for each day of the month (numbered 1 through 31), plus one folder for each month of the year, each labeled—you guessed it—with the name of one month.

How it works: a tickler file allows you to gain control over paper that you want or need to take action on at a date in the future, but not today. So, if you’re going out of town on the 15th of the month, you can file your travel itinerary, directions and confirmation numbers in the folder labeled 15. If your child’s birthday is in November, throughout the year you can collect birthday party ideas and file them in the October folder—giving you plenty of time to plan the big event in November. The best part of all, by having a spot for these future actions, you no longer need to let them pile up on the counter in hopes they remind you to take action! You simply check your tickler file each day, and your actionable papers are right there waiting for you.

Where to get one: You can make your own tickler file using plain manila file folders or decorated file folders and a labeler. Or, you can simplify things a bit and purchase a pre-made tickler file.

Who knew forty-three simple folders could make life so much easier?

Tips are taxable. The tips you receive are subject to federal income tax as well as Social Security and Medicare taxes. It may also be subject to state income tax as well. The value of non-cash tips, such as tickets, is income and is also subject to federal income tax.

Report tips to your employer. If you receive twenty dollars or more in tips in any given month then you should report the tips to your employer. Your employer in turn is required to withhold federal income, Social Security and Medicare taxes.

Keep a daily log of your tip income. You can use IRS Publication 1244, Employee's Daily Record of Tips to record your tip income.

Include tips on your tax return. You must include in income all cash tips you receive directly from customers, tips added to credit cards, and the share of any tips you receive under a tip-splitting arrangement with your fellow employees.

Please check out IRS Publication 531, Reporting Tip Income, or IRS Publication 3148, Tips on Tips for more information at www.irs.gov.

Today more entrepreneurs, small businesses, and home-office professionals need the support of highly-trained personnel to efficiently handle administrative, marketing, clerical, concierge, and financial tasks. The majority of corporate employee cutbacks directly affect the ability to accomplish these critical assignments without draining time resources from mission-critical professionals.

The emergence of the Virtual Assistant – Virtual Office support professional can fill that gap. The Virtual Assistant takes the role of office temp and elevates it to the status of entrepreneur. Because the Virtual Assistant is self-employed, bills the client only the hours worked or assignment completed, and is dependent on steady workflow from existing clients and referrals, this is the perfect solution for the busy professional.

The Virtual Office Ensemble – Virtual Assistant offers several advantages over a paid employee. When you hire a virtual assistant, you get all the benefits of outsourcing – no burden with employee taxes, insurance, retirement plans, vacations, or sick pay. This savings in financial resources is coupled with the loyalty and steadiness of a company employee because your trust and work is vital to the success of their company.

Hiring office temps often does not work out for several reasons. They are a transient solution and are very expensive with the associated fees of the hiring agency which they are employed through. A temp can be more costly than their worth with the cost of training and supervision added into the equation. Also, most temps are looking for full-time employment and even if you find a person who seems to exactly fit your needs, they are not always available when YOU need their services or they have been hired full-time elsewhere!

Paid employees or temps come with a host of related expenses. You must provide a desk, computer, phone and necessary facilities. Most agencies WILL NOT allow temps to work in your home due to insurance restrictions. A Virtual Assistant – an entrepreneur – not only has a virtual office with computer, phone, printer, fax, and client-specific essentials, but is more than willing to meet and work with you in home-office or small-office environments.

Industry estimates the cost of most support employees is nearly triple their annual salary when all factors are considered. Statistics provided by the United States Bureau of Labor determined the “true cost” for an experienced in-house administrative employee is currently $45.54 per hour. This does NOT include the expenses related to office space and equipment required for them to perform their job.

On average, the Virtual Assistant industry estimates the starting rate for a Virtual Assistant is $40.00 per hour. This professional entrepreneur is responsible for taxes, benefits, space and equipment. 5 hours of in-house administrative labor will cost a company $212.70 versus $175.00 for retaining an Independent Virtual Assistant for the same time period. A reputable Virtual Office or Assistant has the expertise and tenure to handle administrative, marketing, basic financial and concierge support services.

Excitement is in the air, the New Year is here. It’s time to put your theories to test, your ideas on paper, and your plans to action. How did 2010 work out for you? Were you able to achieve your business goals and sail through the turbulent times? It’s that time of the year, when you plan ahead and make your business expectations come to life. 2011 is bringing along with it many new ways of running and operating your business, so that you can fail-proof yourself against the changing economy. Are you up for the challenge? It’s time for you to decide and embrace the new ways of doing business that will help you reduce your operational costs, engage with your customers in a better way, and streamline your business processes so that it becomes easier for you to grow BIG when the time comes.

Here are the top business-altering trends that will see a huge acceptance in the year 2011:

Building a totally HOSTED work environment:
Everything is online today. Most of the essential software for small businesses are available in hosted environment as software as a service. Your small business can become truly paperless with hosted solutions for all major business activities like sales management, customer relationship management, HR management, IT management, online collaboration, and many other industry specific solutions. This also helps your globally distributed teams to work seamlessly together on the same platform anytime, and from anywhere. Hosted tools help your small business operate just like big businesses with latest features, but at a much lower cost. Perhaps, that is why Google has launched Chrome Notebook, Cr-48, which is a purely browser based notebook.

