Get Paid $3K Per Day Copying Digital Assets & Automating Ebooks In Under 10 Minutes (Passive Income)

I want you to take a look at this on the screen over here is the result of an ebook or a digital asset on the screen over here you can see this digital asset is getting an estimate monthly sales of 885 sales every single month for 4.99 per sale if i bring up my calculator let me calculate that for you quickly 4.99 multiplied by 885 is over 4416.15 made between march the 6th 2021 and september 27th today 2021 so what i'm busy showing you is an ebook that was posted once literally 10 to 20 minutes of work has made four thousand five hundred dollars in the period of four months now imagine this you have five 10 15 ebooks running for you over the months let's multiply this by let's say an extra five ebooks that is twenty two thousand dollars that you can make on five ebooks in just four months using the power of these digital assets over here take a look at this other example over here this digital asset at 19.99 which has made 573 sales this month 

let's just take this and calculate that times 573 has made over 11 454 dollars since march the 8th 2021 and as you can see all of these people over here are running multiple digital assets at the same time bringing in multiple streams of income if these people can do it in just a period of four to five months so can you in today's video i'm going to show you how to set this up using this brand new tool and make money with these digital assets what's up you guys jay here you'll not be a south african online entrepreneur and coach documenting my journey on my youtube channel i'll be here on various different ways that i used to make money online and today i'm going to be talking about digital assets journals ebooks writing and that kind of niche and the tool that i'm going to show you is a very powerful tool that will talk about selling identifying competitors what kind of sales they're getting all sorts of analytics that you can piggyback on the top authors and basically replicate their success using this awesome tool but before we get into this guys i want to do a giveaway in today's video to help you guys out i want you to actually comment down below if you want more money giveaways or if you want more course resource and knowledge giveaways personally i like course giveaways as i can utilize that knowledge to build a successful business instead of a quick 20 giveaway but comment down below but in today's video i'm going to do a quick money giveaway for you guys all you need to do is leave a like make sure you subscribe comment down below digital assets i will heart and put a random comment and announce that giveaway winner in tomorrow's video so make sure to be subscribed and stay tuned for tomorrow's video to see who wins without further ado 

we're going to be wasting no time and getting straight into this over here so over here is the website that we're going to be using over here called bookvault.io where you can create and scale a book publishing business without writing a single word with our innovative software solutions you can start right now completely for free you can access 100 plus unique premium interiors which you can customize and combine into low content books over here so here you can see you can go from flight information family freezer information all sorts of books that sell that people are making thousands of dollars in months just like i showed you previously in the intro of this video and over here you can see this is one of the most comprehensive low content book publishing software on the market today from idea to creation you can scroll down to see how this works this is what this tool consists of that i suggest you should pay attention to they've got a product database and a trend hunter so with their database of more than 5 million titles you can easily find emerging trends and hidden niches with a click of a button eliminating the guesswork from research absolutely amazing basically piggybacking trains other people that are going viral with the ebooks and replicating that success for yourself

 they've got a super powerful keyword research tool off the market which grants you access to real amazon search volume so that you can place your book right in front of the audience and ahead of your competition another amazing tool that a lot of tools don't have to offer listing optimizations so from picking the correct categories to back-end keywords our list optimization tool is the best solution to help you make more money from your current listings of your book designs over a thousand two hundred free fonts more than one million royalty-free images pattern scalable designs filters and images and much more opinion all you need to do is i'm not going to keep going and talking about this website but just to give an idea like i explained to you 

what this tool is about it's a scale and creation book publishing business without writing a single word and all you're going to do is click on start for free over here on this blue button and it will take you to the signup page but i've already signed in with my account all you need to do is just enter your email verification password and you get quite a long free trial over here so here you can see tons of tutorials from product research seller research cloud information keywords favorites book scouting kdp categories kdp spy this is where you spy on competitors book box lister mass cover creator and book bolt designer where you can go and design your books over here so so they do offer incredible training over here and just to let you know guys i'm not an affiliate for this website i don't make any commissions of promoting this website or talking about it this is all completely up for free i'm recommending this tool because it honestly is amazing and i'm not getting anything from it this website mainly offers two actions guys let's research and create so 

let's go and start off by researching over here so what you want to go and do is you want to click on the cloud option on the left over here and it will take you to a category with the top 100 best sellers you can search via category so let's go and look for for example uh comic books over here in the top 100 best sellers we can go choose a price range just choose any price range and click on search over here and we can go and find best sellers in the comic book niche in the top hundreds over here you can see over here is a ebook called noise based on a true story launched march the 14th over 404 sales so far another book over here 342 sales and at 9.95 that's between three to five thousand dollars made on this ebook guys um literally by not even really creating this themselves these creators are absolutely coining and milking the strategy and they're not even putting in all the effort to actually go and write out this ebook themselves then you've got the spiritual self-care book over here which has got an estimated sales of 485 and at 9.99 each which again guys is 45 times 9.99 is over just under 5 000 made on this digital asset so far and again these creators are absolutely coining it and milking it with this kind of strategy and i mean like i mentioned in the intro if these people can do it there's nothing stopping you from replicating this and doing this as well and guys kdp which is kindle publishing will take a small commission from each and every sale but it's really minimal and just to also 

let you know the sky is the limit you can create as many ebooks as you want your digital assets sell as many as you want to use this tool as many times as you want to what you decide to achieve is up to you the sky is absolutely the limit with this and that's going to lead us to step two for entrepreneurs and we need to go and create our own book or digital asset over here and the first thing we're going to do is we can go and use this perfect um noise based on a true story over here and you want to go and copy this asin number over here you'll see if i zoom it up on the screen it's a couple digit number like this you want to come over to amazon guys and just go and paste and search this asin in the amazon store over here and you will actually go and find this exact book on amazon um just quickly open this in a new tab over here and you will see this book has over a four star rating with 1 648 ratings and i mean all the specific book on amazon is showing is a short description or write-up of this book they're not even showing what's in this book or what the content is and people are buying this book on a daily basis i mean the person who released this book is absolutely coining it and making a killing with this ebook over here at 9.99 each and they even deliver to south africa which is a third world country so i mean if they deliver to south africa they probably deliver to every country in the world over here and if you take a look at this they've only they've only got two images over here they've got the front page and the last page it's just taking a while to load up but i mean you understand the point and people are still buying this they give a couple of reading age 8 to 12 years print length 26 pages and i mean just based on this little information people are buying this this is so far a thousand six hundred ratings meaning people at least 1 648 people have bought this book so far but before we continue with this book you can come back to bold cloud over here and just change the category to notebook over here this is actually quite a good category that i recommend using because with the notebook in the journal category you don't actually have to write any stories yourself like take a look at this if you go and use this sketchbook over here go and copy this asi in um 

i mean this book has got an estimate sales of 613 sales every month just come back to amazon and paste this over here as well and i recommend go and do this with a couple of books see what's working you can see over here i mean if i click on this book there's only one left in stock i mean this book is absolutely something crazy nearly a five star rating and over eight thousand reviews over here i mean all on this page is what's on this book it's good quality white paper extra large size and it is selling like crazy over here and it's also a number one bestseller and all they're showing is the front and the back image of this book and it's absolutely blowing up the reason why is because this is a sketchbook notebook for drawing writing painting sketching a lot of people artists people that want to make notes remember calendar dates want a book like this to save and i mean 4.59 is super cheap probably cheaper than most of the local retail stores so people come to amazon to buy the same kind of book over here even if i had to be honest sketchbooks that i've seen like this 8.5 by 11 in my local country i've seen for 700 800 ram plus which is 40 50 plus here the same thing is selling for 459 so i can see firsthand over here why people are buying off of amazon and not from their local stores and why this kind of product is doing so well and i want you to take notes 

this book has been around since july 26 2019 we we are now at 27th of september 2021 that's over two years later this ebook is still a number one bestseller so you can imagine the thousands of dollars this book has made for this creator every single month since july two years ago that is hundreds of thousands of dollars as a bestseller on amazon and the best thing about a sketchbook it's blank pages there's no pages there's no story that needs to be written it's a simple blank page book that's been sold on amazon as a sketchbook so all you want to go and do is to go and create a simple book like this is to come back to book bold cloud over here just click on the research option on the top and click on the create option over here you want to click on book bolt designer option of the app will take you to designer.bookvault.io just sign in with your same email and password it's then going to prompt you with this choose template option so we're going to start off with our cover and then after that we'll go and design our interior so 

