E-sign a document https://www.echosign.adobe.com/en/home.html
Sales Tax Lookup/Filing - http://www.avalara.com/
Friday, April 26, 2013
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
4/24/2013
You can't manage what you don't measure.
http://www.forentrepreneurs.com/startup-killer/
- Cost to Acquire Customers (CAC)
- The ability to monetize those customers, or LTV (which stands for Lifetime Value of a Customer)
Successful web businesses have long understood these metrics as they have such an easy way to measure them. However there is a lot of value in looking at these same metrics for all other businesses.
To compute the cost to acquire a customer, CAC, you would take your entire cost of sales and marketing over a given period, including salaries and other headcount related expenses, and divide it by the number of customers that you acquired in that period. (In pure web businesses where the headcount doesn’t need to grow as customer acquisition scales, it is also very useful to look customer acquisition costs without the headcount costs.)
To compute the Lifetime Value of a Customer, LTV, you would look at the Gross Margin that you would expect to make from that customer over the lifetime of your relationship. Gross Margin should take into consideration any support, installation, and servicing costs.
CAC calculations
For example, if you are using Google Ad Words to drive traffic to your site, take a look at the following interactive spreadsheet. This example shows a cost per click of 50 cents, and the resulting website visitors converting to a trial at the rate of 5%. Those trials are then shown converting to paid customers at the rate of 10%. What the sheet shows is that each customer is costing you $100 in just lead generation expense. For many consumer facing web sites, it can be hard to get the consumer to pay more than $100 for the service. And this cost does not factor in the marketing staff, web site costs, etc.
Simple Cost of Customer Acquisition Calculation
Input Variables
Total Web Visitors 10,000
SEM cost per click $0.50
Conversion to trial % 5%
Trial conversion % 10%
No of Sales & Marketing Staff 5
Cost per employee per month $16,500
Flow Qty. Conversion %
Total Paid Web Vistors 10,000
Trials 500 5%
Customers 50 10%
SEM Marketing Spend $5,000
Total Headcount Costs $82,500
Cost of Customer Acquisition
Without headcount costs $100.00
With headcount costs $1,750.00
Direct Field Sales Force Cost
(All numbers are annual)
Sales Sales Eng Inside Sales
Team composition 1 1 0.5
On target earnings $230,000 $140,000 $90,000
Salary Cost $230,000 $140,000 $45,000
Salary + Overhead $310,500 $189,000 $60,750
Total Team Cost $560,250
Avg. team Failure Rate 25%
Adjusted Team Cost $747,000
No. of Marketing people 0.5
Average cost per person $200,000
Marketing Programs Spend $150,000
Total Marketing Costs $350,000
Total Sales & Marketing spend $1,097,000
No of deals per team per year 10
Cost of Customer Acquisition $109,700
Once you have completed the product, you will want to familiarize yourself with all the latest techniques involved in the low cost sales model, or Sales 2.0.
From a funding standpoint, it is useful to know that your ability to raise capital will dramatically improve as soon as you have proven that you have a viable business model. Think of that as two equations:
- CAC < LTV (3x appears to be a rough minimum for SaaS businesses)
- CAC should be recovered in < 12 months (for subscription businesses)
Tool to calcualte your CAC thru your website. http://www.panalysis.com/customer_acquisition_cost/
Friday, April 19, 2013
4/19/2013
gigs 3rd person singular present, plural of gig
| Noun
| |
| Verb
|
Monday, April 15, 2013
4/15/2013
Wally claimed the standard deduction on last year's tax return and received a state tax refund. Is the refund taxable and if so, how does Wally report it?
Only taxpayers who itemize deductions and receive a state or local refund may have to include all or part of the refund in their taxable income.
Friday, April 12, 2013
4/12/2013
Do not confuse Form 1099 with Form 1098. Generally, Form 1098 reports expenses taxpayers have paid, not income they have received.
