Check it out: http://gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/26/app-of-the-week-better-budget-tracking/

You can learn more about the app here! https://www.shoeboxed.com/shoeboxed-iphone-app.htm

Here’s a quick introduction and guide for using our brand new revolutionary app that is doing away with the need to keep paper receipts and allowing business-oriented people to effortlessly manage and track their expenses for reimbursements and deductions. 

First:  Access the app and you’ll be prompted to capture a photo of your receipt and add a note to it if you like.  The image will then automatically be sent to Shoeboxed to be digitally archived and auto-categorized. 

Second:  All important receipt data such as date, vendor name, total, payment type, and IRS tax category are extracted from the photo image through Shoeboxed’s OCR and human-verified data entry system.  Track your receipts in your iPhone during and after they go through Shoeboxed’s processing.

Third:  Effortlessly generate expense reports and email them to yourself or to your boss for reimbursements and deductions.   You’ll never have to deal with paper receipts again!

Download the free Shoeboxed iPhone app here!

With the new app, users can simply snap a picture of their receipts with their iPhone, automatically generate expense reports, and send the images to Shoeboxed.com to be digitally archived for auto-categorization, expense tracking, and reimbursements. All important receipt data such as date, vendor name, total, payment type, and IRS tax category are extracted from the photo image through Shoeboxed’s OCR and human-verified data entry system before being made available to the user in their Shoeboxed account or on their iPhone. 

It is the ultimate mobile solution for receipt management, especially for those who travel often for business. With this iPhone app, users will no longer have to keep track of paper receipts and will automatically have a secure digital archive of their financial data for returns, reimbursements, and tax prep.

Download the Shoeboxed app for FREE and see for yourself! http://bit.ly/Vtiq6

Check it out!

http://weeklyapp.tv/2009/10/episode-v-shoeboxed-removes-paper-clutter-gives-you-online-access-and-is-irs-friendly/

Many experts believe that with the proliferation of technology and the Internet, traditional salesmanship has lost that personal touch. We have seen the steady decline of institutions such as the weekly milk man, and even the occasional visit from an adorable Girl Scout selling cookies seems to hearken back nostalgically to a lost age of door-to-door salesmanship.

However, one new development appears to be bringing back the idea of one-on-one micromarketing: Twitter.

While Twitter certainly lacks the face to face interaction, it does provide a way for companies to reach out to individual consumers, garner their feedback, and engage them in a dialogue (limited to 140 characters, but a dialogue, nonetheless.) Twitter allows salesmen to hear what customers are saying directly and offers them a chance to respond in real time.

As outdated as the old image of a cheesy door-to-door salesman may be, it may help marketers to borrow some of the same concepts when using Twitter for their businesses, namely:

1) Every customer counts and has a voice.

2) The best new ideas for a company often come straight from the consumer.

3) Customers enjoy that extra personal touch.

For those of you old fogeys who have yet to hop on the Twitter bandwagon, it may help to just think of yourselves as a new and improved (and less invasive) version of the traditional door-to-door salesmen of the past….

Interested in hearing about different online apps and mobile services that can help you save time and money? Blackberry put together a webcast with Shoeboxed Head of Marketing Sonny Byrd, Intuit Product Manager Mary Shapiro, and President of Maximizer, Vivek Thomas.

Check it out!

Our Head of Marketing, Sonny Byrd, was interviewed by The River The Ranch and The Bay. Check out the podcast here (just hit play!)

http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/34406

Shoeboxed and Bill.com Join Forces

Shoeboxed is thrilled to announce our partnership with Bill.com, the online bill management and payment leader, to enable small business owners to focus more on their core businesses and less on administrative hassles.

Companies can now mail their invoices to Shoeboxed for scanning into the Bill.com system rather than scanning the invoices themselves.  This approach saves time while ensuring that invoices are digitally stored for easy reference and security.  Companies can also mail receipts and business cards to Shoeboxed, and access those documents from Bill.com or their Shoeboxed account.  Once an invoice is scanned into the Bill.com system it is immediately available in a user’s Bill.com Inbox and can be routed for review internally or to an external accountant.  Companies or their accountants can then pay vendors from any US bank account via check or ePayment, and payments are synchronized with their accounting systems. 

Customers of Shoeboxed and Bill.com can start using the integrated solution at no additional cost from either service.  Bill.com customers who do not currently have a Shoeboxed account can try the integrated service free for 30 days, after which the service is being offered at an introductory price of $8.99 per month for up to 50 documents per month.  Current Shoeboxed customers can open a Bill.com account and use this feature without requiring an upgrade to their Shoeboxed account.

“Both Shoeboxed and Bill.com want to help offices go paperless, so the partnership makes a lot of sense,” said Taylor Mingos, CEO and Founder of Shoeboxed. “Together we can provide an even better solution for small businesses and give them more time to focus on growing their business.”