let's go and start off with the cover the trim size again you can go and use this exact same 8.5 by 11 so just go and click here uh look for 8.5 by 11 that's perfect over there we want to choose white paper interior page count page count we want to go and use at least 120 which is um influence from this book over here so we can then click on submit over here and it will generate the template which will just take a couple of minutes over here you've got the front and the back cover of your book over here you've got product colors from pink blue white you name it you'll see if i select the different colors you've got the different colors of your pages i personally like to leave my cover page white as i think it's just a good looking color you can add all sorts of text to the color of your book you can come over to images add your own images or select from resources over here so for example if we go out over here and we click on search you can see tons of free art pictures that you can go and use over here so we can literally go and import this picture over here of this person here type and just zoom this in like that zoom this in a little bit like that and that could literally be the cover of our book for example but let's just remove that 

let's just show you an example you've got tons of shapes over here um if we wait for this to load up here you can see like all sorts of shapes and logos drawings over here layers all sorts of effects that you can add to your book masking as well so there's all sorts of features and tools that this free book bolt generator has for you but i found even a better way to go and design a book cover than this book bulk designer over here so we can actually use if you come over to canva.com which is another free graphic design tool where we can go and design book covers we can actually add media from canva to football over here and ultimately make the best book cover design possible so i'm just waiting for the website to load over here on the search bar of canva just go and search book cover over here click on photo book cover and it will open up the according and relative templates and design that you can go and import on canva that we're going to go use on bookvault.io so if we go and search art over here as well we can go click on art and just search art templates over here so here you can see for example the evolution of graffiti the feature featuring the future you've got so many different covers over here we can actually go and use this one over here which is actually quite a nice cover photo and we can just type it for example book over here just like that and we can put our name over here for example by jay froerner you just put your full name 

let's remove that and owning our from sketchbook and expiring read for all creatives is so we can just have like a we can just have like a quote over here and when you're ready you can click on download over here click on download again we can click on images over here and click on upload and upload the same uh ebook image that we created on camera here just tap on it and it will load up like this and what we can do is we can go and stretch this out just to make it a little bit wider to fit onto a book as long as this main text in the middle kind of just fits in to just stretch that a bit over here let's just uh that looks perfect that's our sketchbook cover here and we just need to go and create our back page over here as well so we can come back to canva over here and just go and search a back page so for example we can go and use um and we can go and just apply a different style so click on the three dots over here and we can go and apply this raid style over here and click on apply style only we can go download this different color style click on png over here as high quality and click on download don't worry you don't have to sign with your account and it will download straight to your pc so come back to book bolts over here just click on upload another image we can upload the second ebook over here cover and we can then move this according to that so just stretch that out a bit just stretch this out a little bit and we just want to if it doesn't much just realign it and you'll see when it fits perfect like that so there we go you can see we've now got the back and front of our ebook or our um digital assets over here and remember this ebook over here that is a number one bestseller on amazon they're not even showing what's inside it's basically blank pages which is a sketchbook and it's absolutely killing it and that tells me that thousands of people all over the world are willing to buy this ebook without even knowing what's inside we can we need to do the same and we can come straight back to bookball.over here click on the interior option open in a new tab and you can actually see over here just choose your template again of 8.5 by 11 page count 120 and over here you can choose blank pages college rule journal but since we are creating a sketchbook we just want to go and sell blank pages over here so we want to click on blank page over here and click on download and it will load up in a pdf document like this you can see all your blank sketchbooks of yet a total of 120 pages and come back to your cover design over here and again click on interior pro and it will open this up in a new tab choose the same size that is 8.5 by 11 and over here you've got your first page and your last page so your first page you want to choose a blank page since our book is a sketchbook obviously you can go and create books like this for career plans build trackers music sheets like i said go and create tons of books and when those first five or ten take off that's when you're going to be seeing revenue every single month i'm just starting off with a simple sketchbook over here so the last page as well blank page and we want to click on download over here and as you're getting all these pages you can add a new page over here page three four five six all the way through and replicate this to 120 pages and again for the first page you can go and click plus and you can make this for example a heading page for like page one for any notes and the last page again we can go and add another maybe line page for notes and all the pages in between we can have blank pages for the sketching and once you're ready guys click on download over here and this book will then download to your pc over here in pdf format and when you're ready to go and post on amazon kindle over here come back to bookball just click on create and go back to research over here and click on the keywords option over here now since we're talking about sketchbooks and art we actually want to go and do some research on that specific keyword so we're going to do is we're going to go and search over here sketchbook and just go and click on search over here and you can see some of these keywords over here so yeah you can see books for sketching sketchbook sketch book with a full stop sketchbooks sketching book sketching books and all of these have very high search rates you can see over here sketchbooks over 279 000 views every single month so if you actually take this keyword and go and search it on the amazon store over here and just paste this in the search bar just what i suggest is take a look at what pops up take a look at their titles their keywords their covers over here so you can see all the best sellers and i recommend take influence from these sketchbooks over here so if this sketchbook talks about a large notebook for drawing or doodling include those keywords in your title make a similar design to these thumbnails or book covers over here i do not recommend copy but just get influence over here so here you can see is a simple sketchbook with yoda on that's hitting the top page over here and these top sellers are selling at 459 459 459 so i recommend undersell them beat them and come in at 419 or even 3.99 to beat them and have a better price and since these guys titles their ebook covers over here and their tags and whatever metadata they're adding is working for them because firstly their bestseller ranking on the top page so it's not a bad idea to get influence from these guys for your own digital asset and go and click on one of these ebooks take a look at how long they've been around exactly what they're doing here you can see is a um how they look on google over here so all in all just go and get influence from these guys over here you can see they've been around since november 15th they still are best summer today so you can imagine the kind of revenue that this author is still creating today of literally a blank book on amazon that he didn't even create from scratch but ultimately before trying i bookbult.io come over to the tutorials tab over here and take the tutorial on each and every one of their functions from product search to seller search cloud book scouting favorites keywords kdp categories which is kindle publishing kindle publishing competitive spying book board listed take all of these tutorials over here before actually using this tool to use it to a better potential instead of just coming on you're having a look clicking off and never end up using it because you have no idea what you're doing take it step by step start off with the tutorials and then take action with just what i taught you and i highly recommend guys that you go and repeat this process once a day once a week get ebooks and posts getting out there on the amazon kindle store every single day because you're gonna hit those one or two books that hit the top page or become a bestseller and now you're generating revenue from these books hundreds of sales every single month like you saw over there on the results which bring in thousands of dollars every single month so that is this is where consistency and volume comes into this 

Let's take the example of posting 30 books in 30 days each ebook gets five views a day or five clicks a day but now if you post every day for 30 days that's five times 30 which is 150 views and clicks every single day do this for a year now you're getting thousands of views and sales on your ebook every single year so that is where consistency and volume falls into place the first one or two might not get sales but as soon as you get to those first five or ten books that's where you'll start to see profits and lots of traffic from this and sales of the amazon kindle store what i'm going to do guys is i'm going to leave a playlist over here for you if you want to go and learn more ways about getting traffic to your amazon kindle store of external platforms because any kind of algorithm the amazon algorithm youtube algorithm instagram algorithm when you can get external traffic to those algorithms they will reward you with more traffic and sales because firstly you're bringing them business they're getting to give you business in return that's what i've discovered about most algorithms on the internet today so this playlist over here will help you up with that and help you get more sales on your amazon kindle books so make sure to click over here and i'll see you over there

Best YouTube Channel Ideas Without Showing Face and Voice 2021 (THAT MAKE MONEY)

 how's it going everyone in this video i'll show you six youtube channel ideas you can start without showing your face or using your voice all these channel ideas can be monetized and i'll show you plenty of examples of channels that do make money all you need is a laptop an internet connection and some effort don't forget to like and subscribe if you find this useful and stay tuned to the end for some handy software that may help you create these channels i'll also talk about why i ultimately decided to use my voice and some of the comments i get about it i'll tell you i get some strange comments so let's get into it number one tech videos when i say tech videos i mean product based videos like 

This channel cool gadgets essentially these types of channels are just a collection of product adverts put into a compilation like this one five amazing car gadgets on amazon this video has over 5.6 million views the video is monetized with ads as well as amazon affiliates placed in the description so if someone was to buy any of these products after clicking the link the owner of this channel would get a cut you might be thinking aren't these videos copyrighted are you allowed to post these well they probably are the copyright of the company but ultimately the company wants to sell these products so they wouldn't have a problem with you reposting the ads as long as they are not shown in a bad light plus it's free marketing for them if you did a video called five worst car gadgets on amazon i'm sure one of the companies would send youtube a takedown notice if you use their video other channels that do this include flux hd as you can see they have five crazy new inventions you need to see five cool inventions you can buy on amazon you can easily replicate this title thumbnail and format of videos another channel that does this is probably a bigger one called quantum tech they have over seven million subscribers and focus more on industrial machinery as well as consumer tech you can see they get ridiculous views on most of their videos food industry machines that are at another level this has 28 million views and a link to all the manufacturers in the description as you can see first hand these channels are doing really well and they are all monetized plus you have no idea who the channel owner is because they don't show their face or use their voice it's completely anonymous 

