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Product/Service Name

WorkingPoint

Brief Description

There are a lot of administrative tasks that go along with running a small business. Finding an integrated solution that handles everything from inventory management to tax reporting is tough. Harder yet is finding such a tool specifically meant for small businesses, but WorkingPoint fills that niche. You can keep track of every part of your business’ finances with one online tool that you can access no matter where you are.

Target audience: Small businesses who need to get a handle on their finances.

The Inspiration

We are committed to providing you with a single point of access for everything you need to make your business work successfully. We think that juggling multiple software packages to manage your business is expensive, time consuming, and simply a hassle. ~ WorkingPoint’s mission

Key Features

• Invoice clients. Set up both one-time and reoccurring invoices to send to your customers and track their payments.
• Manage expenses. Track your business’ expenses, both for client projects and your own expenses.
• Create tax reports. Speed up tax preparation by printing reports specifically created to complete tax returns.
• Manage inventory. Track every detail about your inventory down to the average costs of products, so that you can better handle inventory costs and issues.
• Keep books. Keep your business’ financial records without needing to call in an accounting professional.

Future enhancements: WorkingPoint is partnering with tools like VerticalReponse to integrate marketing tools in WorkingPoint’s contact management options.

Benefits

Reduce the amount of time you spend on processing and analyzing your business’ finances, without having to resort to bringing in a bookkeeper or accountant. WorkingPoint can also help you identify weak points in your company and improve upon them.

Costs

There are both free and premium versions of WorkingPoint. The premium version is $10 per month.

Similar Products/Services

Many small businesses rely on software packages like QuickBooks. There many web-based applications geared towards small businesses, but most of them have limited tools, offering only invoicing and expense tracking.

Opinions from around the Web

• Positive: “WorkingPoint has the tools to do the job of invoicing and managing bills. Those who want time tracking included in their invoicing app won’t find that here. Instead, you can count on the web-based app to let you do your billing tasks without frustration.” (WebWorkerDaily)
• Positive: “I’m drawn to WorkingPoint because of its clean and easy to understand interface. I don’t feel overwhelmed with financial jargon and ugly design like with most bookkeeping programs.  It’s easy to get started with WorkingPoint — it can import your contacts from Outlook, Yahoo and Gmail (by exporting your contacts as CSV or vCard files), and its invoice template is attractive and clean. After signing up for a free account, I made my first invoice in minutes, which I could save locally as a PDF or send via email.” (BNET)
• Positive: “If I were just starting a new business, I would think very seriously about this solution. It has almost all of what you need to manage your company’s finances in an easy-to-use interface, plus the added benefits of contact management and a marketing profile that you normally don’t find in free accounting or bookkeeping packages. The first user is free, forever, which makes it hard to pass up and, at least, try it out.” (SmallBizTrends)

Company Background

Ridgley Evers, the co-founder of WorkingPoint, worked for Intuit on QuickBooks. He came to the conclusion that QuickBooks is too complicated for small business. WorkingPoint’s chairman, Tom Proulx, co-founded Intuit and programmed Quicken, before joining the San Francisco-based company.

Smartlife’s User Advice

If you’re just starting out with a new business, WorkingPoint is ideal. The software is easy to learn, even without the special training that tools like QuickBooks always seem to require. It’s also easy to grow with your business: if you start out without any employees, it doesn’t make sense to pay for multiple license of a piece of software. But you can slowly upgrade your WorkingPoint account as needed. The fact that WorkingPoint is starting to integrate the other tools necessary to operate a small business just makes it more worthwhile.

The tax reporting tools make WorkingPoint stand out in particular. You most likely work with a tax preparer, but these reports  will prove useful whether or not you do your taxes yourself. Printing off these reports will provide a tax preparer with all the information he needs.

That said, if you already have a bookkeeping solution in place for your business, making the switch may not be worth the time. You can easily import your contacts into the online application, but importing the rest of your books may prove to be more hassle than it’s worth.

