Years ago, if you were in an audit, you were obligated to produce original receipts.  If you didn’t have original receipts, you lost the deductions.

Now that we are in the electronic age, the IRS recognizes the desire to go paperless.  Therefore, the IRS now accepts legible and readable copies of your original receipts.

The IRS has a Revenue Procedure Code 97-22 that provides guidance to taxpayers for maintaining books and records by using an electronic storage system.  Records maintained electronically must meet these requirements:

• Taxpayers can scan complete documents and store them electronically
• The taxpayer must ensure the integrity and reliability of the storage system
• The taxpayer must be able to reproduce legible and readable hardcopies
• All documents be accessible electronically
• The taxpayer is responsible for making any backups of the data either electronically or hardcopies offsite

If the taxpayer meets the requirements of this procedure code, the electronic storage of source documents will be treated in compliance with the recordkeeping requirements.  After the taxpayer has tested the electronic storage system and confirmed that readable hardcopies can be reproduced, the original receipt may be disposed.

Note:  If the taxpayer’s records are available only by electronic means and he/she fails to meet the requirements of this procedure, the taxpayer may be subject to applicable penalties.

Here are some practical ideas of how to organize scanned receipts:

Choose the format of your reports:  PDF, Excel, Word, HTML, Digital Images

Choose the way your reports are sorted:  By Date, By Amount, By Vendor, By Payment Type, By Tax Category

Questions regarding this procedure can be directed to the Office of the Assistant Commissioner at 202-622-5480.

Happy scanning!

By: Renee Daggett

Do you want your message to spread far and wide – without a whole lot of marketing effort on your part?

It sounds like a dream come true – the dream of going viral. Getting hundreds and thousands of clicks and opt-ins for your “thing” and having other people pass it along for you!

When your free gift goes viral, you get the credibility boost of having other people talk about it instead of you having to make all the marketing noise for yourself… which gets to be a little huffy and puffy at times.

The question is, how to make a free gift that’s hot, without sounding like you’re full of hot air?

I surprised myself last month when my new free gift went viral. Since I’m filled with curiosity, I wanted to know why… so I deconstructed the experience, looking for the lessons.

I asked some of the people who helped me go viral what was so attractive to them… and this is what I learned:

There’s a set of 7 strategies that I combined to go viral. Read on to see what they are and how they worked:

• Remarkable, cool technology

If you want to go viral, make a gift worth talking about. You can go about this in several ways – and the way I did was to make my gift with some very cool, brand-new technology. It’s innovative and has the “have you SEEN this?” factor that gets people talking! I created my gift as an iBook – an interactive eBook – which is very cool and new.

• Getting there first during that cutting edge moment

New technologies are only new for a short time… because before long, everyone decides to jump on the bandwagon and try them. To harness their power and go viral with them, you’ll want do them first before everyone’s using that technology and it becomes “normal”. There’s a very short moment in time where the new thing can be cutting-edge and that’s when you want to do it. You’ve got to do it before everyone else muddies the waters.

• A message I was proud of and that served my clients

To get your message out there, it needs to be something that you’re proud of. You want to feel like the message you’re spreading is your great work – that you’ve given it your all. That way, your energy will be aligned behind getting that message out and people will get the best sneaky-peek at your work possible.

Also, you want your gift to be truly useful to your clients and your tribe so that they’ll have a really excellent experience with it to talk about.

• Packaging your message in a beautiful, engaging, entertaining, & fun way

The “wrapping” of your gift can add that boost of specialness that helps get it talked about.

Beautiful: people love to share beautiful things. And, have you noticed that the “bar of beauty” has been raised lately? That things online keep getting prettier and prettier? You’ll want your stuff to be gorgeous to stay up-to-date.

Engaging: You want people to get absorbed in your gift. To get involved with it, to learn from it and to do the exercises. Putting the gift together in a certain way (like in an iBook) can make that happen.

Entertaining & Fun: People don’t want to learn from dry, boring eBooks anymore – they like videos that are entertaining, too. I embedded videos directly into my iBook to make the whole experience more fun.

• When you see your opportunity, move fast.