Channel idea number two is lifehack videos the most popular channel in this category is 5-minute crafts they have over 68 million subs they film short and snappy life hacks and tips mostly around the home and put them in compilations to post on youtube this takes a bit more work than the previous idea as you actually have to film something useful then edit it together however you wouldn't need to show your face or voice another one of these channels is called power vision they have life hack videos like 17 simple life hacks with a watermelon this has a ridiculous 156 million views in just two years they also do a lot of other experiments that get a lot of views again this will take some planning and filming but if you start small and focus on things around the house you can build up you can apply this same idea to different niches for example you can make a channel about cooking hacks cleaning diy car hacks or makeup hacks if you have a specialist knowledge in any of these fields the principle remains the same film some useful tips make a compelling title post it on youtube and you don't need to show your face or voice 

Channel idea number three is software tutorials basically the same videos i am making except instead of using your voice you can display on-screen instructions one good example of this is tutor vids they provide social media tips and tricks their most popular video is how to make your facebook completely private it has 9.3 million views there's no reason why you couldn't do a video like this as well as you can see an advert is playing on it so it is monetized and there is actually no sound just a screen recording and text instructions displayed this is similar to what i do but i talk through the instructions instead of having text on screen another example of a channel doing this is orim beresha apologies i can't pronounce the name this channel does videos on how to customize your windows desktop the person running this channel doesn't speak or show their face and the videos are monetized and they have over 178 000 subscribers with over 5000 views a month you don't just have to do desktop tutorials either if you don't have a pc or laptop you could completely make videos on your phone the best example of this is aj cadger tv this channel has over 220 000 subscribers with millions of views they do a lot of video editing tutorials on their phone using an app called kinemaster feel free to check them out and learn some valuable skills 

Channel idea number four is statistics videos also known as data videos or those bar chart race videos the biggest channel in this sector is data is beautiful with 1.3 million subscribers these videos are popular because they are visually enticing and the content appeals to the masses the top videos on this channel are most popular websites and most popular tv shows now you're wondering how to make these videos you can make these using an online software program called flourish the basic package on the software is free to use and it means all your data and charts will be public this is fine if you're planning on publishing the videos publicly on youtube anyway then there are further paid plans for additional features so making the charts is the relatively easy part compiling the data is the challenging part and this is where the value lies if you can find interesting data sets like this then you will get loads of views you will have to dig deep to find interesting data so this one is not for everyone however you can start by looking on wikipedia you can get social media stats from socialblade for youtube data you can get data from worldbank.org check out this website it's actually a blog post called 70 amazing free data sources this should help you get up and running or point you in the right direction at least there are also subscription sites like statista.com and rival iq.com for social media sites 

Number five is motivation videos channels include mulligan brothers and motivation madness i won't go into too much detail about how to make these videos because that's outside the scope of this video but you will need to find copyright free content add some copyright free images audio and music and then edit it all together again the value here lies in finding content and making it sufficiently transformative these channels take original copyrighted work and transform its appearance or nature to such a high degree that the use no longer qualifies as infringing if you wanted to start a motivational youtube channel these are things you're gonna have to look into stay tuned to the end and i'll show you some free video editing software and resources where you can find copyright free pictures videos and music the sick youtube channel idea you can start without showing your face is meditation or relaxation videos one example is called meditation relax music this channel has 2.2 million subscribers and as you can see they post up relaxing music and sounds paired with some nice visuals if you are talented you could film the footage yourself and create the music yourself this way you own 100 of the copyright otherwise you can use copyright free sounds and videos and edit them together in a nice way if you want to do this quickly you can always buy the music on fiverr just search for relaxation music or meditation music and there are loads of sellers providing it this person for example can provide 10 tracks each which are five minutes long for only five dollars and you have full rights to use the music there are plenty of other sellers doing the same thing so the content is available once you have a piece of music or sound you can just loop it together to make it longer than five minutes there you go 

Six youtube channel ideas you can create without showing your face or using your voice as promised check out these resources to help you create the content it's a list of video editors screen recorders free image and video sites so with these you can compile a video now before you go check out these comments that i get about my voice a few people have commented about how relaxing and calming my voice is and a few others have suggested that i do asmr i mean i'm not too familiar with what it is i've had a quick google and watched some videos and it's not something that i truly understand to be honest but uh leave a comment and let me know if you think i should do an asmr channel or if you think i should do a meditation or relaxation video i've never really considered these things before but the comments i get on my tech videos seem to suggest that i have a voice for it so if you're apprehensive about using your voice maybe just try and see what feedback you get i never expected to get such feedback like this no one's ever commented about my voice before i mean i just talked to my friends and colleagues and we all have the same accent i don't know whether it's the accent or my voice but that's what people are saying so do i really have a relaxing voice i'm not sure let me know in the comments and don't forget to like and subscribe if you haven't already done so and i'll see you in the next one

Xero Accounting Review 2021: Pros and Cons

Xero is cloud-based accounting software that has been giving quickbooks a run for its money since 2006 but is it a viable contender stick around to find out.

Xero is a robust accounting solution with sophisticated features ample reports and more than 800 integrations and unlimited users unlike quickbooks desktop xero also has the mobility and modern ui of cloud-based software it has over 2 million users and is the primary accounting solution for over 16 000 accounting firms the company recently added a project management feature correcting one of its most significant drawbacks however some of xero's most recent improvements have come at a steep cost and there's been an increase in customer complaints as a result xero recently increased its prices and it no longer includes built-in payroll with his plans the company has also limited expense claims projects and multi-currency support to the most expensive plan and since our last review xero's customer support has gone downhill a bit while the price may rule the software out for small businesses xero still has a lot to offer for medium and large businesses or those in need of multiple user support let's dive in to help you evaluate whether xero is a good fit for your business 

but before we get started make sure you hit that subscribe button so xero used to offer incredibly scalable pricing the other appeal of the software was that each plan came with unlimited users access to every zero feature and payroll 

but as of november 1st 2018 xero no longer includes payroll and it has limited some features to its most expensive plan such as expense management and multi-currency support each plan still offers unlimited users and live bank fees so businesses can download categorize and reconcile their transactions as usual xero offers three different plans each with monthly payments and there are no annual contracts so you can cancel your subscription at any time with 30 days notice xero also offers a free 30-day trial and even has a demo company set up for you already so you can explore the software before you buy it they also offer discounts for non-profits and owners of multiple companies and xero's been known to offer other discounts occasionally so be sure to check the company's website to see if it's having a sale so here's what you get with xero's new pricing structure xero's early plan costs 11 a month and includes 20 invoices and quotes the ability to enter up to five bills the ability to reconcile bank transactions inventory management features live bank feeds purchase orders document storage reports and unlimited users xero's growing plan costs 32 a month and includes everything in the early plan plus unlimited invoices and quotes and bill management and zeros established plan costs 62 a month and includes everything in the growing plan plus expense claims and project management and multi-currency support and as i mentioned earlier xero no longer includes payroll in its monthly subscriptions instead xero is now pointing users to gusto gusto is a great payroll platform that starts at 39 dollars a month plus six dollars a month per person we've written a complete review of gusto on our website i'll go ahead and drop that link in the description below okay let's dig further into xero's specifications first of all it's cloud-based so there are no downloads or installations required access to xero is easy as a cloud-based software xero is compatible with any device so long as you have internet access and you're using a popular browser like chrome or safari and it also has an accounting app for android and apple products and separate mobile apps for zero expense management and zero project management xero is best suited for mid to large size businesses the software is well developed and offers strong accounting and ample features reports and integrations xero also supports unlimited users for every plan which is almost unheard of in the accounting software world you can set multiple levels of user permissions and control feature access as well small businesses could benefit from the growing plan especially if they need unlimited users but if your business needs project management or multi-currency support xero doesn't come cheap also the early plan limits users to only 20 invoices if you run a small business explore all of your options by checking out the top alternatives to xero that i'm going to link in the description below we wrote an article about that really in depth could be some alternatives in there that could work for you business owners with multiple companies will have to purchase a separate subscription for each business and xero's primary market is in the us and that's the focus of this review 

but it's also available in the uk new zealand and australia and in over 180 countries in total as you would expect xero supports both accrual and cash basis accounting and as for ease of use it's pretty solid xero has an attractive modern user interface while the software is well organized it does have a steep learning curve it's not as steep as quickbooks 

