Keep the Money flowing through Invoicing Tips

Small and medium sized businesses have always been troubled by late payers, debtors and defaulters. Considering that this particular sub-set of clients continue to make life difficult for entrepreneurs, here are some tips to keep the cash flowing.

Though there should be more stringent laws in dealing with such clients, this does not mean that small businesses are powerless in the face of the organizations they sell to.

Businesses are most likely to receive late payments from new customers; making them more vulnerable to new clients. Small businesses must be ready to negotiate terms when they receive an order, particularly from new customers.

Following are some tips:

* Send an estimate/quotation before sending the final invoice.

* Understanding and identifying the payment terms - where invoices should be sent, what references or order numbers should be quoted, and whether the customer only accepts online invoices.

* Have effective internal procedures in place: what level of credit checking is required and how frequently credit limits are reviewed.

* If there is a difference between your payment terms and theirs, don’t ignore the issue, negotiate.

* Make sure sales invoices meet the customer’s requirements, send invoices as soon as possible to the correct address and department, ensuring they comply with requirements for VAT invoices, and follow progress.

* Make notes of telephone calls regarding customer payments, including dates and times of conversations, to whom you spoke and the outcome, and take action quickly.

* Establish a policy on how long an invoice is allowed to be outstanding before resorting to debt collection and when supply of goods or services should be stopped.

* Regularly review the debtors’ ledger for customers behind with payment. Get sales staff to visit these customers to seek information and set targets for credit collection.

* Employ professional credit staff.

* Carefully consider potential orders with longer payment terms. Consider the implications for profitability, cash flow, financing and bad debts.

* Consider factoring or invoice discounting to help manage cash flow.

* Use business invoices as an instrument to retain customers by way of mentioning discounts, offers and other schemes at the footer.

56 Useful Mac Shortcuts

This will focus on basic tips and tricks for the new user to the Mac system. Since Macs are growing in popularity I thought it was a good idea to show some sort of tips to anyone in this category.

This list will be split up into two sections basic key commands and the rest of them.

It will not include any F1-12 shortcuts as these vary widely depending on the keyboard and age of computer. Of course, if you have anymore that are not features on the list please leave a comment below.

Overview
A quick over view of the shortcut symbols used on this page. They should display correctly as they are unicode as part of the font. This works on Firefox and Safari so you should be ok. The list below is for anyone who isn’t quite sure.

⌘ = Command, the most common modifier.
⌥ = Option or Alt.
⇧ = Shift
^ = Control. Not used as frequently but is still there.

Basic Shortcuts
This is a list of shortcuts that should be hardwired into your brain. These are usually the most commonly used. Most of the shortcuts on the list are for Finder, although a lot will work in other applications. If I wrote a list for every single application out there I would be here for ever.

⌘ + Q = Quit
⌘ + W = Close window
⌘ + O = Open a file in your application
⌘ + P = Print
⌘ + C = Copy
⌘ + V = Paste
⌘ + X = Cut
⌘ + S = Save
⌘ + Z = Undo
⌘ + A = Select All
⌘ + Y or Space = Quicklook
⌘ + Tab = Cycle through windows

Personally I use all of those shortcuts all of the time. It helps to remember them and use them. Most will come naturally over time.

Other Shortcuts
This is the list where every other shortcut resides. Have a look through and see if there is anything which is of interest to you.

⌘ + ⇧+ 3 = Take fullscreen picture
⌘ + ⇧ + 4 = Take selected area screenshot
⌘ + ⇧ + 4 + Space = Take screenshot of window or menu
⌥ + ⌘ + Escape = Bring up Force Quit window
⌘ + Space = Spotlight search
⌘ + ` (back tick) = Cycle through applications windows
⌘ + . = Cancel operation
⌘ + ⇧ + ? = Open help
⌘ + I = Get Info
⌘ + [ = Go backwards in history in Finder
⌘ + ] = Go forwards in history in Finder
⌘ + Up Arrow = Go to previous folder in hierarchy
⌘ + Down Arrow = Open folder of file in Finder
⌘ + ⌥ + T = Show hide Finder’s toolbar
⌘ + Delete = Move item to Trash
⌘ + ⇧ + Delete = Empty Trash
⌘ + E = Eject disk
⌘ + F = Find
⌘ + G = Next result in Find option
⌘ + H = Hide application
⌘ + M = Minimize
⌘ + N = New window
⌘ + ⌥ + W = Close all windows
⌘ + ⇧ + Z = Redo
⌘ + ⇧ + H = Go to Home folder
⌘ + ⇧ + D = Go to Desktop
⌘ + ⇧ + C = Go to Computer
⌘ + ⇧ + K = Go to Network
⌘ + ⇧ + I = Go to iDisk
⌘ + ⇧ + A = Go to Application
⌘ + ⇧ + U = Go to Utilities
⌘ + ⇧ + G = Go to folder
⇧ + ⌘ + Q = Log out
⇧ + ⌘ + ⌥ + Q = Log out immediately.
⌘ + D = Duplicate in Finder
⌘ + ⌥ + 8 = Turn on Voice Over
⌘ + ⌥ + + = Zoom in (if turned on)
⌘ + ⌥ + - =Zoom Out
⌘ + ⌥ + D = Show/Hide Dock
^ + Eject = Show shutdown dialog
^ + ⌘ + Eject = Close all and restart
⌥ + ⌘ + Eject = Sleep
⌘ + Shift + F = Find file by name
⌘ + R = Refresh widget

Conclusion
Although a lot of these are for Finder they are very useful to learn especially if you use a function quite frequently. If you have any more general shortcuts please add them in the comments. If you want a cool little application to check which shortcuts are availble to you I recommend KeyCue. It is a good little application for finding new shortcuts on your system.