Finance Your Company And Manage Your Company Finances
Below are some websites and web applications that can help small businesses finance their company and manage their company finances. These web applications span the gamut from crowdfunding entities to peer-to-peer
lending facilitators to online bill management and invoicing applications.
Finance your company
Profounder is a crowdfunding entity. It allows business owners to "Raise money for your business from your community. Get funding for equity or revenue share." according to Profounders's website. Profounder enables business owners to raise capital. Profounders' site further states, "We're making it easy for your community to contribute financially to your business, so they're literally invested in your success." Profounder also provides related tools to manage this capital raising process. Who can invest through Profounder? "People with whom you have a substantial, pre-existing relationship, this group may include your friends, family, and people you know in your community."
Prosper is a peer-to-peer lending network. From Prosper's website, "Here's how it works: Borrowers choose a loan amount, purpose and post a loan listing. Investors review loan listings and invest in listings that meet their criteria. Once the process is complete, borrowers make fixed monthly payments and investors receive a portion of those payments directly to their Prosper account." Prosper circumvents "the middleman to connect people who need money with those who have money to invest...so everyone prospers!"
Manage your company finances
Here are a couple of online entities that will help you manage your company finances. Both will help you automate your accounts receivables and payables.
Bill.com is an online bill management entity for small and medium businesses. Per Bill.com's website, "Bill.com streamlines and automates vendor bill payment and customer invoicing. You get a complete web-based "financial office" to organize your day-to-day finances and optimize cash flow. Everything you, your employees, and your accountant need to manage your business - the documents, workflow, payment processing, invoicing, and collections - are available at your fingertips. Anytime. Anywhere." Bill.com helps replace paper-based processes.
FreshBooks is an online bookkeeping and invoicing service for small businesses and independent contractors/professionals. According to Freshbooks' website, "Bill 300K or less? FreshBooks is your accounting system. Bill more? Use our accounting integrations." Regarding integrations with Quickbook, it appears that someone in IT at the user's company will either have to write the integration code or sign up for additional support from Freshbooks that would include writing the code. The other option is to export the data out of Freshbooks and import into Quickbooks.
These entities help small business owners finance their companies and manage their company finances. If you already have a full-time accountant or bookkeeper on staff, or if you have an entire finance and accounting department, obviously those online entities that help you manage your finances are not aimed at you. However, if you have a new division or are considering launching a new service and wish to track everything separately, one of these entities may be just the answer. Similarly, if you only wish to raise capital of $25, 000 or less, one of the above entities may be the perfect vehicle to use to do this. If you need significantly more than this, then you obviously need to look elsewhere.
Tiffany C. Wright is the author of the book, Solving the Capital Equation: Financing Solutions for Small Businesses. She provides long-term strategic and financial advisory and project-based and short-term interim C-level management through her firm, Toca Family Business Services, In 5 years she's helped companies obtain over $31 Million in financing. She is the former owner of a real estate investment company and a construction trade publication. Tiffany has an MBA in Finance and Entrepreneurial Management from the Wharton School of Business ( Univ. of Pennsylvania) and her B.S. in Engineering. You can also view her blog at
http://www.Cash4Impact.com.
