The SBA has launched a new page helping businesses make sense of health care reform. Check out this link for the full story.

http://www.bizjournals.com/wichita/news/2013/01/29/small-business-administration-launches.html?page=all

By Stephanie Elsen

As an employer, you are aware of the importance of making accurate employee wage garnishments. Calculating withholdings and making payments can be complex, and processing them incorrectly can result in legal repercussions. Here are some ways payroll software can help ensure deductions are made accurately and on time.

Set up and track garnishment calculations. By setting up garnishment calculations to compute automatically when payroll is processed, you are assured a consistently accurate dollar amount is being withheld, keeping both employee and creditor happy.

Set up and pay garnishment creditors from your payroll system. By setting up creditors within your payroll system, you can easily process and send checks right from the system instead of having to look up the address and print the check from another location. This also provides the ability to run reports to see who has been paid, and how much.

Specify a minimum net pay. Many garnishment court orders require that an amount be deducted from the pay, yet the employee pay should not go below a specified amount. By setting this up within your payroll system, you are confident the proper garnishment is taken out, and that the employee gets their minimum amount.

Set up a garnishment priority. When an employee has more than one garnishment, you will need to know which garnishment takes priority. Setting up a priority system within your software allows you to automatically deduct the garnishment in the correct order, so that the proper amount is deducted for each creditor.

Specify the priority of other deductions. A garnishment may be set up to allow the employee to contribute money to other areas before the garnishment is taken, such as a 401(k) contribution. In this case, setting up a rule within your system to handle this will make certain that the garnishment is taken only after the other deductions are taken.

Employee payroll garnishments can be complicated. Use every tool at your disposal to ensure you are in compliance with a court-ordered garnishment, and look after the needs of your employee at the same time. Payroll software is a tool that can work wonders in keeping both parties satisfied.

Wage Garnishment Setup in CenterPoint Payroll Software

Red Wing Software, Inc. announces plans to exhibit at the Wisconsin Restaurant Expo in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, March 11-13, 2013. Leading with its payroll software, Red Wing Software intends to spread the word about how to cut down on data entry, make tax filing easier, comply with new PPACA regulations and handle tip and minimum wage calculations.

“Red Wing Software is honored to have a wide variety of restaurants as customers, running payroll for single and multiple restaurant locations,” says Cindy Bauer, Red Wing Software Marketing Manager, “Customers range from small to large hometown restaurants to franchisees with 70+ locations. Franchisee locations using Red Wing Software’s payroll products include Arby’s, McDonald’s, Dairy Queen, Pizza Hut and more. Whether independent or franchisee, restaurants have found the features and service offered by Red Wing Software make the payroll process and tax filing easier. Restaurants can benefit from the new tools for monitoring hours for the upcoming 2014 PPACA requirement, which requires that employers with 50 or more full time employees offer health coverage for those full time employees.”

Visit Red Wing Software March 11-13 at booth #739 at Wisconsin Restaurant Expo. The event will be held at The Delta Center, 400 West Wisconsin Avenue, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 53203.

By Stephanie Elsen

Many of you may know Cori; she is one of our support technicians as well as the voice on many of our How2 Videos. What you may not know is her husband Ryan also works at Red Wing Software. Ryan is our Graphic Designer. Whether it’s a brochure, advertising, or our website, Ryan has a hand in designing or producing it.

This past November, they welcomed a brand new baby boy; Liam. Unfortunately, he was born with a Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia (basically a hole in his diaphragm). Thankfully, after surgery and sometime in the hospital, Liam has made a complete recovery. After a bumpy start, Cori and Ryan are now home with Liam, adjusting to being first time parents. We are all so thankful Liam is doing great and wish them the best!

By Steve Lubahn, Vice President of Client Marketing Services at Vision Design Group, Winona, MN

It’s that time of year again, to look back on how we’ve spent a year in anticipation for improving our businesses in the year ahead.

