Money Management in Trading Made Simple is the first guide that takes you by the hand and introduces you step by step to risk management methods and the protection of your capital. Avoid theoretical manuals with thousands of pages sold at exorbitant prices online. Finally, experience a reading that may provide you with the knowledge you seek at an unbeatable price. It’s not about putting all your expectations in a ‘one-day’ scenario when accumulating wealth. You can never start generating wealth too late in life, but if you begin while young, you will have a much larger chance of amassing a fortune – and more time to let that fortune deteriorate as you grow older. However, living in your twenties and thirties is not difficult; you may be saddled with college debt, a demanding job, and a slew of unknowns preventing you from doing everything you want to create wealth sooner. There is no easy way to guarantee yourself a prosperous future, but these seven strategies can help you do so while still young.
Invest in yourself
Our objective should be to invest in yourself; you are your most valuable resource for accumulating wealth. Investing in yourself entails devoting more time to your education, honing your abilities, and networking with new individuals who can assist you in achieving your objectives. The more educated, competent, experienced, and connected you are, the more valuable possibilities you will have, which will result in more excellent salaries and more options for you down the road, which could allow you to develop an improved economic structure.
Stop delaying
Young people’s folly is imagining there is always enough time to do everything. Young people frequently believe that pension or capital formation happens later in life and are more concerned with their immediate concerns. Nevertheless, this often results in a pattern of ‘Oh, I should do it next month,’ month after month, until you are ten years older and have missed out on a decade’s compound interest. The first step is to quit procrastinating; saving and investing can be intimidating, but the longer you wait, the fewer advantages you will reap.
Know that there is no magic
The phrase “secrets” in the headline may have attracted you here to seek a surefire, almost magical technique to become wealthy. No one exists. The main objectives are straightforward: Make more than you spend and put the extra money to good use. It’s up to you how you invest (with a few caveats listed below), but the apparent goal is to make investments that will likely increase your wealth in the future. That is all there is to it. Making more money, spending less, and investing are all ways to do this.
Create a budget
Make more money, spend less, and invest appropriately. Making more money was item 3, and this one is about making less money. Create a precise budget based on your projected earnings and expenses. Once identified, you can start fine-tuning your budget to spend as little as possible and put the rest into a traditional savings account. Set spending restrictions and keep track of where most of your money goes; you might be shocked at where you waste the most money.
Pay down your debt
It is usually a good idea to pay off debts before saving and investing regularly. Consumer debt, school debt, and even vehicle loans can have high interest rates that weigh you down and necessitate monthly installments that deplete your income while accruing additional interest rates and fines that consume your future self. Letting this eat away at your potential is a mistake; paying off a loan as quickly as possible is a top priority.
Take risks
You have a lot of time ahead of you when you’re young. Taking chances now or never is the only option. Invest in stock options with a higher risk and better return. Think about stopping your work and launching your own company. Take advantage of new opportunities and projects. You have plenty of time to make amends if something goes wrong. According to most prosperous people, taking appropriate risks is one of the most significant key success factors. Because most people take the safe route, you’ll have to shake things up if you want to stand out, which might be difficult. About Complete Controller® – America’s Bookkeeping Experts Complete Controller is the Nation’s Leader in virtual bookkeeping, providing service to businesses and households alike. Utilizing Complete Controller’s technology, clients gain access to a cloud platform where their QuickBooks™️ file, critical financial documents, and back-office tools are hosted in an efficient SSO environment. Complete Controller’s team of certified US-based accounting professionals provide bookkeeping, record storage, performance reporting, and controller services including training, cash-flow management, budgeting and forecasting, process and controls advisement, and bill-pay. With flat-rate service plans, Complete Controller is the most cost-effective expert accounting solution for business, family-office, trusts, and households of any size or complexity.
Do we require more physical storefronts? When did it become so handy to get anything from pizza to pens, shoes, shirts, and sofas from the comfort of our own houses? Rather than having to leave our homes and queue in stores? As seen by the recent bankruptcy and closures of The Limited, American Apparel, Wet Seal, Aeropostale, and Pacific Sunwear, this doesn’t happen as frequently as one might think.
What do we do now that we can arrange every room of our house on the screen? What are our options? We can now envision an entire room in our home on a screen, precisely what we are. Technology has improved sufficiently to show us what we might look like in a suit or a pair of Levi’s Made-to-Order jeans based on the body measurements we provide. Do? Do you require a valid showcase?
Thanks to Amazon’s Prime shipping service, we have spoiled for choice, which allows us to place an order online and have it delivered in two days for no additional shipping costs. You may set up an ongoing pantry subscription to have tissues, diapers, and chips delivered to your home when you’re about to run out of something.
There Has Been a Significant Evolution
E-commerce is slowly but steadily eroding the retail market share. According to a recent study, online purchases would account for at least one-third of all sales by 2030, a reality that could spell the end for many shopping malls. AT Kearney, a US consulting firm, doesn’t necessarily believe the latter can be a space for engaging with consumers, delivering a choice of products tailored to fit the needs of a new generation if it innovates.
According to research issued by an American firm, the distribution business has a bright future if it can grow and capitalize on changing aspects such as the human factor and new technical and economic characteristics. AT Kearney has created a list of four areas where they can transform the mall into a truly social environment.
The early aim was to turn the mall into a tourist destination, with a substantial area dedicated to attractions. The focal point here is not a standard distribution facility but a fun social event that provides immersive concrete entertainment. They can accommodate specialist brands in this new sort of mall. Their premise is still commercial, but they are also locations where brand engagement centers on exploration, education, and experience. As a result, the study mentions US market names like Bass Pro Shop (which focuses on hunting and fishing), Lowe’s (which specializes in construction and horticultural distribution networks), and REI (which specializes in outdoor recreation) (affiliate sales of outdoor sports products). Xanadu in Spain, the Mall of the Emirates in Dubai, and the American Dream Center currently under development in New Jersey and Miami are examples of these centers currently in operation.
