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Document management: the 21st century way to run an office

Nov 5th, 2011
by Louise.
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Although paperless offices are the ideal today, the reality is far from happening. A paper-free business should save time and money, bringing efficiencies as documents are accessible and, essentially, indestructible. Sadly, if the rest of the world hasn’t caught up to your ideals, you will be forced to use both systems: an awkward mixture of old and new. Document processing bridges this divide until everyone is on the same page (electronic or otherwise). It’s a method of turning paper documents into e-versions that can then be used like any other computer file. These can then be kept in a document management system, organising them so that they can be accessed by all of the appropriate staff. Similarly, invoice processing streamlines your accounts department, ensuring that you have a computer record of all paper invoices, and that no one gets left behind because they are holding onto old technologies.

The benefits of all this are significant. Where other companies and individuals use e-invoicing, you can send instant and secure requests for payments, and receive your money in the same way – without the need for tiresome and time-consuming paper invoices, which have a way of getting lost. When customers and suppliers send you invoices by snail mail, they can be converted to electronic form by the software, allowing you to treat them in the same way as e-invoices.
This process is particularly useful when it comes to invoicing and payments, since your organisation stands and falls on its cash-flow and reputation. No one likes it when invoices are lost or delayed, and this level of automation reduces those kinds of problems. Along with other, related software it can also address the problems of incorrect invoices, including duplicates or more fraudulent claims.

However, the use of these technologies goes beyond invoice processing. Document processing is also helpful for the day-to-day running of your business, since the efficiencies it brings lead to a smoother operation. document management means that you should never be held up by a letter or memo sitting on someone’s desk under a heap of paper. Similarly, documents can be used simultaneously by any number of staff without photocopying. That can transform meetings and business planning and allow your staff to do their jobs more easily and quickly. That has knock-on benefits for productivity. Whilst the genuinely paperless office is some way off, then, this suite of technologies has the ability to bridge the gap, making life a lot easier in the meantime.

Please visit http://www.bottomline.co.uk/ for further information about this topic.

http://www.bottomline.co.uk/

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Posted in: Business, Communication.

Graduate jobs made easier with video resources

Oct 24th, 2011
by Tony.
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Making the transition from university to the world of work can be extremely difficult. First of all, it seems to require students in their final year or recently graduated to know precisely what they want to do in professional life. Some degrees lend themselves in a very straightforward manner to particular career paths: medicine and law are just two examples taken from the academic realm, while vocational courses tend to be even more job-oriented. However, many other degree options are far less suggestive of a particular direction to take after graduation – take history, theology, and philosophy for instance. In one sense, students graduating from the latter kind of humanities subjects have an advantage: they have greater freedom to choose which graduate jobs or graduate scheme they will apply for. In another sense, the humanities students are unfortunate: such is their flexibility that they often find themselves caught up in the complex situation of indecision and internship schemes.

The internship culture has a bad press. In the worst case scenarios, bright young graduates positively bursting with ideas are taken on by a company that exploits them; using them for only the most menial tasks such as archiving press and opening mail. Obviously, these internships are to be avoided. But how do graduates know to steer clear of such bad practices? What they absolutely must remember is to do their research. Careers websites will often provide descriptions and insider reviews of internship programmes and as a rule, the more established the employer, the less likely graduates are to find themselves being used for cheap or free labour.

An even more certain way to avoid exploitation on the job or internship market is to apply for graduate jobs or a graduate scheme offering a competitive starting salary. Careers websites tend to feature a large number of employers from lucrative fields such as law, consultancy, advertising and retail. The better websites will not restrict themselves in such a way though and may offer details of opportunities in publishing, charity, not-for-profit and the public sector. And, if the amount of choice is just too vast and overwhelming, the very best careers sites allow graduates to complete psychometric tests and receive news of recruitment events so that the whole affair becomes more personal.

Please visit http://www.careerplayer.com/ for further information about this topic.

http://www.careerplayer.com/

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Posted in: Employment, Jobs, University.