but it is more difficult to learn than other cloud-based options it takes quite a while to explore all of xero's features but once you get acquainted with it xero is fairly easy to use xero tries to throw you as many bones as possible by adding a video or help article to the top of every page that you open if you need some extra help finding features or learning the software there's also a help center to turn to we also have a free comprehensive how to set up your xero account guide that teaches you how to use and optimize your xero account i'll drop a link to that guide in the description below xero often gets praised for its robust feature selection so here are a few of the key ones the customizable dashboard features a beautiful user interface with graphs labeled bank accounts invoices owed to you bills to pay and total cash flow you can rearrange the order of the graphs as well a brand new navigation menu now reads dashboard business accounting and contacts and you can access a quick create search button recent notifications and an in software help button along the top right in addition to a dashboard xero recently added a sales page overview with charts and graphs that break down your invoices and estimates although xero offers only a single invoice template you can create custom templates and customize them extensively 

but xero could certainly provide more template designs to choose from xero offers time saving necessities including recurring invoices automatic invoice reminders default payment settings bulk invoicing and replication of previous invoices there's also a feature called zero to zero which makes it easy to send and receive invoices to and from other zero users you can easily create credit notes and send customer statements straight from the invoicing screen as pdf attachments with available payment gateways you can easily create quotes and convert them to invoices purchase orders or bills you can duplicate past quotes and add internal notes to quotes as well and xero uses the same invoice templates for quotes xero has recently added a nice client portal where customers can view print and pay invoices directly online potential customers can view accept decline or comment on quotes xero has some of the best contact management features i've seen you can add basic contact information as well as discounts and sales tax rates for customers the company takes this feature a step further through contact groups and smart lists act as marketing tools allowing you to target particular groups of contacts for example you can create a list for loyal customers or customers in a specific state to offer promotional deals you can also use these lists to invoice an entire group at once you can manage your suppliers in xero as well you can connect your bank and credit card account directly to xero or you can manually import your bank statements you can easily categorize your expenses and split transactions zero smart categorization remembers the past transaction categories you used and automatically categorizes new transactions for you although you still have to click each transaction individually to approve the categorization to clear up any confusion every xero plan comes with the expense tracking features listed above established plan users get access to additional expense features such as expense claims automatic receipt scanning extra expense analytics and the xero expenses app in other words full expense management note that existing xero users who were already using the expense claim feature will still have access to expense claims no matter which of the plans they're on loyal users aren't getting left behind you can reconcile your accounts and run a reconciliation report in xero xero automatically creates a default chart of accounts for you based on your organization type and industry you can customize the default version or choose to import your chart of accounts you can manage fixed assets and run depreciation schedules with xero you can choose between several depreciation schedules and add information such as the assets serial number and the warranty expiration date you can easily create and manage bills in xero you can enable recurring bills and attach relevant documents or photos of the bill to xero there's a nice new purchases overview screen that shows you details about your bills and purchase orders xero added the ability to write customize and print checks directly from your account i'll post a link to our article on the top places to purchase business checks so you can find the best deals you can add products or services to xero although xero is much better suited for product based businesses you can add items and record basic information create internal notes and add attachments to items you can also track inventory and make inventory adjustments with tracked inventory zero keeps tabs on your stock levels average purchase costs and the number of items committed to quotes there are no email reminders for low stock and xero does not allow your tracked items to go negative though the established plan offers projects and basic job costing a welcome addition that xero hasn't had in the past users can create projects attach expenses and time monitor budgets and easily create project invoices you can also use progress payments and the xero projects app if you use the established plan you can track billable time to add to projects xero offers ample accounting reports there are 55 reports in total covering everything from sales and budgeting to cash flow and more reports can be customized as needed and you can save your favorite reports for quick access you can use the budget manager report to create a 3 month 6 month 12 month or 24 month budget you can run a budget summary at any time to see if you're hitting your financial goals users with advisor or standard roles can create journals so long as they have access to all reports you can also create recurring journals xero allows you to set up two tracking categories with a hundred individual tracking options within each category these categories are a way to organize your information and get more detail on your reports some people create categories for locations departments teams manufacturing etc and you can easily create purchase orders and convert them into bills on top of the basics you can add internal notes delivery instructions and expected delivery dates to purchase orders if your supplier ships your order in parts you can record a part supply to keep track of how much inventory you've already received if your business needs packing slips you can download the packing slip with invoice template from xero's help center really though i'd like to see this template pre-loaded into xero so that the feature is already built into the software making it much easier to access xero offers eight default email templates and any number of custom templates you can set default sales taxes for purchases sales and customers compound and combined taxes are supported xero also has a sales tax lookup feature that automatically calculates sales tax based on your contact's address xero used to offer great tax support now that xero no longer has built-in payroll you'll only find help with sales tax though xero supports over 160 currencies so long as you have the established plan currencies are updated hourly through zero expenses and reports can be customized and run in different currencies xero has extensive import and export capabilities so most anything can be imported and exported using multiple file forms importing data can be quite cumbersome and time consuming 

but xero does give a lot of guidance on how to do it xero used to offer strong customer support and while there are still a ton of great support resources available getting in touch with an actual representative is a lot more difficult these days xero has never offered phone support and has relied on email support users have complained about the lack of phone support forever 

but this wasn't much of a problem before as xero usually answered emails within an hour or two now it can take up to a day to hear back from a representative there is no good way to get a quick answer from xero another issue i have with xero's customer service is that it's hard to find the support options before creating xero central the company had a beautiful well organized help center xero central is still well organized 

but the option to post a question or email a rep is hidden you have to search for an article and when you scroll down to the very bottom of that article you'll see options to ask or email a question xero central aside xero's resource page puts many of xero's other support resources in a single location which is really helpful luckily xero offers a lot of other support options as well here are the ways that you can reach xero you can contact xero by email with questions a live chat feature is available on the actual xero website it's mainly for sales inquiries 

but representatives were usually helpful with questions about features as well if nothing else they know what direction to point you in whenever you open a feature in xero you'll find a video or an article explaining exactly what the feature is and how to use it there's also a help button in the top right hand corner that will pull up relevant articles from xeros help center unfortunately xero removed the ability to chat with xero representatives directly in the software xero has a comprehensive help center called xero central with how-to articles and common troubleshooting issues xero central also encompasses the xero community so you can view comments and questions from other users and you can suggest new features as well at the bottom of each help article you can post questions in the xero community or email a representative directly when you email a rep you can choose to let a zero customer service agent have read-only access to your account so they can better assist you with any problems you may be experiencing xero offers a ton of business guides covering everything from invoicing and bank reconciliation to depreciation and more there's also a guide called how to start a small business the ultimate guide and an accounting glossary for new users xero tv offers hundreds of videos explaining how to use the software it's one of the best support resources xero offers and is a great help to new users if more than 700 videos aren't enough for you check out the xero podcast featuring digital marketing strategy advice and ceo talks xero also offers a training program called xero u which includes online courses like their getting to know zero class the xero blog is well developed and features business news advice articles ideas for success and more xero has facebook twitter youtube and linkedin accounts in the past xero received predominantly positive customer reviews and while there are still a large number of positive reviews there seem to be an increase in negative reviews as of late here are some of the recurring issues according to xero users one of the biggest issues for users is mobile access people are disappointed with the functionality of the apps especially compared to the desktop version there are also reports of bugs and crashes some xero users already found zero expensive 

but now many more users are complaining about the increase in price not only do users dislike the new price plans and the removal of payroll but they also dislike that features such as project management are now limited to the most expensive plan many users say xero is not very intuitive there's a bit of a learning curve although it's not as bad as quickbooks pro some also don't like the new dashboard organization and say that features take far more clicks than it used to several users take issue with the lack of phone support and more users have complained of poor customer support and slow responses over the last few months despite the complaints xero still receives many positive reviews from users and accountants alike xero has 4.3 out of 5 stars on software advice that's based on over 1900 ratings it also has a 4.3 out of 5 on g2 crowd a score based on over 300 ratings and 8.7 out of 10 stars on trust radius based on over 200 ratings here are the most common reasons users like the software the biggest comment by far is that xero is easy to use many accounts like xero for this reason because they can teach their customers how to use the software quickly users like the large feature selection especially the reporting and automations users and accountants alike enjoy xero's strong accounting features several even say that they like the software better than quickbooks a common point of praise is for the mobility this cloud-based software gives business owners as opposed to the locally installed quickbooks desktop alternative some users also really like xero's mobile apps although the consensus is that they could use some work quite a few users commented that the more than 800 integrations make their lives easier and their businesses run more smoothly xero offers over 800 integrations to choose from if that's not enough xero also integrates with xavier connecting the software to hundreds of additional add-ons 

