POST CATEGORY : Economy & Environment

5 Things Your Accountant Should be Doing

Is your accountant giving you more than just tax advice? If not, it may be time to find a new one.

Happy accountant

Your accountant should be helping you with these five important things:

1. Helping You Prepare for Tax Season – Well in Advance

Most business owners hire an accountant purely for tax purposes, although they can offer assistance in other ways as well.

Ideally, your accountant should be helping you prepare for taxes well in advance, so there are no last-minute surprises. He or she should be helping you understand:

  • Which credits to claim
  • Which deductions to claim
  • Tax laws that can maximize your write-offs

Tax opportunities, like the R&D credit, can help reduce your tax burden, and your accountant should know if you qualify for such opportunities.…

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How to Keep Making Money When You are Injured at Work

Getting hurt on the job is a terrible way to find more time to spend at home. If an injury does occur, it is good to have a backup plan. Your financial responsibilities do not simply stop in life when you are injured, so you have to find another way to bring in money.

Injured employee on a crutch

Workers’ compensation will only pay so much of your life’s expenses. If the case gets complicated, you may even need to obtain a workers’ compensation lawyer. There is no guarantee of a speedy reimbursement, so here are a few ways to make some extra scratch from the comfort of home.…

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Clean Your Home Office, Not Your Bank Account

Home office cleaning is no one’s idea of a fun weekend. There are so many ways to procrastinate and just avoid it entirely. Hey, the vacuum cleaner is making funny noises! Guess I better not use it; I”ll just have to save up to buy another one. Should I really mop the floor today? Last time I did that, the dog kept slipping on it. I don’t want to hurt my dog; I’m not some kind of monster. And so on and so forth.

Home office cleaning

Office cleaning takes up time that you could be using to check your emails, work on projects, and even eat peanut butter cups during your ‘down time.’ …

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How to Best Prepare Your Business for a Natural Disaster: 6 Crucial Tips

The recent storms to hit the United States have been all over the media the last few weeks. Hurricane Harvey dumped enough water on southern Texas in a week to supply New York City with drinking water for sixty-nine years. That is a massive amount of water to fall in less than a week. And then there’s Hurricane Irma:

If you are like many small business owners, you are more than likely wondering how to best prepare your business for a natural disaster like Hurricane Harvey or Irma. Now is a great time to review the plans your business has in place for when a natural disaster occurs in your area.…

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Do You Have Someone Who Manages Your Parts Data? If Not, Here are 4 Reasons Why You Should

As an electrical engineer, your primary goal is transforming clients’ ideas into functioning electronics. However, in designing a BOM for a project, you’ll need to manage your parts to ensure you have every requirement. Most electrical engineers admit that it’s hard to focus on product design while managing BOM parts at the same time.

Parts data management

Poor management of parts leads to lengthy delays in production, unexpected cost increases, and, production of faulty electronics. Hiring a professional who manages your parts data ensures you benefit in the following ways.

1. Keeps an updated list of prices

If your Bill of Materials (BOM) contains hundreds of parts, it will take you a lot of time to cross check the price of each listed part.…

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Using Grounding to Protect your PCB

Safe handling practices of the Printed Circuit Board (PCB) are not as safe as they may seem to be so, it is better to have excellent handling practises. To avoid ingression of moisture and contamination, there is need for proper protection otherwise known as conformal coating. There is need to protect your PCB from other things like fungus, corrosion, dust, salt spray and others that can easily damage it. Besides these, there is also a lot of electrostatic discharge (ESD) during the stages of development.

printed circuit board - PCB

With the advancement of electronic components, ESD becomes more and more of a threat. Constant movement of equipment, carts and people can lead to a major build-up of static.…

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Take Notice! Why You Should Take Workplace Signs Seriously

Almost all workplaces have at least a few signs around to remind employees and visitors to stay safe, as well as to advise them how to do it. These signs are ever-present, they don’t take holidays, they speak the universal language of images and they don’t take a salary. They’re indispensable when it comes to promoting and maintaining safety in the workplace.

Wet floor caution sign

However, not everyone reacts the same way when they see a bright sign telling them how to lift a box properly, to remember their goggles, or to extinguish their cigarette before entering the warehouse.

Some people get a bit affronted – why should some sign order them around?…

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How The Pharmaceutical Industry Went From Strength to Strength

Some industries have struggled of late. Post-Brexit anxiety has enveloped a number of areas of the economy, but one area that is thriving is pharmaceuticals. Manufacturers of medical goods and associated services such as pharmacy chains have done very well in recent years, owing to a variety of factors.

Pharmaceutical industry

The industry’s spending on research and development has helped to keep it going. Figures from 2016 reveal that half of the UK’s £16.5 billion of research and development spending came from pharmaceutical companies. Commitment to developing new drugs to fight dreaded illnesses such as cancer and diabetes has created jobs and opportunities within the industry.…

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5 Writing Jobs: Which One to Choose?

Once a caveman took a piece of coal and wrote vague symbols in the cave, the first writing job appeared. Nowadays, we don’t need a special guy to write all of the significant events, so the job of chronographer already jumped the shark. Instead, other jobs appeared. We will start our overview from classical writing jobs that were popular from the 20th century and move to occupations that are popular today.

Creative Writer

When we hear the word “writer” we think, first of all, about creative writers. Therefore, we decided to start our overview of writing jobs with fiction writers. Such writers create works of fiction of different scales, starting from short stories and finishing with multi-volume novels.…

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5 Ways to Jumpstart Your Business

Is your business in desperate need of a jump start? Are you willing to do anything it takes to make progress in the days, weeks, and months to come?

Business growth

There are many things you can do to jumpstart your business, with every idea well worth your consideration.

You don’t want to get ahead of yourself, but at the same time you don’t want to remain stagnant.

If you’re ready to take the first step in jumpstarting your business, here are five ideas to consider:

1. Secure a Business Loan

Many businesses have died off because they weren’t able to secure the necessary financing to push forward.…

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