What is Taxable income and what is nontaxable. http://apps.irs.gov/app/vita/content/globalmedia/income_tables_a_b_4012.pdf
Alimony = spousal support
Bond Calculator - http://www.treasurydirect.gov/BC/SBCPrice
IBond - An I Bond earns interest monthly from the first day of the month in the issue date. The interest accrues (is added to the bond) for up to 30 years.
- The interest is compounded semiannually. Twice a year, on the 6th and 12th month anniversaries of the bond's issue date, all interest the bond has earned in previous months is in the bond's new principal value on which interest is earned for the next 6 months. For example, in month 7, interest is earned on the original price plus six months of interest. In month 13, interest is earned on the original price plus 12 months of interest. (However, values displayed by the Savings Bond Calculator for bonds that are less than 5 years old do not include the latest 3 months of interest. These values reflect the interest penalty.) If you hold the bond for at least five years, when you cash in (redeem) the bond, you receive all the interest the bond has earned plus the amount you paid for the bond.
- You can redeem the bond after 12 months. However, if you redeem the bond before it is five years old, you lose the last three months of interest.
http://treasurydirect.gov/indiv/research/indepth/ibonds/res_ibonds_iratesandterms.htm#now
IBOND - http://beginnersinvest.about.com/od/ibonds/a/intro-to-series-i-savings-bonds.htm
Series I savings bonds are subject to Federal taxes. When you buy your Series I savings bonds, you will owe the Federal government taxes on the interest income you earn during the time you hold the bonds. Due to the fact that the Series I savings bond is a special type of bond known as a "zero coupon" (that is, you won't receive regular checks in the mail; instead, the interest you earn is added back to the bond value and you'll earn interest on your interest), you have a choice between one of two taxation methods: the cash method or the accrual method. The cash method means you will only pay tax on your I bonds when you redeem them (that is, sell them back) to the United States government. If you hold your bond for 20 years, then you won't pay any tax during that period, but you'll owe a tax when you sell out of the investment. If you opt for the accrual method of taxation on your I bonds, you will pay the tax that is due on the interest you earned for the year that was added back to your principal.
Can You Ever Lose Money Investing In I Bonds?
No. Remarkably, I bonds are one of the only investments in the world that the United States Government guarantees. If inflation picks up, you will earn more interest through the inflation adjustment. If the economy enters deflation, the I bonds have a guarantee that they will never go below 0.00% interest per year, meaning your purchasing power would continue to increase even if you weren't earning any interest on your money.
How Long Do You Have to Hold I Bonds?
Series I savings bonds are not intended to be traded, but rather held as long-term investments. You cannot cash them in for at least 12 months after buying each I bond, and if you redeem the bonds before the 5 year anniversary of the purchase date, you will pay a penalty of three months' interest.
How Are I Bonds Are Taxed?
I bonds are exempt from state taxes and local taxes. They are, however, subject to federal taxes but you as an investor have the option to pay taxes on a cash basis or an accrual basis. Under the cash method, you wouldn't pay taxes until you redeemed your bond because even though you had earned the interest income, you hadn't actually seen any of that money. Under the accrual method, you would pay taxes each year on the income you earned that was added back to the value of your I bond. Many investors prefer the cash method of taxation so they don't have to pay taxes out of their own pocket each year, instead using the bond proceeds when they sell the bond to cover any obligations to the government. For more information, read Tax Benefits of Series I Savings Bonds.
Using Series I Bonds to Pay for Education Expenses
You won't pay any tax on the interest income you earn from your Series I savings bondsif you use them to pay for qualified educational expenses and you meet the income limits. Just what count as qualified educational expenses? These include:
- Tuition and fees such as required lab courses to a university or college
- Expenses paid for any course that is required as a part of your degree program or certificate-granting program.
- The cost of books or room and board do not count as qualified expenses.
- The expenses must be incurred on behalf of you, your spouse, or a dependent for whom you claim an exemption on your taxes.
There are several other conditions for paying no taxes on your Series I savings bonds.
- The I bonds must have been purchased after 1989.
- You must pay for the qualified education expenses in the same tax year you cash in your Series I savings bonds.