External louvres with adjustable features to fit any commercial or public building

Oct 20th, 2011
by Anna.
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Buildings that are excessively hot or cold are not only uncomfortable, they can also be a risk to the environment and dear to keep going. It is therefore essential to consider how cases of overheating, or a lack of insulation might be overcome. The erection of sunscreening devices is one of a number of remedial options. Brise soleil, for instance, stop direct sunshine from entering buildings. A super alternative to air conditioning, which can leave us dried out and thirsty, brise soleil can be cut using reflective glass that at once lessens glare and prioritizes privacy. Glass louvres offer another solution that meets the demands of green policies with style; usually erected as additions to existing buildings, they can be made using bespoke coloured glass and can even be run solely on solar power. external louvres are then a third way of making buildings more energy efficient and keeping customers and employees content on your premises.

So, if a workplace is unaired and uninviting, any one, or a blend of the above solutions might quite speedily rebalance the temperature and air quality while also saving money and supporting eco-friendly ideas. Company directors, or leaders with a part to play in the well-being of employees have a responsibility to make offices, meeting rooms and other areas both pleasant to inhabit and conducive to work. In brief, an uncomfortable professional whose mind is caught up on keeping warm or staying cool is not going to be a happy one, nor, in all probability, will his or her work be up to scratch.

Unquestionably, the atmosphere of a workplace should be prized in much the same way by a respectable company as any more conventional asset would be. Therefore, if your building needs to be cooler, look into getting a brise soleil. If you need more room but want to use space efficiently and heat economically, why not acquire a glass louvre? And if you require some extra shading from the outside, external louvres can help. Quite simply, the reputation and the image of your brand is at stake every time visitors enter your building: first impressions of the business will be dependent not just on documentation but on the happiness of the people met and the surroundings that contribute to their outlook.

Please visit http://www.maplesunscreening.co.uk/ for further information about this topic.

http://www.maplesunscreening.co.uk/

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Posted in: Construction, Sun Protection.

Fast cash available: from £75 to £750.

Sep 9th, 2011
by Louise.
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If you need quick cash then there are a limited number of places to go. By the time they get to this event most people will already have exhausted the other options. Banks will eventually stop you borrowing, once you get to the bottom of your overdraft and if they don’t think you’re a great prospect for a loan. You’ll no doubt have tried friends and family. You can take money out on a credit card – not the best option, since it’s subject to higher rates of interest than purchases, but if needs must then you’ve certainly hit your limit there too. If the most cheap loans (and that’s a relative term) aren’t an option, you’re down to less traditional options for fast cash.

This is where you need to be a bit careful. If you need funds and you’ve run out of other options, then you’re down to more expensive loans. And these come in a variety of forms. Some are a necessary evil, others to be avoided completely. Whatever the penalties for non-payment of your existing debts are, they need to be seriously weighed against the impact of a loan – which may simply push the problem a few weeks or months down the line, making it far worse in the process.

So it’s important to know quite what you’re getting into. Log-book loans, for example, put your car up as collateral and can involve enormously high rates of interest – often leading to you losing the car. Doorstep lenders and other loan sharks can be a nightmare. This branch of the industry often operates outside of the law, meaning you lose its protections as well as its restrictions. It also means that, because it’s unregulated, there’s no ‘best practice’. It’s in the interests of these lenders to keep you in debt, never quite paying off your loan. Often their records are sketchy, or non-existent.

The alternative is quick cash from a specialist short-term loans company. These will typically offer fast cash when other cheap loans aren’t possible. The term of the loan is usually around a month: the idea is that you use the money to get out of trouble, not keep rolling the debt over month after month. You can expect to pay around 30 percent a month – not cheap, by any reckoning, but better than a doorstep lender, and within the law too. Many actually offer help and guidelines for staying out of debt in the future, meaning you shouldn’t have to keep returning again and again.

Please visit http://www.cashgenie.co.uk/ for further information about this topic.

http://www.cashgenie.co.uk/

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Posted in: Advice, Loans, Personal Finance.