Smartlife’s Recommendation: USE IT

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Product Watch is part of an on-going series that cuts through the sales propaganda and marketing hype, and reviews products and services from the standpoint of the user and how they actually help us get more out of life.

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Taking your finances to the web can make them easier to manage: not only can you access information from wherever you happen to be, but you can gain access to many features not even available in desktop software. Many online tools offer you ways to integrate all of your financial information, even pulling it in from other financial-related websites such as your institutional bank and investment broker. So we’ve compiled a list of over 100 sites where you can manage your finances online. Who knows, one of these sites might just help you maximize your overall financial wealth. Did we miss any?

1. Mint: One of the best known financial management tools online, Mint offers you a long list of different tools to manage your money, budget, and even analyze your spending.
2. PayScale: Learn about your income and how your salary stacks up against other people in similar jobs with PayScale.
3. Rudder: Manage your personal finances through your email with Rudder, rather than having to visit a separate site every time you need to check your finances.
4. LendingTree: Compare mortgages and other loans to find the best deal among different lenders on LendingTree.
5. Zecco: Trade stocks online, as well as other investments, at Zecco.
6. MoneyRight: Organize your finances and get specialized advice based on your current financial situation on MoneyRight.
7. Tip’d: Get information about a variety of personal finance topics, sorted for the best advice by the community at Tip’d.
8. SaneBull: Follow investment news in real-time with SaneBull’s platform of tools.
9. WageExchange: Anonymously share information about salary and benefits for specific jobs at WageExchange so that you can be sure that you’re making what you should be.
10. Duedee: Research stocks and other investments through the community available at Duedee.
11. Wesabe: Manage your finances with the support of the community at Wesabe, who can give you support and advice.
12. BillQ: Keep track of your bills in a central location with BillQ, with tools like automatic reminders and analysis.
13. Stocpickr: Find advice about picking investments and building portfolios at Stockpickr’s website.
14. Mvelopes: Minimize the work it takes to manage your personal finances with Mvelopes.
15. SpicyDigits: Share expenses in a way that you and your friends can handle with SpicyDigits.
16. Google Finance: Track your portfolio, as well as individual stocks, at Google Finance.
17. Billster: Organize both personal and shared expenses in one place at Billster, including reoccurring expenses.
18. Foonanace: Log your expenses and income with Foonance so that you can see at a glance where your money is headed.
19. Billhighway: In a group? Billhighway can help you manage your group’s finances quickly and easily.
20. Yahoo! Finance: See regular updates on stock prices and get news that will affect your investing decisions at Yahoo! Finance.
21. PearBudget: Simplify your personal finances with PearBudget, especially if you’re new to budgeting or just can’t seem to get your finances under control.
22. Zillow: If you’re planning to buy or sell a house, Zillow can give a good idea of options in your area.
23. Ioweyou: Calculate shared expenses for roommates or other groups of people with Ioweyou.
24. NetWorthIQ: Give your personal finances a checkup and improve your financial health with NetWorthIQ.
25. Dimewise: Safely manage your finances in a simplified format with Dimewise.
26. Redfin: Learn about buying or selling a house in your area and find an agent to help you with the process with Redfin.
27. Cyclr: Keep track of small expenses and reduce your obligations with Cyclr.
28. BudgetPulse: Plan your personal finances and adjust those plans on a month-to-month basis with BudgetPulse.
29. Fuelly: Reduce the amount of money you spend on gar by tracking your mileage with Fuelly.
30. BudgetTracker: In addition to keeping track of your other finances, you can even track PayPal with BudgetTracker.
31. Buxfer: Automatically manage expenses and monitor the activity in your accounts with Buxfer.
32. PageOnce: Manage all your different accounts on different sites like Amazon or your cell phone provider’s with PageOnce.
33. BillShrink: Find opportunities to save money on expenses like your cell phone plan or credit card with BillShrink.
34. RepairPal: Keep track of estimates for auto repair as well as details like how often you need to perform maintenance on your car with RepairPal.
35. Geezeo: Share details of of your personal finances in order to get support and help from the community with Geezeo.
36. CreditKarma: Access your credit score and get advice on how to improve it with CreditKarma.
37. Thrive: Get financial advice specifically targeted to people in their twenties and thirties on Thrive.
38. MyMileMarker: Track your car’s mileage and gas use with MyMileMarker to save money.
39. Homethinking: Learn more about real estate agents and mortgage lenders on Homethinking as you look for or sell a house.
40. Spendji: Plan activities and manage the expenses that go along with them with Spendji.
41. Expensure: Pay back expenses, as well as plan how to split expenses, with Expensure.
42. BillShare: If you split bills with a roommate or with someone else, BillShare can simplify the process.
43. Zopa: Get and make loans directly through Zopa.
44. Gastus: Control your expenses with Gastus by being able to tell at a glance how much you’ve spent.
45. ExpenseView: Automatically analyze your expenses by plugging them into ExpenseView.
46. BudgetEdge: Take a pay-check driven approach to managing your money with BudgetEdge.
