Financial audit is the first word that catches your eye when the letter opens. The financial auditor from the office announces himself for a financial audit and most entrepreneurs feel uncomfortable. There are three essential core facts for successful financial audit: completeness of the files, arrangement of the upcoming financial audit and briefing of your employees. With a structured preparation for the financial audit, you can look forward to the visit of the auditor calmly.

The Announcement

In the first fact, the tax office will announce the financial audit in writing. An appointment will be made which you should control for availability immediately after receiving the letter. You have 2 weeks from receipt of the notification to prepare for the audit. You have the chance of requesting a postponement of the scheduled appointment, but you have to give a good reason for this! If this is rejected, you have legal recourse. However, you should keep in mind that this can arouse initial appointments among the auditor.

The Financial Audit

The actual audit is carried out by the appointed auditor. The financial auditor requires a certain set of information and files in advance. You will be told exactly which information the auditor would like to see. Additional disclosures are not necessary and are also not advisable. The auditor corresponds with the persons you have previously selected.

The Meeting

The meeting takes place after the financial auditor. As a rule, not only the auditor himself is present at this meeting, but also his superior, who is usually more interested in the audit. Possible anomalies are discussed in the meeting. It is possible to find compromises in this conversation and to get the unanswered questions out of the way. For this reason, you should insist on this meeting unless it is scheduled by itself.

One of the most important questions when preparing for a successful financial audit is the question of possible weak points that the auditor could find. In small businesses, audits are based on inconsistencies in returns. The sooner you clarify the unclear cases, the sooner you can look forward to the smooth completion of the audit. However, if there are incriminating things, a disclosure can avert the worst. In this case, you should seek advice from your advisor and an experienced lawyer immediately.

The COVID crisis continues to keep the world in suspense. Although the spread of the virus has been curbed for the time being, there has recently been an increase of infections.

More consumers were shopping online for the first time in new sections, especially groceries and housewares. Even during the initial time of the pandemic, online retailers who sell masks and canned food recorded sales increases due to the virus. In the long term, however, many online businesses fear that the pandemic will have a bad impact on their income in 2021 and on all online retail.

Most Of The Online Businesses Are Affected

Almost 60% of online retailers are already expecting or recording losses in their daily business due to the COVID crisis. 20% of online retailers have not yet formed an opinion to assess the risk posed for online trading. But one thing is certain for most retailers: consumer confidence from Chinese products are currently severely disrupted and 80% of all online businesses even expect the crisis to worsen. Consumer confidence is often used as a measure of how consumers view the financial situation. Even if many online businesses fear that they may experience a drop in sales due to the current pandemic, the number of parcels sent in USA and Europe is showing positive growth.

Supply Chains

All online businesses, whether small or large, had and in some cases still have to struggle with the impact of factory closures in Asia. Smaller online businesses in particular are hit hard by interrupted supply chains. While large online retailers usually have enough cash in reserve to quickly search for newer deliveries and sources of supply, a smaller business is powerless if the delivery fails.

What Changes Do Online Businesses Have To Adjust?

What changes do online businesses have to be prepared for? A very good question that probably every online retailer is currently asking.

Changes in customer service- Customers ask the retailers whether the IT materials pose a risk of virus. Trust in Chinese products are currently massively disrupted. People meet less for celebrations and birthdays. 80% fewer orders than usual. Customers leave the workshop faster or postpone appointments to next Spring. Each shipping provider can take different measures. Be aware of delivery restrictions currently in place in some countries and rely on flexibility in the shipping variants and providers you offer so that you can switch between them at any time in an emergency.

An online presence is everything that can be found about you or your business online. This includes your website, all social media accounts such as Instagram and YouTube. Even personal reviews from your customers. Today’s people expect to find an online presence from every business, regardless of whether you have a shop on the street or just an online shop. If you don’t have an online presence, you don’t exist in people’s minds. We have selected the most important things for a strong online presence for you.

In the meantime, searches are usually more on mobile devices than on PC’s. 65% of mobile phone users are looking for the most relevant detail, regardless of whether it is an online shop or a regular business. On the flip side, 80% of online shoppers conduct online research before making any purchases. If Idaho marketing companies rated is on your side, then your brand/business has a greater chance in flourishing than it used to.

Why Social Media Is So Important?

Most of the population is active on social media. Social media started a big change in marketing. Almost everyone uses social media personally, but many are overwhelmed when it comes to using social networks effective. The fact is that 90% of marketing directors confirm that social media is essential for their own business. Another 90% said that social media increased your company’s reach. In addition, posting consistently on social media accounts also has a better effect on your company’s online ranking. The more engaged you are with your audience on Instagram for example, the easier it is to find you on online search.

Why Instagram Is So Important?

