Home Business: Phone System Enhancements

Software for Getting Your Home Office Running (Part 4 of 5)

You�re home office is coming along very well. You have your accounting system and VoIP phone number. Now it's time to think about the additional features you might need to complete your phone system and give your business a professional sound. For example, you can add a voicemail system to answer calls for you, or maybe an on-hold message player for that added level of credibility if you need to put someone on hold while you look something up or take another call.

Those extra audio queues really can help you sound like a larger more professional organization right out of the gate. When callers are on hold, even for just 30 seconds, it is a perfect opportunity to make an impression, create interest, and strengthen your brand image. Every entrepreneur can appreciate the importance of building their brand and strengthening business relationships. IMS telephone on hold software lets you easily play those custom messages to anyone who is put on hold.

There�s only one piece of software you need to put it all together. IVM Voicemail Software can be used to create a custom answering solution, and will work with your standard telephone lines, VoIP services, or both. You can use IVM to play a menu to callers, redirect incoming calls outside of office hours, or as an answer machine. Recorded messages can be played at any time, forwarded to an email address, or accessed remotely. Even if you are on the road you can still easily access your messages, making it easier to stay in touch with all your business contacts.

IVM not only handles voicemail but can also be used as a more sophisticated automated attendant and interactive voice response system (IVR). This means it will easily grow with your small business by providing an answering machine today, and help you direct and transfer calls through a larger PBX phone system when you have several employees tomorrow.

Archival-quality Audio from Vinyl with Golden Records

Golden Records Vinyl to CD Converter is one of our more popular software programs, offering an easy step-by-step process for converting vinyl LP records and analog audio cassettes to CD or mp3 files. It seems the people at CNET agree, having recently given it high marks, saying, "We've tried many such tools, yet we've often gone back to [Golden Records], which also converts tapes and other analog audio sources." The reviewers went on to say:

"We transcribed several LP records ranging from audiophile quality to barely playable with Golden Records, achieving excellent, archival-quality results each time. The auto track splitter worked fine on scratchy old platters, though recording tracks in the highest possible quality and then splitting and converting them manually using a WAV editor proved the best method for better-quality discs. The sound files produced by Golden Records Vinyl to CD Converter sounded great, whatever the source."

� CNET

You can read the complete review of Golden Records Analog to CD/MP3 Converter from CNET on download.com. Or, download today to take advantage of the free 14-day trial and easy wizard based process to start digitizing your vinyl record collection.

Home Business: VoIP Phone System

Software for Getting Your Home Office Running
(Part 3 of 5)

Another key component to setting up your home office, after your accounting system is in place, is the phone system. You've likely heard about VoIP, which has been growing in popularity, and with good cause. As an entrepreneur the important thing to know is that VoIP can save you a lot of money on phone bills.

VoIP stands for Voice over Internet Protocol, and what that means is that the call information travels over the Internet instead of through traditional telephone landlines. Essentially, the only cost for sending information over the Internet is the Internet connection; the transmission itself costs nothing. That means calls between VoIP users will frequently be free.

The only cost associated with VoIP calls come from connecting to other telephone networks that service cell phones and landlines. Even in this case, there are significant cost savings because the VoIP phone providers can use the Internet to travel long distance, and then switch the call to a standard phone line in the local area of the destination, and you pay only for the local call, eliminating long-distance charges. The benefit to this is that you can increase the reach of your business, because you won�t be worried about your long-distance phone call budget.You business can potentially be more functional�providing new opportunities to increase your productivity and responsiveness.

With that in mind, here�s an example of the cost savings. For your home office, the telephone line and long-distance charges using a traditional landline phone system can cost upward of $100 per month. Compare that to the cost of using a VoIP system, where the total cost can be as low as $3.25 to $4.30 per month, a savings of more than 90%! With those savings, the initial cost of a business-oriented softphone will be paid for in less than a month.

A VoIP phone, or softphone like the Express Talk softphone only takes a few minutes to set up and will work with any VoIP provider. Express Talk is designed for professionals and has all the features you expect from a business telephone including do not disturb, conference calling, and even the ability to record conversations. It can be used with a USB phone to give the feel of a traditional phone, or with a headset, or microphone and speaker setup�which you may already have�making the cost of setting up your office with VoIP only a matter of buying the software.

Next: Phone System Enhancements

One Click Converting

Some of the most useful software applications to have at the ready are file format converters. You never know when a file might land in your email or come across your desk in a format that you can't open. This can be exceedingly frustrating. With the right file converter you can solve this problem with a click of the mouse instead of having to go back to the source to see if they can re-save it for you.

Plus, in case having the convenience of a file converter on hand wasn't enough, for any formats that you convert to regularly, you can easily add a shortcut to your Windows Explorer right click menu for even faster conversion.