“Bill.com is focused on streamlining the hugely inefficient bill management and bill payment process for small and mid size businesses and the accountants that serve them,” said René Lacerte, CEO and Founder of Bill.com. “We have made tremendous progress on streamlining the management and payment of bills. Our new partnership with Shoeboxed will drive even more efficiencies at the start of that process, and ultimately allow businesses to eliminate one of the remaining headaches with going paperless.” 

Shoeboxed on CNET

Josh Lowensohn of CNET reviewed Shoeboxed’s revamped e-mail receipt processing and autocategorization. He got 100% accurate data extraction and loved the service! Check out his great review:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-27076_3-10339129-248.html?tag=newsLatestHeadlinesArea.0

Have YOU tried the new and improved e-mail service yet?

Shoeboxed users can automatically forward their receipts from online retailers to their Shoeboxed accounts, where important data like store name, total, and date are extracted with over 95% accuracy for budgeting, bookkeeping, reimbursements, and tax purposes. Receipts are also sorted into categories with the improved Auto-Categorization tool. With the new e-mail processing system, this free feature is now faster and has even more accurate data extraction than before so online shoppers can conveniently keep track of their purchases and spending with minimal effort and hassle.

By using their Shoeboxed e-mail address as their online shopping address, users can also avoid all the spam and marketing messages being sent by online retailers to their primary inboxes. Old online shopping receipts can simply be forwarded manually from a user’s inbox to their Shoeboxed address. Users can also scan paper receipts and upload them to their Shoeboxed accounts, helping to eliminate clutter and saving time during tax season.

“We just celebrated our second year of going online, and we thought this would be a great way to get back to our roots.” said Taylor Mingos, CEO and Founder of Shoeboxed. “We want to be able to provide a great free service for our DIY users to help them save money during the recession.”

Shoeboxed’s improved free DIY service will revolutionize online shopping by providing users with the ability to automatically categorize their receipts, store them in a secure online archive, maximize deductions and reimbursements, and save time and money on their bookkeeping.

Those who are interested in trying out Shoeboxed’s solutions for receipt and business card management should visit our website for more information at http://www.shoeboxed.com.

As a recent Duke graduate who has dozens of bright friends still struggling to find jobs, I am acutely aware of the negative impact of the recession. There is no denying the pain it has caused through lay-offs, bankruptcies, and lost opportunities.

However, to put a little more positive spin on things, here are some reasons why the recession maybe ain’t so bad after all:

1) Now is one of the best possible times to make big purchases such as a home or a car, as there are unprecedented discounts and perks included. Builders and dealers are desperate, and their desperation translates into big savings for customers.

2) With the market as low as it is, the smallest of investments now can end up paying off tremendously in the next ten years.

3) There is a vacuum for entrepreneurship. In times like this, it is important to re-evaluate the systems that brought us to where we are today and strive to come up with innovative ways to revive the economy. And, with so many intelligent, talented people who have been laid off, the recession is the perfect opportunity for them to step out of the rat race and re-evaluate how they want to be using those talents of theirs.

4) If you are graduating college and can’t get a job, you can just blame the recession!

It is important for us to accept the recession for what it is and to look with a creative and open-minded attitude at what opportunities it may reveal. What do you think, NSJ readers?

With literally zero dollars and a bit of creative thinking, you can use the internet to create hugely effective marketing platforms. Just think of yourself as the author, and the internet as the publisher. Now, you need to know how and what to publish online so that you get found. Enter, this blog post! You’re already taking a step in the right direction!

First, wrap your head around the concept of “Inbound Marketing.” Hubspot.com will be your best resource here. You can no longer push your idea on consumers. Your company must put ideas and content out in the marketplace and let leads and customers come to them. To get started, create a blog! A blog will be your best bet for attracting search engine hits and pulling net surfers to your idea using informative and creative content.

Next, get in the social media game. It’s no longer an option; you need to use Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and any other social networks so that you can communicate quickly and effectively with your audience. This is just another one of the many free platforms that will help you get found online.

Next, put together some webinars. Although not all webinar software is free, at  Shoeboxed.com, we started with a free trial for a webinar company and were able to generate enough traffic and content during the free trial alone to make it worth our while. Host as many webinars on as many different topics as you can. If they’re informative, internet traffic will trickle in. To find out how to make good webinars, watch some online. Sign up for Shoeboxed’s next webinar to see how we do it: www.shoeboxed.com/webinar.

Once you have a website up and running, pay special attention to your landing pages. The language and style of these pages are crucial for capturing leads and converting them online. There are unending resources and blogs out there that cover landing page tips and pointers.

Finally, get really creative. I mean, really creative. Try something quirky or crazy like a media stunt, viral video, crazy T-shirt promotion, online voting competition or gift giveaways. The sky is the limit for cheap online marketing if you really put your mind to it.

For more in depth reading on topics like low/no budget online marketing, visit hubspot.com, read Seth Godin’s books and blogs, check out problogger.com, Dosh Dosh, and many more. Most importantly, don’t give up. Inbound marketing is cheap, and if you get your content out there, your customers will come to you.