Only 30% of all adult internet users use Instagram. The pics on Instagram have to look great and casual. All lifestyle brands cavort on Instagram in order to entertain their audience with staged pics and to entice them to buy. Instagram is good for building a brand and a certain feel for your brand in your customers.

LinkedIn is the serious businessman among social media. LinkedIn is therefore ideal for business initiation. 25% of all adult online users are on LinkedIn. It is also the only large network that is used more by 30 to 50 year olds than by 18 to 29 year olds. LinkedIn started as an online business contact book. In the meantime it has developed into a large service for relevant business content. Between 2014 and 2016, content consumption on LinkedIn increased by 20%.

The online presence offers you or your company great opportunities. In minutes, anyone in the world can find out who you are and what you and your company are doing. This has advantages and disadvantages. It is bad for those companies whose offers are of questionable quality. Unsatisfied customers can now sustainably damage a company through bad reviews.

Today everything can be evaluated by the creation of the internet: From the diner, the former employer, products and so on. There is hardly a product division that cannot have a suitable rating somewhere. And if there are none, most sites have their own rating function. And the online users not only like to write reviews, they also like to read them. More than 50% of consumers inform themselves in advance and allow themselves to be influenced in their purchase decision by reviews and opinions of others. Knowing everything and available everywhere, we put our purchase decision in the hands of rating platforms. It is not surprising that negative reviews can do a lot of damage today. A study even states that up to 22% of company sales depend on reputation management.

So it’s important to take care of your reputation and manage your reputation. This requires sustainable planning, management and control of a company’s reputation. Reputation management can be roughly divided into three levels: prevention, response and follow-up.

Prevention

There are a few things that can have a positive impact on reputation:

Own Website

Your own site is, so to speak, the anchor of reputation. If a customer or even a potential employee does not find your own site, you are practically nonexistent.

Social Networks

Appearances in social networks can also have a great effect on your reputation. Social media platforms are divided by their proximity to customers and can thus increase customer loyalty and build trust.

Observation

Well organized observation is of key importance so that you can find out whether and how people are talking about you. There are companies that offer their monitoring. To a lesser extent, you can also operate the monitoring yourself. Google yourself regularly, set up alerts and look around on reviews that might have points of contact with your own company.

Reaction

Nobody likes negative reviews, but they are part of it. See this as an opportunity to improve. The most dangerous thing is to ignore the evaluation. Depending on the account, wildfire can develop from a negative review. Work with the evaluator to resolve the problem. Admitting mistakes takes some effort, but is received by evaluators who offer criticism. Make them feel that they are taking their problems seriously and you will regain a lot of the trust you have lost.

If the reviews are positive, let the reviewer share in your joy. Thank you, possibly with a small gift such as a voucher. And let the rest of the world know how you are being rated by sharing good reviews about your appearances on social network or your own site.

Aftercare

Once the danger has been averted, you can depending on the case, go to follow-up care. Take a clear stance on the case and interact with your customers. It is not uncommon for companies to emerge from a crisis with a stronger reputation.

Measuring brand awareness divides the marketing world. Some see it as a fruitless activity, a pile of flattering metrics unrelated to marketing.

Procedures For Measuring Brand Awareness Campaigns

Surveys

For surveys by mail, phone or page, you can choose existing customers or a random selection of people familiar with your brand. The first approach will give you an understanding of how these people learned about you, the second will give you insight into the increase of people who can remember your brand.

The Page Traffic

Website traffic can provide insights into brand awareness, but it’s important to look in the right places. Monitoring over a longer phase of time can provide an indicator of when something is changing in brand awareness.

Search Data

Use Google Adwords Keyword to find out search volume with your brand name and repeat this regularly to see if the search volume increases. This can be a simple and useful method, but the data will be very inaccurate if you have a brand name that is very generic.

Social Listening

Perhaps the most powerful method is to look at where people are already talking – on social media or other websites. With social listening, you can track online conversations about your brand on social platforms and the page. This gives you an insight into the minds of consumers who exchange data online without being asked or influenced by others. In this way, a risk that exists with surveys can be bypassed: distorted answers that arise due to this questioning situation.

Range

Reach is the potential number of people who might have seen these mentions. This includes the increase of followers of each author who mentions you. So, for example, if someone with a million followers tweeted about your brand, it would have a greater impact on brand awareness than someone who was only followed by 100 people.

Benchmark

To track changes in your brand awareness, you need to compare the current values with your metrics. A sufficient time is required in order to be able to distinguish ascents and descents from anomalies. Brand watch provides data with which you can easily measure and compare your awareness after your first login.

Share Of Voice

Comparing your metrics will tell you if your brand awareness has improved, but that won’t give you the whole picture. The number of mentions about your brand could be a measly compared to those of your competitors.

Businesses are a great target for cyber attackers. Companies are spied on internet and employees are often targeted by attackers. Even for experienced ones, it is difficult to see through the occupational fraud.

