A new breed of online financial management applications has emerged recently for business owners to take advantage of the technology to develop their business in the Web. Now entrepreneurs can become more comfortable with the “software in the cloud” model and tap into the inherent benefits it offers, from productivity to more sophisticated analysis.

The best small business accounting software – like QuickBooks – is designed for people who are unfamiliar with accounting. Just enter details of customers, suppliers, sales and expenses. Your accounting software does the rest, generating invoices and reports so you can understand your business.  Entry-level business accounting software offers basic features to save you time – and if you choose a package like QuickBooks, you can always upgrade as your business grows.

QuickBooks online accounting software is now seen by both business owners and accountants as a more effective and efficient tool in most modern small business. Whether you’re on a Mac or a PC, using QuickBooks Online is as easy as visiting a website. Since it’s completely web-based, you never have to install or download traditional software, or worry about operating-system compatibility—you just launch your web browser and go. In addition, switching to online accounting is simple—QuickBooks Online imports your existing customer contacts from Microsoft Excel®, Outlook, or Gmail. And the software is capable of facilitating bill payments, electronic checks issuance, digital invoicing, or customer credit verification.

Intuit also has its own desktop software to provide tailored applications for businesses offering true integration with banking, invoicing, billing as well as greater robust ways to analyze performance. QuickBooks is less fiddly than complicated spreadsheets and much faster than manual bookkeeping. Isn’t it time to give it a try?

This post is a guest blog post from one of our supporters.

The business idea that we would like to introduce you to is associated with a largely unsatisfied demand. You certainly noticed how much people strive to be the center of attention and to be admired by others. The same desire applies to business owners. They too want their companies and products to be noticed and appreciated. The lack of attention and admiration is equal to failure. This deficit creates unhappiness in people and makes companies go bankrupt.

There is a whole line of businesses that are highly successful just because they help to implement these strong aspirations of people. Such businesses include manufacturers of fashion apparel, accessories, and even popular social networks. But the demand in those industries is huge! The product we want to tell you about attracts a lot of attention. That product is the Dance Heads studios, where anyone can record their own funny video in 5 minutes, while completely changing their usual image. This incredible transformation, like magic, evokes a storm of positive emotions and admiration from the audience. You can watch an example of a video here: http://dh-business.com/hit-parade/2/4/t

Guests of our booths later show their Dance Heads videos to their friends and upload them on Facebook and YouTube, which multiplies the attention to them tenfold. The Dance Heads studio can be used by individual guests or a company, since we can create customized corporate videos. “For an hour, the booth was surrounded by a crowd of people and everyone wanted to record their video,” said John LeGuen, the owner of four Dance Heads studios.

Dance Heads is essentially a fully operating business that does not have analogues. It is a large, world-famous booth chain, whose product is successfully used for guests at holiday events, corporate parties, weddings, birthdays, festivals, as well as theme parks and entertainment centers.

Every Dance Heads partner receives:

• Training and training manuals for the booth
• Software updates
• New videos and songs
• Promotion materials for the business
• Technical and administrative support from the professionals of the Central Dance Heads office

Our company takes good care of its partners, which is why along with technical support and educational programs you will receive information based on successful business experience, which will help you to maximize your profits. How to do business correctly? Where to use your studios? How to find loyal customers? How to choose a good location for your studios? How to make more money? All of this information and more will help you to thrive in this unique business. Want to learn more? Go to http://www.dh-business.com

Join our team!

This post is a sponsored blog post.

DallasNews.com: Get Yogafied, between Frisco and Denton, is a new community-driven studio that’s all about respecting the environment. Owners Shana Stein and Kimberly Ames operate their business as simply and kindly as possible while practicing mindful consumerism.

They buy recycled and reusable items and offer free filtered water and eco-friendly disposable cups, instead of selling water bottles. There are no membership cards; business is geared to keeping things online and paperless. Studio temperatures are maintained using eco-friendly radiant heat panels that require minimal electricity.

Dallas’ eco-friendly yoga studios [DallasNews.com]

A wedding is a special but stressful event. When the couple come from two different cultures, it’s challenging to incorporate both sets of traditions. A growing number of wedding planners are helping out.