Waiting is not going to do you any favors when it comes to going viral. You want to move quickly to take advantage of the new technology. Plus, moving fast again builds up energy behind your gift so that it can spread more quickly.

• If you’re going to go viral, it helps to start in a bigger pond.

Sure, sending a new free gift out to your existing list and getting your affiliates to promote you helps get the buzz started – but what if you started in a bigger place? Like in a bookstore, or featured on a hot website? My iBook is published in the iTunes Bookstore, which has brought me all kinds of great traffic – because they have a wider reach than I do from the start. Where can you get outside of your circle?

• Become a published author. People dig it!

When I published my iBook in the iTunes Bookstore, I posted a little casual note to my Facebook wall. I was shocked at the response – dozens upon dozens of people liked it and commented on it. My conclusion is that publishing a book is a big deal, and people like to make a big deal about it. The iBook is an easy way to get published without printing hundreds of hard copies of your book!

These are the 7 strategies I used to create my free gift that went viral. How can you use these ideas to get more reach and create more buzz about your gift?

You can hear more about all the details in my training call, “How I Went Viral With My Free Gift and You Can, Too!”, here: http://www.brandstyledesign.com/ebook-class

By: Erin Ferree

As a WordPress web site developer, I hear so many clients say they want to use a free theme because they don’t want to spend money when you can get one for free.  I then explain why a premium theme is a good investment if you believe in your business and Internet success. Premium themes means paid for.  The premium theme companies continue to support their theme by offering updates for new WordPress versions and security fixes.  Most offer technical support for the annual fee.

WordPress themes developed by premium theme framework companies sell a core “parent” theme with “child” themes.  The developement of theme frameworks has been around for about 2 years but with the acceleration of technological changes and swift changes in social media marketing the need for a more flexible and expedient software platform is critical to stay competitive.  In my last post I discussed web sites for mobile and using a good solid premium theme framework can help you move into the mobile Internet more easily.

Premium theme framework companies provide a family of themes.  There is one core theme known as the parent theme.  This theme does not include any styling of colors page layout.  It strictly acts as the middleman between WordPress application software and the child theme.  The child theme has all the styling that you see on the front end (what you see when you look at the web site in your browser or mobile browser).  When WordPress has an update, the theme framework companies have already been testing the beta version of WordPress to make sure their framework themes will function properly.  They update the parent theme to work efficiently and correctly and then the same time a new version of WordPress is released a new version of the parent theme is released.  This ensures that you can update your WordPress site to the new version without fear of your theme not working.

Another differentiating factor in theme framework companies is the ease at which you can build custom web sites.  They offer tools that simplify the build process which saves time and money.

If you use one of these products for your site your theme you can be changed to a new child theme by the same company without a lot of work. The new child theme for instance could be one that is coded with responsive design to easily create a mobile web site.

The theme framework I use is Genesis by StudioPress. This WIC blog theme you are reading was reworked last year by me to use the Prose child theme from StudioPress. StudioPress has been the leader in reworking and building new child themes that incorporate responsive design coding for mobile. This WIC blog theme was built before responsive design was invented but if WIC were to upgrade this theme to the new Prose theme which incorporates responsive design it would only take about 2 hours to transfer.

I believe having a team of coders who understand WordPress working for me to keep my theme up to date with new WordPress changes is well worth the money I spent on my theme framework.

Do you have a free theme or do you have a premium theme on your WordPress site and if so who is your theme company?  Share your thoughts with a comment below.

By: Lou Anne McKeefery

Imagine that you are at a party explaining your consulting business to someone who has never heard of your business before. Think about what they might ask you. You would probably be asked about what your product or service did and the size or your business. There might be some questions about how your product or service serves your customers. Since this person at the party is new to hearing about your business, you’d most likely want to present your information in a way that would be easy to understand and you’d also want to explain how your product or service adds value to a potential customer.

By: Sherry Prescott

In my previous post, I covered these three “secrets” of highly effective PR pros.

• Successful PR pros understand how the media works.
• Successful PR pros do their homework.
• Successful PR pros develop good stories.

Here are four more.

Secret #4: Successful PR pros balance mainstream and “new” media.

