Small Businesses Dodged a Bullet on E-Verify – For Now

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• Small Businesses Dodged a Bullet on E-Verify – For Now
• Don’t Pay Penalties and Fees: Avoid Business Compliance Pitfalls
• How to Capitalize When You Produce a Viral Infographic
• ExpertCircle Launched: Find Products Recommended by Your Peers
• Why Website Analytics Are Vital For Your Business
• U.S. Government To Pay $3 Million in Back Fees to Small Businesses

Small Businesses Dodged a Bullet on E-Verify – For Now Posted: 23 May 2013 02:00 AM PDT If you haven’t heard of the E-Verify system yet, chances are you will in the future.  E-Verify is an online system used by employers to verify that a worker is eligible to work in the United States. Very recently there was a push to make E-Verify a mandatory requirement for ALL employers. It was included in the immigration bill wending its way through Congress currently. At the last minute, the E-Verify provision was eliminated from the immigration bill.  And small businesses and small business advocates who see E-Verify as a regulatory burden, breathed a sigh of relief. For now that is. The trend at the state level seems to be moving toward requiring employers to use the E-Verify system to verify workers’ eligibility.  Most of the state laws were passed in the last few years. In all likelihood we will see more states make E-Verify mandatory.  And it’s still possible that an E-Verify  requirement could raise its head again at the Federal level at some future point. Good Intentions, But Costly E-Verify is used by a relatively small but growing number of businesses in the United States.  Over 400,000 employers use it currently, with more than 5,000 new employers added each month. Many of those using it today are government contractors or public employers.  Or they are located in the nine states (Arizona, Utah, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Tennessee) that make E-Verify mandatory for most or all employers. On the surface, E-Verify seems like a good idea. It’s free to use and it is designed to help employers comply with immigration law. While the system is free to use, it adds a layer of bureaucracy that hits small businesses hard.  Ann Cun, writing on the LawLogix blog, quotes DeAnne Hilgers of Lindquist & Vennum LLP, on the general impact of E-Verify on small businesses this way, “The costs to employers are significant, especially to smaller employers who do not have HR staff. Often, that HR person is the company owner who is up to his or her elbows with their employees working to make the company successful. When the employer loses an employee, they are losing twice the direct productivity – the lost worker's and their own.” NASE (the National Association for the Self Employed) did a survey of its members earlier this year.  A majority agreed that some kind of system to verify a worker’s status to work in this country is needed. But as one small business owner puts it, the current E-Verify is not that system. According to Stephen McNeilly, owner of ServiceProz, Inc., and a member of the NASE Member Council, “We want to comply with any new immigration requirements as long as they are not burdensome and impact our businesses and bottom-lines. The E-Verify system we currently already use takes too long to verify employment. We need a system that is efficient, easy to use and isn't complex.” Nearly 80% of small businesses want a system that will allow them to spend under 30 minutes verifying an employee’s immigration status, per the NASE survey.  Yet according to one source, a business may need to spend more than 30 hours on educational materials in order to enroll in and comply with E-Verify. Back in 2011, analyst Philip E. Wolgin of the Center for American Progress estimated the program would cost small businesses between $1,254 to $24,422  just to implement in the first year. After that it would cost about $435 per year. Not Reliable Enough If the time burden and cost weren’t enough, some say E-Verify is not even reliable. For example, back in 2011 Wolgin’s report suggested E-Verify had only about a 46 percent success rate identifying undocumented workers. Meanwhile, last week Kathy Lotspeich, Deputy Chief of the Verification Division for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services told the Senate judiciary panel there are other problems too. Of the 21 million employee queries E-Verify processed last year, about 1.3 percent returned a “Tentative Non-Confirmation response,” said Lotspeich. This means E-Verify was unable to verify information provided by an employee. Of those, about 800 were due to system errors, she added.  The success rate is getting better, however. Still, for small businesses, this can mean days or weeks of lost productivity from flagged existing workers or delay in hiring new employees until problems with the data can be worked out. Gone From Current Immigration Bill, But… On Tuesday, May 21, the immigration bill passed in the Senate Judiciary Committee and headed to the floor of the U.S. Senate.  Its current version doesn’t make E-Verify mandatory for all – that was nixed last week in committee last Thursday. "I am not going to support a bill that is overly burdensome to small business," said U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu (D-La.), chair of the Senate Committee on Small Business & Entrepreneurship during Thursday’s discussion. “The people who employ 2, 3, 4 … people, that's who is going to get caught up in this mess," said U.S. Sen. James E. Risch (R-Idaho) another member of the committee. While E-Verify may be gone from the current immigration bill, we’ve probably not heard the last of it – either on the individual state levels or at the Federal level. What do you think? Would mandatory E-Verify compliance create hardships for your business? Statue of Liberty, Shutterstock The post Small Businesses Dodged a Bullet on E-Verify – For Now appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Don’t Pay Penalties and Fees: Avoid Business Compliance Pitfalls Posted: 22 May 2013 04:00 PM PDT For a small business, the number of filings required in a given year can be overwhelming. Let's take California as an example. A newly formed corporation must obtain a Federal Tax ID number, file an Initial Statement of Information, elect S Corporation status if desired, file a DBA (Doing Business As) if needed