Anthropologists, cultural psychologists, and shopping ethnologists continually observe, record, and analyze client behavior, educating retailers in real-time. Another aim is the establishment of innovation hubs or digital venues for aggregating data to produce specific suggestions. Beta testing is an essential aspect of the trading system in this format. A portion of the local region could be set aside for test stores that will use the information gathered by the new concept. Consumers can try new technologies, connect with professionals, and even share their thoughts on the product and assessment data.
Today, they can transform retail spaces into value centers where brand identity and choice are founded on consumers’ shared value. These malls will be distinguished by a theme: politics, animal rights, community, sports, etc. All brands will be able to provide experiences relating to this theme. Local stores will be able to provide their items on a cyclical basis. Thanks to temporary pop-ups and virtual or shared showrooms, local artists and producers can interact with customers, co-create, and develop things in real time.
Moreover, they broadly convert shopping malls into “commercial-residential” places or living spaces, focusing on specific demographics such as stylish city dwellers in their 30s, singles, and retirees in their 40s. For example, the senior mall will offer medical services, pharmacies, adaptive gyms, professional lawyers and accountants, and conference space.
About Complete Controller® – America’s Bookkeeping Experts Complete Controller is the Nation’s Leader in virtual bookkeeping, providing service to businesses and households alike. Utilizing Complete Controller’s technology, clients gain access to a cloud platform where their QuickBooks™️ file, critical financial documents, and back-office tools are hosted in an efficient SSO environment. Complete Controller’s team of certified US-based accounting professionals provide bookkeeping, record storage, performance reporting, and controller services including training, cash-flow management, budgeting and forecasting, process and controls advisement, and bill-pay. With flat-rate service plans, Complete Controller is the most cost-effective expert accounting solution for business, family-office, trusts, and households of any size or complexity.
You must be able to understand what you are doing anytime, anywhere. And only a few programs are capable of that. Therefore, an easy accounting program is a program that makes accounting fun and simple.
Below is the only overview you will ever need—an overview of the most accessible accounting programs. I dare say so because these programs can provide everything you need from an easy schedule.
Your bookkeeping becomes easier because you can book pleasantly. And that will also make your life as an entrepreneur easier. Read on for the entire top 5!
#5: Reeleezee
Reeleezee says it all with the name Easy Bookkeeping. As easy as Reeleezee is as an accounting program, it is not in the top 3. And that is because it is a relatively young player with the right intentions but is not there yet.
Would I recommend Reeleezee right away? No, the other players in my top 5 are too good for that. No accounting program insists on the most accessible aspect, and you would expect the absolute best from Reeleezee. Unfortunately, that is not the case, which causes some disappointment when I dive deeper into the accounting program.
In addition, Reeleezee is pricey compared to some alternatives. If you want to be able to book correctly, you will lose at least $25 per month. And that’s absurd for what you get.
#4: DigiBTW
DigiBTW handles all this a lot better. Although DigiBTW is not a very extensive accounting program, which you do not expect from this, it is a lot more for your money than Reeleezee.
What DigiBTW does well is that it’s just effortless. It’s super simple and super affordable, according to DigiBTW. And with $10 per month, you really can’t complain. For this, you get a user-friendly accounting program that has no limitations. So, you get access to all functions of the program. To summarize, you can count on this company’s support if you cannot find a solution.
Digital is an excellent stepping stone for those who want to be able to book easily and quickly. Perhaps it was not the most professional program, but deserved fourth place, especially for $10 a month.
#3: Red tape
My overview of accounting programs with the best value for money has a top ranking, not a bad performance for a program that has only existed for some time. Rompslomp has scored several times in the top 3 of my most popular accounting lists. However, it wouldn’t surprise me if Rompslomp also ranks higher here within a year. For now, Rompslomp is worth a top 3 listing.
Red Tape wants to make bookkeeping as pleasant as possible. It does this for as many branches as possible, whether in the construction or design sector. Everything is kept simple so you can easily find your way into the accounting program. It is for a very reasonable price of $10 per month. And if you want to do it cheaply, you can opt for the free package. This package has many functions you do not have to pay for.
#2: Moneybird
Moneybird is, according to the latest figures, the most popular accounting program among sole traders. Entrepreneurs know where to find Moneybird because Moneybird is recommended first in many large Facebook groups. And Moneybird doesn’t owe that to the fun name.
Everyone can use this accounting program. As a beginner, you can easily explore the accounting program through balloons, extensive manuals, and FAQs. An explanation can be read for each function so that you subconsciously learn how parts work. It strengthens your knowledge of the accounting program and accounting in general—quite an achievement from Moneybird.
#1: Yellow
After using Moneybird for the first time in 2015, I never expected that in 2020, there would be a more straightforward accounting program. Yellow has proven otherwise. You can find everything you would want to see from a sole proprietorship accounting program in Yellow. Yellow shows that you can utilize the application more manageably. Functions are excellently developed and beautifully and user-friendly designed.
If Moneybird is the noticeable Windows, indeed, yellow must be Apple. Everything feels intuitive and natural. It allows you to float through the functions, as it were, and your accounting is done in no time that you used to need an expensive bookkeeper for that.
The main reason why Yellow earns the label’s most accessible accounting program is that it helps you with everything. It gives you complete control without investing time and energy in your accounting. Yellow takes care of every aspect of your accounting without you distancing yourself from your accounting. You take every step yourself.
About Complete Controller® – America’s Bookkeeping Experts Complete Controller is the Nation’s Leader in virtual bookkeeping, providing service to businesses and households alike. Utilizing Complete Controller’s technology, clients gain access to a cloud platform where their QuickBooks™️ file, critical financial documents, and back-office tools are hosted in an efficient SSO environment. Complete Controller’s team of certified US-based accounting professionals provide bookkeeping, record storage, performance reporting, and controller services including training, cash-flow management, budgeting and forecasting, process and controls advisement, and bill-pay. With flat-rate service plans, Complete Controller is the most cost-effective expert accounting solution for business, family-office, trusts, and households of any size or complexity.