These days, it is not mainstream or “new” media. It’s both.

Although mainstream media is shrinking, they still have prestige and credibility. People brag about being mentioned in The New York Times. I have yet to hear anyone brag about being mentioned in a tweet.

But make sure you incorporate online tools into your publicity program. That means:

• A good website with an online news room.
• SEO-optimized news releases.
• An active blog.
• Good profiles and activity on social networking sites like LinkedIn and (possibly) Facebook.
• And, if appropriate, posts on YouTube and Twitter.

Pay attention to both mainstream and new media. It’s essential these days.

Secret #5: Successful PR pros write well.

One of the most common complaints I hear from reporters is the poor quality of the written materials they receive. News releases, in particular, are often poorly written, with fluff, superlatives and jargon. Grammar, punctuation and spelling seem to be ignored.

I recommend that you let your drafts sit overnight and look at them the next day. Better yet, have someone else read them and see if they can identify the major messages. (If not, rewrite.) Read your drafts aloud and check their readability with Word’s Readability Statistics. It’s amazing what you’ll learn.

Write well. You will stand out in the crowd.

Secret #6: Successful PR pros treat the media professionally.

This may seem so obvious that it shouldn’t even be mentioned, but treat the media professionally.

That means:

• Respond if they contact you.
• Train your company spokesperson in media interview techniques. Without training, many people either clam up or talk too much, either of which makes for a poor interview.
• Be polite. Years ago someone was rude to the assistant of a prominent technology reporter. He went public, making it clear what he thought about such behavior. It’s fair to assume that the offending PR person never got coverage in that column. Be kind to everyone, regardless of their title or responsibility.
• And keep things in perspective. An editor told me he had received angry calls from PR people about the content of an article. I, too, had contacted him about an error in that article, but did so calmly and politely. I didn’t harm my relationship with him; my guess is that the others did.

Mom was right. Be nice.

Secret #7: Successful PR pros give publicity a fair try.

I find many people get discouraged and quit their publicity activities too easily. I’ve joked about starting the one-news-release club because I’ve seen so many companies send out one or two news releases, think that they’ve given public relations a “fair try” and stop.

It’s the old adage, 80 percent of success is just showing up. If you want publicity, you need to keep “showing up.”

And there you have it, seven secrets of highly effective publicity pros. I’m sure there are many more. I’d love to hear your ideas.

Kay Paumier helps B2B companies spread the word about their products and services, making them become better known, more credible and more profitable. Her public relations and communications services include publicity, media relations, writing, company and product launches, and presentations. Kay serves as WIC’s marketing and director. Her website is www.CommunicationsPlus.net.

By: Kay Paumier

Over the years, I’ve worked with a lot of public relations professionals. Some are incredibly successful in generating coverage for their organizations, clients and causes.

Others struggle.

Although many factors come into those differences, I think there are seven “secrets” that separate the successful publicity pros from the also-rans. I will cover the first three here, and the other four in my next post.

Secret #1: Successful PR pros understand how the media works.

It’s important to understand the media’s frame of reference. Here I am talking mainly about mainstream media although many comments apply to “new” media as well.

In general, reporters are dedicated people, working to develop the stories they think will interest their audience. (I’ll use the term “reporters” to cover all mainstream media personnel, including editors and producers.) They have lots of deadlines and usually work under a lot of pressure. Many multi-task, developing written and visual content for print, broadcast and online.

To accomplish all this, they have to focus. So they filter things out based on several factors, including:

• Their outlet: They’ll select different stories depending on whether they are a news outlet or feature magazine, for example.
• Their beat: Reporters generally cover specific areas, such as local news, healthcare or technology. If your information doesn’t fit their beat, the reporters will reject it.
• Other stories: They want to avoid “too much of one thing,” so they work to balance good news and bad, light stories and heavy news. They need balance.
• Other media: Sometimes they cover a story because other media are covering it.
  • Personal biases: Reporters will be attracted to various stories because of their personal interests.

Successful PR people understand this and factor it into their contacts with the media.

Secret #2: Successful PR pros do their homework.

