Do you know the Difference between Rates and Wages?

Written by Ellen Zucker


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RATES

• As a self-employed service provider, you receive income based on your billable hours, that is, time spent on performing services for your clients.

• You furnishes your own supplies. Unlessrepparttar service is one that is performed off- site, you supply your own workspace.

• You have to equip yourself to be in business and provide your services: You must procure and equip your workplace, invest in skill and product development, market your services, purchase business insurance, and handle billing, recordkeeping and collections.

• As a business owner you take on a great deal of risk. It is reasonable, and expected, that your rates should allow for a reasonable profit over and above your expenses and salary.

The above is true for any business. Below are additional costs you pay because you are self-employed.

• Unlike most of your employed counterparts, there is no employer subsidy for your health insurance. And, as an individual, your costs will be higher than they would be as part of a larger organization.

• Aside from Social Security, you are totally responsible for your own retirement nest egg.

• You will pay bothrepparttar 142859 employee's andrepparttar 142860 employer's share ofrepparttar 142861 FICA tax burden (15.3%); doublerepparttar 142862 burden that falls upon your employee counterparts. The IRS allows limited deductions for this tax, but your net share is still far higher than for your employed counterparts.

But you can only bill for services rendered.

The upshot is that as a self-employed service provider you must cover many expenses that employees do not. Therefore you should have no qualms about charging an adequate rate to cover your expenses and make a living.

Ellen Zucker has been self-employed for over ten years.

Her site, http://www.selfemployment101.com, has articles and resources to help the creative sole-proprietor earn a living and create a life.


How to Choose the Best Small Business VoIP Solution

Written by Gobala Krishnan


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When is comes to quality vs. cost,repparttar direction is pretty clear. Before choosingrepparttar 142858 proper VoIP phone system for your business, you need to figure out exactly what your business needs. If your business relies heavily onrepparttar 142859 phone for prospecting customers, providing customer support, or giving out important information throughrepparttar 142860 phone, then you should definitely opt for better quality.

If you userepparttar 142861 phone for short communication with your business partners or agents, or any other reason which is NOT your main business function, it would be better to save a little and go withrepparttar 142862 low cost option. The difference in quality is not very apparent in most cases.

If you are just starting your small business, VoIP phone cards also provide some sort of temporary solution until you can get enough financing to develop a better system. Phone cards usually let you dial international and national long distance at a lower cost because they use either VoIP asrepparttar 142863 back end provider or through a special promotion or arrangement between telecommunications companies.

Today, you can even get "virtual phone cards" which allow you to make phone calls by dialing a toll-free number in a long list of countries. This is especially useful if you spend more time travelling and doing business overseas than you are at home.

Regardless of which VoIP phone system you choose for your small business, make sure you are gettingrepparttar 142864 most out ofrepparttar 142865 money you spend for these long distance or international plans. Forgetrepparttar 142866 bells and whistles. The purpose of having a good phone system is, and always should be, to communicate and express yourself.

Gobala Krishnan is a small business entrepreneur and publisher of the "VoIP and Me" newsletter, designed for smart entrepreneurs who want to avoid all the technical jargon and get straight to the information that really matters. Learn how you can drastically cut communication costs by 70%, get more customers and expand to new markets using VoIP. Join the VoIP and Me newsletter now at http://www.VoipAndMe.com


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