Nowadays, business is constantly changing, taking new forms every day. However, the problem with people is that it is getting hard to adapt to new business ideas and patterns, which sometimes become hard to adjust. Keep an eye out for recent market trends and adjustments. Take note of new investments made by firms in your industry and, most importantly, which sort of business has proven more successful.
Understand consumer desires
One of the main problems of any business is seeing consumers from our eyes, not from their eyes and perspective. We sometimes lose most of our customers, which is our mistake entirely, not the customers or consumers. Try to discover the requirements and aspirations of customers, what they are seeking, what they anticipate, and whether your proposal will match their expectations before you start an investment or business.
Identify a problem
It is a fantastic approach to spotting a potential investment. That’s because there’s always an opportunity to provide remedies that can develop into successful enterprises when there’s a significant problem.
There are several examples of successful entrepreneurs who spotted possibilities amid adversity. Post-it notes, for example, are a well-known notepad invented in offices to help many executives who had lost essential appointments due to forgetfulness.
Those startups that stand out are those that provide something fresh. VC Eric Vishria recommends investors seek new firms whose creators compel them to question their own beliefs about a market or issue. What begins as an out-of-the-box concept has the potential to become the industry standard.
It is an area you already know well
Don’t put money into something you don’t fully comprehend. A company might receive positive early feedback and appear to be ready to evolve, but it isn’t easy to know whether this is true if it doesn’t comprehend the purpose of its products or services. You can more confidently judge if a company strategy has promise when you understand the sector you invest in.
You might begin to specialize in less familiar areas as you obtain more financial experience. However, you should first limit your investments to those connected with your areas of expertise.
The startup is focused on an audience or area whose needs are unmet
Many startups strive to target groups who are currently underrepresented to take a novel perspective to an industry. Hiruy Amanuel, Gullt’s managing director, has experience in early-stage tech startups in East Africa. Venture investors and the tech sector have mostly disregarded this area until recently.
The African continent, according to Amanuel, has the potential for expansion. Because specific organizations and their target consumers have been largely disregarded in the past, those who are the first to give a sector the attention it deserves have the potential for tremendous development.
The company has solid fundamentals
You must ensure that the firm in which you invest has sound fundamentals. It is accurate at the business level and the individual level. While a well-defined business strategy is critical, the startup’s people are even more crucial.
According to investor Winston Ibrahim, Strong visionary executives are the most significant criterion in assessing whether a firm is worth investing in. The most successful entrepreneurs are humble, adaptable, and willing to delegate. They recognize that they don’t know everything and are eager to seek advice and insight from others.
This adaptable thinking aids them in recognizing when adjustments are required. These entrepreneurs are worth investing in because they always look for ways to develop and grow rather than grow complacent.
There are no assurances in the world of commercial ventures. The startup may appear to have all the elements to become a game-changing force in the industry, but an internal feud among the founders might send it all crashing down.
About Complete Controller® – America’s Bookkeeping Experts Complete Controller is the Nation’s Leader in virtual bookkeeping, providing service to businesses and households alike. Utilizing Complete Controller’s technology, clients gain access to a cloud platform where their QuickBooks™️ file, critical financial documents, and back-office tools are hosted in an efficient SSO environment. Complete Controller’s team of certified US-based accounting professionals provide bookkeeping, record storage, performance reporting, and controller services including training, cash-flow management, budgeting and forecasting, process and controls advisement, and bill-pay. With flat-rate service plans, Complete Controller is the most cost-effective expert accounting solution for business, family-office, trusts, and households of any size or complexity.
The so-called retention of a backup indicates how far back you can go in the history of backups. It was essential to restore the deletion of a file a year ago. In that case, a backup with a one-month retention would not offer a solution.
Longer retention will require more storage, so unlimited retention may sound handy but can add up unnecessarily in cost. Also, pay attention to legal considerations; the law can sometimes prescribe how to store long data.
Location & Media of the Backup
Ideally, you set up a backup using the “3-2-1 Method”. This method states that you have at least three copies of your data, which you put on two different media and one stored in a different location.
Different media can be hard disk, tape, or cloud storage. The media type can help determine the location but often depends on the amount of data to store. Also, remember that the space a backup needs grows over time. It is highly dependent on the retention and frequency of backups.
Access & Backup Security
It’s essential to think about protecting backups in terms of access. If, for example, a backup media is stolen, you can save it using encryption to ensure that no one can view it.
It applies both physically and via backup software. Also, consider who within your organization may have access to the backups. If you usually have the classification of a right not to make all data transparent to everyone, someone could access this data through obtained access.
Backup Frequency
When determining the backup frequency, you must consider the data that can be lost in an incident. For example, if you are hit by ransomware at 4:00 PM and your backup runs at 3:00 AM, you may fail several hours of work. This trade-off is called ‘Recovery Point Objective’ (RPO).
Increasing the frequency could help reduce the number of work hours you could lose in such an incident. A higher frequency of the backup is not always possible due to the time it takes to create the backup or the delay that may occur while it runs.
Recovery Time
When an incident affects (critical) business processes, knowing how long it takes before your data and application(s) are available again is crucial. Several factors impact the recovery time, such as the amount of data, the technique used, or the speed of the backup media. You may have to consider what to recover and when to return to work as quickly as possible. You will sometimes have to prioritize repairing essential parts earlier than others within such consideration. This trade-off is called the ‘Recovery Time Objective’ (RTO).
Prioritizing can also help reduce costs because you may have determined that active projects should be available again within a few hours, but an archive, for example, only after a few days.
Monitoring
After establishing a backup, it is also vital that you monitor the backup. Ensure you have good reporting to check whether backups are running and errors have occurred, preferably daily. Even if you have entirely outsourced it, you must receive and review these reports as an entrepreneur. Any mistake must be corrected in time so you do not run into them when you need a backup.
