The Importance Of Financial Literacy In Our Life

What is the relevance of  Financial Literacy in our life? What is it all about? These two questions  are probably the top questions that need to be answered to realize the pressing needs to understand and educate the people about financial literacy. The needs to educate the people how to manage their finances and how their money works.

Some few International Findings taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/:

An international OECD study was published in late 2005 analysing financial literacy surveys in OECD countries. A selection of findings^[10] included:

• In Australia, 67 per cent of respondents indicated that they understood the concept of compound interest, yet when they were asked to solve a problem using the concept only 28 per cent had a good level of understanding.
• A British survey found that consumers do not actively seek out financial information. The information they do receive is acquired by chance, for example, by picking up a pamphlet at a bank or having a chance talk with a bank employee.
• A Canadian survey found that respondents considered choosing the right investments to be more stressful than going to the dentist.
• A survey of Korean high-school students showed that they had failing scores - that is, they answered fewer than 60 per cent of the questions correctly - on tests designed to measure their ability to choose and manage a credit card, their knowledge about saving and investing for retirement, and their awareness of risk and the importance of insuring against it.
• A survey in the US found that four out of ten American workers are not saving for retirement.

Here are some few questions to test you financial literacy:

 Did you know that April is Financial Literacy Month? With taxes fresh on your mind and spring cleaning in the air, it’s as good a time as any to brush up on your financial literacy. After all, as we’re required to make more and more financial decisions, financial literacy is becoming almost as important as being able to read and write....M O R E

Tips for Developing Applications for Your Business

Web applications are very useful for any business. Whether you are a large enterprise or small company, the advantages of creating applications to automate work for you outweigh the cost of creating them. You can create it to optimize your work, distribute communications better or even be a product that you sell. Needless to say, there are so many things that you can do with the right idea and the right programmers.

The following are some practical tips that can help you in development phase of your application project. They are simple reminders that can keep your grounded on your project and on-track.

Visualize your Process Flow

According to experts from R&G Technologies, one should never start a project without a working model and flowchart of how you want it to work. If you want to be able to create a program that is functional, make sure that you know where you want to start and what output you want to get. While there are many things that happen along the way, knowing where you are supposed to start and knowing the outcome will keep you focused toward completion.

Simplify the Steps

Make sure that you clarify the phases of your application's development. Chokepoints happen when the steps are not clearly defined in your work. Specify what needs to be done, who needs to do it, and when it is due. Before you even step forward toward designing, make sure that this working framework is hashed out.

Work With the Budget

An application's success largely depends on two things: time and money. If you do not have enough of either, there is a chance that your project will fail. It is critical that you work with your budget.Make sure that you have plenty of funds for all the aspects needed in the project. It is important that you also have an emergency fund available. Like extra time, extra money will allow you to account for things that you did not expect.

Create Your Own

While modeling is an important aspect of development, make sure that you are not caught in the trap of copying other people's work. Innovate, think out of the box and explore other options. Don't be limited by what is already available. While it may take a bit of time, it may prove to be your projects biggest selling point.

Document Changes

The strength of a program is often found in its documentation. It is, in some sense, what separates the ‘men from the boys'. A program is often in flux in development. The best way to maker sure that you are able to manage this dynamism is proper documentation. It is critical that this is enforced properly even in the thick of the development. Make it a habit to check the logs of the programmers. It is what will ensure whether your project is doing what you planned it to do.

Support

Support is often an afterthought. Nevertheless, it is what makes great programs what they are. If you are planning to develop a program, make sure that you have the manpower to support it even after its launch date. Consider it the human aspect that ties in everything together.
-- Are you planning to create new applications for your company? Don't where to start? Learn how to do it right with R&G Technologies.
Source: http://www.articletrader.com

Free Educational Resources for The Small Business Owner

I love free stuff. Who doesn't I also love learning and gaining wisdom on a wide variety of topics. So I have compiled a list of awesomely amazing free learning resources and educational programs available to business professionals and entrepreneurs. I am not paid or affiliated with any of these companies, but I do use their services regularly.

