Medical Care Expense – Understanding Your EOB (Explanation of Benefits)

Each EOB is specific to the provider (physician,lab) and the service they rendered. The format varies widely between insurance companies, but at a minimum an EOB should indicate the: provider, service date, actual billed amount, network discount, allowed amount, insurance portion, patient responsibility and deductible amount. I’ll discuss each of these terms. It is important to remember that an EOB is NOT a bill. Usually, almost all EOBs state “THIS IS NOT A BILL” in big bold letters, to minimize confusion.

Every EOB you contains information about services you received from that specific provider during a particular visit. A provider is anyone who supplies healthcare and/or other medically related services and products. A provider may be a physician, dentist, clinic, hospital, pharmacy, lab, physical therapists or other health care professional. Looking at your EOB, you should see the name of the provider or facility that filed the claim for reimbursement listed. A service is a procedure or product rendered by a provider to a patient. A service could range from a basic physician visit to radiology services to surgical care or medical equipment. The date on which you received services from a provider is called the service date.

Billed Amount

This represents the cost of the services you received and the amount the provider sent to your insurance company. It should be the largest figure on your EOB.

Network Discount

This is the amount by which a providers bill is adjusted as a result of a negotiated rate agreed upon between the provider and the insurer, and is not always listed on an EOB. This only applies to in-network providers.

Allowed Amount/Covered Amount

The allowed amount is the amount of payment a provider has agreed to accept for the service, treatment or product under the terms of a negotiated contract with an insurance company. This applies only to in-network providers. The allowed amount may also be the maximum amount the insurance company will allow for a specific service.

Insurance Amount/Paid

As you may have already guessed, this is the amount that your insurance company pays on a claim.

Deductible Amount

Your deductible indicates the portion of expenses that count toward your plan deductible and you are responsible to pay.

Patient Responsibility

This is the portion of the provider charges to be paid by the patient after the network discount, allowed amount, insurance portion and deductible amount have been taken into account. Basically, this is what you are expected to pay out-of-pocket for the services your received.

The Math

The key to understanding comes down to identifying four numbers: the provider charges (amount billed from doctor, hospital, etc.), the discount (which is based on the negotiated rate of your individual plan coverage), what insurance paid and patient responsibility.

The amount the provider sent to your insurance company as their “charge” or “billed amount” should be the largest figure on the EOB. Next, find and subtract the “discount” to arrive at the allowed amount, which is the amount your insurance company and your provider agree is the fair amount to be paid. If you do not have a discount amount displayed, simply locate the allowed amount on your EOB.

Now look at the amount your insurance paid. It can be anywhere from $0 to the full allowed amount. Subtract what the insurer paid from the allowed amount. What’s left is the patient responsibility. To double check the math, add together the amount the insurance paid and the patient responsibility, it should equal the allowed amount, sometimes referred to as the negotiated rate.

Remember, the patient responsibility may NOT be the balance owed to your provider, depending on if the insurance company reflects your payments already to the provider (such as co-pays, pre-payments and any other payments you have submitted). If payments you have previously made are NOT reflected on the EOB, you will need to subtract your payments from the patient responsibility amount to figure out the balance owed to the provider.

EXAMPLE:

Billed Office visit $155.00

Allowed Amount $ 93.03 (Network Discount $61.97)

Plan Pays $83.73 (Insurance Paid)

Patient Responsibility $ 9.30

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What Should I Look For In A Small Business Accounting Program?

A small business accounting program should accomplish three tasks: track income and expenses, generate business forms, and keep detailed records for other assets and liabilities.

Tracking Income and Expenses

The task of tracking a business’s income and expense is really the most important job of an accounting system. If you own or manage a small business, obviously, you need some tool for measuring your income and your cash flow.

Although Money does little more than keep a checkbook, you can actually keep financial records for a business right out of a checkbook. To do this, you simply categorize deposits as falling into some income category. And when you write a check or make some other withdrawal, you categorize expenses as falling into some expense category.

One problem with using a checkbook program such as Money, however, is that by using a checkbook program, you are implicitly using cash-basis accounting to track your income and expenses.

NOTE Cash-basis accounting counts income when you receive a deposit and counts expense when you write a check.