47. Prosper: Loan money out, as well as borrow money, through Prosper.
48. Plan2Spend: Manage your budget with future financial goals in mind with Plan2Spend.
49. Zefty: Make teaching kids about money management and giving them their allowances easier with Zefty.
50. Shoeboxed: Organize your receipts online with Shoeboxed’s tools. You can even send in paper receipts.
51. Money2Manage: Balance your books quickly with Money2Manage’s personal finance tools.
52. IndyBudget: Budget to manage your finances today and forecast to manage them tomorrow with IndyBudget.
53. Kiva: Offer microloans as a way to invest your money on Kiva.
54. ElectricCheckbook: Bring all the information from your financial accounts together in one place with ElectricCheckbook.
55. ClearCheckbook: Balance your virtual checkbook quickly with the tools offered by ClearCheckbook.
56. MedBillManager: Managing medical bills can be extremely difficult, but MedBillManager offers a central location to handle those bills.
57. Iron Money: Securely track the money in each of your accounts and analyze it with Iron Money.
58. GreenSherpa: Predict your future financial state with GreenSherpa’s forecasting tools.
59. Yodlee: The basis of the software that runs Mint, Yodlee offers an alternative with similar features for online banking.
60. PocketSmith: Get a good idea of where your money will be in the future with PocketSmith.
61. TaxAct: File your taxes online with TaxAct, using your personal finance information to find deductions.
62. Expensology: If security is a concern and you don’t want to connect your money management application to your bank accounts, Expensology offers a manual alternative.
63. MoneyStrands: Connect with MoneyStrands users with similar goals and traits, on top of managing your money.
64. Wikinvest: Find the information you need to make decisions about your investments on Wikinvest.
65. Xpenser: Track your expenses by submitting them to Xpenser in any way that is convenient, from text messages to going online.
66. Kapitall: Make investments from Kapitall’s dashboard, which allows you track a variety of relevant information.
67. BillMonk: Stop worry about financial obligations to friends with BillMonk — the site will take care of remembering those expenses for you.
68. FuelStart: Keep an eye on the energy it takes to heat your home and find alternatives that can drop your costs on FuelStart.
69. MoneyTrackin‘: Make sure ends always meet with the tools MoneyTrackin’ offers.
70. EFinPlan: Use EFinPlan to create a comprehensive financial plan without having to visit a financial planner.
71. QuickenOnline: Intuit has long been a sources of good desktop software for money management, but with QuickenOnline, the company’s tools are available online.
72. Billeo: Get assistance with the different tasks that are necessary to keep your finances under control.
73. TurboTax: Take care of your taxes online without having to do lots of extra paperwork with TurboTaxes.
74. IExpenseOnline: Identify poor financial habits and eliminate them with IExpenseOnline.
75. NeoBudget: With NeoBudget, you can use the envelope method to help you control spending habits and stick to your budget.
76. MotleyFoolCAPS: Research investment options and get the inforamtion necessary to make the best decisions for your finances with MotleyFoolCAPS.
77. Pulse: Useful whether you’re tracking personal finances or you have a small business, Pulse’s adaptability is ideal.
78. Xero: Simplify accounting with Xero’s wide variety of tracking and analysis tools.
79. ERollover: Plan for your retirement and manage all of your retirement accounts in one place with ERollover.
80. BillsAreIn: Process your bills with BillsAreIn and make sure that your roommates pay their fair share.
81. Scred: Track money for groups, partnerships, and even traveling with Scred.
82. CakeFinancial: Take control of your investments with CakeFinancial and take advantage of its free assessment to make sure you’re on track.
83. TextHog: Keep track of your expenses in real time by texting and emailing information to TextHog.
84. VaultStreet: Secure copies of your financial documents on VaultStreet and go paperless.
85. iTaggit: Catalog your assets and possessions with iTaggit, for purposes ranging from valuation to insurance.
86. Voyant: Skip the financial planners and plan for your future yourself with Voyant.
87. LearnVest: Learn the ins and outs of personal finance with LearnVest.
88. YourPolicyManager: Bring your insurance policies together in one place with YourPolicyManager and eliminate problems like forgetting to renew.
89. FreyerMartin: Too busy to pay bills? Set up an account and FreyerMartin will take care of all the details.
90. KnowBeforeYouApply: Make sure that you’ll be applying for the right loans and other financial products before you even start filling out paperwork with KnowBeforeYouApply.
91. ManageMe7: Handle your finances even if you don’t have a stable income with ManageMe7,
92. MoneyDashboard: Gather your financial information in one place and get it organized with MoneyDashboard.
93. TickerHound: Get answers to your questions about finance and investing with TickerHound.
94. FreeAgentCentral: If you earn money in other ways than working for one employer, FreeAgentCentral offers an accounting tool meant just for you.
95. Kublax: With Kublax, you can sync all of your accounts in one place, from credit cards to savings accounts.
96. LoveMoney: Meet people who can help you with financial questions, as well as manage your money on LoveMoney.
97. eToro: Take investment trading to the next level with eToro.
98. WalletProof: Start budgeting immediately with WalletProof’s money management tools.
99. ActiveAllowance: Manage kids’ allowances while they learn about how to handle money on ActiveAllowance.
100. Salary: Make sure you’re getting paid what you’re worth with Salary’s income tools.
101. GetRichSlowly.org: Daily information about sensible personal finance and related topics.