and file an annual statement of information on the anniversary date of the corporation's filing date. Then, there's other paperwork like meeting minutes or Articles of Amendment, if you make any changes. This may seem like trivial paperwork, but it's actually pretty important. Failure to file required paperwork can lead to fines and penalties. And as states are facing rising budget deficits, they're looking to ramp up their collection efforts and increase revenues any way possible. Penalties and fines can range anywhere from $175 to $400. While it's never fun to pay a dime more than you have to, failing to file paperwork can have even more serious consequences than these extra fees. This paperwork is key to keeping your corporation or LLC in good standing. If your business happens to be sued, a plaintiff may try to show that you haven't maintained your business to the letter of the law. In the worst cases, your "corporate shield" is pierced and your personal assets can be vulnerable. Maintaining a corporation or LLC is an ongoing process. Below is a general overview of what you need to do to keep your business in compliance. Of course, specific requirements will vary based on your business type and location. Stay In Compliance 1. File An Annual Report Most states require some sort of annual report filing on the anniversary of your business' incorporation date (in some cases, it's every two years, or due at the end of the calendar year). It's a simple form, so be sure to get it done on time to avoid late fees and penalties. 2. File Amendments For Any Changes If you made some major changes to your LLC or Corporation, you may need to keep your state up to date with an Articles of Amendment form. Examples of changes include: changes to the company name, registered agent, registered office, business address, number of authorized shares, and business activities. 3. Get a Federal Tax ID number To distinguish your business as a separate legal entity, you’ll need to obtain a Federal Tax Identification Number, also referred to as an Employer Identification Number (EIN). Issued by the IRS, the tax ID number is similar to your personal social security number and allows the IRS to track your company’s transactions. 4. Keep Up To Date With Any Meeting Minutes If your business is a corporation (S or C), you'll need to record meeting minutes (including every action or decision) whenever you hold a corporate meeting. Typical content includes: time and place of meeting, attendance and chair of the meeting, any actions (purchases, elections, etc.) and signature of recorder and date. 5. File a DBA For Any Name Variations A lot of times, a business has an official name and then uses any number of variants of that name. For example, your official name might be COMPANY, Inc., but you also go by COMPANY or COMPANY.com, etc. In these cases, you need to file a DBA (Doing Business As) for each of the variations. 6. Use Your Proper Name On Any Contract In addition to filing DBAs as needed, you should be extra careful about how your business is referenced in business contracts and other forms. Whenever you reference your business, make sure to identify it as a corporation, using Inc. or Corp., whichever your state requires.  Never use your name followed by “DBA” (Doing Business As) on a contract. The post Don’t Pay Penalties and Fees: Avoid Business Compliance Pitfalls appeared first on Small Business Trends.

How to Capitalize When You Produce a Viral Infographic Posted: 22 May 2013 11:00 AM PDT Everyone who has any stake in creating virtual content, whether developing it, marketing it, producing it or simply writing about it, has one dream: That their content goes viral. Within minutes, your video, blog or picture is seen by thousands of people. In a day, you’ve notched up over a million views. But when fortune blesses you with this bounty, how do you react? What do you do? You’ve got millions of customers at your door; what’s your next step? Viral Marketing: Capitalize on Your Viral Infographic Produce Another One Infographics are popular because they succinctly summarize complicated material. Today, people don’t have the patience to watch a 5-minute video or read a 500-word article or blogpost. They want their information presented to them in a compact, appealing package, like a dinner plate that has just the right balance of every item of food. When you produce an infographic that hits the sweet spot – the right balance of text, graphics and details – and people start sharing that infographic, the next step is to look at a sequel. After all, infographics are very high level, telling only a fraction of a story. For example, an email marketing firm named Aweber created an infographic that showed how only $1 spent on email marketing could create $40 in revenue. For a small business owner, this is worth gold. Even to someone not interested in email marketing might want to see how they came up with their formula. Aweber might be well served to create another infographic, this one digging just a little deeper, while still being very easy to digest at a single glance. If Aweber does it right, they might hit gold again with the success of the first infographic leading to people seeking out the second. Go From Infographic to Video It’s true that videos are no longer the be-all-end-all of marketing like everybody once thought they were. However, a video in conjunction with an infographic could still take off. If you hit on the right combination in an infographic, you could go in for the kill with a slick, well-produced video clip. You’ll already have the visual elements from your infographic. Simply get a snazzy piece of music, someone with a good voice who is comfortable recording a voiceover and a piece of editing software to put it all together, and you’ll have you video. You’ll have to make the video offer a bit more information than the original infographic; your readers (and viewers) will not appreciate watching a 3-minute video clip for something they could have digested in the 20 seconds it takes to skim through an infographic. If you can promote the video by saying, “If you liked this infographic, this video will answer a few more of your questions,” you might say that you’ve successfully capitalized on your viral infographic. Viral Photo via Shutterstock The post How to Capitalize When You Produce a Viral Infographic appeared first on Small Business Trends.