Cash-basis accounting is easy to understand, and that means you are less likely to make errors in implementing it. However, cash-basis accounting is generally too imprecise for more complicated businesses. If you use inventory in your business, for example, cash-basis accounting isn’t very accurate-and the Internal Revenue Service does not allow it. And there are other circumstances, too, in which cash-basis accounting produces serious and usually unacceptable errors in precision. For example, if you often receive money before you have actually earned it or if you often incur expenses long before you actually have to pay for them, you need to use a more sophisticated accounting program than a checkbook program.

The second task that a small business accounting program should help you with is the generation of business forms. The most common business form is simply a check. And of course Money and any other checkbook program help you do this. Other business forms that small businesses commonly need to produce include invoices, credit memos, monthly statements, purchase orders, and so forth.

If you have a small business with very simple form requirements-perhaps you need only checks-then the Money program may work very well for you.

However, if you have extensive or complicated business-form requirements, a more full-featured small business accounting package, such as Intuit’s QuickBooks or Peachtree’s Complete Accounting, will do a better job for you.

NOTE If you produce more complicated forms, but you produce these other forms with a word processing program, then the Money program may still work for you.

Detailed Record Keeping for Other Assets and Liabilities

The third task that a small business accounting program should help you with is detailed record keeping of your most important assets and liabilities. A checkbook program lets you keep good detailed records of cash, and for some businesses that is the principal asset. But many small businesses have other significant assets and liabilities they need to track, for example, accounts receivables, inventory, and vendor payables.

Whether or not Money’s accounting tools-its check register-provide adequate asset and liability record keeping depends on the situation. However, no small business accounting program does everything you need it to do. Any accounting program that provides an extensive list of features, by its very nature, becomes a challenge to use. For example, moving to the accrual basis of accounting adds an entire layer of complexity to financial record keeping, and keeping detailed records of inventory adds another layer.

For these reasons, even when Money doesn’t do everything you need it to do, your best choice still may be to use Money-and then simply live with its shortcomings.

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Equipment Tracking Can Be a Problem Without Proper Management Measures in Place

When faced with rising operations costs, company managers look to one of the problematic areas in logistics – equipment tracking. Dealing with pallets, storage cases, totes, cages and other equipment used in the goods delivery process, there can sometimes be a large margin of error. Whether you own your own equipment or hire out, you still have to contend with lost or damaged parts as well as those returned late.

Common Breakdowns in Delivery Logistics

One expense that could be avoided with the right equipment tracking process is the cost of lost or stolen pallets. Once your goods have been delivered and unloaded at the client site, unless they have the room for your empty pallets, they could be reused or thrown away. In addition, they could become broken or even stolen. Either way, you are out the cost of the pallets or other equipment you use.

If you hire out your pallets, this subcontractor could inflate travel charges for retrieval or even submit invoices based on erroneous information. How exactly are you going to easily verify whether the late, lost or damaged equipment charges are valid? Basically, unless you own your own equipment and pallets and have the manpower to physically track each item, you have to trust in the word of your hired subcontractor.

What You Gain from a Professional Equipment Management Company

The feeling of control is one of the first things you gain when you hire an outside professional equipment management company. With a purpose-driven offering to to save you time and money, because their reputation depends on your operations and logistics success, you can gain significant control.

The management company is in charge of daily and weekly communications with not only the subcontractors you hire to transport your goods but also the subcontractors you hire your pallets and equipment from. Sometimes, equipment is accidentally (or purposely) swapped with defective ones and you end up being charged with repairs or replacement. This communications diligence greatly reduces lost and damaged equipment costs as well as ensures the pallets you used are the ones actually returned.

A professional pallet and equipment management company can conduct physical audits of your location and that of your customers. They can work with your raw material suppliers as well as the clients who receive delivery of your finished products. Negotiating equipment supplier contracts as well as forecast future needs is an important benefit too.

The bottom line is that you can do your own equipment tracking but it can and will cost you extra money in supplies, manpower and training. Why not hire a company that is well-equipped to do it for you? They will not only reduce your paperwork but also plug up all the small leaks you may have experienced in your operations budget.

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Decreasing Expenses With a Lifestyle Change

If you want to get a control over your financial life you need to develop a budget. After you have developed a budget and entered in the data for several months, you can print a cash flow statement and get some visibility on how much money (exactly) is coming in and how much is going out. Your goal then will be to make some decisions about how you can change your life to get yourself on the path to financial freedom.