Advice on looking for commercial property London

Aug 12th, 2011
by Anna.
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There are plenty of shops to let in North London, but finding the right property can be a challenging business.  Anyone looking for a shop for sale in London should think long and hard about the right kind of property and deal to suit them.  You can work the commercial property london market to suit you by reading the following advice on how and when to invest.
Perhaps the majority of corporations looking for commercial property in London will opt for the renting option.  There may, however, be circumstances where buying commercial property would suit your business better.  Commercial property for sale in London can be best looked at in four principal sectors.  These are offices, which include both standard offices and business parks, retail, which incorporates shops, shopping centres, retail warehouses, department stores and supermarkets, and finally, properties used for industrial and leisure purposes.

Choosing business premises, rather than finding shops to let in North London, often necessitates the consideration of more factors than ordinary house purchases. If you are a small or new business without the money to buy a property, then renting is probably the best thing to do.  More sizeable businesses, or those that have formed a professional partnership, are likely to find that buying commercial property brings many benefits.  For those in this situation, buying commercial property London will give you the freedom to use the property, redesign, redecorate and make repairs, the guarantee of no rental increases or stipulations imposed by strict landlords, the ability to make a profit if the building gains value, and the opportunity to make some money by sub-letting part of the property, which will allow you to lessen your mortgage payments.  Furthermore, if you ever decide to move your business, you can let the property to receive further income.

Still, buying your own property can also bring disadvantages.  A significant amount of money is tied up when you commit to buying a property, and it may be that this could be better spent elsewhere in your business.  In addition, purchasing property takes up a significant amount of time, particularly if you need to make alterations or have building work done.  Being responsible for the safety of the building is not always a sensible way for business managers to use their time.
The commercial property london market is an exciting one; there are many spaces to be snapped up if you are savvy about the way you go about your search.  If you think seriously about buying a shop for sale in London there are many questions you ought to ask yourself, and the advisability of making a purchase rather than renting is likely to be at the top of your list.  Finding the shops to rent in North London to suit you should not be too difficult, as long as you know the demands of your business and the long term advantages and disadvantages of all the options.

Please visit http://www.claridges-commercial.co.uk for further information about this topic.

http://www.claridges-commercial.co.uk

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Posted in: Business, Commercial Property, Property.

Cash Genie, a responsible lender

May 7th, 2011
by Louise.
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Cash Genie have been offering payday loans for a number of years now. As such, they can allow you some breathing space if you have debts that need paying. However, they are not intended to be a permanent solution. As a responsible lending company, they know that it is best for their borrowers if they are only used as a last resort, and even then only once. The best scenario is to lend the cash to tide people through their problems, but also to give them the skills they need to avoid coming back again.

To a degree, this is actually good business sense. There’s a saying: you can skin a sheep once, but you can shear it many times. It is some lenders’ purpose to keep their clients in debt forever (think your friendly neighbourhood doorstop lender…), thereby collecting the interest indefinitely and ensuring that you are never free. However, this approach (and the broken legs that can come as part of the deal) has to be balanced again the probability of defaulting.

Cash Genie works on a 30-day basis. Their loans are for one month only, and the charge is 30 percent. This is a lot compared to high street banks – if you can secure a loan from them. However, it might be cheaper than the alternative (missing a payment or bill and getting fined, for example). In any case, the loans are not meant to be long-term. The idea is that you have access to the money you need to get you out of temporary financial problems – and don’t come back the next month. In particular, rolling the debt over for another month is a very bad practice, especially if that continues for several months. A debt of £100 would become £130 by the end of the first month, £169 by the end of the second, and £2,330 by the end of the year. (In practice, you are limited to £750.)

Put simply, someone who uses a short-term loans company again and again is probably someone who isn’t very good with money. In other words, they are someone who is more likely to default on their debt, and that’s not good for the client or for Cash Genie. It therefore makes sense to appeal to the sector of the market who need a loan because of temporary adverse circumstances – not through any inherent financial illiteracy.

Please visit http://www.cashgenieblog.co.uk/ for further information about this topic.

http://www.cashgenieblog.co.uk/

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Posted in: Advice, Loans.