- You must be at least 24 years or older on the 1st day of the month in which you bought the bonds. If you were 18 years old, for instance, you wouldn't be eligible to use the Series I savings bonds to pay for you or your family's college costs; you'd still be stuck with the tax bill.
- If you are using your Series I savings bonds to pay for the college education of a child or other minor for whom you list as a dependent, the bonds must be registered in your name and / or the name of your spouse. You can list your child as the I bond beneficiary, but you cannot list them as the owner. Otherwise, you won't get the tax exemption on the I bonds when using them to pay for college.
- If you're married, you and your spouse must file a joint tax return to qualify for the Series I savings bonds tax benefits. For same sex partners legally married in the numerous states that permit marriage equality, you're out of luck. Since the Federal government doesn't recognize these marriages, you are, in industry parlance, screwed. Unfortunately, at this time, there's nothing you can do about it unless Congress acts to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).
- You must meet the income limits set forth by the Treasury Department to qualify for the tax benefits of the Series I savings bonds. There are some detailed calculations to arrive at whether or not you qualify (see IRS form 8815). For the last full fiscal tax year, 2008, the interest deduction begins to phase out at $67,100 modified AGI and is completely gone at $82,100. For married joint filers, the tax benefits start to get reduced at $100,650 and are completely gone once your modified adjusted gross income exceed $130,650.
- The college, vocational school, or university must meet federal assistance standards, such as the guaranteed student loan program. Otherwise, you won't get the Series I bond tax exclusion.
What is Form 1099-OID?
You are issued a Form 1099-OID when you have purchased a bond or note for an amount that is less than face value. An OID (Original Issue Discount) is the excess of a bond or note's stated redemption price over its issue price. The stated redemption price is usually the face value of the bond or note (say $10,000). The issue price is generally the amount at which the bond or note was first sold by the issuer (say $9,500).
The profit you make on the purchase ($500 in our example) is the OID and is taxable interest income for you over the life of the bond. You must include a part of the OID as interest income each year you hold the bond - even if you don't actually receive any interest until the bond matures. You'll be issued a Form 1099-OID to document your OID interest.
Question: Are capital gains and capital gain distributions the same thing?
Answer: No. A capital gain occurs when the owner of a mutual fund (or capital asset) sells shares in the fund (or property) for more than its cost and realizes a profit. A capital gain distribution occurs when the mutual fund sells assets for more than their cost and distributes the realized gain to the shareholders.
Thursday, April 11, 2013
4/11/2013
When a taxpayer is a citizen or resident alien whose spouse does not meet the green card or substantial presence test, the couple may choose to file as Married Filing Jointly and treat the nonresident spouse as a resident alien.
Paul Stone, a U.S. citizen, is married to a Chinese citizen. In 2011, their daughter was born in China. His daughter meets the citizen/resident test. Paul's daughter is considered to be a U.S. citizen because her father is a U.S. citizen.
A refund on an amended tax return accrues interest and is added to the tax refund check.
Top 10 Myths About Dividend Investing - http://www.dividend.com/dividend-education/top-ten-myths-about-dividend-investing/
40 Things Every Dividend Investor Should Know About Dividend Investing - http://www.dividend.com/dividend-education/40-things-every-dividend-investor-should-know-about-dividend-investing/
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
4/10/2013
1. Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.
–Warren Buffett
2. Rule No.1: Never lose money. Rule No.2: Never forget rule No.1.
–Warren Buffett
3. If you’re prepared to invest in a company, then you ought to be able to explain why in simple language that a fifth grader could understand, and quickly enough so the fifth grader won’t get bored.
–Peter Lynch
4. Behind every stock is a company. Find out what it’s doing.
–Peter Lynch
5. While it might seem that anyone can be a value investor, the essential characteristics of this type of investor-patience, discipline, and risk aversion-may well be genetically determined.
–Seth Klarmans
6. Twenty years in this business convinces me that any normal person using the customary three percent of the brain can pick stocks just as well, if not better, than the average Wall Street expert.