First of all, if after entering all the expense and income data, you discover that your bottom-line expenses exceed your bottom-line income, don’t be alarmed. At least you are aware of the problem and you now might understand why your credit card debt continues to rise and rise and never seems to go down. If you look closely at your cash flow report, you can even identity some areas where slight modifications to the way you live can change the negative number at the bottom of the page (representing a net loss each month-meaning you spend more than you make) into a positive one.

Suppose that you have been gambling at the keno machine every week on Friday or Saturday night, and each time you did this, you lost $30 to $50, but you had a few drinks and talked with friends at the bar after playing, so you had fun and it felt good to do it. Every few months, maybe you cashed a winning ticket for $100 and you felt rich and went to dinner. All of this you considered necessary because it took your mind off the drudgery of your day-to-day grind working in your cubicle answering telephone calls from irate customers.

Well after 6 months of entering your budget information, all the income data and expenses, you discover that your budgeting software is printing a BOLD RED negative number in the gambling column. Even though you entered in the $100 win ticket and the software subtracted that amount from your losses, you still ended up with a big red -$860 on the page!!! Wow! All of those losses sure added up fast, and the bad thing is that at this rate, you will have lost over $1,700 by the end of the year, and that is more than your wife makes in an entire month. Now you understand who paid for all those pretty casinos on the strip in Las Vegas.

People like you did!

So maybe it’s time to make a lifestyle change. Maybe instead of going to the pub and playing keno, you try going to the movie and you find that you have just as much fun and it only costs $20 instead of $40. So if you can stay out of the pub and continue going to the movies, or to something that costs $20 or less each week, then you have just cut your entertainment expense in half, and at the end of the year you will have over $800 extra to show for it.

You have just witnessed the power of a budget. By tracking your expenses, you identified a potential lifestyle change, you made the change, and now you can put an extra $800 into a savings account at the end of the year. This $800 will make some amount of interest and this interest will add to the income side of your budget. So next year you will have a little more money than you did this year and you will be moving in the right direction and getting closer to your goal of financial freedom.

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Great Profits and Satisfied Customers

The following case study is designed to provide an insight into possible outcomes for companies that focus too readily on short-term profits at the expense of long-term customer relationships. This case study is designed as a teaching and learning tool for business owners and leaders in their pursuit of becoming a customer-centric organisation.

Whilst ‘great profits and satisfied customers’ sounds like the ultimate for many businesses, research tells us that satisfied customers will only stay until a better offer comes along. So, while conventional metrics suggest that this company was successful, in that they obtained great profits and satisfied customers, further investigation reveals that this short-term approach does little to impact customer loyalty.

Methodology

Case study methodology is an invaluable tool for conducting research in social and behavioural sciences. It allows for links to be made between cause and effect of organisational activities and associated performance by impartially collecting and analyzing data. This approach enabled us to examine a particular group of customers in detail about their experiences in participating in a recent promotion. A semi-structured interview schedule was prepared and participants were interviewed over a three-day period following the close of the competition.

Data was analysed according to predetermined set of criteria along the following dimensions:

* Customer buying behaviour

* Customer satisfaction of the product and the company

* Customer feelings towards the promotion and loyalty to the company.

Background

This case study was designed to provide an insight into customer satisfaction and loyalty immediately following a promotion. The participants in the research were a combination of teachers and parents from a large metropolitan based state primary school, who partook in a large national promotion, which encouraged them to buy an everyday product and collect the bonus points for their school. The school finished in the top ten schools for their state. A large multi-national company that provides a range of common products available in most supermarkets and stores ran the promotion.

The competition involved buying one particular product in a specially marked box (a unique size) only available at one exclusive supermarket chain. The customers then had to look inside the box for a unique 10-letter code, and enter the code online. Each code was worth a standard point value, and the school with the most points per capita (based on their student enrolment numbers) won a new state of the art playground. The company allocated 5 playgrounds (one for each state/state group) at $25 000 each.

Results

The following section discusses the results of the research in greater detail and provides insight in customer satisfaction of the product and loyalty for the company.

The results indicated that the majority of participants (80%) were not previously users of the particular brand of product. They bought the product during the promotion primarily to help their children’s school, one participant commenting ‘it was good to do something positive for the junior school’. It also indicated that only 50% of participants regularly shopped at the particular supermarket, with 40% shopping there half the time. The average distance of the round trip to the particular supermarket was 6.4km.

The participants bought varying quantities of the specially marked boxes during the promotion with the mode* average between 6 and 10 boxes. The cost of each box of product was approximately $8.50, which appeared to be a significant challenge for some families.