The Occupational Fraud

The employer requests an employee who is entitled to transfer a large amount to an account and to treat the period as strictly as possible. However, there are also known cases in which the voice of the company is imitated. Here, hackers use voice imitation program. The manner of speaking of the alleged employer is imitated on the smartphone. Here, the employee concerned is put under pressure to carry out the allegedly urgent transaction with the greatest secrecy.

Methods Are Also Used In Business Relationships

For example, cyber attackers use the name of a business partnership to get legitimate payments. Further scams are fake invoices from existing business frauds. In terms of content, these may well correspond to an expected invoice. The damage in these fraud schemes is often high, without the employee involved even becoming aware of the fraud.

This Is How Companies Can Protect Themselves Against Cyber Attack

As a company, you cannot prevent falling victim to such fraud. But the tips below can help to reduce the risk. Promote an open corporate: In an open corporate, attempts at fraud can be detected and prevented more quickly. In the event of unusual business transfers, queries should be possible up to the management.

Raising Employee Awareness

It also helps to inform employees about common occupational fraud. You should also always exercise caution when opening mails. It helps to control the email to see whether it matches the sender and whether the content of the mail appears plausible. Requests from strangers with social networks should not be accepted easily. Everyone involved needs to be aware that the information published in such networks can also be used against the individual himself, for example for identity leak.

It is also important to control the allocation of user rights. These should only be assigned to the extent that they are actually needed to carry out an employee’s task. When granting rights, the requirement should be the principle for higher payment amounts. However, you should refrain from granting personal powers.

If a case of fraud has occurred and is recognized at short notice, the bank can help if it is informed in good time. Fraud payments can be stopped if they have not yet been credited. In any case, even if attempted fraud is averted, it is important that the data of the perpetrator account are related to the bank and that a complaint is made.

Online business is also not spared from the effects of the pandemic. While some online business have to deal with busy network, others face economic challenges. Whether problems with the supply chain, fewer orders and a drop in sales or angry customers: Almost 75% of online retailers felt affected of the pandemic at an early stage.

Nevertheless online shops should react agilely to the current situation in order to retain customers even in this situation. We would like to give you some tips and some suggestions for this time, because shop visitors are currently having changed fears, expectations and needs.

Communicate The Parking Permit

Even before the coronavirus appeared, the shipping service providers offered the variant of dropping off the package at any location. A parking permit is more important today than ever, because these days everything depends on reducing the speed of the infection. Many of your customers justifiably fear that they will become infected if they come into contact with an outside person. If a parking permit is communicated, online shops give customers the chance of ordering without the risk of infection.

Make The Buying Process Easier For Customers

The customers in particular are rightly very careful. Make it as easy as possible for them to buy online. Incidentally, this is a good time to make optimizations with regard to the user experience of your online shop. This also includes, for example, a lean checkout with a few steps. With a barrier free shop you can reach new buyers. So you have more chances of success today than before. You are also making a contribution to combating the pandemic.

Stay In Touch With Your Customers

Online customer contact is now more important than ever, because your customer support can respond individually to questions and possible needs. With the right tools, customer support is also feasible at home. If you are looking for printing services Dublin and surrounding areas for your company’s brochures, Alpha Print can assist with various formats, sizes and designs for you to engage with your current customers as well as potential new business. In this way, your employees in customer support remain in constant contact with customers. In addition, a plan should be developed for more customer support, as many online business are confronted with a higher amount of calls. As soon as you are affected, you should have additional lines set up.

Give The Cart Abandoners Incentives

The changed situation is also having an impact on purchasing behavior. Online shoppers have always paid attention to prices and discounts, which are still an important purchase method. Now some have a significantly lower income and therefore have to live more frugally. Others belong to the group and avoid any contact more than others. Still others are in your online shop for the first time. These are all situations that can quickly lead to a purchase being abandoned. Help these cart abandoners with their problems that cater to their needs. Price abandoned purchases receive a discount and abandoned purchases in need of service receive a message.

Create Frequently Asked Questions

Your existing and new customers will have many questions. To relieve customer support, it is best to create such a section that should also be prominently placed so that visitors can find them quickly.

Accounting firm marketing is a must for firms in times of increasing competition. Because it is becoming increasingly difficult for managers and tax consultants to hold their own against the competition in the market and to win clients over. Due to digitization and increasing transparency, clients have the chance to obtain a lot of data and comparisons about various firms and providers. Therefore, freelancers are also facing the increasing challenge of winning clients and addressing them through the right platforms. Marketing for accounting firms offers the chance to differentiate yourself from the competition, to gain more visibility and thus more clients.