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Tracking where your money goes is absolutely crucial to running a business, but that doesn’t mean that it has to be a time-sink. There are several online applications that simplify the process, from managing invoices to handling expenses, often beyond what a desktop application can provide. Beyond simply being able to access your financial records from anywhere, online tools have features like integration with online payment methods. The features each tool offers vary, but the different options here can meet the needs of a variety of businesses.

1. Freshbooks: With Freshbooks, a small business can appear much larger. It automates tasks like billing clients for expenses, and offers integration with other tools, like Salesforce, Basecamp, MailChimp, and even the iPhone.
2. Harvest: Many small businesses require detailed time tracking in order to bill clients correctly. Harvest offers time tracking as a key feature of its bookkeeping tools, allowing you to easily track time from anywhere with an Internet connection, including an iPhone.
3. LiteAccounting: For bare bones accounting, LiteAccounting is a good choice. The application tracks invoices and handles expenses, keeping the time you spend on bookkeeping to a minimum. While it may not be the first choice for a larger business, it can work well if you’re just one person managing every aspect of your company.
4. Outright: Tax season can be tough on a business owner, if you don’t have a tool that keeps your business records and tax documents in one place. Outright makes easy tax preparation a priority, as well as reminding you of just what taxes you need to pay.
5. Zoho Invoice: You can manage more than just invoices with Zoho Invoice — the tool integrates everything from quotes to online payments. You can also find tools for just about every other aspect of your business, from document management to CRM, through Zoho.
6. WorkingPoint: Meant as an all-in-one solution, WorkingPoint brings together not only online bookkeeping but also inventory tracking, contact management, and even financial reporting. You may have encountered WorkingPoint under its original name, NetBooks.
7. Blinksale: Want to handle all of your invoicing and client payments online? Blinksale lets you add a link to each invoice that allows clients to pay you through PayPal immediately. However, Blinksale is not as robust a bookkeeping solution.
8. Sidomac: If you work with a bookkeeper outside your office to keep your records up to date, Sidomac makes keeping information up to date easy for both you and your bookkeeper, eliminating any need to synchronize files.
9. Bionic Books: A full-fledged accounting tool, Bionic Books can generate all the reports you could need — without you needing to take a course in accounting to understand them.
10. Merchant’s Mirror: With Merchant’s Mirror, not only are you able to collect and track a wide variety of information about your business, but you can also use the tool’s features to help you predict outcomes and make decisions.