–Peter Lynch
7. The underlying principles of sound investment should not alter from decade to decade, but the application of these principles must be adapted to significant changes in the financial mechanisms and climate.
–Benjamin Graham
[For some insight into dividend investing, check out 40 Things Every Dividend Investor Should Know.]
8. Only buy something that you’d be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for 10 years.
–Warren Buffett
9. We simply attempt to be fearful when others are greedy and to be greedy only when others are fearful. -
Warren Buffett
10. The individual investor should act consistently as an investor and not as a speculator.
–Benjamin Graham
11. Know what you own, and know why you own it.
–Peter Lynch
12. Based on my own personal experience – both as an investor in recent years and an expert witness in years past – rarely do more than three or four variables really count. Everything else is noise.
–Martin Whitman
13. We ignore outlooks and forecasts… we’re lousy at it and we admit it … everyone else is lousy too, but most people won’t admit it.
–Martin Whitman
14. There’s a virtuous cycle when people have to defend challenges to their ideas. Any gaps in thinking or analysis become clear pretty quickly when smart people ask good, logical questions. You can’t be a good value investor without being an independent thinker – you’re seeing valuations that the market is not appreciating. But it’s critical that you understand why the market isn’t seeing the value you do. The back and forth that goes on in the investment process helps you get at that.
–Joel Greenblatt
15. The stock market is the story of cycles and of the human behavior that is responsible for overreactions in both directions.
–Seth Klarman
16. Generally, the greater the stigma or revulsion, the better the bargain.
–Seth Klarman
17. If you are shopping for common stocks, choose them the way you would buy groceries, not the way you would buy perfume.
–Benjamin Graham
18. Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing.
–Warren Buffett
[Do you know what you're doing when it comes to dividend investing? Find out by reading Top 10 Myths About Dividend Investing.]
19. Investing is the intersection of economics and psychology.
–Seth Klarman
20. We don’t have to be smarter than the rest. We have to be more disciplined than the rest.
–Warren Buffett
21. Confronted with a challenge to distill the secret of sound investment into three words, we venture the motto, Margin of Safety.
–Ben Graham
22. Value investing is risk aversion.
–Seth Klarman
23. Value investing is at its core the marriage of a contrarian streak and a calculator.
–Seth Klarman
24. Cash combined with courage in a time of crisis is priceless.
–Warren Buffett
25. It is remarkable how much long-term advantage people like us have gotten by trying to be consistently not stupid, instead of trying to be very intelligent.
–Charlie Munger
26. Our job is to find a few intelligent things to do, not to keep up with every damn thing in the world.
–Charlie Munger
27. In the short run, the market is a voting machine, but in the long run it is a weighing machine.
–Ben Graham
28. All intelligent investing is value investing — acquiring more that you are paying for. You must value the business in order to value the stock.
–Charlie Munger
[A lot of investors think that dividend investing and value investing are the same thing, but they're not; find out more in 5 Common Misconceptions About Dividend Investing.]
29. While some might mistakenly consider value investing a mechanical tool for identifying bargains, it is actually a comprehensive investment philosophy that emphasizes the need to perform in-depth fundamental analysis, pursue long-term investment results, limit risk, and resist crowd psychology.
–Seth Klarman
30. Buy not on optimism, but on arithmetic.
–Benjamin Graham
31. As in roulette, same is true of the stock trader, who will find that the expense of trading weights the dice heavily against him.
–Benjamin Graham
32. If you have more than 120 or 130 I.Q. points, you can afford to give the rest away. You don’t need extraordinary intelligence to succeed as an investor.
–Warren Buffett
33. If you don’t study any companies, you have the same success buying stocks as you do in a poker game if you bet without looking at your cards.
–Peter Lynch
34. In the long run, it’s not just how much money you make that will determine your future prosperity. It’s how much of that money you put to work by saving it and investing it.
–Peter Lynch
35. Unless you can watch your stock holding decline by 50% without becoming panic-stricken, you should not be in the stock market.