For example, if you constantly need to convert music for your mp3 player, you might want to create a shortcut for converting to mp3 with Switch audio converter. To do that, go to the "Right Click" tab in "Options," turn on one of the shortcut commands and select mp3 from the pull down menu. Once you've saved this setting, the next time you right click on a supported audio file you can "convert to mp3 using Switch" right then and there.

Our other conversion software have similar options to help save you time. Try our full range of converting software including:

• Prism video converter
  
• Switch audio converter
  
• Pixillion image converter
  
• Doxillion document converter
  

Home Business: Accounting and Invoicing Software

Software for Getting Your Home Office Running (Part 2 of 5)

You've got the idea for your business and are swarming with ideas about how to get started. You may think that bookkeeping and accounting is getting ahead of the game at this point�first you need clients. But that's not true. You need to keep track of all your expenses and payments right from the start. Setting up accounting software to manage your accounts out of the gate can save headaches caused by trying to find these details later.

One of the advantages of running a business out of a home office is the tax deductions you can take. But to take advantage of those deductions, your records must be in order. Deductions are retroactive once you have paying clients, so accurately tracking the expenses leading up to that first client is extremely important.

You need a flexible, easy-to-use accounting program or you won't use it. Ideally, it will also handle your invoicing to making record keeping even easier, which is one of the things that Express Accounts accounting software offers. Express Accounts is available for Mac and PC, can be installed and ready to use in less than 5 minutes.

Here are some of the key features of Express Accounts:

• Create journal entries for payments, purchases, receipts and deposits
  
• Create and send invoices from inside the application
  
• Set up alerts to track unpaid invoices and make sure nothing falls through the cracks
  
• Standard reports including Profit & Loss statement and Balance Sheet
  
• Email or fax reports and invoices directly from the program
  

Express Accounts is particularly ideal for your start up business because it allows you to track expenses without having to pay extra bookkeeping costs or for expensive software with features you'll never use. Express Accounts will also grow with your business; it can track all the business expenses of multiple businesses with your original software license, and across several locations. Setting up your home office with Express Accounts ensures you'll have software that is easy to use, and that you can use for years to come without any additional investment.

Next: VoIP Phone System

Acclaim for VideoPad Video Editing Software

We are very grateful that the editors at CNet recently took the time to review NCH's VideoPad Video Editor. They wrote a very nice review and awarded it with 5 out of 5 stars, highlighting how easy VideoPad is in their comments, "It's a rare video editor that you can just fire up and start making movies with, but that's what we did with VideoPad." They went on to say:

"With smartphones, video sharing sites, and Webcams everywhere, there's no lack of raw video resources, just a need for a powerful, easy-to-use tool like VideoPad Video Editor Professional to put your projects together, polish them up, and present them in the format of your choice. More than just fast and competent, we also found it fun to use."

� CNet

You can read the complete review of VideoPad video editor on download.com, but the best way to really get a feel for how user-friendly and fun video editing can be, download VideoPad and try it out for yourself.

Software for Getting Your Home Office Running

Have you recently decided to take the plunge and become the entrepreneur you�ve always wanted to be, or are in the beginning stages of a new business venture? No doubt you are worried about startup costs. There�s a fine line to walk when it comes to using the highest quality tools to start your business with a solid foundation while searching for cost savings, and it's possible the threat of spending too much money is holding you back. Setting up your business office can be done efficiently�spatially, time-wise, and monetarily.

It may be hard to imagine, but you might be surprised by how good it feels to be running your own venture once your office is up and running. So, whether you�re a sales person, a lawyer, a teacher, a healthcare professional, a carpenter, or a builder�any profession at all�let�s get started setting up a home office.

The essentials for an office space are a desk, a phone, and a computer. After that, it�s all about the software, and finding the right tools for your needs. One of the beautiful things about software is that it can do a lot of work for you, helping you not only start out on the right foot, but also to project a very professional front for your small business that can help you compete with larger, more established organizations. Plus, if you do your homework, it can cost a lot less than you might think.

There are two major aspects of running a business that you need in place at the start: a bookkeeping system and a good phone system. Both sound expensive, but they don�t have to be. In fact, you could actually save money on a phone system and still have more features than your current setup.

For the next few weeks, we�ll be running a series of blogs about the software you need for setting up your home office:

• Accounting and Invoicing Software
  
• VoIP Telephone System Software
  
• Phone System Enhancements to Help You Sound Professional
  
• Other Software to Help Make Business Run Smoother
  

In the meantime, take a few moments to peruse our business software. There are a wide variety of tools for helping you in all aspects of your business, all designed to get your business off to the strong start you�re looking for.