With millions of small and medium businesses using QuickBooks to manage their financial affairs, the industry for QuickBooks “add-ons” has blossomed. Add-on programs are essential to many small and mid-sized businesses because they are often the only way to get industry-specific or highly specialized functions. They’re great for adding extra capabilities in key areas such as inventory, time and project tracking, invoicing, e-commerce and others.
Every year, The Sleeter Group – a premier network of small business technology consultants – names a new list of winners in its “Awesome Add-ons for QuickBooks” competition at an annual event that showcases cutting edge businesses management tools and technologies. The Awesome Add-ons award recognizes software programs, web-based applications and services that help enhance QuickBooks by giving users additional tools for managing their businesses. To qualify, technologies must seamlessly integrate with QuickBooks, and offer superior design, ease-of-use and conformance with appropriate accounting standards.
The 2010 Awesome Add-ons for QuickBooks are: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Daniel Kehrer
If you have a website – even a modest one – or use pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, using the right keywords or keyword phrases is vital to success. Well-chosen keywords give you a better chance of showing up near the top of search results. But not just any results. What you want are the most relevant searches conducted by your best prospects. 
The new Microsoft Windows 7 operating system will be out shortly and many small and home-based businesses are already planning to switch from older systems as a way to breathe new life into their systems without having to buy new hardware. 
successfully listing your products is to provide Google with the right information on your products — that is, the specific “attributes” they are looking for, and not necessarily the way you describe your products on your own website or in marketing materials.
ucceeding in small business today requires a solid grip on your finances and an arsenal of tech tools to help you collaborate with colleagues, schedule your time, manage customer relationships and leverage the Internet. And guess what? You can get all of that – and more – absolutely free from some of the nation’s top tech companies that support small business. 
Psssssst! Got a small manufacturing company, or are you starting one? Here’s something you might not want your competition to know about. Ready? Here goes: There is a low-profile but high-octane national network of 393 manufacturing assistance centers —stocked to the gills with cutting edge expertise — whose sole purpose in life is to help small widget makers like yours become more tech-savvy, more efficient, more competitive and more profitable. 
What Works for Business is constantly on the lookout for the most helpful products, services and solutions for small business and startups. Many are brand new; others just haven’t been widely discovered yet. Here are my latest favorites, in 10-second bites:
Read your Voicemail: Hate listening to voice messages? 
Ever called someone’s cell but hoped you’d get voicemail…got finger cramps tapping out a terribly long text message…or disturbed a client or prospect too early in a different time zone? 
Recent studies by Nielsen Online, Harris Interactive, Yahoo Small Business and others have made this crystal clear: Most online buyers check, and are influenced by web-based customer reviews. Findings vary a bit, but some 90 percent of online buyers say they read customer reviews at least “some of the time” when they are available, and 71 percent agree that customer reviews offer comfort that they’re buying the right product or service from the right place. 
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