Testing Backup
In addition to monitoring backups, it is perhaps even more critical that you test them. Testing backups is sometimes only done when something needs to be restored. This is because testing often costs money and a lot of time. Some backup applications offer the option to run a verification test. Such a verification test checks whether the backup data is in order. This is good to set up, but it is preferable to go further and periodically test the backup by restoring it to check whether it works and the data is intact. You can do a restore test by randomly repairing some files or even restoring an entire system to test applications’ functionality.
Segmentation
Be aware that it is vital to use good segmentation for your backup. You can partly do this with the 3-2-1 method mentioned, where you use different media. In somewhat larger environments, where virtualization is also used, try to separate the backup and production networks. Recent targeted (ransomware) attacks show much energy is put into encrypting backups. In practice, insufficient segmentation apparently ensures you can quickly encrypt the backup. The only option to potentially get your data back is to pay a ransom.
About Complete Controller® – America’s Bookkeeping Experts Complete Controller is the Nation’s Leader in virtual bookkeeping, providing service to businesses and households alike. Utilizing Complete Controller’s technology, clients gain access to a cloud platform where their QuickBooks™️ file, critical financial documents, and back-office tools are hosted in an efficient SSO environment. Complete Controller’s team of certified US-based accounting professionals provide bookkeeping, record storage, performance reporting, and controller services including training, cash-flow management, budgeting and forecasting, process and controls advisement, and bill-pay. With flat-rate service plans, Complete Controller is the most cost-effective expert accounting solution for business, family-office, trusts, and households of any size or complexity.
Accounting has been around for a long time. One of its lesser-known branches is Forensic Accounting (or Forensic Audit).
Forensic accounting, or investigative accounting, is a unique professional field that combines accounting with information technology. A forensic accountant uses advanced computer programs to examine financial data and find evidence that would be valid during legal proceedings.
Forensic accountants are usually asked to review financial records for mergers and acquisitions. You can also serve as an advisor to a company’s audit committee or resolve shareholder disputes within the company.
The Babylonian Code of Hammurabi is the first authorized document known to man. Some of its fragments hint at the basic idea of forensic accounting: to prove fraud or a lie with accounting documentation.
It was not significant until the historical event of the 30s when Al Capone was arrested. Al Capone was a famous Chicago gangster of the prohibition law and the author of innumerable murders. Still, they could only be jailed when agent Eliot Ness and his team of “Untouchables” could find all the receipts. The receipts linked Capone to illegal gambling income and tax evasion from that income.
In recent years, fraudulent bankruptcies and accounting scandals in the United States, for example, Enron, Worldcom, and Tyco resulted in the United States Securities Commission investigating hundreds of companies. It will create a body to supervise accounting and conflict of interest issues.
In the case of Europe, the Parmalat fraud case in 2003 led the European Commission to establish a directive on audits, which included a tightening of national supervision of auditors. It will promote close collaboration between federal authorities and third countries.
Forensic accounting has developed significantly during the last ten years, its base being the public sector. Our best practices in this field have been created. An example is the Government Audits that articulate investigation processes with auditing.
Therefore, we can define forensic accounting as a science that gathers and presents accounting, financial, legal, administrative, and tax information. It will provide an accounting examination that the courts will accept since it will form part of the basis of the discussion, debate, and opinion of the sentence against the perpetrators of an economic crime.
The relationship between accounting and auditing terms with forensics becomes close to criminal evidence. Therefore, a forensic audit is initially defined as an audit specialized in discovering, revealing, and attesting to fraud and crimes in developing public and private functions. It also studies the effects of events that may or may not be criminal to provide the judge with evidence involving accounting records.
Approaches to Forensic Accounting
Given the characteristics of economic crimes, the participation of the accountant is necessary for the previous stage to conduct the investigations and calculations that allow examining the existence of the crime and, as far as possible, its amount to define whether the initiation of a process is justified penal. The most common case is the one that has to do with a scam based on accounting records and supports. The intervention of the forensic accountant can vary, from the quantification of fraud and the gathering of evidence to participation as a witness. It is going through activities as diverse as systematized applications to present the evidence.
Corporate crime investigations
These investigations relate to accounting and corporate fraud by presenting intentionally manipulated, inaccurate financial information. Examples:
Business fraud
Counterfeiting
Money Laundering
Economic losses in business
Commercial disputes
In this field, the forensic accountant can function as an investigator to gather evidence to prove or clarify some specifics, such as:
Claims for breach of contracts
Disputes for the purchase and sale of companies
Claims for profit determination
Claims for breach of guarantees
Intellectual property disputes
Disputes over project costs
Discrepancies between partners and stockholders
Measurement and Arbitration
Insurance claims
When the responsibilities correspond to the administration of the companies.
Claims for the return of faulty products
Claims for damage to property
Claims for complex administrations and processes
Verification of alleged claims
Professional negligence related to:
Audit- Accounting
Morals
Quantification of losses affected by negligence
Covers all professions, including Accounting, Medicine, Engineering, Law
Evidence from professionals in Auditing and Accounting Standards
Advice to plaintiffs and defendants
Brand valuation
Intellectual property
Valuations of stocks and businesses in general
About Complete Controller® – America’s Bookkeeping Experts Complete Controller is the Nation’s Leader in virtual bookkeeping, providing service to businesses and households alike. Utilizing Complete Controller’s technology, clients gain access to a cloud platform where their QuickBooks™️ file, critical financial documents, and back-office tools are hosted in an efficient SSO environment. Complete Controller’s team of certified US-based accounting professionals provide bookkeeping, record storage, performance reporting, and controller services including training, cash-flow management, budgeting and forecasting, process and controls advisement, and bill-pay. With flat-rate service plans, Complete Controller is the most cost-effective expert accounting solution for business, family-office, trusts, and households of any size or complexity.
You have been working on social media for a while now. You have worked out your goals and managed multiple social media accounts. But are you already getting the most out of your social media marketing? Or can it be done even better and more accessible? How do you ensure that you achieve more efficient results? For this blog, we list the five most chosen tools of social media marketers. It would help to have this for efficient and effective social media management.