ExpertCircle Launched: Find Products Recommended by Your Peers Posted: 22 May 2013 08:00 AM PDT DocStoc today launched ExpertCircle, a  site where you can find vendors and products for you business, recommended by your peers.  You can also suggest vendors and products to recommend them to others. ExpertCircle is like sharing word of mouth for business vendors, but in an organized central place. According to Jason Nazar, founder and CEO of Docstoc, “Most small business owners rely on word of mouth for business advice; with ExpertCircle we're incorporating the ability for those same professionals to share their personal endorsements on a platform accessible by all business owners, so that they can, too, easily find the best products and vendors that are reviewed by their professional peers and based on their given needs. The same way that consumers turn to Yelp and Angie's List for reviews, ExpertCircle is a free platform for business owners, entrepreneurs and operators to get the most reliable recommendations on business products that their peers recommend and use.” Finding Products and Vendors When you first arrive on ExpertCircle, you are walked through a brief decision tree.  It asks you such things as the age and size of your business.  Presumably that’s to present you with a list of  relevant products and services appropriate for your business size, industry or circumstances. You also can search by category (such as accounting or HR products) or by industry (such as spa, massage, tanning or tattoo services).  So, for instance, let’s say you are in the tattoo business. You are looking for an appointment scheduler or CRM system appropriate for tattoo parlors. You can search by industry to find one. Endorsing or Critiquing a Product or Vendor Once a product or service vendor is listed on ExpertCircle, users can endorse them with an up vote, or downgrade them with a down vote.  The highest recommended vendors and products appear at the top of the list. Alongside each vendor or product is the number of endorsements they have received. See screenshot above, showing the Accounting & Finance section. One thing I noticed is if you click on something in error — either the blue “up arrow” to endorse or the red “down arrow”  to critique something — you can’t seem to unclick.  Or, at least, I couldn’t seem to. For example, I initially clicked the red down arrow for Freshbooks just to try it out.  But I really didn’t mean to give it a negative vote. However, the only way I could figure out how to get rid of my erroneous negative critique was to click the up arrow to endorse Freshbooks.  That’s OK because I have a favorable view of Freshbooks.  Still, it would be good to have a better way to reverse an erroneous click. Submitting a Vendor or Product You can submit your favorite vendor or product. We tried out the process. It is easy and takes just a couple of minutes. The hardest part — which isn’t really hard — is figuring out the proper category to place something in.  So for instance, I submitted the TweakYourBiz Title Generator Tool and managed to submit it quickly. Keeping out spam submissions and ensuring submissions are in the proper categories will be the challenging bit as  ExpertCircle scales.  When I made my submission, it said that it would need to be approved.  I assumed that would involve some kind of manual review.  However, my submission appeared on the site in under 30 seconds. One thing that should keep some integrity in the system is that you must log in with either your LinkedIn account or Facebook account.  And your avatar appears next to anything you submit or endorse, so that will tend to keep the results more accurate. ExpertCircle is free to use.  DocStoc, the parent company, is a content site containing over 20 million professional documents such as contracts and business templates, shared by over 30 million registered users.  DocStoc, founded in 2007, is headquartered in Santa Monica, California. The post ExpertCircle Launched: Find Products Recommended by Your Peers appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Why Website Analytics Are Vital For Your Business Posted: 22 May 2013 05:00 AM PDT Ten years ago, it was enough for a business to create a website, cast it out into the wild and merely sit back while the traffic rolled in. But in today's increasingly technical world with big data seamlessly flowing, it has become essential for small businesses to study their website analytics in order to personalize the experience for visitors, compete with industry behemoths and improve overall business. For those of you that aren't studying your website analytics to enhance business, the investment it took to build that website is destined to be a lost cause. According to a recent study on small businesses’ online strategies, only 25 percent of small businesses use an analytics tool, such as the free Google Analytics service, to measure website performance. That means 75 percent of small businesses are missing opportunities to enhance website traffic, improve sales and drive business forward. With this decade's eruption in technology and big data, businesses that don't know what their audience is doing online are simply flying blind. Google Analytics is the most popular website statistics service, with a usership of more than 55 percent of the top 10,000 websites last year. This tool and similar services are seeing higher demand as more and more businesses realize the positive impact of using such data. What's more, Google Analytics is available to businesses at no cost, meaning enterprises and small businesses can benefit just the same. Small businesses competing with industry giants can leverage website analytics to cater towards particular audiences and direct messages appropriately. A great example of a