The new program also offers merchants a Financial Management Workbook containing “an actionable, easy-to-follow curriculum and information on key areas of concern for small businesses”. SCORE’s website points out some of the major business topics covered:

• How to efficiently manage cash flow
• How to maximize income and the speed with which you get paid
• How to minimize expenses
• Knowing your business funding options
• Being prepared for your business’s growth and “what if” scenarios.

“As a longtime provider of small business payment cards and related small business services,” says Raghav Lal, Visa’s head of Global Small Business, “we understand that it is vital for business owners to have easy access to resources and insight to help them manage the health of their business, especially during challenging economic times,”

US Business Finance Corp is an alternative business finance company that helps small businesses obtain Visa and MasterCard merchant credit card accounts and short-term merchant cash advances. On the average, businesses accepting credit cards see their sales receipts totals increase almost 20%. With steady sales from Visa and MasterCard sales, businesses can qualify for merchant cash advances – in amounts from $2,500 to $100,000 determined by monthly sales – to help in tight cash flow emergency situations or for general working capital needs.

If your business is looking for ways to research funding options, talk to the alternative funding experts at US Business Finance Corp – they can show you the benefits of small business loans, equipment leases, merchant cash advances or unsecured loans – and assist you in seeing how each may fit your business’s cash flow needs.

Construction companies and handyman companies utilize their company credit card as a line of credit to get the wood, hardware and material for their job sites. Every month the cards get paid off from the customer payments on the jobs. The use of the credit card versus an in-store line of credit gives the businesses perks such as free airline miles and hotel stays.

However, every contractor runs into the situation where “Life happens”, a customer goes into the hospital, leaves on vacation, gets laid off, or something happens that impairs their ability to make an on-time payment. With the reverberations of tight credit and foreclosures rippling back and forth through the banking community, banks and credit card companies are moving sooner than later to reduce credit limits. No longer a three strikes and your out, more of a one to three days late and your credit limit could be reduced by 50 – 90%, severely impinging on your ability to get needed material to the job site.

By accepting credit cards for building and repair jobs, contractors benefit in three ways:

• their customers can use their credit card companies instead needing the cash to cover the work;
• the contractor’s credit card does not carry all the upfront job costs; and
• the contractor can use his average monthly credit card sales amount to qualify for a business cash advance.

By leveraging future sales, contractors can make sure their credit cards are paid on time,safeguard their current credit limits, and keep available a sizable amount of buying power to move quickly to get supplies on to a job site or meet emergency financial situations.

US Business Finance Corp helps owners of small and medium size businesses, such as home builders, law firms, medical practices and retail stores, quickly turn their prospects of future Visa and MasterCard sales into cash – usually receiving the business cash advance into their bank account in less than 10 business days. Faster for repeat customers.

Contact US Business Finance Corp’s small business financing experts today to see how your business can benefit from opening a merchant credit card account and using business cash advances to smooth the ups and downs of your cash flow.

With the stock market devaluation and Washington’s questionable ability to have Social Security meet the surge in its retirement obligations due to Baby Boomers exiting the workforce en masse in the next decade, many business owners and their employees are looking to their own devices to assure themselves of a beneficial quality of life during retirement.

For retirement purposes, USBFC has added Private Employer Benefit plans to its financial services. Additional tools for meeting unexpected economic reversals that USBFC offers are life insurance, mortgage insurance and critical illness insurance – these help business owners’ families continue to live in their home and bills get paid should anything untimely happen to the owner.

To assist an entrepreneurs needs as well as those of their business, USBFC advisers take into account the company’s budget and needs for insurance, tax liabilities, potential areas of tax deferment, retirement plans as well as the family’s education funding and estate planning needs. USBFC views your retirement plan as a way to get the most out of your most precious asset: your time. By creating a retirement plan for you and your employees, the time you spend building your business rewards you doubly by also funding your retirement.

At USBFC, we work with you to make sure your business avoids the setbacks that employees of major corporations face when their retirement programs disappear in financial reorganizations. Entrepreneurs enjoy running small businesses in order to better control the dynamics between work and profit. Control your retirement plans and deferred compensation strategy, contact USBFC’s financial services advisers and match your business to a suitable, stable Private Employer Benefit plan today.

A Private Employer Benefit Plan (PEB) is an alternative retirement plan to the better known 401(k)s and IRAs. These non-qualified deferred compensation plans offer a legal way to fund your small business’s retirement plan with pre-tax dollars. These benefit plans work for:

• Privately held C and S corporations,
• Partnerships and limited liability partnerships (LLP),
• Limited liability corporations (LLC)
• Professional corporations, and
• Sole proprietorships.