Reach the grass roots with SOCIAL MEDIA and build an ONLINE REPUTATION:
Declaring your presence and doing it with panache are two different things. Online social media is the best and also the cheapest means to stamp your presence. The objective is to stay on top of your customers’ minds and constantly be under their preview. And if you are able to build a solid online reputation by tapping the power of online media then you are undoubtedly heading in the right direction. Build a social media strategy for 2011, and if you are a little unsure about how to utilize the various platforms; get professional help, but do invest your time in this activity or you will stay far behind in the race. Many small businesses that have used social media to their advantage now swear by its effectiveness in reaching and engaging new prospects and existing customers.

Traditional outsourcing is out, RIGHT SHORE outsourcing is in:
Did you try outsourcing your business activities, didn’t see the expected results, and decided that outsourcing is not meant for your business? Think again. Traditional way of outsourcing created a lot of problems in terms of end-client satisfaction. Today, Right Shore outsourcing is the buzz word. A unique concept introduced by MyBusinessAssistant, Right Shore outsourcing finds the optimum mix of jobs performed locally and at foreign locations to save outsourcing costs and attain peak efficiency levels. Just imagine an outsourcing strategy, where your calls get answered from a near shore location (so that you don’t have to worry about the cultural divide), your back office work gets done from an offshore location, and your marketing is handled locally – and you get all this through a single vendor. With distributed teams at most suitable global locations, Right Shore outsourcing approach combines all the benefits of traditional outsourcing and gives you a hassle-free way to manage your business cost-effectively and proficiently.



Collect the pieces and CENTRALIZE:
If you are fan of outsourcing, you might have ended up doing it for a variety of your back-office tasks. But managing multiple vendors as your business grows is a huge challenge in itself and sooner or later, you will see the disadvantages through lack of communication between the teams, work getting done out of sync, and need for multiple briefings to get a single job done. Small businesses, striving to grow big, must centralize their operations. Handling many strings from one hand will only tangle your puppets. Businesses that have centralized their back offices have seen over 40% reductions in costs. In an age where 64% of small businesses in the US are finding it more and more difficult to manage their company’s cash flow (Forbes Insights), reducing costs and improving productivity could prove crucial in the company’s existence in the long-run.

Be wise, VIRTUALIZE:
Almost all business activities can be virtualized to a great extent. For instance, your sales team can be at three different locations, the executive team can be at two different locations, the team managing accounting and payroll could be in a different country altogether, and still your company can operate efficiently and effectively. You will have a single central office, but your workforce would be distributed – working from home and collaborating virtually through various online tools. Building an office and expecting all your employees to work from 9 to 5, will only put a glass ceiling on your business growth. Virtualization is the way to go in 2011 and it has been made easier with loads of affordable tools and hosted technologies so that you can work with an even greater level of efficiency and dedication in a virtual environment.

Get GREENER:
Last but not the least; take steps to build a business that makes the environment smile. By going green and implementing environmentally friendly technology, you would not only get more brownie points from the Government and other funding agencies but you would also be able to reduce your costs, help the environment, and comply with government regulations. You would be able to create a brand image of responsibility and appeal to environmentally conscious prospects.
The end note: Running a business is not what it used to be as the playing field is in a constant flux. It comes with a lot more challenges and many more advanced solutions to combat those challenges, but staying on top requires change. It’s time to get ready to continuously transform your business. Are you ready?

Why? Because it’s not a smart thing to do and the reasons are quiet justified and proven. Let’s look at what happens if you try and do it all by yourselves and compare it with what if you delegate it to others, even if you are running a small business.

Success Tip: Chase your core passion and avoid the non-core.
Michael Jackson can dance and Michael Jordan can play basketball, they can’t switch roles, as they tried to do it in the song JAM. Your chances of succeeding in business are huge if you are following what you are extremely good at and passionate about, and not the other way round. However, as you follow your passion and as your business grows, you unknowingly or unwillingly have to get engaged into business activities like back office tasks, administrative and marketing activities which supports your business. At this juncture you have two choices, either do everything on your own or just follow your core business activity, your passion and delegate the rest to others, it could be your staff or virtual assistants.

“Doing it all alone symbolizes expertise and control.” Really??
A good section of businessmen feel, getting involved in multiple roles speaks about their expertise and versatility, but the question here is: is it a mere attempt at satisfying personal egos or do they really see good business benefits from it? It will clearly eat into the manager’s time which otherwise would have been spent on the core money making activities. So the choice of delegating it to others remains, which brings us to either choosing between hiring additional staff or outsourcing it.

Delegating involves managing blues…Let’s look at a smarter way to tackle it.
Hiring staff is definitely a more traditional and proven approach to go for, however it comes with managerial challenges, as managers now have to train, delegate and monitor these additional human resources. And putting the manager’s cap on with more staff may prove to be a highly demanding job.

On the other hand, if you opt for outsourcing your non-core tasks like, back office, administrative, marketing, customer support, web development, online/offline marketing, etc., to someone like a virtual assistant, it will surely relieve you from the manager’s role and let you fully focus on your core business generating activity.