–Warren Buffett
36. Wide diversification is only required when investors do not understand what they are doing.
–Warren Buffett
37. If investing is entertaining, if you’re having fun, you’re probably not making any money. Good investing is boring.
–George Soros
38. Go for a business that any idiot can run – because sooner or later, any idiot probably is going to run it.
–Peter Lynch
39. If you are not willing to own a stock for 10 years, do not even think about owning it for 10 minutes.
–Warren Buffett
40. Calling someone who trades actively in the market an investor is like calling someone who repeatedly engages in one-night stands a romantic.
–Warren Buffet
41. Although it’s easy to forget sometimes, a share is not a lottery ticket… it’s part-ownership of a business.
–Peter Lynch
Friday, April 5, 2013
4/5/2013
Online Trading Account Promotions, Investment Bonuses, and Brokerage Account Deals
http://www.maximizingmoney.com/online-trading-accounts-and-investment-brokerages/
TD Ameritrade - https://www.tdameritrade.com/offer/ta90days/index.html
Schwab - http://content.schwab.com/web/retail/public/cashbonusandtrades/index.html?ver=at
E*Trade - https://us.etrade.com/e/t/jumppage/viewjumppage?PageName=wb_offer_at
Fidelity - https://scs.fidelity.com/other/offers/registration_casha.shtml
Scion appraisal (30k miles) – Sell: 8.5k Trade in: 9.5k
KBB appraisal
Trade In: Excellent $11,507, Very Good $11,307, Good $10,757, Fair $9,482
Private Sell: Excellent $13,192, Very Good $12,742, Good $12,392, Fair $11,142
Thursday, April 4, 2013
4/4/2013
Force IE7 Compatibility Mode in IE8 with IIS settings - http://weblogs.asp.net/joelvarty/archive/2009/03/23/force-ie7-compatibility-mode-in-ie8-with-iis-settings.aspx
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
4/3/2013
Avoid These Common Mortgage Mistakes
Getting an Adjustable-Rate Mortgage (ARM)
Unnecessarily Paying Private Mortgage Insurance (PMI)
Any home loan that is worth more than 80% of the value of the home is required by law to have Private Mortgage Insurance, which will pay some or all of the loan balance if the homeowner becomes unable to make the payments on the loan. Of course, a great many homeowners today are not able to come up with a 20% down payment on their homes when they buy them, but it is possible to avoid this by getting a primary loan for 80% of the value of the home, make a 5% down payment and then take out a second mortgage or line of credit to cover the difference.
PMI should be avoided whenever possible because it is expensive and does nothing to reduce your mortgage balance when it is paid. It also requires the homeowners to estimate when they think that their loan value has fallen to 80% or less. Then, to get it removed, they must pay for another appraisal to prove that their mortgage is below the threshold to the lender.
Not Shopping Around for Rates
Monday, April 1, 2013
4/1/2013
| Fees for Original Learner Permits and Original Driver Licenses The fees below are those in effect when the learner permit is issued on or after February 22, 2010 The Fees Below Are Not the Renewal Fees | |||
| Age of Applicant | Total Fees for Class D or Class DJ MCTD* | Total Fees for Class E MCTD* | Total Fees for Class M or Class MJ MCTD* |
| 16 to 16½ | $80.00 $90.00* | Not available at this age | $85.00 $95.00* |
| 16½ to 17 | $76.75 $85.75* | Not available at this age | $81.25 $90.25* |
| 17 to 17½ | $92.50 $102.50* | Not available at this age | $97.50 $107.50* |
| 17½ to 18 | $89.25 $98.25* | Not available at this age | $93.75 $102.75* |
| 18 to 18½ | $80.00 $90.00* | $110.00 $120.00* | $85.00 $95.00* |
| 18½ to 21 | $76.75 - $80.00 $85.75 - $90.00* | $103.75 - $110.00 $112.75 - $120.00* | $81.25 - $85.00 $90.25 - $95.00* |
| 21 and older | $64.25 - $67.50 $73.25 - $77.50* | $91.25 - $97.50 $100.25 - $107.25* | $68.75 - $72.50 $77.75 - $82.50* |
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