Small business owners utilizing 401(k) plans are finding that in an economic downturn, employees stop saving in order to meet bills. With reduced employee participation their retirement plan begins to look “top heavy” to the IRS. Avoid unnecessary penalties and paying too much in taxes by talking to USBFC’s financial advisers about which of our new PEBs could work best for your business. Our retirement planning services utilize the IRS 409, 412 or 419 plans which can be funded by life insurance and fixed annuity products.

Our retirement plans keep you from unnecessarily paying out more in pre-tax funds and keep you from penalizing top-heavy 401(k) situations. Your retirement investment grows in a tax-deferred manner, making the most use of your growing retirement principal. Upon retirement, the deferred compensation you have accrued becomes your retirement income that you can use largely tax-free!

An added benefit of creating a Private Employer Benefit Plan for your company is another way to financially reward and retain your key personnel. Since some of the plans allow substantial annual contribution limits, they are very well suited to owners who are just starting to fund their retirement savings or have realized that the amount they have set aside may not be adequate in today’s volatile market.

Whether your small business is a start-up or you are a business owner desiring to quickly build equity in your retirement account, contact USBFC’s financial advisors to explore the financially rewarding possibilities a Private Employer Benefit Plan can have for you, your family and your employees.

With the US tax law changes brought about in the EGTRRA 2001 legislation, certain retirement plans were created that allow business owners to contribute a maximum of $40,000 to their retirement accounts. Over 6 times as much as traditional self-employed retirement plans.

Several plans utilize life insurance or annuities to fund the account. A benefit of these plans is the life insurance premiums are paid for with pre-tax dollars and the equity created for the owner and employees is protected from creditors should the company suffer severe financial reversals. Unlike 401(k)s, these plans are buffered from the volatility of the market and can be structured so your principal never loses its original value. Risk is also reduced since the insurance company guarantees the retirement benefits with the annuity or life insurance contract. This benefit, that the assets you place in your PEB are fully protected against market swings, also serves to protect them from any legal actions trying to relieve you of your assets.

Another benefit of using pre-tax funds to finance the Private Employer Benefit plan is it can significantly reduce your state and federal income taxes. This allows business owners to directly benefit, and continue to benefit as their retirement account grows, on a tax-deferred basis. Owners of every type of small business, from a sole proprietorship to a privately held C corporation, can benefit from instituting a Private Employer Benefit plan.

If you need to catch up on funding your retirement plans and the traditional IRA route does not allow you to put away the necessary amount, contact the small business financial advisers at US Business Finance Corp and see how you and your family can benefit from a retirement plan tailored to your business and retirement needs.

With the reverberations of the huge “market corrections” affecting many IRA and 401(k) retirement plans, business owners are finding annuities tied to their retirement plan can distance them from the gyrations of the stock market.

USBFC works with business owners to assist in planning a financial strategy that includes a retirement plan or a Private Employer Benefit plan for accruing and distributing a small business owner’s or their employees’ retirement savings with a tax deferment on any increase in the investments. Annuities combined with related IRS retirement programs offer several methods of building equity faster than traditional 401(k)s. Each business owners’ financial needs and situation are different, so the financial advisers at USBFC take the time to match your needs and your business to the best retirement plan.

Annuities come in two variations: an immediate annuity or a deferred annuity. State law regulates annuity contracts since they are contracts issued by life insurance companies, but defined by the Internal Revenue Service for how they are handled for federal tax filings. Annuities, like certain insurance policies, have two phases: clients initially pay into an account and accumulate equity (deferral phase) followed by the period when the client receives disbursements from the account for a predetermined time period (the annuity phase). Contracts with a very short funding period and a long payment period are known as “immediate annuities”.

Deferred annuities come in two styles: fixed deferred annuity and variable annuity.

A fixed deferred annuity means the growth of the underlying investment vehicle is tied to something stable like an interest rate. A variable annuity is one where the investment may be in stocks or bonds. In variable annuities, the principle is not guaranteed and, similar to any investment in the market, the account could possibly lose value (do worse than a fixed deferred) or gain value at a greater rate than it would have if simply tied to an interest rate.

The tax advantage for small business owners and employees is that the tax-deferred compounding of any capital gains allows for a faster and greater accumulation of wealth. Contact our financial advisers to see the potential benefits your business and employees receive from our insurance, annuity and retirement plans.