Accounting Firm Marketing – Clarify The Initial Situation

In order to be able to use the various marketing measures for your firm, you should first examine the initial condition of your business. Do you already have a business or a marketing plan? Which activities have been carried out in the past and in which region does your company activate with its range of providers? Answer the questions for your accounting firm and check whether you have already taken all the necessary measures.

Use Communication Tools

Now that you have determined the initial situation of your firm and your clients, the next step is to check your communication and presentation to the outside world. What about a uniform appearance? Do all employees in the company wear the same company clothing? Are the employees involved in client acquisition? But not only the culture of your company, but also the previous marketing measures should be checked more closely: Is there a firm brochure and do you also use it in communication? Are you also visible to your clients via the Internet? Are you also found on Google or are your competitors stealing your good placements there? In particular, the online world is used by many clients as the main tool for obtaining data and looking for a provider. A good placement in the Google search results is therefore of great importance for the acquisition of new customers of every manager, tax advisor and auditor. In addition to a strong website and an appealing appearance to the outside world, future goals should also be defined. How many clients would you like to gain in the next months? How much income do you want to generate from this? Set clearly defined goals and communicate these to the relevant employees.

Software is the future of accounting. Accounting softwares for companies is safe, saves time and money. Learn how these companies can help your business become financially stable. But that’s not all – we will list the 10 most important reasons why you should digitize your accounting.

But before you decide to use an accounting software, you should discuss this with your employees in advance. The software of finances can only work well if the employees are properly trained. Most of the time, employees have to adjust to new software, which can be very difficult. Therefore, one should compare the different accounting softwares before deciding which one to use. Accounting software for companies leads to a better overview, clarity and time efficiency in the sector. Regardless of whether you are a large or small company – the accounting software brings enormous advantages.

Low Storage Costs

No paper is required for invoices and if the accounting is carried out by software, existing invoices do not have to be printed out from one to another. In addition to paper, this also saves printing costs. Nevertheless, invoices on the PC as well as on paper must be kept for a certain period. The only difference is that you don’t have to rent more storage rooms for invoices, you can simply save them on your PC.

Available At Any Time – No Matter Where

If you opt for an accounting softwares, entrepreneurs or the self employed gain additional freedom: the information can be accessed anytime and anywhere, including mail, as long as you have a connection. In addition, invoices can be read in promptly, because good accounting softwares are able to read out invoices and are therefore not dependent on scanned receipts.

Important Files Are Stored and Ready To Hand

Forget the time consuming sorting of receipts and filing in folders. The accounting software does this work for you. Sometimes you need certain files more often than others and these can be retrieved from anywhere using the text search in the documents. But be careful: You should definitely consider a good system here. In addition, good accounting software itself offers a smart methods that makes the approval of invoices in workflows.

Overview Of The Income And Expenses

The numbers of the accounting softwares can be properly installed by good software in order to provide a great overview of the company’s finances. The dashboard is an important tool and should be included in every good accounting software. This creates an overview of income and expenses of the current course of business. With a daily display of open receivables and payables, you can discover gaps more quickly and not once or twice a year, and more easily and do something about them in advance.

Everything that falls into the sales of online advertising is related under the term online business. And this online business takes different forms nowadays. A self employed one can advertise his business on his own website or on another page. There are also advertising measures with social media. We reveal exactly what is behind this and who is using which advertising online.

Your Own Website

Of course, it makes sense to use your own website for advertising purposes. Those who offer a product present their advertise online. The use is particularly popular. Satisfied customers make a short statement about cooperation. It also makes sense to show your own works – either with a link or a description. Others who sell something often design a page that can serve advertising.

Social Media Advertisement Is Becoming Bigger

If you only think of Instagram when it comes to social media business, you only use a fraction of the media for your online business. Social media business is an ability in itself. That is why there is the manager who devises a method for using social media as examples. The aim of social media business is to turn users into customers. The users are selected in different ways.

One form of advertising that is closely related to social media business is influencer marketing.  The influencer manages the marketing and can thus focus on users who represent the target group of the sales.

Search Engine Advertisement

Search engine advertise plays an important role in online business. On the one hand, search engine business, is a way of managing the forms of advertising and websites. On the other hand, search engine business has its own form of advertising that is closely related to the search behavior of the user.

Advertising On Third-Party Websites

There are many different ways of advertising on other people’s websites today. Banner advertising is the equivalent of advertising in print forms. Banners come in different sizes. They serve to strengthen the brand, because they see a product with the help of a memorable mixture of images. Depending on the size of the homepage on which the banner is placed, the homepage owner offers the banner space. The banner should state at first glance which company it is about. The key to success here is a good advertisement in the corporate form of the self-employed. Another advertising variant is the placement of advertising on a third party homepage that shows the same target group as the self-employed person. Content advertising can be placed as a contribution. In order to be able to place an affiliate link, the selection can be made with an affiliate system.