Powerpoint presentations are not as simple as they seem

Mar 26th, 2011
by Tony.
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Powerpoint design is extremely simple. Thousands of people use it for sales presentations every week, and some do a reasonable job of it. powerpoint presentations are the industry standard for communicating information in a sales-type meeting, when you are hoping to convince the audience that you have the answer and product for them. Good Powerpoint design, on the other hand – a presentation that does what you want it to and inspires and motivates rather than sends people to sleep – is a different and altogether trickier art.

Powerpoint is incredibly versatile, and has a huge number of features – many of which will not even be apparent to the casual user. These can add real impact to your presentations; on the other hand, poorly used they can detract badly from the message you are trying to get across, and act as a distraction. The best use of Powerpoint is as a support to what you are saying, not as competition, and certainly not as a replacement. It needs to function in such a way as to engage the audience, rather than alienate them or give them an opportunity to switch off from listening to you. (Incidentally, the same goes of any handouts you send round – they need to complement your presentation rather than replace it. There is nothing worse, from the audience’s point of view, of receiving what is essentially the same presentation three times, in forms that barely differ – once on a handout, once on the screen with Powerpoint, and once spoken by you.)

A little training in Powerpoint design can go a long way. Even if it’s just taking you through the basics and showing you how the main functions work – and how they should be used to maximum effect – then it can be worth a fortune in sales later on. Say, for the sake of argument, that the training you receive from a professional organisation or individual makes the difference in a single instance, securing a deal through your superior sales presentations that you would otherwise have missed out on? That’s probably enough to pay for the training costs, several times over, already. Previously, your lacklustre powerpoint presentations might have held you back; now, they are the missing piece you needed to make all the difference. That’s something that’s definitely worth thinking about next time you’re sitting through a tedious sales meeting with one of the worst examples in front of you.

Please visit http://www.eyefulpresentations.co.uk/ for further information about this topic.

http://www.eyefulpresentations.co.uk/

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Posted in: Communication, Meetings, Sales.

Could Hotel jobs Gulf be the way forward for you?

Mar 18th, 2011
by Anna.
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Dubai, Singapore and the Gulf states represent all sorts of things to different people.  For large numbers of those who are employed in the hospitality sphere, hotel jobs Dubai and hotel jobs gulf hold a sort of vague appeal; we often hear that these areas offer remuneration rates and a style of life that can rarely be experiencing in similar jobs in Britain.  For those who might be giving thought to hospitality jobs Singapore or in any of these countries, this article considers how working and living in this part of the world might change your life.

Dubai is one of the seven regions which form the United Arab Emirates, which forms part of the Arab states of the Persian Gulf.  Its capital, Dubai City, is heldby many to be one of the fastest growing and most fascinatingcities in the world.  The average August temperature in Dubai is 40 degrees Celsius, which helps to explain why the state is such a haven for travellers who flock to enjoy its beautiful coastline.  Because of its swiftly-growing economy, Dubai is a major hub for construction.  The subsequent growth of Dubai’s workforce has meant that other industries, particularly hospitality, have taken off in the area.  Since the 1980s, when the government introduced tax-free areas, Dubai became a big draw for Western professionals.  Today, Dubai City is one of the few places in the world where expats outnumber the locals.  As such, as an expatriate worker in Dubai you will find yourself amongst many like minded people in one of the most diverse, cosmopolitan cities in the world.  The working culture is very much ‘work hard, play hard’, with an average working week of around 45 hours, but a phenomenal array of activities on offer from ski slopes to wave pools mean that you will rarely be short of possibilities for after-work entertainment.

For professionals who are not enticed by hotel jobs Dubai or hotel jobs gulf, Singapore may offer a different appeal.  50% of its service sector is made up of non-Singaporian workers, giving it a similarly diverse ethnic mix to Dubai.  Singapore is the world’s fourth leading financial centre, and its port is one of the five busiest ports in the world, which gives a sense of of why hospitality jobs Singapore are so many in number.  According to the Economist Intelligence Unit, the ‘Quality of Life Index’ there rates Singapore as having the best quality of life in Asia.

Please visit http://www.asiacaterer.com/ for further information about this topic.

http://www.asiacaterer.com/

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Posted in: Catering, Services.