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Receipts are a necessary evil: you have to have them to track expenses, calculate tax deductions, and manage your finances. Despite the fact that we need organized receipts, however, most of us resort to the shoe-box method: throw all the receipts in one box and toss it in the closet. It’s not that we don’t know that we need receipts — it’s just that it can take a lot of time to sort and record all those slips of paper. There is a way to get it done without going crazy, though: outsource it. One website, in particular, makes it easy to let someone else handle sorting your receipts. Shoeboxed will scan and categorize every receipt you can send them with no worries.

Shoeboxed’s solution to the receipt-sorting problem is simple: you place your receipts in an envelope, mail it off to Shoeboxed, and find all your receipts scanned and categorized online. Shoeboxed provides secure storage of your information online, and makes it a matter of clicking a button to export your data to Excel, Quicken, CSV, and PDF. And adding those receipts sitting in your email is as simple as forwarding them to a special Shoeboxed email address.

Exactly what you get with Shoeboxed depends on the plan you pay for: there are four plans, ranging from free to $49.95 a month. With the three fee-based  plans, you do get a discount if you pay annually.

• DIY/Free: With this plan, Shoeboxed does not actually scan your receipts for you. You simply get access to their organization system, in order to enter your own receipts in by hand.
• Lite/$9.95 per month: This plan is designed for low-volume users — you can mail Shoeboxed 50 receipts a month to scan for you. Your receipts are shredded and recycled. You can also upload an unlimited number of receipts yourself.
• Classic/$19.95 per month: With this plan, you can send in 150 receipts each month. Your receipts will be mailed back to you.
• Business/$49.95 per month: This plan is intended for heavy users, such as businesses. Shoeboxed will scan 500 receipts for you each month and will back up your data to a CD each quarter.

While having your receipts scanned is great, the service wouldn’t be helpful without a way to interact with your information. Not only does Shoeboxed provide you with a simple scan of your receipts, but it also extracts the store name, purchase amount, and date. Shoeboxed also offers a dashboard that allows you to look at your receipts, categorize them yourself, make notes, and analyze your expenses. You can see which stores you spend money at most often, check the categories that you regularly spend money in and generally get a good idea of where your money is going. Furthermore, Shoeboxed can learn: if you add a specific categorization to a store, Shoeboxed will automatically associate that category with that store in the future.

In addition to Shoeboxed’s receipt scanning service, the company will also scan business cards and import them into your address book of choice (Gmail, Outlook, Address Book, Salesforce, and more).

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It seems like every personal finance book suggests tracking your expenses in order to figure out just where your money is going. It’s a tip that works pretty well: if you have a good idea of just what you’re spending your money on, you’re more likely to cut back on those items that you really don’t need. But tracking your expenses can be a lot of work. Not only do you have to write down where you leave each dollar, but you have to categorize your spending and decide where you’re really spending unnecessarily. There are a few techniques that can automate your expense tracking, though, and save you time as well as money.

1. Put It On Your Card

If you pay with your debit or credit card, you have an automatic record of your spending that you can examine at your leisure. With cash, though, you have to rely on your memory or writing down your purchases. Either method is prone to complications. With your card, though, you can check up on your spending online or on your statement. No matter which you choose, you have a written record of your spending without having to do anything special.