BookBoon.com

BookBoon.com offers an amazing array of free college textbooks, business books, and travel guides. All books are written exclusively for bookboon.com. Business topics range from accounting and finance to time management planning, IT, and marketing. You will also be able to find textbooks for varied areas of study including calculus, engineering, earth science, and statistics. My favorite part of bookboon.com is their wide selection of books on MS Office programs. Guides for the 2003, 2007 and 2010 versions of MS Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Access, Visio, Outlook, and Publisher are all available for download on the website. An added bonus, Bookboon.com allows users to download multiple books at the same time using a zip file.

National Association of Certified Public Bookkeepers (NACPB)

The NACPB is an organization composed of accounting and bookkeeping professionals. This organization is an excellent tool for accounting professionals or business owners and entrepreneurs who are responsible for maintaining their own financial financial records. Although a majority of free training and educational materials are available to members only, there are other valuable training opportunities available to nonmembers as well. The following is a listing of current lessons that are free to both members and nonmembers of the organization:

• How to Build a Highly Profitable Bookkeeping Business
• Accounting: The Language of Business
• Tax: Introduction to Federal Taxation and Understanding Federal Tax law
• The Need for Payroll and Personnel Records
• Excel: Getting Started

NACPB also provides free accounting and QuickBooks competency tests, which can be reached through the NACPB website at http://www.nacpb.org.

Free-eBooks.net

Free-eBooks.net allows people to enjoy free limitless reading of electronic books through their website. Free book downloads are limited to 5 ebooks per month for members with free accounts. Users can pay for more or unlimited downloads. The site offers fiction and nonfiction reading choices, plus academic articles and textbooks. Books can be downloaded in several different formats, including Mobi, PDF, ePub, and HTML. Writers can also submit their ebooks to be featured on the site. For a limited time only, Free-eBooks.net will promote a writer's ebook for free. http://www.free-ebooks.net

Project Gutenberg

Project Gutenberg is the largest single collection of free eBooks, with over 40,000 ebooks available to read online or download for free. Project Gutenberg carries only high quality books that have been digitized and proofread by their own volunteers and staff. Most of the books available on the site are older literary works. A majority of the classics are available on the site for free.

BetterBottomLine.com

BetterBottomLine.com website and blog is run by CPA and QuickBooks expert, Scott Gregory. This site offers free tutorials on QuickBooks that are available for download. The site currently offers 14 free tutorial guides on topics ranging from remote access options to new features in QuickBooks 2012 edition.

Education-Portal.com

Education-Portal.com allows users to take free college level courses online. Videos of select free courses are available for viewing online. After watching the videos, students can take a free quiz to access their knowledge and understanding. The great benefit of using Education-Portal.com is that their classes prepare students for the CLEP exam. CLEP, which stands for College-Level Examination Program, was designed for independent learners and anyone can take the exam. Each exam is $77 and will earn 3-6 college credit hours.

The following are a few of the courses available through Education-Portal.com:

• Biology 101: Intro to Biology
• Business 101: Principles of Management
• Business 102: Principles of Marketing
• Chemistry 101: General Chemistry
• Economics 102: Macroeconomics

The list above is only a small sampling of the free educational resources available on the Internet. With a good Google search one will find an array of training tutorials and eBooks, many of which are free of charge. Many businesses and organizations offer these free benefits as a marketing tool or membership incentive. Whether you are a college student or business professional, I urge all to take advantage of the free knowledge that is available in this age of information.

Raquel Delemos is a certified bookkeeper and administrative consultant from Houston, TX. Raquel is the founder of Paramount Virtual Office Solutions and is also and Independent Sales Rep. for Avon Cosmetics. If you would like to contact her, please email info@paramountvirtualoffice.com.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Raquel_Johnson_De_Lemos

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7542962