but some zero integrations are country specific so make sure they are compatible before you make any additions or purchases xero also offers apis for developers and if you're interested in accepting online payments from your customers read our comprehensive merchant account reviews to learn the pros and cons of popular providers and see which payment processing option is best for your business i'm gonna post a link to that in the description below xero has a reputation for some of the strongest cloud security out there security measures include data encryption two-step authentication and 24-7 monitoring at multiple locations zero backs up data on a daily basis across various servers and performs security audits regularly xero also boasts an impressive record of 99.97 percent uptime for more details on xero security contact them directly xero is a robust cloud-based software with strong accounting ample integrations and some great features it offers tons of automations to save your business time such as automatic sales tax lookup group invoicing and default templates the new sales overview and bills overview pages are a nice addition and xero offers unlimited users to boot that said the software does have its drawbacks there's limited tax support limited invoice templates and a steep learning curve the recent navigation bar change seems to make accessing features more difficult by requiring more clicks rather than streamlining the software i can also understand why xero users are complaining about the recent price increase and feature changes one of the things that set xero apart was its built-in payroll and the fact that all features were accessible on all plans without built-in payroll xero also lost its great tax support and customer service has taken a turn for the worse however there are a few things to keep in mind first xero's built-in payroll was flawed from the get-go one of the biggest complaints i had about xero was that not all 50 states had payroll support 

but with this transition to using gusto all 50 states are supported and businesses get added functionality such as health insurance and retirement support xero also added projects a feature users have been begging for for years this doesn't forgive the fact that some features are limited to the most expensive plan 

but considering that xero offers unlimited users the established plan could very well still be cheaper for your business than quickbooks online if you have multiple users plus it's still slightly less expensive than quickbooks online in the end xero is a good solution for mid to large side businesses in need of strong accounting features and multiple users take advantage of users free trial to see if it's a good solution for you and so that wraps up my zero review i hope you liked this video if you did please hit that like button don't forget to leave your questions and your comments down in the comment section below we answer every comment thank you for watching until next time

What is Stripe and How Does it Work? [Stripe Explained]

 Unless you’re really paying attention, Stripe can almost seem like a conspiracy: it’s everywhere — 

but not always in plain sight. The truth is, Stripe is a “full-stack payment processor,” which is a fancy way of saying that it serves as both a third-party payment processor and a payment gateway. What this means is that Stripe allows your business to process credit and debit cards, as well as automated clearing house transactions, both online and offline. Stripe was founded in 2010 and powers the transactions of some of the biggest brands out there, including Lyft, Under Armour, Blue Apron, and Pinterest. In fact, the company claims that eighty-nine percent of all credit cards have been processed on a Stripe network at some point. With the ability to handle a hundred and thirty-five currencies, it’s a common solution for companies that do business internationally. Stripe has a tremendous amount of potential power under its hood, 

but not every business will have the resources, or the need, to make use of everything it can do. Now, let's take an in-depth look into how Stripe works and what it can offer your business. The simplest way to think of Stripe Payments is as a payment processing platform. It allows you to transfer money from a customer’s bank account into your business’s account by way of a credit or debit card transaction. Stripe can be used for all kinds of transactions, 

but odds are you’re considering it because you’re looking for an eCommerce solution. So let's dig into how Stripe works in an online retail setting. To process online transactions you need both a payment gateway and payment processor. The gateway securely captures and transmits the customer’s credit card payment information to the processor, which then actually processes the transaction. Funds from the customer’s bank are then temporarily routed to a merchant account. In the case of Stripe and other third-party processors, it’s an aggregated account. We'll talk about that more in a little bit. That's where credit card-related fees are deducted from the sum. The payment is then routed to the merchant’s bank account. If you want to dive into the details, it's actually a lot more complicated than that, 

but for our purposes, this works as a general overview. Stripe does both. It combines gateway functionality and payment processing, making it a convenient way to handle eCommerce, although not necessarily the cheapest way. Now, let’s take a look at how Stripe makes it happen. Stripe bills itself as a developer-friendly solution, that solves problems with elegant code: Stripe's online developer resources are certainly impressive and, unlike many of its competitors, they’re completely public, so you can get a sense of the work involved in setting it up. You’ll need two pairs of keys to use Stripe’s REST API: one for testing, the other for when you go live. You can find them in your Stripe Dashboard under Developers, API Keys. 

You can toggle between Live and Test keys once your account is activated. Stripe plays nicely with popular server-side languages/frameworks, with particular care given to Ruby, Python, PHP, Java, Node.js, Go, and .NET. The minimal setup up for Stripe is actually pretty simple and, if you’re using a pre-built checkout like Stripe Checkout, is probably manageable for developers with limited experience; we’re talking less than 15 lines of code to test the API call. The first thing you’ll need to do is install the language-appropriate Stripe library. You can do this with package managers like npm for Node.js, pip for Python, etc. From there, it’s just a matter of setting your API keys and creating an object containing your payment intent with properties for amount,

currency, payment method, and the email address the receipt will be sent to. If you’re successful, Stripe will return an object containing transaction details. From here, Stripe stops holding your hand quite so tightly and instead offers a few different paths you can take to build an eCommerce page, or, in the case of Stripe Checkout, integrate it into your own page. The guides are all as concise as the basic setup guide, with plenty of code snippets and links to other relevant parts of the Stripe Docs. If you don’t want to start from scratch, you can clone one of many existing boilerplate projects through GitHub. Did you find yourself nodding off through all that? That's understandable. Not everyone codes, and not every business has access to a developer. While Stripe itself is developer-focused, there are ways to work it into your payment processing pipeline without having an in-house tech team. The two basic ones are: Contract with one of Stripe’s partnered developers, and Use a pre-built eCommerce solution that supports Stripe integration. You’ll see a lot of familiar names if you consider the second option. Let’s use WooCommerce as a case study. The exact process with other integrations may be a little different, 

but the big commonality is that you’ll need to enable Stripe via two keys provided by the processor. WooCommerce exists both as a WordPress theme and an integration that can be plugged into other WordPress themes. Make sure you’ve installed WooCommerce’s Stripe Payment Gateway plugin. Once you have, you’ll find the necessary settings under—wait for it—WooCommerce, Settings in your CMS sidebar. Click over to the Checkout tab and then look for the Stripe submenu link. You’ll then have the option to Enable or Disable Stripe and make custom fields for your shopping cart. At this point, you can Enable Test Mode to try out the test credit numbers provided by Stripe. You’ll need your Test Secret Key and Test Publishable keys to do so. If you disable Test Mode, the plugin will instead ask for the Live versions. From here, there are a few options you can enable or disable to your taste, including the ability to automatically capture credit card information or have to manually authorize it. Beware, though: you have a limited window to do so. You can use Stripe Checkout’s prebuilt fields and assets, enable Apple Pay, enable payment via saved cards, and set languages. Note that card data is saved to Stripe’s servers, not yours, which should be a relief to you. And that’s about it. You can start accepting eCommerce payments with Stripe! While this kind of set up doesn’t involve any coding, be aware that you’ll still need some familiarity with navigating your website’s CMS and submenus. Luckily, most of the bigger pre-built shopping carts have a wealth of tutorials online that should get you through the most commonly encountered problems. Stripe has a reputation for taking security very seriously, and it appears to be well-earned. Stripe is a certified PCI Service Provider Level 1, which means it meets the most stringent security standards in the industry. Stripe uses HTTPS for all services using TLS(SSL), even for their public website and dashboard. Credit card numbers are encrypted, with decryption keys stored on separate machines. That said, nobody’s perfect. Stripe offers an incentive program to anyone who identifies a qualifying security-related bug and reports it to Stripe’s security team. Major bugs earn a minimum five-hundred-dollar reward. Lesser vulnerabilities may be rewarded a minimum of one hundred dollars. If you’re still concerned about fraud, Stripe offers an advanced fraud detection service called Radar. Radar will probably be overkill for most businesses, 

but it uses machine learning to predict the likelihood that any particular transaction is fraudulent by factoring in data from your business and information Stripe has about the card being used. Radar is free with accounts paying the standard Stripe fee, or as a four cent per transaction add-on. You can also buy chargeback protection for a point zero four percent fee per transaction. You can also utilize standard fraud prevention tools like Stripe's address verification service and CVV checks. If you’re considering Stripe over a more cost-effective solution, there’s a good chance it’s because you’re interested in selling across international borders. Stripe markets itself as the premier payment services company for international business and, while its claim to the throne is debatable, it’s definitely a contender. Stripe is available in thirty-four countries. That is, it’s available to merchants whose businesses are based in those countries, 