Berkeley, CA-based ZahZoom Weddings helped Rachel Carroll, of Jewish faith, and Trinidadian Michelle Matt in their cross-cultural nuptials. The couple walked down the aisle to Caribbean steel drums and were read the Torah by a rabbi under a chuppah, or wedding canopy. Chinese American Ada Chen and Sachin Rekhi, who is Indian American, had Oakland-based wedding planner Marilyn Ambra assist in blending the styles and traditions of both cultures.

As more people from different cultures marry, planning becomes complicated, with couples seeking to incorporate and honor both sets of traditions. Sometimes it takes a professional to help make the event a meaningful blend. Retail brands could expand their registry offerings to reflect the growth of cross-cultural marriages.

Wedding planners helping couples merge cross-cultural traditions [Iconoculture]

The Register Citizen: Graduates at many area colleges will be wearing “green” caps and gowns at commencement exercises this year, and it has nothing to do with their school colors.

It’s all part of a nationwide trend to graduate in attire made of recycled products, and at Southern Connecticut State University May 28, undergraduates will wear caps and gowns made from recycled plastic bottles. The new products are an alternative to the petroleum-based polyester gowns millions of graduates have bought each year.

Sounds like it could be stiff and uncomfortable, but Heather Stearns, recycling coordinator for Southern Connecticut State University, said the material is actually softer and more breathable than the old gear.

“The beauty of it is, the students coming to the university today come through elementary school, junior high and high school with a sense of sustainability,” Stearns said. “They’re coming with the expectation that we take them to the next level.”

The gowns, which are manufactured by Oak Hall Cap & Gown and known as the GreenWeaver line, are made in Virginia. Oak Hall estimates that it takes an average of 23 bottles to make each gown. In coming up with the final product, officials from Oak Hall settled on material made from recycled plastic after samples made from sustainable bamboo failed to impress customer service reps who wore them for a day.

College students wearing “green” for their graduation ceremonies [The Register Citizen]

MediaBuyerPlannet: Telemundo is increasingly incorporating products into the plot line of its telenovelas, and its newest deals are being made with manufacturers to develop brand new products for viewers to buy – products which didn’t exist before integration with the show.

The first products will be jewelry from the Richline Group. The jewelry will be worn by characters in at least 16 episodes of telenovela El Clon, the first of which will air on Telemundo on April 22. The jewelry is already available on the Telemundo website, reports The New York Times.

Another line of licensed merchandise, home decor products from Arrow Home Fashions, has been created and will begin airing in telenovelas as well as in the Telemundo morning show beginning in September.

Telemundo Creates Products to be Sold during Telenovels [MediaBuyerPlanner]

Beyond Robson: Vancouver has a new connoisseur – the craft beer drinker.

They arrive at parties with bottles of beer you have never heard of, stouts, ales and lagers with names like Dogfish Head, Anchor Steam and Polygamy Porter, cases brought back from a trip to the States and recycled glass jugs they get refilled by their friends who work for local watering holes and breweries. They have beer memberships, wear beer pins and forgo music festivals for ones about beer.

You can’t blame them though. With specialty beer stores popping up all over and existing stores expanding their craft beer selection, it is actually becoming more difficult to make a decision about what to drink each night when faced with rows upon rows of heady deliciousness.

Craft beer refers to beer that is brewed using traditional methods, focused on distinction and flavour and less on mass appeal. Craft beers are typically synonymous with microbrews, but can also be made on a larger scale.

The New Cool: Van Couver’s Craft Beer Drinker [Beyond Robson]

AdvertisingAge: A hot new social-networking service dubbed Bubbly, which is essentially a voice-based Twitter, is quickly gaining popularity among Indians. And thanks to Bollywood celebs being early adopters, Bubbly is growing virally and with virtually zero marketing spend.

Bubbly is the brainchild of 5-year-old mobile and social app firm Bubble Motion, which is based in Silicon Valley and Singapore. Its first product was BubbleTalk, a person-to-person voice-messaging service that, instead of SMS, sends mobile audio messages and has about 100 million users now.

