Finance Blog

Debts can get out of control quickly. A lot of people learn that fact the hard way. One simple and effective method of paying off your non-priority creditors is through a debt management plan (DMP).

DMP is part of credit counseling service. This type of counseling is available to consumers who have trouble with payment of their debts, and include services such as:

• Money management classes
• Budget counseling
• Referrals to similar helpful services
• Housing counseling
• Debt counseling

When you ask for assistance using a DMP, a debt counselor will calculate a realistic amount of money that you can afford to pay monthly after paying off your priority debts. Priority debts are those debts where non-payment will give your creditors the right to sue you, or confiscate any of your properties.

Usually, when you go through a DMP, here is what you can expect:

• A credit counselor will make a full assessment of your financial situation. You will be asked to provide information such as your monthly income and expenditure, creditors, and other related things.

• Based on the information you gave, your credit counselor will come up with a financial statement, which will then determine how much money you can pay monthly to pay off your debts.

• Your counselor will then approach your creditor and negotiate for a reduced payment. Most of the time, creditors will be happy to agree to something that will help you pay off your debts to them, especially if the monthly figure you will be able to pay is a realistic figure for you. The more realistic it is, the more sustainable it will be.

• You make your monthly payments.

• Once in a while your credit counselor will assess your situation and check to see if your monthly payment is still applicable to your circumstances.

• You may continue paying through the DMP until you have cleared your debts, or you may also choose to voluntarily end it.

To make sure that you are getting the right kind of quality service from a credit counseling agency, check the following criteria:

• Is it an accredited and nonprofit agency? - The minimum requirement you should look for in a credit counseling agency is that it is a registered nonprofit agency.

• Do they employ certified counselors? – most credit counseling agencies have in-house training programs, but it’s best if their counselors also passed certification exams to test their knowledge in areas such as budgeting, bankruptcy, consumer law, and the likes.

• Do they provide a varied list of debt management options?

• Do they charge reasonable fees? – Most credit counseling agencies do not charge people for their services, and put 100% of their monthly payments towards their debts. Some would charge a minimal monthly fee for administering DMP. If you decide to go with an agency’s DMP, make sure that you have all the agreements regarding fees into writing.

• Are they transparent with their declaration of fees and services? – Determine if the company will give you the information you need without asking for financial information from you first. The agency must also be able to show you a record of all the payments you made and your remaining balances.

• Do they have a clean business record? – You may check this information with the Better Business Bureau (or similar government agencies in your country) to find out if there has ever been any complaint filed against the agency.

There are many resources available online to help you with finding the right Debt Management Plan that will work for you.

PowerPoint is a program by Microsoft, and a part of its Microsoft Office System. It is widely use today for presentation purposes, simply because it is easy and simple to use. Millions of computers worldwide are using this program to impart their thoughts to their audience. There is also a wide selection of free PowerPoint presentations in the World Wide Web today that you can download for your use.

This program can be used whether to convince a company management to approved a department budget, to persuade target audience to purchase a product or service, to teach students about their lessons, and a lot more. Basically it is a tool for you to influence people to believe in what you have to say. Nowadays, a meeting will not be complete without a PowerPoint presentation. It is like going to your office meeting without your shoes on.

To have a better understanding of how to compose a simple yet effective PowerPoint presentation, you basically need to:

• Focus on the topic that you want to discuss.

• Create three essential key messages about your topic.

• Think of how you want to discuss your topic in a systematic way.

• Use background templates, clip arts, and sounds that are related to your topic.

• And lastly – “Less is More”, nobody ever complained of a presentation that is too short, if anything, people even remembers it more, than the ones that last several hours to a day, believe me.

Nowadays, it is quite expected that people are getting busier by the minute. They almost do not have time for anything. The irony of it all is that even with all the technological advancement that we enjoy today, that are supposed to make our life easier, we still find it hard to accomplish things in a timely manner. Not that technology is a bad thing, maybe it is just a matter of good time management.

In line with the time management issue, PowerPoint presentations can also be time consuming to do. Sometimes a few minutes of presentation, is actually done in several hours, days, or even weeks. The bulk of the work is actually the topic itself, you have to create a presentation about that topic that should be effective in convincing people.

Free PowerPoint Template and Backgrounds and a lot more

Several websites today offer free templates, backgrounds and other free stuffs in composing your PowerPoint presentations. Hundreds or even thousand are available in the World Wide Web for free. The beauty of it is that there are a lot to choose from, which will complement the topic of your choice, and the best thing about it is, it is absolutely FREE!

Here are some of the websites that offer free presentation templates, backgrounds, clip arts, sounds, graphics and a lot more. These sites even give free advice on how you can compose an effective PowerPoint presentation. Very useful indeed, and again it is very much free, so try it out:

• http://www.pppst.com/themes.html - FREE Presentations in PowerPoint format (themes and topics)

• http://www.presentationhelper.co.uk/ - Presentation Helper - Free help, advice, and PowerPoint Templates

• http://www.brainybetty.com/ - Free PowerPoint Backgrounds and PowerPoint Templates

• http://www.templateswise.com/ - Free PowerPoint Templates and Backgrounds

• http://tutor2u.net/presentations.asp - Free Powerpoint Presentations for Students and Teachers

A company presentation folder may seem unimportant at first glance but think again. The wrong choice and design of company presentation folder can easily affect your listener’s ability to understand and appreciate your presentation, much less have a favorable impression of your company.

