Are accounting systems expensive to implement?

Maybe not unless you are looking for a really complex type. For micro and small business owners (usually not more than 10 employees), off-the-shelf software can be purchased quite easily and meet most of the daily functionalities of a business. These simple software may cost anywhere between SGD100-SGD500. 

Functions will include,

a) bookeeping

b) generating receipt/invoice

c) simple statement of accounts by period

d) profit & loss statement

If you feel you are ready, an upgrade is usually available by the same software manufacturer to include more features.

If you do not have the time to perform bookeeping, you can adopt a strategy of hiring diploma, polytechnic or even ITE students to do the bookeeping entries for you. Some companies/individuals even provide such a service at a fraction of a fee as compared to hiring a full-time accounts clerk. This exercise can take place on a weekly or fortnightly basis. 

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You are USD10 away from creating your own organization's email

We see alot of start-ups using free email accounts, e.g. Singnet, Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo! and all sorts of free accounts which may be given free by the service provider. Though this method saves cost, the problem is in its branding as the email would usually turn out to be, for example, "myname@gmail.com". Some customers might look at this as being "cheapskate" or "no style".

Alternatively, one would subscribe to a plan paying hundreds of dollars to have their own dedicated domain name, web and email services to manage.

What if there is a cheaper alternatively to that for those who really have a tight budget? 

Quite some time ago, Google released an application, codenamed "Google Apps" or Google Application. To access this page, you can go to http://www.google.com/a/cpanel/domain/new. This link will lead you to a registration of Google Apps (Standard Edition) which provides a subscriber with,

a) 7GB of email space per user (limited to max of 50 user accounts)

b) 10GB of shared storage space for Google Sites storage

** For those who have already registered a domain name, they can still choose to use this platform.

The features of Google Apps are mainly:-

1) Messaging - email and calendaring

2) Collboration - Google Docs, Google Video and Google Sites

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Difference between a website and blog

Almost similar in many ways, the difference between a blog and a website is the rate of change of information. A blog can equal to a website but not the other way around. The ultimate stage to manifesting a blog is make it look really professional and appear as if it is like a normal website.

So the main difference:-
1) A blog has periodical additions to its content
2) It allows comments to be captured, moderated and posted
3) Entries are most of the time displayed in reverse chronoligical order
4) As blogs are usually template driven, users would usually change the look&feel of their blog frequently

What next:-
Jan 2009 - Discuss issues about office essentials like cheap and almost free software and everyday application for entrepreneurs.

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