Entrepreneurs who dedicate a small piece of their time in overlooking supportive activities and focus more on the core business tasks are said to be more effective and successful. So it’s left for you to decide, keeping all the options and their ramifications in mind.

Tax time is spinning ever closer, but you still have plenty of time to get your small business taxes in order and be able to enjoy a worry-free spring. Here I have compiled a list of the top twelve tax tips that will help you get your taxes done right and still have time to spare.

1. Keep a calendar. Deadlines can sneak up on you. As a small business owner, you have a lot of bills and payrolls to juggle, so don’t let your tax deadlines fall by the wayside. Deadlines can differ depending on when your tax year ends and what sort of business entity you operate. Minimize penalties and interest by noting all necessary business filing deadlines on your calendar.

2. Consider hiring help for your business taxes. When doing business taxes, there is a load of overwhelming tax laws to deal with. The opportunity to make mistakes multiplies when you throw in all the variables involved in business finances, so to make things easier, I highly recommend hiring outside help.

3. The best service starts now.
If you wait until the last minute to pull out your shoebox of receipts and shove them at your tax accountant, you are going to get some cold, dirty looks, and rushed service as well. Even the best accountant can make mistakes when he or she is forced to pull it all together at the last minute. You are reading this article, so why not start now? Gather your materials and get them in order. It’ll make things a whole lot easier, even if you don’t call your accountant for two or three more weeks (of course I’m not suggesting you wait that long). But if you take baby steps, you’ll have an easier time staying organized, both for you and your accountant.

4. Fire up the computer. My neighbor swears by the old pencil-ledger-and-calculator method, but I feel you can keep things much more organized and under control if you keep track of your income and expenses with a specially designed computer program such as Quicken. For a small investment, you can save yourself a great deal of time and headache.

Even maintaining a spreadsheet is preferable to piles of little receipts that can get way out of control. A computer program puts it all in front of you and makes it easier for you to check and re-check as often as you want, often catching errors that might otherwise have gone unnoticed. With taxes, as with all your finances, “organization” is the key word!

5. Do you qualify for a home office deduction? You may have the right to write off a myriad of business expenses you may not have even considered, such as rent, utilities, housekeeping, and supplies bought to keep your home office up and running. The deduction is a calculation of the expenses proportionate to the part of your home that is used exclusively for business. It can be quite a pleasant surprise when you see the results! Remember to consult a professional to ensure you write off the proper items.

6. Have all the right paperwork. You can’t do your taxes if you don’t have all the correct paperwork. Your paperwork will vary depending on the sort of business entity you operate, be it an S corporation, C corporation, LLC, sole proprietor, or partnership. Check with your accountant to be sure you have the correct forms to match your business category.

7. Make copies. It’s just good business sense. Xerox every single piece of paper regarding your tax returns, including everything you send to your state and IRS agencies. That way you have back-up documentation of everything. You never know what could come up, and you’ll always be prepared to reproduce a copy of any document that needs to be re-examined or re-filed.

8. Remember your retirement plan. Who would you rather pay: yourself or the government? When you contribute to an IRA, you reduce the amount of income taxed by the government, and you set aside money for that glorious time when you get to give up the rat race and relax. Remember, you can contribute to last year’s IRA all the way up until April 15th, so don’t forget to pay yourself, too!

9. Keep it all. I mean your documents, not your money… When it comes to your taxes, it’s a good idea to be a pack rat. You’ll have peace of mind knowing you can produce any document at anytime, no matter what questions may come up. You may need certain items for future reference for yourself or for your next year’s tax return. Whatever the case may be, always organize and carefully file away:

• Credit card bills and receipts
• Old checkbooks
• Bills and invoices
• Mileage logs and documentations
• Cancelled checks or proofs of payment (VERY important)
• Any evidence that supports deductions and credit claims on your tax returns

10. Start planning for next year. I know, it seems like just getting a handle on this year’s taxes is enough work, but if you start thinking ahead for next year now, you’ll have a whole heck of an easier time when next April rolls around. Throughout the year, keep your taxes on your mind, but not in the way that causes ulcers. When making decisions for your business – such as purchasing office space, incorporating, or hiring extra help – consider the implications those changes may have on your taxes. Such careful considerations could help you make wiser, more successful choices for your business, improving your achievements in the long run.

11. Don’t procrastinate! This is my message for everyone when it comes to any aspect of your finances. Procrastinating almost always costs you money. When you wait until the last minute and wind up rushing, from paying bills to paying taxes, you are bound to forget something. So in order to do things right, for any of these tips to help, you have to be ready to take charge of your taxes and do them in a timely manner.

12. Remain calm. I know this last tip doesn’t seem like much of a tip, but trust me, it is. Tax time can become hectic and put a huge strain on you, and any strain on you is a strain on your business. Following these tips helps everything run more smoothly, including your day to day business transactions, increasing your chances for success and helping you to enjoy the freedom of running your own business. Being a small business owner is a great challenge but in my experience, the rewards far outweigh the negatives. I wish you good luck and great joy!