Using the Right Company Presentation Folder

Company Logo – Always have the company logo printed on the front of your presentation folder. This would serve as a reminder of your business presentation and as advertisement for the company as well. It must be large enough to be clearly visible from a short distance.

Color – The color of your folder must be visible even at the dark, allowing your listeners to know its whereabouts when the lights are off during your presentation. You may use more than one color for your presentation folder but this could increase your production costs if you’re having them custom-made. Make sure that the color of your presentation folder contrasts favorably with your company logo.

Material Used – There are different kinds of paper you can use to make your company presentation folder. It’s up to you to choose which, but just make sure that it’s durable and won’t easily tear apart.

Texture – This factor wouldn’t really add much to the convenience or functionality of your presentation folder. It can, however, enhance or detract from your company’s reputation. Your listeners are no doubt aware of which textures are more expensive or not. If the texture of your presentation folder is obviously not of expensive quality, try to compensate it at least with an attractive front and design.

Size – The width and length of your presentation folder must easily accommodate the largest sized documents it will contain. It must also be adequately sized to be able to accommodate the quantity of documents it will hold. To be able to securely hold numerous documents, your folder must make use of either a fastener or slider.

Title – The front of your company presentation folder should contain as well the pertinent details of your presentation. Besides the title of your business presentation, it may also include the names of the speakers as well as time, date, and venue of the presentation.

Identification – The front of your company presentation folder may also contain a blank field in which the listener may write down his name and other pertinent details. This could be quite helpful if your presentation requires them to leave the folder behind at anytime or submit it later together with an answer sheet. If you are going to provide them with a blank field for writing, try to provide lines to make it easier for them to write.

Other Tips on Using the Right Company Presentation Folder

For added protection, consider covering your company presentation folder with plastic. This will make your folder water-proof and to a certain extent, tougher against tears and creases.

Consider numbering the company presentation folders you distribute to your listeners. This is important if you have a limited number of folders, an unexpectedly increase in crowd size, and high production costs. You’d want to make sure that people don’t receive more than one folder.

A prototype of your company presentation folder must be ready for your perusal at least a month before your presentation. Company presentation folders must be ready for distribution at least a week before.

Credit cards are considered as a blessing to those who can use it properly. But to those who are having debt management problems because of undue usage of credit cards, it can be an excruciating curse because it can also give you a bad credit history if you don’t use it well.

In order to avoid debt management problems, people must know how to choose the right credit card for them. The following tips can help you choose the right credit card, which can veer you away from debt management problems. If you are getting your first credit card or you would want to avail of another, you must always:

- Consider interest rates. In most credit cards, interest rates come as “fixed-rate” or “adjustable rate”. If you opt not to choose low APR credit cards, you may consider choosing fixed rate credit cards. Many people—especially those who pay off their balance monthly or those who only use cards for small purchases-opt to use cared that has a fixed rate. Even if the rate is a point or two higher than the usual, it ensures that they can pay off their loan quickly without even noticing the difference.

- Conduct an extensive research on credit card fees, transaction fees, and other charges. Fees can be considered one of the bloodlines of most credit card companies. Since numerous companies are infamous for charging their clients fees that add up quickly, one should make sure to check the fees section of the credit card disclosure section before fully indulging into it. Some of the known fees collected are annual fees and cash advance fees.

- Check the length of “grace period.” The term “grace period” or “interest-free time” refers to the amount of time between the date of a purchase and the date interest starts being charged on that purchase. Majority of credit cards offers a standard grace period, which means that as long as the person pays for his/her bill monthly, there will be no finance charges. Since not all credit card companies offer a grace period, be careful not to choose them because they might charge interest immediately on every purchase you make.

- Avail of other benefits. Aside from convenience, other the additional benefits when one applies for a credit card include insurance, credit card protection, discounts, rebates and special merchandise. Other benefits also include rewards programs that lets you earn points that can give you cash back, free gas, gift certificates and free plane tickets. Before choosing the right credit card for you, you must consider whether or not these offers can make positive impact on your financial management.

- Take note of the credit limit. Basically, credit limit is defined in dollars as the total amount of credit a credit card holder is authorized to use. Apart from clearly identifying credit line and the size of the credit line, credit limit encourages and helps the holder to decide how reliable he/she can be when it comes to paying on time and keeping him/herself under the card’s limit.

- Make sure to understand all necessary and additional terms. While it is very important for you to identify first your credit card needs, it is equally important for you to understand almost all the underlying terms in credit card application and acquisition such as “amount due,” “minimum monthly payments,” and “prime rates” because many people are having a hard time managing their debt because they did not take time to fully understand these simple terms and its underlying conditions.