Is Voice-Based Bubbly the New Twitter? [AdvertisingAge]

Sporkings: PepsiCo, the owner of Mountain Dew soda brand has rented a bowling alley in Brooklyn to throw a “taste test” party. They were testing the brand new “Ultraviolet” diet soda. Most of the guests were Twitter users and fans. On a projector screen, everybody could watch Twitter search queries related to @mtn_dew and occurrences of the hashtag #newdietdew.
People were really starting to enjoy the new product and Twitter searches for #newdietdew showed that it received very few negative responses to the taste test. From within the guests, one could hear exclamations like “truly the king of sodas,” “like drinking a rainbow…everybody knows the best part is the purple,” and “THE summer cocktail mixer of ‘09.” This could be partly because some tweets could win prizes like an HDTV or a casino weekend package.
In the end, nobody knows for sure if this Twitter advertising campaign will work or not. “You can use Bitly-type links that have specifics and analytics baked in, but you need to have a pretty clear business goal to know whether it worked…Were you trying to raise brand awareness? Were you trying to get a certain amount of traffic to a certain page? You have to be measuring the actual business role you were trying to get done.” – Laura Fitton, Pistachio Consulting.
Pepsi Using Twitter To Market Its Latest Product [Sporkings]

Cnet News: URL-shortening services are abundant and becoming more so. They’re usually designed with a priority on minimum character length, not easy reading: Is.gd, Bit.ly, Twurl.nl, Tr.im, Sn.im”, Cligs, and TinyURL.
So what’s new now? First, Twitter, and second, shortening URLs is becoming an actual business–notably at present through the addition of “analytics” features that can let those who use the service see data about how many people clicked on links, when, where they’re located, and the Web page where they found the shortened link.
One of the problems with short URLs is knowing what you’re getting into when you click them. Is that link really the fun video of the guy tripping into the lake, or is it site that will spam you or attempt to install malware? Is it really a warning from your bank about a bad transaction, or is it a phishing attack to try to fool you into parting with your password?
Clicking many regular URLs involves a leap of faith, to be sure, but not being able to see a “youtube.com” or “bankofamerica.com” name because it’s masked by a short URL makes that leap even longer.
Read here for more of cnet’s insightful article on the URL shortening trend.
URL shortening is hot – but look before you leap [Cnet News]

Examiner.com: Crowdsourcing is a phenomenon that is gaining fast acceptance in the business community and beyond. It has the potential to affect business quite fundamentally and can usher in radical changes to business models and business processes everywhere.
Crowdsourcing is a method that involves and uses “crowds” (i.e., large, undefined, randomly distributed, undirected, unsupervised groups of people) to performs tasks and accomplish goals.
Here are 2 live examples of successful crowdsourcing:
MOBILE PHONE DESIGN
As recently as April – June 2009, LG crowdsourced the design of their next mobile phone. In a job posted to crowdSPRING in April 2009, LG has issued a challenge to people everywhere: Design the future of mobile communication device. Here is what the listing actually said:
“Predict what’s next. What do you think mobile phones should look like in 2, 5, or 10 years? We are asking for your help. We’re NOT looking for a long list of specs or phone ideas that already exist. We’re looking for a cool new concept or “big idea” supported by usage scenario illustrations.”
AUDITING EXPENSES FILED BY YOUR MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT
The U.K. newspaper – Guardian – recently launched a crowdsourcing application called “Investigate your MP’s expenses”.
The landing page says it all: “Join us in digging through the 700,000 documents of MPs’ expenses to identify individual claims, or documents that you think merit further investigation. You can work through your own MP’s expenses, or just hit the button below to start reviewing. (Update, Thurs evening: More added now and more coming all the time. Check back if you haven’t found your MP yet).”
Each MP’s expenses and claims are presented as a set of images, and users can determine what entries there are on a page, and decide whether the page is unimportant, interesting, “interesting but known” or worthy of investigation.
As of June 18th, the site had 77252 pages of documents, of which 23891 are unreviewed. Click here to launch it.
To read on more about other examples of crowdsourcing, please read on here.
A new Internet gold rush called crowdsourcing [Examiner.com]