company that successfully studied data to increase appeal with its audience is BannerView. They sought to understand what keywords and topics listed in their bi-weekly newsletter most resonated with their subscribers. From the last 12 newsletters, BannerView discovered SEO and online marketing content racked up the most hits and comments, which allowed them to then tailor their newsletters to better fit their audience's interests. BannerView gained more responses and was able to develop new content marketing products based on the results of this data alone. Undoubtedly, with the large volume of data flowing in each day, it's growing harder to make sense of it all. However, website analytics can offer solutions to your company's online Web woes. Whether you're questioning the success of your blog content, wondering if specific content fits better on another page or looking to see which devices viewers use to access your site the most, website analytics are there for you. Many think of website analytics as a tool that just tells you how many visitors your website receives each day, but that is only one small component of what Web analytics can tell you about the performance of your website. Building a website and blindly casting it into the vast, expanding online sea is no longer enough. The key to your website's online success now lies in your ability to unlock its rich user data so you can drive your business initiative – from branding and sales to customer service – through a deep understanding of your audience. Analytics Photo via Shutterstock The post Why Website Analytics Are Vital For Your Business appeared first on Small Business Trends.

U.S. Government To Pay $3 Million in Back Fees to Small Businesses Posted: 22 May 2013 02:30 AM PDT The U.S. federal government owes 1,281 small businesses approximately $3 million collectively in termination fees. The small businesses are ones that were approved to sell to the government on the GSA’s Multiple Award Schedule, but had their contracts terminated. The failure to pay was uncovered after a year-long investigation by the U.S. House Committee on Small Business.  House Small Business Chairman Sam Graves (R-MO) announced the findings. Why the Fees Are Owed The fees are related to guaranteed minimum sales that the government committed to make to small businesses approved under the General Services Administration’s Multiple Award schedule.  The 1,281 small businesses that got on the GSA schedule but didn’t get at least $25,000 in annual sales from the government, are each due a $2,500 termination fee (minus any amounts actually sold by them). If you’re wondering why the government committed to guaranteed minimum sales, it has to do with the government’s goal to have a portion of government contracts go to small businesses.  The termination fees are designed to encourage government contracting with small businesses. Of the 19,000 or so businesses contracted through GSA, the majority — 80 percent — are smaller firms. The GSA schedule is like a pre-approved vendor catalog that government departments can buy through.  Getting on the Schedule doesn’t guarantee the government will buy anything from your business.  But there is a distinct advantage to getting on the GSA Schedule: it makes it easier and faster for government departments to purchase from your business. However, you are dealing with a large bureaucracy. There’s cost associated with navigating the process just to get on the GSA Schedule in the first place. According to a spokesman for the House Committee, it can cost small businesses between $6,000 to $40,000 for a standard GSA proposal.   That means if you don’t get sufficient GSA sales you’ve probably lost  money. Discovery by the House Small Business Committee The nonpayment was discovered when the House Committee looked into the small-business impact of GSA’s proposal to cancel a large number of contracts in the future. During that review last year, Chairman Graves noticed that GSA was not taking the termination fees into account — and in fact had not been paying them as required, since 2008. But the good news for these small businesses is that the GSA has agreed to pay the back termination fees. “Contracting with small businesses is good for the economy and it’s good for the taxpayer because small companies bring cost-savings to the federal government,” Graves said in a statement. “But when federal agencies don’t live up to their end of the bargain, small businesses are discouraged from competing and taxpayers lose the benefits of government efficiency. Although we’re extremely disappointed that this error has occurred, the General Services Administration has owned up to their mistake and will distribute payment this year.” A spokesman for the House Committee says they do not have a specific timetable for the GSA’s repayment this year. Changes Going Forward The GSA said in its response to the Committee that it will change its small-business practices going forward.  For one thing, it will not require contractors to request a guaranteed minimum payment, although they must meet all other  requirements. Also, the GSA will focus on improving education and communication with small businesses in the future, by: (1) educating small businesses so they can better determine whether it’s even worthwhile to pursue getting on the GSA schedule in the first place; and (2) outreach to those already on the GSA schedule that are not meeting minimum sales, to educate and try to help them succeed. The GSA’s letter to the House Committee on Small Business is below.    Small Business Trends Slideshare   Capitol: shutterstock The post U.S. Government To Pay $3 Million in Back Fees to Small Businesses appeared first on Small Business Trends.

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