Bacs software makes accounts a lot easier

Mar 4th, 2011
by Anna.
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Bacs, or Bankers Automated Clearing System, has now been around since the late 1960s. It is the UK’s system of making electronic financial payments. Bacs payments mean that you can provide a department with your bank details – account number and sort code – and have money paid directly into your account. This clearly has numerous advantages. Speed is one of them – bacs takes place almost instantly in a lot of cases (although this depends a lot on the banks in questions – certain transfers between some banks can be extremely speedy, whereas others can take three working days, which is the standard time quoted in the industry). In any case, even the three-day limit is probably as fast, in many cases, as paying in cash or a cheque and waiting for it to clear. Convenience is another benefit – it decreases trips to the bank, and therefore leaves more time for other activities. Security is another obvious one; it stops the need to have large quantities of money on the premises, which might be a particular problem on payday. In the past, this would have meant that the entire company’s payroll was present – a clear risk. bacs software can therefore be a huge advantage for modern firms.

If you operate a small business – or anything larger – you will likely benefit from incorporating such bacs software into your accounts department. Automating invoice payments significantly simplifies the monthly (or more regular) task, since everything can be automated to the required degree. This means that you don’t have to do the job yourself. Even if you still use online banking, thereby avoiding the issues with writing lots of cheques or, worse, handing out physical cash, setting up and paying all the amounts can be a time-consuming process. It’s also likely to mean a lower degree of mistakes, and therefore less problem with duplicate payments, fraud and other issues than can reduce your profit margin through poor accounting procedures.

Bacs is fast and easy (SWIFT, a faster version, guarantees same-day payment, for a fee). Bacs payments have so many advantages that it’s worthwhile for any business to explore bacs software as an option for paying clients and suppliers. In the 21st century, cheques and cash are less and less common payment methods, and the future of the cheque itself is becoming increasingly uncertain. Simplicity, security and reliability are three reasons to look into the idea more closely, if you haven’t already.

Please visit http://www.bottomline.co.uk/ for further information about this topic.

http://www.bottomline.co.uk/

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Posted in: Business, Finance.

London kickboxing classes are available to everyone

Feb 24th, 2011
by Tony.
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When it comes to kickboxing London has all the clubs you could want. The capital has plenty of different venues for training, meaning that if you live in London kickboxing classes are easy to find and you should be able to pick one that suits your needs. Kickboxing – which is something of a generic term for a hybrid martial art that pulls techniques from a wide range of sources – is practised for a wide range of different reasons, by both men and women, of all ages. Some people do it for the sparring, enjoying the rush of facing an opponent in the ring – although you will obviously need to learn the basics thoroughly before progressing to this. Others do so for the exercise; kickboxing is a fantastic workout, since it combines excellent cardiovascular fitness with strength conditioning, as well as flexibility. Other fans go for fun, because they enjoy meeting other like-minded people, or because they want to learn some self defence. Depending on the London kickboxing club you attend, you may find that some or all of these factors are prioritised.

As the name suggests, kickboxing involves learning fighting skills based on a variety of kicks and punches. However, there is much more to it than this. You will need to learn blocks to both, and the footwork to go with them. Different styles have differing levels of complexity. In addition, depending on the club and style, you may learn further techniques, such as self-defence moves, which may incorporate techniques from other styles, perhaps locks, throws and other grappling movements. (However, if you are looking to major in the grappling techniques, then kickboxing itself may not be for you – there are plenty of styles, such as Aikido and ju-jitsu, which focus on locks, holds and throws as an ends in themselves, far more than hand and foot strikes.)

London kickboxing classes are run by many different organisations and individuals, meaning that one London kickboxing club will not necessarily be like another. It’s an idea to check what you can expect by looking at their website and asking around if you’re in any doubt, although most clubs will be very approachable and many will offer free first sessions in order to help you make up your mind without committing on a long-term basis. Thus, if you’re wanting to try some kickboxing London has all the variety you’ll need, whether you’re looking to make new friends, learn some self-defence or shed a few pounds as part of your new year’s resolutions.

Please visit http://www.karmaa.co.uk/ for further information about this topic.

http://www.karmaa.co.uk/

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Posted in: Fitness, Health, Sports.

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