Number of boxes purchased

All of participants were satisfied with the product, although concern was expressed about the price of the product in comparison to other brands.

Sample comments were as follows:

* I have always found [it] a satisfactory product, although a little expensive.

* It’s really good, and has a pleasant smell.

* Yeah, I like it; I think it’s really good.

* Interestingly, although participants were very satisfied with the actual product, there was mixed feelings about the actual running of the promotion. Comments were as follows:

* It was great idea, but probably need refinement. The product needs to be more widely available.

* I think it was a good promotion and I’d like to see more like this. It would be good to have second and third prizes though.

* It’s a little bit of a rip off…it’s like they put the price up to get children to get their parents to buy it.

* Honestly, I don’t like the whole promotion because it’s forcing people to spend money on products they don’t buy.

Participants offered many comments regarding future improvements to the promotion including the addition of second and third prizes and a ‘fairer’ competition for large and small schools.

When questioned about whether they would continue to use and buy the product after the promotion, only 30% indicated that they would. This represents only a 10% increase in customers before the promotion. Many commented that once they had finished using their current supply, they would not buy it anymore.

I was happy to buy it during the promotion, but I’ve so much stock, and I’d go back to a cheaper brand. Yeah, I’ll continue to use it, but not for a while because I’ve got about six months worth in the cupboard. I would buy it, if it’s on sale and as cheap as the cheap one. If I continue to use it, which I probably will, I’ll go and get it in bulk. I’m definitely not buying it. I’ve got enough and after that I’ll boycott it.

Although participants liked the product, the high cost in comparison to like products and the fact that it was unavailable at a reduced price was significant for many participants. In the end, the price we paid for that special size, far outweighed what [company] gave out in prizes. They rigged it big time, because you could only buy that size, and it was never on special. You could have gone somewhere else and bought a really, really big box. They made heaps of money…more than what they gave out in prizes.

It really should have been on sale during the promotion and then I would have bought more. I always buy the sales… even if it’s a small saving.

Finally, one participant commented that it would have been nice to have some follow-up from the company.

* It was really good, the way the teachers gave out a sticker for each box bought in….the kids were really excited. They (the company) could have sent the kids a bookmark, or a letter to the school saying ‘Sorry you didn’t win, but here’s 10 hula hoops…or skipping ropes’…or something like that. That would make a really big difference and I’d probably buy [the product] forever if they did that.

Conclusion

This case study sought to provide greater understanding into customer satisfaction and loyalty following a national ‘points for schools’ promotion. It revealed that whilst the company running the promotion should have recorded great profits for the duration of promotion period, and that customers were entirely satisfied with the quality of the product, it did little to impact loyalty. The company was highly successful in acquiring new customers, who not only paid more for the product, but also bought more than they needed. However, this short-term approach did little to impact customer loyalty, as the company made no attempt to contact the school or the customers following the announcement of the winner.

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The Personal Health Record – A Means of Containing Healthcare Costs

Employing a personal health record can decrease healthcare expenses because many of the healthcare dollars go toward the generation of information needed to make diagnoses and provide appropriate treatment. With passage of HR. 3590, which will expand healthcare coverage to an additional 32 million persons by 2019, more patients will be establishing new doctor/patient relationships and the flow of health information will most likely increase exponentially.

Although in recent years there has been a push for doctors to adopt and utilize electronic healthcare record programs for management of patient health data in the hopes that there will be a centralized database of patient health information that will minimize treatment errors, the truth of the matter is, most doctors have not adopted the technology, and even if most did, because of the differences in practice and recording styles, a central database would not contain all of the data updated in real-time to meet healthcare needs of every patient in every healthcare setting and situation. Therefore, the best repository of health information is you and your own personal health record.

One scenario illustrating the cost of generating and exchanging medical data is the initial new patient visit to establish a doctor/patient relationship. A physician or other healthcare provider evaluating a patient for the first time needs information provided by the patient which is oftentimes lacking because the patient is not knowledgeable and/or because previous treatment records were not requested, requested but not received, or requested and received but illegible. The new physician will oftentimes need approximate dates of diagnoses, approximate dates and results of prior tests, and approximate dates of hospitalizations with some details of the care which was given. If that information is not available, some doctors will order tests that he or she might otherwise not order had the necessary information been available at the time of the patient visit. The net result is an additional expense for the patient or at the very least another component of healthcare inflation.