Inspiration Tool
Sometimes, you suddenly have a genius idea out of nowhere, but content creation can sometimes be a real struggle. Social media marketers, especially those responsible for the content, cannot do without inspiration. So, what should you write, film, or podcast about now?
A tool that can inspire you is more than helpful for those moments. Such an inspiration tool gives you tips for content based on your organization, industry, competition, or product. It can be, for example, an overview of the content that is trending or performs exceptionally well on social media and may, therefore, be of interest to your organization. Then, you can build on this content, create your variant, or even share the content directly with your followers on social media.
With the intelligent use of this tool, you will never run out of inspiration, and you will always have current and catchy content to share with your target groups.
Social Listening Tool
A social listening tool is closely linked to an inspiration tool, and these tools are often integrated into one solution.
Unlike an inspirational tool, a social listening tool allows you to precisely monitor what is being said about your organization or brand. Not necessarily to gain inspiration for updated content but to better understand the context of your brand or company.
To what extent does our brand thrive on social and online media? What is the current sentiment around our brand? Is our content frequently shared? Is it currently wise to raise certain content or sensitive topics? Do we have to wait a bit with a social media post? Is this the time for funny web care responses?
These are the kinds of insights you gain with a social listening tool. They help you with a correct and complete picture of the environment to reduce the chance of missing the point.
Creating and posting a social media post may seem futile compared to all the other tasks in a marketer’s job responsibilities. However, the hours spent on this quickly increase if you manage accounts from multiple channels, locations, and sub-brands.
A planning tool can save you a lot of time (our experience shows this can go up to 75%). Some social planning tools also include workflows that allow you to create drafts, load calendars, approve posts, and view statistics.
This way, you have all your social media accounts in one well-arranged place, and you do not have to open ten tabs to manage your social media. Indispensable!
Community Management Tool
You can expect reactions as soon as you have scheduled your social media posts, and they are published automatically (which is handy). If the content appeals enough, that is. Then, you still must open ten tabs or make it difficult with small smartphone screens to start a conversation with your target customer. To prevent that, there are community management tools.
A community management tool should be a sizeable general inbox where incoming messages from all your accounts and channels arrive. That is brief because some tools support many more features, such as responding to notices not addressed to you. Costo also has possibilities for collaboration, extra channels (reviews and messengers), and countless other options.
It is a known fact that responding to social media posts helps to ensure that algorithms show your posts more often. But what if you do not use a community management tool and respond to comments? What if you do not build a real community? Is not responding an option at all? Not if you want to score a lot of reaches, interaction, and clicks.
Reporting Tool
Every marketer wants value for their work. So, if you wish to prove your achieved results or want to specifically look for points for improvement for the following social media post or campaign, you cannot escape a report.
A significant disadvantage of the fragmented social media landscape is that each social media channel has its way of presenting data and statistics. To avoid having to start transforming. Almost every social media marketer uses a unique reporting tool for CSV files or making crooked comparisons.
The principle is the same as planning and community management: all social media channels are combined under one roof. This way, you can easily compare results and justify your work.
A reporting tool also helps you answer questions such as: what have I achieved with my social media marketing? What is the ROI of my work? Which platform is the most successful for me? Which content catches on and which does not?
About Complete Controller® – America’s Bookkeeping Experts Complete Controller is the Nation’s Leader in virtual bookkeeping, providing service to businesses and households alike. Utilizing Complete Controller’s technology, clients gain access to a cloud platform where their QuickBooks™️ file, critical financial documents, and back-office tools are hosted in an efficient SSO environment. Complete Controller’s team of certified US-based accounting professionals provide bookkeeping, record storage, performance reporting, and controller services including training, cash-flow management, budgeting and forecasting, process and controls advisement, and bill-pay. With flat-rate service plans, Complete Controller is the most cost-effective expert accounting solution for business, family-office, trusts, and households of any size or complexity.
The holiday season is ending. Hopefully, your battery is charged again, and you can return to work with a fresh look. Because even though it still seems far away, the sprint toward the holidays has started. Would you like to boost your knowledge?
LinkedIn
LinkedIn use is still on the rise. But it is a bit complicated when it comes to organic reach. Organizations with few followers still see growth. Still, with larger company pages, the reach decreases, Sebastiaan Nagel and Judith Eversdijk found in their research into LinkedIn company pages at the beginning of this year. It also contains a handy benchmark to measure the success of your page.
Success on LinkedIn
Of course, you are not there with only a strong profile. Marjolein Bongers shares ten essential tips for business success and ten concrete tips for power posts on LinkedIn. Another tip: in our podcast HelloMasters, we spoke to LinkedIn boss Marcel Molenaar about the secrets of the platform.
TikTok
Whatever you think, TikTok is big. It became the world’s most downloaded app in 2020. In July, the platform became the first non-Facebook-owned, non-gaming app to reach three billion downloads.
In the Netherlands, the app is also one of the fast risers, as we saw in the social media survey for 2021. Both the number of users and the daily use increased enormously. Short-form video is hot. Although… TikTok once consisted of videos of fifteen and then 30 seconds, but since last month, it has also become possible to upload videos for up to 3 minutes. And it is evaluated with videos of 5 minutes (and longer). This logical step brings TikTok closer to the competition from YouTube and Facebook, creating more space for advertisements.
TikTok for Business
LinkedIn, move over! Are you considering including TikTok in your organization or company’s social media strategy? Then, it is helpful to go through these tips or read up on advertising on TikTok. The platform may also become attractive for recruiters and HR managers if job seekers with the ‘Resumes’ program can pitch their CVs in TikTok videos in the future.
Instagram
The Feed, Stories, IGTV, Reels, Guides, and Shopping… Kirsten Jassies mentioned it in her trend overview at the end of last year: Instagram has many content types and opportunities to profile yourself. Instagram shopping is unstoppable, but it was time to see if Reels would make it. For the time being, that seems to work, and the function is being developed further to keep up with the competition. Therefore, video is one of the app’s spearheads, and Instagram head Adam Mosseri explained this summer because he said: “Instagram is no longer a photo-sharing app.”