but it can accommodate over a hundred and thirty-five different currencies. Better still, if the currency you're charging in differs from the customer’s credit card currency, Stripe can convert the payment to your currency for a small fee based on daily mid-market exchange rates. You can avoid the currency conversion fee if you have a connected bank account that uses the credit card’s currency. Another nice feature for international businesses is that Stripe allows you to display the cost of your products in the viewer’s native currency. So even if your hipster barber business is based in New York, you can sell your whisker trimmers in pounds sterling in London. Finally, Stripe accepts a large number of payment types, including ones popular in foreign markets. We’ll take a look at them in the next section. Stripe supports a large number of payment methods, making it a convenient choice for doing business in foreign markets. Stripe even takes the rare approach of supporting local payment types in addition to the more common “universal” ones, with a particular focus on types that are popular in the EU and China. Stripe’s Payments API supports the following universal payment types, which are supported in all markets. That's Alipay, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Microsoft Pay, Amex Express Checkout, Masterpass by Mastercard, Visa Checkout, and WeChat Pay Additionally, Stripe supports local payment types in the markets where they’re popular. That includes ACH, Bancontact, EPS, Giropay, iDEAL, Klarna, Multibanco, P24, SEPA, Direct Debit, SOFORT Most payment services, whether due to security concerns, legal concerns, or moral convictions, won’t work with every industry. Stripe, it turns out, is no different. Because Stripe is a third-party processor, meaning it aggregates all of its clients into a single merchant account, it’s taking on a bit more risk than if each customer had their own merchant account. If you’re in a “problem” industry and still need to accept card payments, you may want to consider getting a merchant account from a company like Payment Cloud instead. So first the obvious: Stripe will not do business with entities that sell illegal products or services, without exceptions. Beyond that, Stripe’s restrictions are a little soft: you may be able to plead your case to Stripe to get them to make an exemption for you. Stripe restricts a number of different activities, including: Financial and professional services; IP Infringement, regulated, or illegal products and services; unfair, predatory, or deceptive practices; and products or services restricted by Stripe’s financial partners; They also don’t like to see Stripe used in a manner inconsistent with its intended purpose, or in a manner prohibited by its Stripe Services Agreement. For a more complete list, see our article on Stripe at Merchant Maverick dot com, slash how does Stripe work. Stripe is a great option for businesses that do a lot of eCommerce, want the best security the industry has to offer, and do business across international borders. If you’re a programmer or have one on your team, Stripe also provides some of the best developer tools in the payment processing industry, period. The prefab integrations aren’t quite as exciting, 

but they’re serviceable if you need access to Stripe’s features. That said, Stripe can be overkill. It’s not the cheapest option, and you can’t just use it as a gateway. You get a lot of services for your money, but it’s very possible, perhaps even likely, that you won’t need or use all of them. And, like all third-party processors, it comes with a heightened risk of unexplained account holds and freezes. If you like what Stripe has to offer but are a little overwhelmed by its scope, check out our Stripe alternatives. Is your industry not served by Stripe? Find a payment processor that works with your business among our favorite online payment gateways and credit card processors.

What is a Payment Gateway? How to Use One to Process Credit Card Payments

 Payment gateways have made the e-commerce revolution possible, but how exactly stick around to find out. Over the last 25 years e-commerce has radically transformed how we shop for and buy things today we can shop online from almost anywhere and paying with credit cards is usually convenient and secure of the many software applications that make this possible none are more important than the payment gateway in this video i'll explain what a payment gateway is how it works where you can get one what features to look for and how much you can expect to pay 

but before i get started don't forget to click the subscribe button click that alert button so you know when we publish new content here on the merchant maverick youtube channel so what is a payment gateway well it's an application that connects an e-commerce merchant's website with the bank that will authorize or decline a customer's credit card payment payment gateways can also process direct transactions using alternate payment methods like e-checks or debit cards regardless of the payment method used the primary function of an online payment gateway is to securely transmit payment information from the customer to the customers issuing bank and all other parties to the transaction and to securely transmit the acceptance or denial of the payment back to the merchant and customer 

when it comes to a payment gateway versus a merchant account you might be wondering what the difference is and whether you need one or both of them so a merchant account is an account that accepts payments from your customers after the payments have been processed your merchant account basically allows payment card funds to be sent by the acquiring bank and processing charges to be deducted by the processor before sending the funds to your checking account on the other hand a payment gateway is simply a web service that allows credit card transactions to be processed over the internet just think of it as a digital pipeline between two parties just keep in mind that if you're an e-commerce you'll need both a merchant account and a payment gateway to accept credit cards online 

but if you run a physical store and are just using a credit card terminal to accept credit cards you can have a merchant account without needing a payment gateway even then you'll need one if you want to use a virtual terminal to process keyed in transactions for example if you take an order over the phone or something like that and what's more is that some point of service software requires a payment gateway to function so here's a list that shows the parties involved in payment processing and the roles each party plays a payment gateway transmits funds between your merchant account and your customers card account a payment processor is the financial institution that processes your payments an acquirer is the financial institution that manages your merchant account and a merchant account is the intermediary between your business and your customers card issuing bank a lot of parties involved in a complicated process 

but you get the idea another thing to note in the payment gateway versus payment processor discussion is that because not all merchants need a payment gateway they usually aren't a standard feature of a merchant account instead merchant account providers will offer them as an optional feature when setting up your account alternately with third-party processors such as paypal or square a gateway is a core part of the product offerings while you might pay a separate monthly gateway fee and a per transaction fee with a merchant account the cost of a gateway is built into the processing fees 

if you use a service such as square or paypal here's a condensed explanation of how payment processing works so the customer visits your ecommerce website places an order and provides a credit card number or another payment method the customer's payment information is then securely uploaded to the payment gateway the gateway encrypts this information and sends it to your merchant account or a third-party processor the transaction data is routed to your credit card association think visa or mastercard which then charges the processor an interchange fee 

if the transaction is approved which then gets passed on to you the transaction is then either approved or declined by the customers issuing bank after authorizing or declining the transaction the issuing bank transmits this information back to the credit card association from there it goes back to your merchant account and processor then to your gateway then to your website where you and your customer learn whether the transaction has been approved or denied assuming the transaction is authorized the issuing bank releases the funds to the acquiring bank to cover your customers order and the fees owing to all parties to the transaction the acquiring bank then sends the funds to your merchant account and alerts your processor and that's when your processor actually processes the transaction the processor credit card association acquiring bank and the issuing bank all get a cut of the processing fee the remaining funds get deposited into your business's bank account and merchants usually receive their funds within 24 or 48 hours 

if the transaction is declined your funds might be held while the processor investigates an internet payment gateway can be offered in one of three ways a redirected gateway is the simplest and least expensive solution for a merchant to implement a redirect is when a customer is sent to a separate site like a paypal page to complete the transaction a redirect is convenient for the seller as the redirected gateway lets another platform handle the task of processing the payment however it also leaves the merchant with less control over the process additionally the customer may not want to complete their purchase on another site or may lose trust in the payment process both of which can result in lost sales with this kind of payment gateway the customer checks out on your site 

but the gateway directs the payment to be processed off-site this is what happens when you use stripe as your online payment gateway off-site processing allows the merchant to avoid having to process payments on-site and doesn't fluster the customer by taking them to another website completely to complete a purchase however the seller is still relinquishing control to the off-site gateway you may get blamed for gateway problems over which you have no control onsite processing is the preferred solution for larger well-resourced businesses in this setup the gateway and the payment processing all occur on your server essentially you handle everything this kind of gateway setup ensures that you retain control over each step in the checkout process you won't be reliant on another service to provide a good experience to your customers however you'll be responsible for any problems that arise and 

you'll need to have the capacity to handle that payment gateways and processors typically charge you in some combination of the following ways a monthly gateway fee a membership fee a batch fee a setup fee a pci compliance fee and chargeback fees it's instructive to look to authorize.net the largest provider of standalone payment gateways their payment structure uses a 25 per month gateway fee 10 cent per transaction processing fee a 10 cent daily batch fee and no setup fees or other fees merchant account providers and other processors that include a payment gateway with their other offerings may advertise a free credit card payment gateway of course those gateway costs get absorbed by the fees you'll pay for the company services and regardless of the processor 5 to 10 cents of every credit card transaction 

typically goes to the online payment gateway one way or another gateway credit card processing takes a slice out of the pie not all website gateways are created equal let's go through some of the options you may be looking for in a gateway depending on your business needs subscription-based pricing is more popular than ever and a recurring billing feature can allow you to automate this process with this feature you can also customize billing intervals and set up trial periods for your subscriptions while many payment gateways and processors offer support for recurring billing quality can vary be aware that the subscription management system may not allow for easy pricing changes reporting may be too basic to be useful and there may be other limitations as well in some cases you may need to use specialized recurring billing software instead of your gateway but check out our guide to recurring billing for more information on the subject i've dropped a link down in the description below 

if you're running an eCommerce business, you'll certainly want to be able to accept credit and debit cards, however as the payment universe expands you'll probably want to consider accepting other forms of payment like PayPal venom apple pay click to pay and or e-check or ach payments, that means you'll need to research different gateways and processors to make sure you choose one that offers support for the payments you want to accept 