2. Use Money Management Software

Once you’ve made the switch to using your card, you can use money management software to automatically update your records. There are both software packages and online applications that automatically categorize your expenses, on the basis of your card statements. Instead of sorting through your spending on your own, you can immediately receive graphs and analysis on where you spend the most money. Some options, like Mint.com, can even help you plan a budget based on your expenses.

3. Request Receipts

Not everyone is comfortable doing most of their spending with plastic. Depending on how you think about money, it may be easier to control your spending habits by going cash only. If you do decide to go that route, you can still avoid having to write down every purchase you make. Instead, you collect your receipts with a little more care than you might otherwise. If you’re using your receipts for expense tracking, you pretty much need a receipt for everything — even that coffee you picked up on your way to work. You also have to have a system for sorting through your receipts, and the simpler your system the better.

4. Set Regular Review Times

If you don’t go through the expenses you’ve tracked on a regular basis, you’ll wind up with a huge pile of data to process. But if you at least glance through it often, you’ll get the full benefit of knowing where your money is going without having to stare down a pile of paperwork.

5. Outsource It

For those of us who absolutely can’t stand the idea of messing around with a pile of receipts or money management reports, there is always the option of hiring a bookkeeper. Depending on the services you need from your bookkeeper, outsourcing your expenses can be costly. If your time really is more important to you than worrying about tracking expenses, though, it’s an option to consider. Shoeboxed.com provides one of the simpler and cheaper outsourcing methods. If you bundle up your receipts and mail them to Shoeboxed, the company takes responsibility for scanning and categorizing all of them. You can then take a look at your receipts online — or export your information to Excel or Quicken.

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Money management has moved far beyond hand-written ledgers: these days, your personal finances can practically keep track of themselves through software that updates your account balances on a daily basis. You can even handle the details of managing your money online through a variety of different web applications, which you can access from anywhere. The real question, though, is deciding which of those many applications is really the best.

Mint.com

When it comes to online money management, Mint.com is always the site that comes to mind. It’s been the premier online money management tool for over a year now, partly because it’s free, but mostly because it really does offer a number of great features. The initial set-up is fairly simple: you’ll have to answer a few questions about your bank, credit card, and investment accounts right off the bat. After you’ve provided that information, though, Mint automatically updates your information daily — effectively eliminating all of your bookkeeping. With all the information Mint has access to, it can provide you with loads of analysis. It automatically categorizes expenses and keeps you up-to-date on just where you’re spending money through easy-to-understand graphs.

Mint.com

Quicken Online

Quicken’s name has been synonymous with bookkeeping and money management for quite a while now. But it’s only been recently that Intuit (the company behind Quicken) has offered online money management tools. Quicken Online, despite its relative youth, is very useful. The tool just became free for online users. Its interface will be familiar to anyone who has used Quicken’s offline products. Quicken Online will pull all the information from your various accounts over to one central website, and allow you to manage your bills and budget.

Quicken

Rudder

Rudder takes a different approach to personal finance than most other online money management tools. Instead of bringing together all your personal finance information onto one website, Rudder collects your information and sends it to your email inbox. Every morning, the site provides you with all your account balances, a list of recent activity, upcoming bills, and a notification of what you should have left over after paying all your bills. Rudder is a free tool.

Rudder.com

Making the Decision

While there are thousands of other money management tools available online, many of them can be eliminated from consideration by just looking at a couple of factors. The most important is security: Mint, Quicken Online, and Rudder all list their security precautions up front. Many other sites promise that they’ll protect your information, but without details on exactly how they propose to do that, it’s difficult to trust them with the information necessary to manage your money — information that could be used against you in any number of ways. That very fact alone elevates these three money management tools to among the best. From there, it’s just a matter of looking through each of them and seeing which has the features for best automating your money management.

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Suggested reading:
- “Mint.com Offers Web-based Financial Tracking Tools” (Mashable)
- “Rudder Helps You Manage Your Money From Your Inbox (The Startup Review)” (Mashable)