This is a forecast by Mr Credit card. You can visit the blog askmrcreditcard.com to get more information about credit, card.

Credit card issuers will make it harder to those with bad credit to get approvals - In a very drastic case, Citibank, who owns the credit card portfolio of Egg (in the UK) effectively told their cardholders that they can no longer use their cards in a months time! If you have a low 600 type FICO score, you will have a harder time getting credit card approvals.

Good 0% APR balance transfer deals becomes harder to find - Banks are taking huge write down on their sub prime portfolios. Consumer spending is expected to go down. Which means credit card spending is expected to decline as well. Those working in the credit card divisions will pay more attention to being profitable than simply expanding market share. Last year, credit card issuers started doing away with the cap on balance transfer fees. I expect this to continue this year. I suspect 0% for 12 deals (which used to be the norm) will slowly disappear.

Read more from askmrcreditcard.com

Investors calculate the acid test ratio, also known as the quick ratio or the pounce ratio. This ratio excludes inventory and prepaid expenses, which the current ratio includes, and it limits assets to cash and items that the business can quickly convert to cash. This limited category of assets is known as quick or liquid assets. The acid-text ratio is calculated by dividing the liquid assets by the total current liabilities.

This ratio is also known as the pounce ratio to emphasize that you’re calculating for a worst-case scenario, where the business’s creditors could pounce on the business and demand quick payment of the business’s liabilities. Short term creditors do not have the right to demand immediate payment, except in unusual circumstances. This ratio is a conservative way to look at a business’s capability to pay its short-term liabilities.

One factor that affects the bottom-line profitability of a business is whether it uses debt to its advantage. A business may realize a financial leverage gain, meaning it earns more profit on the money it has borrowed than the interest paid for the use of the borrowed money. A good part of a business’s net income for the year may be due to financial leverage. The ROA ratio is determined by dividing the earnings before interest and income tax (EBIT) by the net operating assets.

An investor compares the ROA with the interest rate at which the corporation borrowed money. If a business’s ROA is 14 percent and the interest rate on its debt is 8 percent, the business’s net gain on its capital is 6 percent more than what it’s paying in interest.

ROA is a useful ratio for interpreting profit performance, aside from determining financial gain or loss. ROA is called a capital utilization test that measures how profit before interest and income tax was earned on the total capital employed by the business.

Making a profit in a business is derived from several different areas. It can get a little complicated because just as in our personal lives, business is run on credit as well. Many businesses sell their products to their customers on credit. Accountants use an asset account called accounts receivable to record the total amount owed to the business by its customers who haven’t paid the balance in full yet. Much of the time, a business hasn’t collected its receivables in full by the end of the fiscal year, especially for such credit sales that could be transacted near the end of the accounting period.

The accountant records the sales revenue and the cost of goods sold for these sales in the year in which the sales were made and the products delivered to the customer. This is called accrual based accounting, which records revenue when sales are made and records expenses when they’re incurred as well. When sales are made on credit, the accounts receivable asset account is increased. When cash is received from the customer, then the cash account is increased and the accounts receivable account is decreased.

The cost of goods sold is one of the major expenses of businesses that sell goods, products or services. Even a service involves expenses. It means exactly what it says in that it’s the cost that a business pays for the products it sells to customers. A business makes its profit by selling its products at prices high enough to cover the cost of producing them, the costs of running the business, the interest on any money they’ve borrowed and income taxes, with money left over for profit.

When the business acquires products, the cost of them goes into what’s called an inventory asset account. The cost is deducted from the cash account, or added to the accounts payable liability account, depending on whether the business has paid with cash or credit.

It might seem like a no-brainer to define just exactly what profit and loss are. But of course these have definitions like everything else. Profit can be called different things, for a start. It’s sometimes called net income or net earnings. Businesses that sell products and services generate profit from the sales of those products or services and from controlling the attendant costs of running the business. Profit can also be referred to as Return on Investment, or ROI. While some definitions limit ROI to profit on investments in such securities as stocks or bonds, many companies use this term to refer to short-term and long-term business results. Profit is also sometimes called taxable income.

It’s the job of the accounting and finance professionals to assess the profits and losses of a company. They have to know what created both and what the results of both sides of the business equation are. They determine what the net worth of a company is. Net worth is the resulting dollar amount from deducting a company’s liabilities from its assets. In a privately held company, this is also called owner’s equity, since anything that’s left over after all the bills are paid, to put it simply, belongs to the owners. In a publicly held company, this profit is returned to the shareholders in the form of dividends. In other words, all liabilities have the first claim on any money the company makes. Anything that’s left over is profit. It’s not derived from one element or another. Net worth is determined after all the liabilities are deducted from all the assets, including cash and property.

Showing a profit, or a positive figure on the balance sheet, is of course the aim of every business. It’s what our economy and society are built on. It doesn’t always work out that way. Economic trends and consumer behaviors change and it’s not always possible to predict these and what income they’ll have on a company’s performance.