if you intend to sell solely to the domestic market and don't anticipate expanding internationally this may not concern you but if you intend to sell outside the us you'll need a gateway with international capabilities that means support for multiple currencies and international credit cards but it doesn't end there different markets have different preferences for payment types you may need support for handling foreign tax systems such as value-added taxes or vats 

if you intend to sell internationally research the features you'll need then make sure your chosen gateway provides everything required to succeed one of the best features of payment gateways is that they're generally plug and play meaning you can set them up on your website without having to do any coding but some merchants will need a higher degree of customization than that thankfully most gateway providers offer a number of apis or application program interfaces that let you customize how the gateway functions on your website such apis can help you manage your customer data track inventory and much much more these features may require a pricier gateway though you'll also need to hire a developer 

if you don't have the skills but for the right kind of business the payoff is well worth it you may need functionality beyond what the gateway itself provides for that you'll need a gateway that integrates with other payment and e-commerce services accounting wise most major payment gateways will integrate directly with quickbooks potentially saving you many hours of manually entering transaction data you might require a shopping cart integration as well the payment gateway integration process can be easy or difficult depending on how you integrate for instance if you're using a popular shopping cart like shopify or magento you can use pre-built payment gateway modules that make the integration very very easy but if the shopping cart doesn't have a pre-built module you'll have to do a custom integration which requires a developer and it can get expensive 

if you find a gateway that provides most of what you need but doesn't support all the payment methods you want to accept you can integrate with additional payment gateways that accept those payment methods many merchants do this by offering paypal checkout as an option for their customers though there are other options as well for modern e-commerce outfits pci compliance is a must several gateways on the market today simplify pci compliance for e-commerce merchants transactions are conducted on the gateway provider servers not the server hosting your website because the gateway interface is integrated into your website the customer never needs to leave your site to complete an order and with this arrangement you don't need to maintain a secure network to be pci compliant though it's still a good idea all payment gateways encrypt sensitive credit card information before they pass it along to the processing bank it's a bonus 

if the gateway also offers tokenization a complex process that further protects your customers credit card information payment gateways perform the basic function of facilitating the process of credit card transactions over the web they bring a host of security and fraud prevention features that protect you and your customers you want those in your payment gateway integrations with online shopping carts and accounting software like quickbooks will help you run your business smoothly and efficiently e-commerce businesses will be well advised to look for those integrations when shopping for a gateway they'll make your life much easier while not every business needs a payment gateway every business can usually benefit from one since there are gateways that come with little to no additional cost it makes sense to consider using one even 

if it's not absolutely necessary for you and that's it for our video today if you need help choosing a payment gateway setup check out the helpful resources that i've linked in the description below and if you like this video don't forget to hit that like button comment down below we answer every comment and until next time thank you

Is Dropshipping Worth It? 7 Reasons To Rethink Becoming A Dropshipper In 2021

I've long seen drop shipping touted as the pinnacle of self-employment but is it everything that it's promoted to be sticking around to find out. Blogs everywhere advertised drop shipping courses with photos of businessmen and women hanging out on beaches with their laptops happily clicking away as the dollars just roll in I mean it sounds good work from wherever whenever you want to work and that's what they say anyway along with other suspect claims like it's easy or there's no risk well I've got a few things to say about that first I want to dispel the idea that everyone who works from home does so while looking gorgeous in a fabulous location I work remotely myself and usually at home with a basic desk and sweatpants no fancy umbrella drink and no white sand beach at least I'm wearing regular pants 

today more importantly I want to end the myth that drop shipping is easy and risk-free while there's less upfront financial risk to drop shipping it's far from 100 safe hazards include high shipping costs low profit margins and little quality control and while you may travel anywhere you like as a drop shipping merchant you may find that you don't have the resources to do so quite as quickly or as easily as you would expect so is drop shipping really worth it in the long run 

it may depend on how much risk you're willing to absorb let's first take a minute to define drop shipping what is it exactly drop shipping is an order fulfillment technique in which the online merchant does not store or ship any of their own products instead merchants enter into agreements with drop shipping suppliers wholesalers and manufacturers who agree to pick pack and ship products on behalf of the merchant after the merchant receives a new order on their website they simply notify the supplier and the item is drop shipped directly to the customer the merchant never touches the product while there are definitely perks to drop shipping there are quite a few downsides drop shipping is not easy and it's not risk-free so here are the 

top 7 reasons you should think carefully before drop shipping with your online store running a drop shipping business is not the easy money maker it's advertised to be it's work there's so much involved in running an online business like accepting payments and providing customer service and that goes for drop shipping websites as well as a retailer you're responsible for providing customer service placing orders maintaining your website and bringing in online traffic this will all be time consuming and difficult especially if you aren't well versed in web design or seo make sure you have a good grasp of business customer service and e-commerce technology before you even begin 

if that doesn't sound like you consider starting off with an easy to use ecommerce solution that offers drop shipping features like a popular platform called shopify while drop shipping may be the most convenient way to fulfill orders it's certainly not the most lucrative yes you'll be purchasing products from a wholesaler but they won't come at rock bottom wholesale prices 

you won't be buying products in bulk but rather one by one as your customers order them and that means you won't get the lowest rates possible for your online store what's more you'll have to pay additional fees for the wholesaler to pick pack and ship each customer order and your profit margin is going to suffer accordingly most drop shippers make around 10 to 15 profit 

if that big ticket items typically bring in the lowest profit while cheaper accessory products might deliver higher margins and because there's such a low barrier to entry you'll be faced with an overwhelming amount of competition even within your niche many of your competitors will be taking the lowest price possible approach to selling which can also impact your profit margins in order to come out on top you'll have to find a drop shipping niche without too many competitors and make your product listings distinct with quality descriptions 

you can read more about how to dropship competitively in shopify's comprehensive guide which is actually a pretty good guide overall I've linked it in the description below shopify also offers a fairly decent webinar on starting a drop shipping business bloggers often advertise drop shipping as the risk-free approach to selling and it's true that upfront risk is very low because you don't have to purchase inventory before you start selling however financial risk is inherent in all businesses and drop shipping is no exception because you essentially outsource warehousing and fulfillment to your drop shipping suppliers your products will go directly to your customers without ever touching your hands that is great convenience 

but not so great for quality control you won't be able to inspect products to make sure they're up to snuff and perhaps more importantly you won't be in charge of the whole shipping process it's up to your supplier to get products out on time but your customers will blame any faulty products or delayed shipping on you and that's completely fair after all by choosing to dropship you assume this responsibility in short shipping products directly from supplier to customer may be convenient 

but it also puts you at risk for negative customer feedback about factors that are literally beyond your control returns are an unfortunate reality of e-commerce up to 25 of all online purchases are returned with fashion and health and beauty items showing the highest rates with the potential unreliability of drop shipping suppliers you may find that your products are returned more frequently some suppliers are willing to take faulty products back and may even pay for return shipping 

but you shouldn't count on it if your customer is dissatisfied with a product you may have to purchase a new product on their behalf and cover shipping expenses out of pocket shipping expenses can add up quickly when you choose to base your business on a drop shipping model particularly when you fill your store using multiple drop shipping suppliers suppose you drop ship clothing using three different suppliers to stock your products 

if one customer orders a t-shirt from each of those three suppliers you'll have to pay for each individual shipment instead of just grouping those items together this can lead to significantly higher shipping expenses and it's difficult to find a way to make up for those added costs it isn't a good idea to pass along that expense to your customer as such a high shipping cost will likely cause customers to abandon their shopping carts however neither is it a good idea to pay for separate shipping on three different items my recommendation 

if you choose to drop ship limit your number of suppliers it's difficult to be certain of your stock availability under a drop shipping model your ability to fulfill customer orders depends on your supplier stock so if for whatever reason stock levels have dropped dramatically and you're unaware of it you may end up selling products you don't even have on hand and that's a recipe for very unhappy customers granted some suppliers offer apis that give you real-time access to their stock levels which resolves most of this issue so far we've taken a realistic view of drop shipping that happens to focus on the potential downsides of this business model so what about the positives and I agree there are more than a few and here are some of them first you won't have to deal with the expense and effort of storing and shipping products because your overhead will be low you can keep prices down and keep more profits for yourself too you don't have to worry about selling all your stock you purchase only after you've secured the order that means you're not taking a great risk no matter how sales pan out you can get started in no time and with very little money all you really need is a computer and an internet connection because you're not syncing everything you have into manufacturing a single product or line you're free to see where the market takes you when sales of one of your drop shipping products start to lose steam you can add a new product to take its place and even keep the old one in your catalog 