User-Generated Content
Finally, a reading tip: it is fantastic if fans of your brand express themselves positively about it online. And you want to reuse that user-generated content on your organization’s Instagram account. But can that happen? And how is it? In her article, Charlotte Meindersma shared the rules about sharing content from others on Instagram.
Facebook
No, with roughly 1.9 billion daily and 2.8 billion monthly active users worldwide in the second quarter of 2021, Facebook is still anything but dead. And they do not sit still.
From Social Media to Metaverse
Facebook plans to transform the company into a metaverse—a virtual social network to connect millions of people. You seem to be physically involved with other people in a different place. That may sound surreal and, as Jan Scheele describes it, ‘now mainly a sandbox for nerds and innovators to play in.’ But for those who find it interesting, his article is recommended.
Twitter
Amid the tsunami of social media updates, you would almost forget Twitter. And you could also draw your conclusions based on the erratic line in the 2021 social media survey that indicates the use of Twitter in the Netherlands.
But Twitter has other plans. The owner of Twitter wants to double its revenue by the end of 2023 and aims for 315 million daily active users. And so, the platform is no longer just about messages of 280 characters.
Getting Started with Your Social Media Strategy
Of course, trends are significant, and you want to stay relevant. And you experiment with new features and new channels. But not every direction or part will suit or resonate with your company. Moreover, developments follow each other faster than keeping up with your strategy.
About Complete Controller® – America’s Bookkeeping Experts Complete Controller is the Nation’s Leader in virtual bookkeeping, providing service to businesses and households alike. Utilizing Complete Controller’s technology, clients gain access to a cloud platform where their QuickBooks™️ file, critical financial documents, and back-office tools are hosted in an efficient SSO environment. Complete Controller’s team of certified US-based accounting professionals provide bookkeeping, record storage, performance reporting, and controller services including training, cash-flow management, budgeting and forecasting, process and controls advisement, and bill-pay. With flat-rate service plans, Complete Controller is the most cost-effective expert accounting solution for business, family-office, trusts, and households of any size or complexity.
Two of the four branches of accounting are financial accounting and managerial accounting (for example, tax accounting and auditing are others). Despite many similarities in approach and use, there are significant differences between financial and managerial accounting. These differences are primarily related to compliance,accounting standards, and the target audience.
Key Points
Management accounting is the practice of identifying, measuring, analyzing, interpreting, and communicating financial information to managers to pursue an organization’s objectives.
Financial accounting is the process of recording, evaluating, and conveying the transaction process and economic growth resulting from business procedures through time to the community and regulators.
Management accounting differs from financial accounting because the intended purpose of management accounting is to assist users in making well-informed business judgments.
Main Objectives of Both Counting Practices
The primary goal of managerial accounting is to generate relevant information for one company’s internal usage. Business managers gather the information that encourages strategic planning, helps them set realistic goals, and encourages efficient management of corporate resources.
Financial accounting also has internal uses, but it’s more concerned with informing a company’s outsiders: final accounts, creditors, and industry officials.
Past and Present Use
Financial accounting produces purely historical data, with financial statements containing data for a specific period. Management accounting examines past performance and creates business predictions. You should use this accounting to guide business decisions. Investors and creditors frequently use financial statements to make their projections. Financial accounting is not retrospective in this sense. However, no future predictions are allowed in the reports.
Adjustment and Uniformity
The most significant practical distinction between financial and managerial accounting is their legal standing. The reports generated through management accounting are disseminated only internally. Each company is free to develop its system and rules on management relationships. It means no centralized system adjusts the reports, and it can often take a lot longer to find what you need.
Conversely, financial accounting relationships are highly regulated, especially income statements, balance sheets, and cash flow statements. As this information is released for public consumption and is highly anticipated by investors, companies need to pay close attention to how they do the calculations, how the data is reported, and the order in which such reports are written.
This uniformity makes investors and lenders compare companies directly based on their balance sheets. Furthermore, the financial statements are released regularly, establishing the consistency of external information flows.
Report Details
Financial accounting reports are typically aggregated, concise, and generic for various reasons. Information is both more transparent and less revealing at the same time. It isn’t always the case in management accounting, as each organization has its own set of reasons for doing things a certain way. For example, you may internally report lower bonuses to avoid upset low- to mid-level employees who might want to investigate the report.
Management accounting reports are highly detailed, technical, specific, and often experimental. Businesses seek a competitive advantage and scrutinize information that might seem pedantic or confusing to outsiders.
Bottom Line
The key difference between managerial and financial accounting relates to the recipients of the information. Management accounting information is meant to help managers make well-informed business decisions, while financial accounting is intended to provide financial information to parties other than the organization.
Financial accounting must adhere to specific criteria GAAP sets to maintain its public trading status. Most other corporations in the United States use GAAP to meet the debt covenants generally needed by financial institutions granting lines of credit. Because managerial accounting is not meant for external users, it can be customized to meet their needs. It varies significantly from firm to company and even from department to department within a corporation.
About Complete Controller® – America’s Bookkeeping Experts Complete Controller is the Nation’s Leader in virtual bookkeeping, providing service to businesses and households alike. Utilizing Complete Controller’s technology, clients gain access to a cloud platform where their QuickBooks™️ file, critical financial documents, and back-office tools are hosted in an efficient SSO environment. Complete Controller’s team of certified US-based accounting professionals provide bookkeeping, record storage, performance reporting, and controller services including training, cash-flow management, budgeting and forecasting, process and controls advisement, and bill-pay. With flat-rate service plans, Complete Controller is the most cost-effective expert accounting solution for business, family-office, trusts, and households of any size or complexity.
Future-Proof Your Brand: Strategies for Lasting Success
Future-proof your brand by developing adaptive strategies that maintain relevance, competitive advantage, and customer loyalty despite rapidly changing markets, technological disruptions, and evolving consumer expectations. This comprehensive approach combines strategic planning with operational flexibility, allowing businesses to thrive through uncertainty while preserving their core identity and values.
