New York SBDC Research Network

From the Small Business Administration at SBA.gov By  BarbaraWeltman , Guest Blogger For many small business owners, thinking about taxes occurs only twice a year … when returns are being prepared and perhaps at the end of the year. This is a mistake. With half of 2017 over, now is a great time to assess where you stand and to take action that will be helpful to your 2017 tax bill. 1. Meet with your tax advisor The vast majority of small business owners use CPAs or other tax advisors to prepare and file their returns. These tax pros can also serve as business advisors throughout the year, providing guidance on what the business can to do to optimize profitability while minimizing taxes. If your tax preparer doesn’t provide this service, consider finding one who will. Schedule a meeting with your advisor to review your profits or losses, and to craft a tax plan that you can implement going forward. 2. Assess your profitability If 2017 is shaping up to be a good year for you, consid

From Complete Payroll : New York’s Paid Family Leave program is designed to provide wage replacement to employees for a variety of family and/or medical reasons, including maternity/paternity leave, caring for a close relative with a serious health condition and relieving family pressures when someone is called to active military service. The program also guarantees that employees are able to return to their job and keep their health insurance, provided they continue to contribute their portion while on Paid Family Leave. The law was signed by Governor Andrew Cuomo on April 4, 2016 and will begin the first of four phases of implementation on January 1, 2018. Just like the payroll deduction is mandatory for all New York employees, it's mandatory for all New York employers to set up the payroll deduction and offer Paid Family Leave for all the employees that qualify. That means businesses must work with their payroll provider, insurance broker/carrier and HR person to create

From Bplans : Almost on a weekly basis, I meet new aspiring entrepreneurs looking to execute on their ideas. Some believe in the all-in approach to product development: build an advanced app. If it works, they’ll hit it big, and if it doesn’t, they’ll make some changes and do it again. Others believe in the start small, grow strong approach: build a small version of the app, test user demand, and then take it from there. In both scenarios, it seems that startup venture initiation and idea validation are strictly dependent on the app... Early stage idea validation can be accomplished without building an application. It’s possible to simulate user experience through existing, lower-tech resources.

From SampleTemplates : Commerce Introduction Letter serves as an introductory piece for getting into the business world. The main aim behinds its writing is conveying all the essential details related to any firm or product/service to the potential clients. It ensures the correct understanding of clients about the company’s businesses. It helps in seeking client’s attention and being noticed. You can even customize such letter in your own way so as to meet certain requirements or needs as well. See also, from Template Lab, 40+ Letter of Introduction Templates & Examples

From PC magazine : Amazon may have started as an online-only experience, but today the company is very much blended into real-world retail. This week, the company was granted a patent for technology that can prevent in-store shoppers from comparison shopping online. The patent - for "Physical Store Online Shopper Control" - is pretty self-explanatory. If you're in a store and logged on to that store's Wi-Fi, the network will see if you navigate to a rival's website to compare prices. The store can then block you from doing so, offer up a discount to purchase in-store, or even send a store employee over to persuade you to make that purchase. Amazon is expanding its brick-and-mortar presence so this technology could be deployed at its own stores, but it could also make a pretty penny licensing the tech to rivals. Call it augmented retail.

SBDC Staff Training seems like a long time ago already, and we left with the plan that I would share my presentation on Best Apps for Small Business. In the time between then and now, I've dabbled in even more apps that I'd like to share in case you might find them useful for yourself or your clients. I'll be making posts on the different categories of apps with a great deal of crossover. Calendars, Lists and To-Dos  For Chrome users, this is my actual favorite for a to-do product and it's actually for the desktop. I had been reading an anecdote about the Ivy Lee Method for achieving peak productivity which you may be familiar with. The gist is that at the end of each day, you write down the most important things to achieve the following day. Write down 6 items, but only 6. Prioritize those 6. Tomorrow, concentrate on completing the 1st item. Don't move to the next until that item is done. Carry on in this fashion for the rest of the list. Repeat daily.

From Jalopnik : Drive down any major interstate in the U.S., and you’ll see big blue signs decorated with business logos near most exits. Here’s who decides which businesses make it on the signs, and how much it all costs. Called interstate logo signs or specific service signs, these ubiquitous big blue billboards are godsends to weary travelers searching for gas, food, or lodging close to the highway. Unsurprisingly, the signs aren’t solely there to help out motorists, as they also provide monetary benefit to businesses and, crucially, to the state. Roadside advertising programs are administered by individual states, though specific service signs... tend to be farmed out to contractors. One of the biggest of these contractors is a company called Interstate Logos, which works with transportation agencies in 23 states to not only install the huge blue panels, but also to work with businesses to run the programs. If you own a business that falls into one of these groups—attractio