if you want drop shipping lets you test related products that your customers might like buying your online store can expand quickly to meet all their needs and even offer some sidelines they didn't know they needed all at very little risk and low cost to you at this point you might be convinced that I take a dim view of drop shipping and you're mostly right I see drop shipping as a largely unsuccessful get rich quick scheme however I'm not opposed to every aspect of drop shipping i think partial drop shipping and outsourcing fulfillment can work very well for some merchants here's how drop shipping works well when it is paired with traditional selling say your store sells high quality dog treats which you store in your warehouse or garage or whatever and you want to branch out into selling dog toys you can easily use a drop shipping model to flesh out your store with these additional products having a few drop ship products will keep your site from becoming fully dependent on your supplier and you can still benefit from the simplicity of the model without being fully dependent on it for your storage profits this is an excellent option for merchants who can't store merchandise in their garages anymore and don't have the time or the personnel to pick and pack all their orders outsourcing your warehousing and shipping to fulfillment providers like shipwire and fulfillright can give you the same freedom that you get with drop shipping but with lower risk you'll enter into a contract with that fulfillment partner so they're responsible for shipping on time and you can still be sure the quality of your products 

if your online store is built on the shopify platform you even have the in-house fulfillment option you can read about our take on shopify fulfillment to see if it might be a good choice for your business I've linked that article in the description below the only downside to fulfillment services are fees fulfillment services can be quite expensive you'll have to crunch the numbers to make sure the convenience and smaller staff size is worth it perhaps you're only just starting out and you don't yet have enough sales or products to justify a warehouse in that case there's nothing wrong with fulfilling orders yourself it's cheaper and you can make sure it's done exactly the way you'd like once you have an established customer base you can look to drop shipping as a way to expand your offerings and your profits 

if you choose this more traditional route you can still take advantage of some tools to simplify the sales process and make your life easier one solution is to use shipping software to make everything easier once customers place orders you can find reasonably priced shipping software you can use to integrate with your ecommerce platform these make it a snap to calculate shipping rates print shipping labels and packing slips and even access discounted shipping rates to save you money 

if you're thinking about building an online site for the first time you should take a look at some of the most popular ecommerce platforms to save yourself some valuable time I'd recommend that you look at our in-depth shopify review as well as our zoe review if you're new to web development I'll link that in the description below if you're fluent in html check out our woocommerce review and our magento review and if drop shipping seems like a good fit for your ecommerce plans check out our complete guide for how to start a drop shipping business 

if you like a little of what you see in the drop shipping model but also like the security of creating an online store using a tried and true website builder like shopify take a look at some of the shopify drop shipping apps that are available for you to use you might find that's the best way to get started whatever you decide I wish you luck I hope you find a metaphorical beach to relax on in whatever form it may take and if you like this article don't forget to subscribe to our channel hit that like button and comment we answer every comment so until next time

What Are Corporate Credit Cards And How Do They Work?

What is a corporate credit card? At their core corporate credit cards are similar to normal credit cards, but there are a few key differences stick around to find out what they are. Corporate credit cards can be used to make purchases on credit which must then be paid off either over a period of time or by the next billing cycle they can also offer wards whenever they're used for purchase just like your average credit card on top of that however corporate cards come with robust tools that allow companies to track spending give out employee cards and even more in today's artcle. 

I'll cover some of the basics of corporate credit cards to help you determine if they're right for your business but before i get started don't forget to click our subscribe button to follow our channel okay so here's what you need to know corporate cards tend to be targeted at large companies this means that not every corporate card will be a good fit for a small business like a sole proprietorship or unincorporated business however some corporate cards do advertise to small businesses 

for example brex which we'll discuss further in greater detail in a bit is one corporate card provider that markets his product to smaller businesses corporate credit cards are issued to companies by various financial institutions but generally their banks these cards are designed to help companies track and control employee spending and often feature robust financial toolsets once a company has access to a corporate card program it can then give employees their own individual cards and these cards can be used to make purchases and often give companies rewards for spending just like normal credit cards 

they also give companies deep insights into how employee spending operates on an individual level potentially catching fraud or unnecessary spending before things get out of hand in many cases corporate cards function as charge cards charge cards operate a bit differently from normal credit cards instead of carrying a balance from statement to statement a charge card's balance must be paid off in full by a set date this setup may seem like a burden but it's becoming popular for corporate card issuers to provide flexible terms so that companies can choose how often a balance must be paid off between rewards employee 

tracking and flexible terms we found that corporate cards could be an excellent option for many companies something that many experts we've reached out to have echoed there are a number of corporate card issuers some come from the traditional banking space while others are upstart challengers here are a few of the traditional companies that offer corporate cards the first is american express with four different levels of corporate cards amex is one of the more popular traditional corporate card issuers the four card lineup is extremely flexible companies can mix and match cards to fit the spending and travel habits of different employees and beyond the base 

four cards amex also offers a corporate program built for startups next up is capital one their one card program provides companies with real-time expense management automatic payments and mastercard standard benefits package it also features savings of up to four percent and a rewards program that allows points to be redeemed for statement credit gift cards or travel bookings jp morgan is one half of jp morgan and chase company and they offer up several corporate card programs these include programs targeted at business travelers business to business purchases and general use cases a separate virtual card solution is also available for digital payments next let's look at a few of the more modern companies in most cases these companies are venture-backed startups attempting to disrupt the corporate card industry first up brex when it comes to venture-backed corporate card issuers it's hard to dispute brexi's place atop the hill besides building a smooth corporate card experience brex has also started assembling what it calls a financial operating system for businesses with business cash accounts expense tracking instant revenue and venture debt financing all under one roof businesses with brexes corporate card will be able to tap into unique rewards schemes as well as set up employees spend controls ramp is a relative newcomer but it has been providing a healthy challenge to brexi's top dog position their corporate card is designed to help companies spend less and it does this through automated expense reporting and an insights feature that finds duplicate subscriptions unclaimed rewards and lower pricing plans divi is another corporate card issuer attempting to solve common issues in the business world focused on spend management on the card side of things divi doles out up to seven times rewards and features full on team by team expense tracking software with spend notifications and instant purchase categorization row is the newest of the four fintech companies 

we've highlighted featuring a full banking suite alongside its corporate card product corporate cars from roe dole out cash back for purchases promise high credit limits and allow for flexible terms as with most things there are benefits and drawbacks to corporate cards whether the pros outweigh the cons for your business will largely depend on how you're structured and how much thought you give to setting up spending rules and boundaries many business owners and industry experts that we've talked to agreed upon one thing corporate cards can save time here's a snapshot of what a few of those experts have said about the benefits of corporate cards beyond those pros we've also found that corporate cards can be great addition to a company's financial toolbox because they usually offer rewards which can provide extra savings whenever an employee uses the card their robust expense tracking tools can also provide a level of detail on what your company purchases something that isn't always easy or intuitive without a corporate card program and while corporate cards have plenty of convincing reasons to get them.

They aren't without their drawbacks corporate cards could lead to overspending or even fraudulent purchases if they aren't monitored closely unfortunately improper use of spending controls could cost the company time and money once let loose with a corporate card employees might make unnecessary purchases some corporate card programs may be too costly for some businesses while it's possible that corporate cards could end up costing your company more than it's worth staying on top of expense tracking and making sure employees understand guidelines will limit unneeded spending additionally some very small companies such as sole proprietorships or those with limited number of employees may not see much benefit with a corporate card program even if they qualify for one in those cases sticking with a small business or personal credit card may prove to be the correct choice and while corporate cards and business credits functionally do similar things there are a few key differences credit cards designed for small businesses need to have very different benefits on top of those differences corporate cards can also be more difficult to access because of stringent eligibility requirements additionally corporate cards generally place liability on the company while small business credit cards often require personal guarantees normally putting the business owner on the hook for any debt finally some small business credit cards place a cap on the number of cards you can issue to employees corporate cards generally don't have this sort of cap to learn more about the differences between corporate cards and business credit cards check out the link in our description below so now that you know more about corporate cards you're probably wondering how your company can get one luckily the process isn't too complex although it's not as refined as applying for a personal or small business credit card to start make sure your company qualifies for a corporate credit card in the first place this usually means your company must be an s corporation a or an llc and 

on top of that you might need to hit certain cash revenue or credit requirements next determine which issuer you want your company to work with and reach out to learn their application process some offer demos while others may have a stricter application process but always make sure to shop around before deciding on the program for your business get a more detailed look at the process of getting your company a corporate card with our guide how to get a corporate credit card linked in the description below for most companies picking a corporate card program out of the trifecta of brex ramp or divi will be a smart choice all.

Three companies offer corporate card products targeted towards modern companies that need flexible solutions other companies may prefer a traditional solution however such as american express or capital one for a deeper look at our favorite corporate credit cards head on over to our in-depth analysis of the best corporate credit cards on the market linked in our description below and that's it for our article today hope you liked it if you did please hit that like button subscribe to our channel and don't forget to leave your comments in the comment section below until next article.