Organize Receipts with Shoeboxed.com

If you run a small business, keeping your receipts organized and accessible helps make tax time easier. And with estimated tax payments coming up soon, now is a good time 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, there is a free option. Or if you’d like to mail your receipts for scanning or use one of the mobile photo capture and upload options, there is a fee depending on how many receipts a month you upload. There is even an option to upload business cards.

To learn more or sign up for a free trial, check out ShoeBoxed.com.  Also check out ShoeBoxed’s blog for great articles on personal finance, taxes and more.

New Website Lists Services of Self Employed Parents

Self-employment particularly among women, many of whom are mothers, is growing at a fast rate, faster even than men owned business. While many begin their work-at-home search hoping to find a job, starting a business is probably the fastest and easies way to start making money at home. But once the product or service is created, the real work is getting the word out. A new website helps self-employed parents by offering a directory that consumers can use to find products and services.

Our Milk Money was started by two work-at-home moms Ally Loprete and Kelli Shand who wanted to help parents find ways to achieve the financial means to stay home or provide more for their children, and to educate consumers about the products and services found through self-employed parents. They provide a searchable directory of businesses through Canada and the United States from which consumers can find local or Internet based businesses from which to shop or find work-at-home opportunities.

To learn more or find a self-employed parent near you, visit Our Milk Money.

Make It Easy For Others to Schedule Time with You

Timebridge is offer a free resource that makes it easy for people see your availability and schedule time with you.  The great thing about this resource is that it doesn’t reveal the details of your schedule, only the times that you’re “available” or “busy”.  Further is works with Outlook, Google Calendar, and iCal to synchronize your free/busy availability.

For an additional fee, Timebridge’s Meet With Me also provides a meeting room, web or phone conferencing, and text message reminders to those involved in the meeting.

To learn more, visit TimeBridge.

Send Bulk SMS Messages through Tatango

Need to keep in touch with a group that’s on the go? Tatango offers a text messaging service that can send your message out to everyone in your group. Messages can be composed and sent from a computer or by phone if you’re on the go as well.  Depending on the plan, you can a variety of groups, subgroups and message allotments. Members can use “keywords” which allow people to easily join your group via text or through a link online. Current users include athletic teams, religious organizations, real estate agents and sororities.

Tatango offers a free-30 day trial. Plans vary from basic at $19 a month for 400 messages and unlimited members all the way up to the premium for $199 a month for 5000 messages and few other perks (there are two plans in between). To learn more or test out a free trial, visit Tatango.com

Excel Password Recovery

There is an old adage that says, “You can never be too safe.” When it comes to the digital world, it’s very true. Cyber hackers and hijackers are lurking everywhere to steal digital information. And while it’s a piece of cake for them to get passwords and other sensitive information, for the rest of us, keeping track of login information is a hassle especially since everything needs its own password. It’s too much and eventually passwords get forgotten.

Forgetting a password isn’t that big of deal when you’re online as there is usually a way to retrieve it or reset it, but what if you’ve password protected your documents? Well if it’s an Excel document, you’re in luck.

Excel allows users to password protect entire documents or individual workbooks. You can even allow people to read the document but not make changes without a password. So what happens if a colleague moves without giving you the password to his work-related Excel doc? Or you simply forget your password? Over at Petri IT Knowledge Base you can find complete details and a free download for Excel Password Recovery. It takes you step-by-step through two recovery options and even provides an alternative Pro solution if needed.