If you run a small business, keeping your receipts organized and accessible helps make tax time easier. If you run a business or freelance in which you need to pay estimated tax payments four times a year, you may want to check out Shoeboxed.com, where you can mail-in or upload your receipts to organize them and get rid of clutter. The information can then be transferred to programs such as Excel, Quickbooks, Freshbooks, Evernote, Quicken, and CSV formats. If you scan and upload your receipts yourself, the service is free. Or you can mail your receipts and Shoeboxed will scan them for you. You can even scan and upload using your phone. Fees for expanded services depend on how many receipts a month you upload. There is even an option to upload business cards.
To learn more or get started for free, visit ShoeBoxed.com. Also check out ShoeBoxed’s blog for great articles on personal finance, taxes and more.
I recently read an article that indicated technology was giving attention deficit disorder. I have to agree that while it has made communication faster and easier, it definitely creates interruptions that make the flow of work difficult. Part of the problem is that there are so many places one needs to check… email, Twitter, Facebook, news feeds etc. But now there is Gist, which not only manages all your social contacts in one place, but you can choose the place you’d like to manage them.
With Gist you can manage everything from the Gist dashboard online, or through your email (Gmail, Outlook, Lotus Notes), Salesforce or your iphone or android phone. It offers a one-stop shop to find out your latest news as well as to update your own status. You can learn more and sign up for free at Gist.
Most planners and productivity tools are geared towards work, but running a household requires many of the same tools CEO’s need to manage a company. Cozi offers such a resource for families. With Cozi, families can:
Manage the family calendar
Create customizable lists (shopping, chores, etc)
Send reminders and messages (text message to phones) to keep everyone in the loop.
Access the calendar, to-dos and other tools from a cell phone.
Keep a family journal.
Create a photo collage
And even sync with MS Outlook
Cozi is a web-based organizational tool for families. It offers a desktop feature as well as the ability to access Cozi tools through a cell phone. What’s really helpful about Cozi is that its not just for mom but for the whole family so they can keep insync with activities and events.
Cozi is free and easy to use. You can learn more or sign up by visiting Cozi.
One of the challenges of bookmarking favorite resources is organizing them. Using the “Bookmarks” or “Favorites” in your browser is limited by using folders which can become as unwieldy as more and more links are added. Resources such as Del.icio.us offer more help through the use of tags. But Pearltree offers visual organization much like a mind map.
Pearltrees are topical trees that outline your favorite resources in a way that make sense to you. Each bookmark becomes a pearl within a tree. For example, you can have a PearlTree on dieting with branches related recipes, exercise, videos and more. Organizing is easy with drag-and-drop functions. Peartree also offers a Firefox extension, bookmarklet, or Twitter option to add to your tree.
Pearltree also offers a social aspect by connecting with others who have topic trees similar to yours. This option allows to access resources you may not know about as well as provide resources to others.
Pearltree is free and is worth a look if your bookmarks and social bookmarking feels to disorganized and cluttered.