Over two decades of building Complete Controller into a cloud-based financial services powerhouse, I’ve witnessed firsthand how market disruptions can either destroy established brands or propel adaptive ones to new heights. The stark reality: leading global brands average 93 years old, with 43% exceeding a century of operation—yet 40% of rebranding efforts fail to deliver positive ROI. This article reveals the battle-tested strategies that separate enduring brands from those destined to become cautionary tales, offering practical frameworks you can implement immediately to build resilience, adaptability, and sustainable competitive advantages.
What does it mean to future-proof your brand?
Future-proofing your brand involves developing adaptive strategies that maintain relevance and competitive advantage amid constant change
Core brand identity must remain stable while products, services, and messaging evolve with market shifts
Smart brands anticipate technological disruptions and changing consumer behaviors rather than merely reacting
Financial resilience and operational agility create foundations that withstand economic uncertainty
Sustainable competitive advantages compound over time, making displacement increasingly difficult
Building an Adaptive Brand Foundation While Maintaining Core Identity
Creating a future-proof brand requires establishing foundations both rock-solid and flexible enough to bend without breaking. This paradox challenges modern businesses to remain true to their essence while continuously evolving to meet changing market demands.
Your brand’s core identity encompasses fundamental mission, primary values, and unique value proposition—elements remaining constant regardless of market conditions. These foundational elements serve as your North Star during change, ensuring every adaptation strengthens rather than dilutes your brand’s essence.
Establishing immutable brand values
Developing lasting brand values demands deep introspection about what your business truly stands for beyond profit generation. These values should reflect authentic beliefs remaining relevant regardless of technological advancement or market evolution.
Companies like Patagonia demonstrate this principle by building their brand around environmental stewardship—a value becoming increasingly relevant over decades of growing environmental consciousness. Their commitment transcends marketing messages, influencing every business decision from supply chain management to product development.
Creating flexible brand expression systems
While core values remain fixed, successful brands develop modular systems for expressing identity across different touchpoints and market conditions. This includes:
Brand voice guidelines adapting to platforms while maintaining consistency
Visual identity systems evolving without losing recognition
Messaging frameworks addressing different segments without compromising authenticity
Product offerings expanding while reinforcing core brand promise
Leveraging Digital Transformation for Long-Term Brand Resilience
Digital transformation fundamentally reshapes how brands create, deliver, and capture value in the modern economy. Forward-thinking companies use digital technologies to create entirely new ways of engaging customers and delivering value beyond simple efficiency improvements.
Statistics reveal sobering realities: between 70-90% of digital transformation initiatives fail, with only 16% of organizations successfully improving performance and maintaining changes. However, small organizations with fewer than 100 employees are 2.7 times more likely to succeed than companies exceeding 50,000 employees—proving agility often trumps resources.
Implementing AI-driven customer personalization
Artificial intelligence has evolved from buzzword to practical tool for creating personalized customer experiences at scale. Modern AI applications analyze behavior patterns, predict preferences, and deliver customized experiences impossible to achieve manually.
The key lies in implementing AI systems enhancing rather than replacing human judgment. Successful implementations create hybrid approaches combining technological efficiency with human insight, allowing brands to scale personalization while maintaining authentic connections.
Building data-driven brand strategies
Successful digital transformation requires sophisticated capabilities for collecting, analyzing, and acting on customer data. This involves creating systems tracking customer behavior across multiple touchpoints, analyzing trends and patterns, and translating insights into actionable strategies.
Data-driven brands use these insights beyond marketing optimization, informing product development, customer service improvements, and strategic planning. The most effective approaches balance comprehensive data collection with privacy respect, building trust through transparent data practices.
Cultivating Consumer Trust Through Authentic Brand Evolution
Trust represents the most valuable currency in modern business, yet remains among the most fragile assets any brand possesses. Research reveals a significant disconnect: 79% of business leaders believe customers trust their brand, but only 52% of consumers actually report that trust.
Maintaining trust during brand evolution requires careful balance between change and consistency. Customers need evidence of growth and improvement without feeling abandonment of qualities initially attracting them.
Developing crisis-proof communication strategies
Every brand faces crises, but preparation and response quality determine whether challenges strengthen or weaken customer relationships. Effective crisis management begins before problems arise through:
Established communication protocols for various scenarios
Trained spokespeople responding quickly and appropriately
Regular crisis simulation exercises testing response systems
Building transparent stakeholder relationships
Modern consumers expect unprecedented transparency from supported brands. This extends beyond marketing messages to include business practices, supply chain management, environmental impact, and social responsibility.
Brands proactively sharing information about operations, challenges, and improvement efforts often build stronger relationships than those communicating only when forced. Transparency builds trust through vulnerability, showing human sides of corporate entities.
Creating Sustainable Competitive Advantages Through Innovation
Innovation represents the lifeblood of future-proof brands, requiring more than simply developing new products or services. Effective innovation strategies focus on creating sustainable competitive advantages becoming stronger over time.
Apple’s transformation from failing computer company to global consumer electronics leader demonstrates systematic innovation combined with brand consistency. Their expansion beyond computers to create iPod, iPhone, and iPad maintained consistent brand identity focused on innovation and user-friendly design.
Implementing systematic innovation processes
Sustainable innovation requires systematic approaches rather than random experimentation. This involves:
Structured processes for identifying opportunities
Implementation systems scaling successful innovations
Feedback loops incorporating learning into future efforts
The most effective systems balance creativity with discipline, encouraging bold thinking while maintaining focus on customer value creation.
Building innovation-supporting culture
Innovation flourishes in cultures encouraging experimentation, tolerating failure, and rewarding creative thinking. Building such cultures requires intentional effort changing organizational systems, reward structures, and communication patterns.
Leaders must model innovative behavior while creating safe spaces for employees proposing and testing new ideas. This cultural transformation often proves more challenging than technological change but delivers greater long-term impact.