The reasons for why it is the worst of times are obvious: massive lay-offs, skyrocketing unemployment rates, lost retirement nest eggs, etc. The reason for why it could be the best of times requires a little more imagination and a little more optimism.

Now we are at a point in our economy when entrepreneurship is not only a component, but a necessity for revival. The recession is paving the way for innovation, creativity, and even personal glory for those brave entrepreneurial pioneers setting off into the unknown to stake their claims. There are unlimited new streams of revenue, needs to fulfill with new services, and it is up to the entrepreneur to bravely go where no man (or woman) has gone before.

So now we have all these brilliant, hard-working, freshly laid-off men and women who are chomping at the bit to start that business they have always wanted to but never could: the Unintentional Entrepreneur. Unfortunately, these men and women are also being forced to become the Unintentional Bookkeeper.

For many would-be entrepreneurs, one of the greatest challenges that slows them down or holds them back is the thought of having to take on all the mind-numbing details of the bureaucracy and paperwork and bookkeeping involved in setting up and running a small new business. Entrepreneurs thrive on creative, big-picture thinking, and the last thing they want or need is to get bogged down by the technicalities of bookkeeping and tax prep and accounting, especially when they most likely lack the resources to hire people to do these tasks for them.

Unfortunately, these mundane details are crucial to success. In fact, one of the top pieces of advice from the IRS to entrepreneurs starting their own business is, “Good records will help you ensure successful operation of your new business.”

So what is to be done? Fortunately for the Unintentional Entrepreneur who does not want to become the Unintentional Bookkeeper, there are more services available than ever before to assist the financial and record-keeping operations of small businesses.

One of these services is Shoeboxed.com, the leader in online receipt and business card management. Our service allows users to mail in their receipts, business cards, and invoices in pre-paid envelopes to be scanned and uploaded into secure accounts for tax organization, budgeting, bookkeeping, etc. It takes all the grunt work out of financial upkeep and provides peace of mind for good record keeping.

One of Shoeboxed’s goals is to provide the resources necessary for entrepreneurs and small business owners to focus on what is important to them and important to the economy: growing their business.

Here are the top seven things the IRS wants you to know if you plan on opening a new business this year.

1. First, you must decide what type of business entity you are going to establish. The type your business takes will determine which tax form you have to file. The most common types of business are the sole proprietorship, partnership, corporation and S corporation.
2. The type of business you operate determines what taxes you must pay and how you pay them. The four general types of business taxes are income tax, self-employment tax, employment tax and excise tax.
3. An Employer Identification Number is used to identify a business entity. Generally, businesses need an EIN. Visit IRS.gov for more information about whether you will need an EIN. You can also apply for an EIN online at IRS.gov.
4. Good records will help you ensure successful operation of your new business. You may choose any recordkeeping system suited to your business that clearly shows your income and expenses. Except in a few cases, the law does not require any special kind of records. However, the business you are in affects the type of records you need to keep for federal tax purposes.
5. Every business taxpayer must figure taxable income on an annual accounting period called a tax year. The calendar year and the fiscal year are the most common tax years used. 
6. Each taxpayer must also use a consistent accounting method, which is a set of rules for determining when to report income and expenses. The most commonly used accounting methods are the cash method and an accrual method. Under the cash method, you generally report income in the tax year you receive it and deduct expenses in the tax year you pay them. Under an accrual method, you generally report income in the tax year you earn it and deduct expenses in the tax year you incur them.
7. Visit the Business section of IRS.gov for resources to assist entrepreneurs with starting and operating a new business.

Here at Shoeboxed, we are especially concerned with Tip #4. If you want to keep excellent records at your business, what could be easier than mailing in all your receipts for automatic storage, tracking, and tax categorization?

There’s my two cents, but for the sake of making this post more interesting, let me elaborate.

In BusinessWeek’s Small Biz blog on July 1, John Tozzi explored whether entrepreneurship is on the decline using Scott Shane’s data from the New York Times that it is declining, and Steve King’s data from Small Business Labs that it is not declining.

I am sure both men used reliable sources and logic to reach these conclusions, and both could be arguably correct depending on their data. However, what frightened me the most was that even if entrepreneurship is not declining, it sure doesn’t seem to be on the rise. Here is one of the graphs Steve King uses to support his assertion that entrepreneurship is not declining:

If these measly worms of graph are the best case scenario for the state of entrepreneurship in America, then we have a problem.

Everyone is debating the best way to “fix” the economy; what we need is not repair, but renewal. Trying to claw our way back to the way things used to be duirng more prosperous days is not going to help America into the coming years. What we need is innovation, creativity, and above all, entrepreneurship if we are to continue competing on a global stage. It is my sincere hope that over the next decade, graphs like the one above will show not only stability, but a rise in the rate of entrepreneurship.