Many diagnostic determinations and treatment courses of action are made based on subjective data, i.e. information verbalized by the patient. For example, in evaluating chest pain a doctor will usually need to know when and how the pain started, the location of the pain, the frequency of the pain, the duration of the pain, the intensity of the pain, the quality of the pain (cramping, burning, stinging, etc.), what makes it better, what brings it on, what makes it worse, and other symptoms associated with the pain before deciding whether to admit the patient to the hospital to rule out a heart attack or whether to treat the patient for acid reflux outside of the hospital. Many times however, because patients have not thought about the information in an organized way and/or because of nervousness, patients feel put on the spot when asked certain questions about their symptoms and conditions. By recording information pertaining to symptoms and conditions to be discussed during an upcoming doctor visit, a patient is better prepared for the visit with useful information which can reduce expenses by minimizing over-reliance on testing. Additionally, the recorded information is likely to be more accurate than information which has not been recorded and thus more likely to maximize the quality of healthcare received.

A personal health record might therefore also lower healthcare costs during follow-up or sick visits because a well-designed personal health record software program enables the patient to create pre-visit notes and journal notes about new problems and established problems, which can be printed and carried to the doctor at the time of a visit. Additionally, by updating entries in the personal health record the patient tends to be even better prepared to answer questions that will be presented during an upcoming visit to the doctor.

At the time of the writing of this article the duration of an average doctor visit in the United States is approximately 16 minutes which is fairly generous compared to a county like Holland where it is 8 minutes. Factors which are likely to result in a decrease in the length of doctor visits in the United States include healthcare reform which will increase the number of patients receiving treatment, the shortage of physicians, and increasing medical practice overhead. If the average length of doctor visit in the United States does decrease the number of visits to address a set number of conditions is likely to increase unless more can be accomplished per individual visit.

Implementing and maintaining a personal health record in principle should reduce healthcare cost not only at the time of the new patient visit, but also during established patient visits by shifting the diagnostic emphasis from objective date to subjective data and reducing the number of required visits. The basic means by which utilizing a personal health record can lower healthcare costs is by enabling more efficient generation and exchange of health information.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purpose only and is not intended to serve as a substitute for medical consultation with a qualified professional. The author encourages users of the Internet to be careful when using medical information obtained from the Internet and to consult your physician if you are unsure about your medical condition.

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Budgeting is an RVer’s Friend

Do you track your spending and use a budget? Whether preparing to RV or already traveling on the road, a budget is a useful tool. It will help you decide if RVing is feasible and also help you stick to your spending plan while traveling.

Prior to RVing

Can you afford to full-time RV or even snowbird? Completing an RVing budget, while not exact, will help you make realistic choices. If you do not have an RV yet, you can get a rough estimate of fuel by using 6 mpg for motorhomes; up to 10 for a diesel motor. The main insurance companies that provide insurance for full-time RVers will give you instant quotes or an overnight quote at their Web site to use as a ballpark figure. And you can use camping directories to get a rough idea of campground costs. It seems like campgrounds are charging an average of $25-30 a night, though you can certainly pay more. You can also use discount and membership camping to decrease your costs.

The domicile you choose will also impact your budget. Your domicile is your tax home. If you travel full-time, you can choose a domicile more to your advantage. Taxes, insurance and vehicle registration can vary immensely from state to state so this is an important decision.

On the road

RVers are fortunate that they can much more easily adjust their budget than can stix ‘n brix dwellers. Here are a few examples:

Housing or RV park costs: If you find yourself spending too much, you can stay in less expensive RV parks and stay in a water/electric site rather than one with full hookups. You can park overnight in a Wal-Mart parking lot where allowed. Boondocking (camping without hookups) on public lands or rest areas, where allowed, can be free. Many RV parks offer discounts for long-term stays. Stay for a week or month in one location and not only do you get a discount but you save on fuel costs too.

Propane: Adding a more efficient catalytic or ceramic heater to your RV and using that instead of the installed heater saves on propane costs.

Food: Food costs can be controlled by eating out less frequently and in your food choices.

Other purchases: Purchases are usually fewer because of space considerations. Some RVers stop exchanging gifts with family members or reduce what they spend. Unique items from your travels make nice gifts that don’t have to cost much. Or, family may appreciate frequent postcards or phone calls in lieu of gifts. With a more casual lifestyle, jeans/shorts and t-shirts are suitable for most occasions.

Prepare for emergencies

Inevitably there are repairs and other emergencies that take a chunk out of the budget. If possible, have a rainy day fund or spend a little less than the allotted amount and put that aside.