Adapting to Evolving Consumer Expectations and Market Dynamics
Consumer expectations continue evolving at accelerating pace, driven by technological advancement, generational changes, and shifting social values. Customer loyalty statistics show concerning trends: 69% of consumers report brand loyalty in 2024, down from 77% in 2022.
Future-proof brands develop sophisticated capabilities for identifying, understanding, and responding to changing expectations before they become universal demands. This requires combining quantitative data analysis with qualitative customer insight gathering.
Mastering predictive consumer analysis
Understanding future consumer behavior requires sophisticated analysis of current trends, generational preferences, and emerging social movements. Successful brands combine:
Social listening programs monitoring sentiment shifts
Predictive modeling forecasting future demands
Developing rapid response capabilities
Market conditions change quickly, requiring brands to adapt strategies and operations with minimal delay. This demands building organizational capabilities for rapid decision-making, flexible resource allocation, and quick implementation of strategic changes.
Companies developing these capabilities often discover competitive advantages extending beyond crisis response, creating organizational agility benefiting all operations.
Building Long-Term Brand Success Through Strategic Partnerships
Strategic partnerships offer opportunities expanding capabilities, reaching new markets, and creating innovative solutions impossible to develop independently. Modern partnerships extend beyond traditional vendor relationships to include collaborative innovation and shared platform development.
Effective partnerships align strategic objectives while combining complementary strengths creating value for all parties involved. Success requires careful partner selection, clear governance structures, and aligned success metrics.
Identifying high-value partnership opportunities
Successful partnerships begin with clear understanding of strategic objectives and honest assessment of capability gaps partnerships could address. This involves:
Analyzing your value chain for enhancement opportunities
Identifying areas where partners add unique value
Evaluating potential partners based on strategic fit
Assessing cultural alignment beyond transactional benefits
Creating win-win partnership structures
Sustainable partnerships require structures creating value for all participants while advancing individual strategic objectives. This involves developing shared success metrics, establishing clear roles and responsibilities, and creating governance processes facilitating collaboration while protecting individual interests.
The most successful partnerships evolve beyond contracts into true strategic alliances, creating competitive advantages neither party could achieve independently.
Final Thoughts
Future-proofing your brand demands more than predicting trends—it requires building capabilities and mindsets necessary to thrive regardless of emerging changes. After two decades helping businesses navigate uncertainty through Complete Controller, I’ve learned resilient brands share common characteristics: they maintain clear core values while embracing change, invest in relationships over transactions, and view challenges as differentiation opportunities.
The strategies outlined require commitment and consistent execution but create compounding advantages strengthening over time. Companies with strong financial foundations and adaptive strategies consistently outperform those focusing solely on short-term optimization. Your brand’s future success depends on decisions made today—choose wisely and act decisively. Connect with our team at Complete Controller to discover how comprehensive bookkeeping and financial management services provide the solid foundation every lasting brand needs.
Frequently Asked Questions About Future-Proof Your Brand
What does it mean to future-proof your brand?
Future-proofing your brand means developing strategies helping your business maintain relevance, competitive advantage, and customer loyalty despite changing markets, technology disruptions, and evolving consumer expectations.
How often should I update my brand strategy?
While core brand values should remain consistent, review and potentially update brand expression, messaging, and strategies quarterly, conducting comprehensive brand audits annually to ensure continued relevance.
Can small businesses effectively future-proof their brands?
Yes, small businesses often have advantages in brand future-proofing due to agility and quick decision-making abilities. Focus on building strong customer relationships and maintaining financial health while staying adaptable.
What role does technology play in future-proofing a brand?
Technology serves as both tool and disruptor in brand future-proofing. Smart brands use technology enhancing customer experiences and operational efficiency while staying prepared to adapt when new technologies change market expectations.
How do I balance brand consistency with the need to evolve?
Maintain consistency in core values, mission, and fundamental brand promise while allowing flexibility in expressing these elements through messaging, visual identity, products, and customer experience approaches.
Research World. “The Brand Scorecard Framework: Diagnosing Performance, Predicting Potential.” 8 Feb. 2022. https://researchworld.com/articles/the-brand-scorecard-framework-diagnosing-performance
About Complete Controller® – America’s Bookkeeping Experts Complete Controller is the Nation’s Leader in virtual bookkeeping, providing service to businesses and households alike. Utilizing Complete Controller’s technology, clients gain access to a cloud platform where their QuickBooks™️ file, critical financial documents, and back-office tools are hosted in an efficient SSO environment. Complete Controller’s team of certified US-based accounting professionals provide bookkeeping, record storage, performance reporting, and controller services including training, cash-flow management, budgeting and forecasting, process and controls advisement, and bill-pay. With flat-rate service plans, Complete Controller is the most cost-effective expert accounting solution for business, family-office, trusts, and households of any size or complexity.
Jennifer BrazerFounder/CEO
Jennifer is the author of From Cubicle to Cloud and Founder/CEO of Complete Controller, a pioneering financial services firm that helps entrepreneurs break free of traditional constraints and scale their businesses to new heights.
Brittany McMillen is a seasoned Marketing Manager with a sharp eye for strategy and storytelling. With a background in digital marketing, brand development, and customer engagement, she brings a results-driven mindset to every project. Brittany specializes in crafting compelling content and optimizing user experiences that convert. When she’s not reviewing content, she’s exploring the latest marketing trends or championing small business success.
About Complete Controller® – America’s Bookkeeping Experts Complete Controller is the Nation’s Leader in virtual bookkeeping, providing service to businesses and households alike. Utilizing Complete Controller’s technology, clients gain access to a cloud platform where their QuickBooks™️ file, critical financial documents, and back-office tools are hosted in an efficient SSO environment. Complete Controller’s team of certified US-based accounting professionals provide bookkeeping, record storage, performance reporting, and controller services including training, cash-flow management, budgeting and forecasting, process and controls advisement, and bill-pay. With flat-rate service plans, Complete Controller is the most cost-effective expert accounting solution for business, family-office, trusts, and households of any size or complexity.