Working closely with more than 250 businesses at our marketing firm, Vision Design Group, I looked back at 2012 to find five key marketing trends that can help direct your marketing efforts in the coming year:

• Continued shift of traditional print and advertising budget to digital marketing. Many clients now have digital marketing budgets that exceed 50% of their total marketing budget.
• Website redesigns are becoming more frequent. Where businesses once updated their website every 5-7 years, they’re now finding it necessary to update every 3-5 years to keep up with online trends, updated information and implement new technology to serve their customers. Remember when we used to come out with a new brochure every six months, or an annual catalog? The ability to make on-demand changes to your website comes with the responsibility to deliver a website that keeps pace with changes in your product and service offerings, as well as changes in internet technology.
• Major increase in requests for mobile optimized websites. Most of our clients are now seeing mobile traffic ranging from 10% to over 30% of their total website visits. It’s no longer optional to consider both the tablet and smartphone device user experience on your website. If you are updating your website, strongly consider a responsive design that will adjust the page layout based on the size of the display, from desktop PC to tablet to smartphone. (See the article Do I Need A Mobile App for My Business? for examples of several types of mobile website optimization.)
• Sharp increase in the number of clients using paid search.Clients who implement cost per click (CPC) paid search advertising on Google and other search engines are typically seeing increase of 5% to over 70% in website traffic. In addition, paid search traffic often results in conversion rates higher than website traffic sources.
• Increase in commercial photography. Companies are choosing higher quality photography not just for printed materials, but also to improve their internet presence. Fewer websites use stock photos and now favor real-life images of company-related people and settings.

Based on this ongoing migration from traditional media to internet-delivered media, how can you cost-effectively improve your digital marketing efforts in 2013? Here are a few ideas that you can implement quickly to improve the performance of your website and increase sales leads.

4 Tips for Cost-effective Digital Marketing in 2013

• Claim and optimize your Google+ Local listing. Google and other search engines are placing a heavy emphasis on local search. If you haven’t already, claim your Google+ Local (previously Google Places) listing. It’s a free and simple action you can take immediately. If you have multiple locations or branches, optimize the listing for each location. Once you claim your listing, add keywords related to your business and services to improve your search rankings. You can also customize your listing with your logo, images, business hours and products and services. Also consider claiming and updating your listings on Bing Local, LinkedIn, Manta and other popular business directories.
• Spend more time on email marketing. Though not as glitzy as social media and other newer forms of digital marketing, email marketing to a solid in-house list continues to be one of the most cost-effective means of communicating with and selling to your customer base. Experiment with frequency and the call to action. A good mailing list can maintain open rates of 20%-30%, and many of our e-commerce clients enjoy an increase in orders after every email they send. Be sure to clean out bounced or abandoned emails to improve your email deliverability rates. For more information on email marketing trends, advantages, and tips, see our blog post Email - still your most effective marketing media.
• Improve your website’s organic search results. If you want to improve your organic search engine optimization (SEO), start with making sure your page titles are unique on each page, and align with target keyword phrases on each page. For best results, try to limit page titles to about 70 characters maximum, and page descriptions to about 125 characters. Most search engines place little or no weight on the keyword metatags, so do not spend much time trying to tweak your keyword metatag. Looking for ideas on what keywords to focus on? Review your Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools reports for keywords and phrases that are currently driving traffic to your website, and focus on those that are resulting in orders or other forms of conversion.
• Consider adding live chat to your website. For anyone over 40, it is hard to image the need for live chat on a website. If you have high school or college age children, you know their cell phones are rarely used for voice communication, but they use them constantly for texting and sending messages via social media. Many businesses are finding implementation of live chat increases their ability to interact with potential customers, particularly those in younger generations. Live chat can also improve your customer service with more timely interaction and can often reduce the time per support case for your customer service staff. Live chat is quick and cost-effective to implement; for instance, a platform called SnapEngage can be implemented with up to four customer service agents at less than $50 per month. For more information on Live Chat, see the Vision Design Group blog article Use Live Chat To Increase Leads and Customer Interaction.

Steve Lubahn is Vice President of Client Marketing Services at Vision Design Group in Winona, Minnesota. Please visit their Web site at www.visiondesign.com. Contact Steve by phone at 507-453-0767, or by email at slubahn@visiondesign.com.