A roadside assistance program comes with a monthly fee, but more than pays for itself if you need to be towed or a tire changed when far from civilization. Read the fine print to make sure it covers such eventualities.

Set aside money for rig replacement too or for when you can no longer travel.

Control spending

Develop a method for tracking spending. A spreadsheet on your computer is a good way to keep track and analyze your data. You can set up your spreadsheet by category and then sort to get totals for each one.

Tracking your spending will bring some insights. We don’t think of the little amounts like stamps and laundry and Starbucks. For example, when you see your cell phone and Internet access totals each month, it may prompt you to see if you can reduce that expense – or not. Since spending is all about choices, you can see if your spending is matching your values. Keeping in touch, for example, may be high on your list of priorities while eating out could be low. You can more easily make adjustments when you know where the money is currently going.

One method that has worked for me to stay within spending limits in each category is the envelope method. This tool is recommended by Dave Ramsey, creator of Financial Peace University (http://www.daveramsey.com/) Cash for each budget category goes in an envelope so you can visually see what is there. When that envelope is empty, you have spent your allotment for that month

Knowing you can easily adjust your spending in several categories helps stay within your budget.

Add to your income

If your outgo exceeds your income, then it could be time to find ways to add to your income. Workamping (working on the road) or volunteering can bring in extra cash or effectively give you more money by providing a free RV site. Some RVers work part of the year; others work until they build up a certain amount of money; and still others settle down in an RV or mobile home park for awhile and get “real jobs” outside the park.

Working and volunteering gives you even more flexibility. Often you get free “perks” when working like free admissions to area attractions and discounts on laundry or propane. Since you are not traveling all the time, fuel consumption goes down too. And having time to get to know an area and explore at your leisure gives depth to your travels.

Unless you stay in expensive RV resorts and eat out at fancy restaurants, life on the road is generally much less expensive than staying in a house or apartment. It is also much easier to adjust your spending to stretch your dollars. RVing is a life full of new experiences and adventures. Use a budget and tracking your spending as tools to get the most out of your travels.

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Looking For Basic Bookkeeping Software?

If you are currently using the ‘paper’ system, there is basic bookkeeping software available that is easy to use and will save you time by organizing and automating your business. Not only that but they produce reports that help you easily manage customers, suppliers, inventory and accounts receivable and payable.

Systems are available for various business from real estate to nonprofits. You can purchase software for simple business invoicing or just tracking software. There is so much information out there and so much comparison on basic bookkeeping software that you could get a headache or just give up!

When you key in basic bookkeeping software on Google you receive “about 1,670,000″ results. How do you make sense of that! I must have found thousands of reviews from the basic package for small businesses to more elaborate systems. Many of the sites have an option on them to help you find out exactly what type of software will suite your specific needs. These are very helpful and can save you a lot of time.

One site I found to be very helpful is the first one that came up on my search, entitled, Peachtree Software. On this page you will find tabs at the top. The first one I checked out was the “Product Reviews” tab. I really liked this area because it was very informational. There is a comparison of the top ten software reviews for 2008.

Twelve softwares were ranked on ease of use, help/documentation, accounts receivable, accounts payable, payroll, inventory, banking, time billing, job costing, general ledger, and fixed assets. Then they were given an overall ranking.

Peachtree Complete 2008 software received the top ranking out of the twelve that were ranked. The others, in order of ranking, are: MYOB Business Essentials, QuickBooks Pro, NetSuite Small Business, Cougar Mountain, Small Business Manager, Simply Accounting, CYMA IV Accounting for Windows, DacEasy, Microsoft Money, Bottom Line Accounting and Quicken Home and Business.

As I am interested in receiving the best, or as close to the best as I can afford, I reviewed the top-ranked software. This article presented Peachtree Complete 2008 as easy to use and a ’snap to learn.’

Also noted in the review, was the Peachtree Navigation Aid. The article says, “…the main toolbar breaks business accounting into main categories illustrated with brief descriptions and visual helps.

Setup and installation were simple. Peachtree’s setup guide gives step-by-step instructions for all main sections.” Ease of use is especially important when choosing your first software.

This software received the top ranking of four bars in almost every category. The review summary on the Peachtree Complete 2008 reads: “Summary: If you’re looking for outstanding accounting software, this is it. Peachtree Accounting has everything you need to manage your small business finances smoothly and successfully.” This is the software I want for my business.

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Beware – The Sneaky Bots Are Everywhere

Every time I write about privacy and security on the internet I get a whole bunch of people who accuse me of paranoia. They maintain I am looking for conspiracy theories and that if you have nothing to hide, then why worry who is following you on the internet. Besides which, I’ve been told, as consumers we have always been followed and our preferences noted.

That is correct. However, if I have a company counting how many toothpastes of a certain manufacturer have been bought, then that is fairly harmless. To actually determine who in particular bought that toothpaste some companies, in the past, have had to send out students with clipboards and lengthy questionnaires to find out who was buying what.

Not anymore. Now the internet, with its sneaky robots, or bots as they are called, is following everything you do. And you don’t know about it. More than anything else, it’s the secretiveness of the whole exercise that is so scary. It has nothing to do with whether we have anything to hide. It has everything to do with the fact that there is some information about ourselves we just don’t want to share unknowingly.

This kind of unease is confirmed when one reads articles such as the one on Computerworld yesterday. It discusses the fact that customers taking part in a marketing program launched by Sears, Roebuck and Co and Kmart Corp may be ‘unintentionally’ providing the retailer with extensive personal information.

The My SHC Community program is only just shy of contravening the USA Federal Trade commission standards with respect to tracking personal data. Harvard Business School’s Assistant Professor Ben Edelman states that this particular software is not something you’d want on your computer, or in fact on anybody else’s computer.

The critical issue here is that this particular, supposedly harmless, application tracks every site you go to. It checks every search you make, every product you buy, every product you look at even if you don’t buy it. This includes such sensitive sites as your account on your bank’s site. It also sniffs through e-mail headers.

All of this collected data is sent through to an Internet measurement firm called comScore Inc. Of course My SHC Community states that members of the site have the option not to participate and do not need to instal the tracking software.

That sort of statement presupposes that every member knows how to avoid signing up for it. And as one has heard in the past, sometimes it gets quite complicated to avoid participation. See what Facebook’s Beacon originally did to members.

Then it is all hidden behind the rather benign word of ‘research’. I think what really worries me, is not the fact that our activities are so minutely followed on the internet. In fact, I really have nothing to hide.

The huge problem is that I don’t trust people anymore. I don’t trust that a CEO won’t mine all of the data for the benefit of his company. If he can get away with it, he will. It’s the fact that companies have to post profits for their shareholders that makes for scrupulous senior management or the fact that the CEO will pocket a huge bonus if he posts good profits.

Whatever the reason behind the kind of unethical, cheating and lying style of business practice in use in the global economy nowadays, it is at the expense of the consumer – the ordinary person. That’s all of us. We have to be protected against this kind of greed. The sooner relevant legislation is passed in all countries, the better.

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Create Your First Sales Letter Web Page

Once you understand the basic HTML codes you will have access to a wide range of opportunities. This will enable you to publish content online and link with text and other sites. This article discusses basic HTML codes.

HTML codes are very easy to understand because they are very logical.

There is a wealth of material and instructions available to anyone who is sincerely seeking to gain an understanding of basic HTML codes. In fact if you can learn how to use basic software programs you should also be able to easily understand the HTML.

There are a variety of resources that are available to help you acquire an understanding of basic HTML codes. These resources include a wide variety of HTML websites and tutorials. The information is completely explained to you and demonstrated in a manner that will enhance your learning of the basic HTML. By studying these basic study guides you will be able to gain enough insight into HTML that you will be able to easily construct a website.

It is reasonable to expect that you can acquire enough knowledge to build a website in one day. This emphasizes the fact that the materials provide you will complete explanations of the techniques and concepts as well as provide practical demonstrations to assist you to quickly master the HTML codes.

You can also find many excellent video tutorials to assist you in learning basic HTML codes. The video tutorial will allow the student to visualize the basic materials in a manner that enhances their understanding. The video tutorials provide an excellent resource for any one who is seeking to learn basic HTML codes. The video will show the students the basic steps involved in creating an HTML webpage and website design.

There are numerous programs available to help the student gain this knowledge very quickly and very inexpensively. You will also have to consider domain name availability as you plan your website. It is always good to make sure that you domain name will provide your visitors with a clue to the basic purpose of your business enterprise. In addition you should also make sure that you domain name is simple as this will assure that the name will be easy for your customers to remember.

The tips outlined in this article should make it very easy for you to learn the HTML.

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