Before contacting any reporter, make sure you really know your product or service, your company and your market.

For your product, know its features and benefits, target customer, pricing, availability and the like.

For your company, know where you “fit” in the market. Are you a leader? An upstart? Something in between?

For the market, know your competition and the market trends. You want to be seen as a resource, as someone who understands the bigger picture. If you can provide information or resources to the media, even when there’s nothing directly “in it” for you, you will earn their respect.

You also need to know the media outlet you’re approaching, and the individual reporter you’re contacting.

By media outlet, I mean your target publication, radio or TV program, blog or podcast. What types of stories does it cover? What audience is it trying to reach? How often does the publication come out or the program air? What is its tone? Rolling Stone has a very different “feel” than The Wall Street Journal.

Avoid pitching stories that do not fit the publication or program. Don’t be like the PR firm that regularly pitched cooking recipes to a technology publication (true story). That was a sure sign the “pros” didn’t know what they were doing.

You also need to know the person or people who cover your market. What history do they have with your company or industry? How do they like to be contacted?

Targeting the “right” media and the “right” person can make all the difference. It’s true: 80 percent of your publicity will come from 20 percent of the media. Determine who those people are and develop relationships with them.

Secret #3: Successful PR pros develop good stories.

Publicity is the art of ethical storytelling.

One of the trickiest parts of the media’s job is to come up with fresh, relevant story ideas. Most newspapers and magazines carry only a small amount of hard news. Broadcast uses even less. A good portion of the coverage is devoted to feature stories, ranging from overview stories (that talk about what’s happening in a given industry or area) to human interest stories.

So identify the conflict, the controversy. Show how the story fits into the bigger picture. Provide context; explain what impact your story will have on people, businesses or the community.

Tell the media a good, true story. They’ll be grateful.

In my next post, I’ll share four more “secrets” of highly effective PR pros.

Kay Paumier helps B2B companies spread the word about their products and services, making them become better known, more credible and more profitable. Her public relations and communications services include publicity, media relations, writing, company and product launches, and presentations. Kay serves as WIC’s marketing and director. Her website is www.CommunicationsPlus.net.

By: Kay Paumier

Have you looked at your web site on you tablet or mobile phone and wondered how you could get it to display differently so it was easier to use by the visitor?  Are you finding your analytics reports showing an increase in web traffic via mobile but your bounce rate is higher than non mobile traffic? You’re not alone and it’s likely one of the next requirements that web designers are going to be asked to include in building or fixing a web site is including a mobile version.

Today’s mobile themes are now designed in a process called “responsive design”.  Responsive design uses a css technique called media queries.  Media queries scale an image and content block by a percentage of the height and width rather than a fixed size. This allows the same web site to automatically scale to display correctly on the many different size monitors and devices such as smart phone and tablet.  This means one set of coding instructions works for all size monitors and mobile devices.  That’s today and tomorrow’s  web site software technology.

In the past, designers built mobile sites using plugins.  The plugins for mobile require you to build a different theme for your different mobile devices which can be a bit time consuming. One of the better plugins is by Ithemes called Mobile. To use this plugin to build a mobile site, you build different themes for the different sized devices and the plugin detects the device accessing the web site and displays the correctly sized theme. The theme is designed to show your sidebars or not to show your sidebars and just where to display your images and links relative to the content text.  You can see that to implement mobile in this way is rather time consuming.

A better solution is to upgrade your web site theme to one that uses responsive design so you are ready to compete in the next wave in technology, the wave of the mobile platform of smart phones, tablets and ____ you fill in the blank because tomorrow will offer us something new.

My next post will discuss the concept of premium theme frameworks and why they are a cost savings to you even though they are not a free theme.

By: Lou Anne McKeefery

You’ve probably been hearing a lot about WordPress as a platform for blogs and websites. And you’ve likely been curious about how WordPress might work for your business. On the other hand, you may be worried that it is perhaps too technical to “do-it-yourself.” Once you have WordPress installed you add a theme and then add your content and images. But you may want to know how you would get WordPress installed so you can get to work.

Now, getting started is easier than turning on your computer. Several new hosting companies are specializing in WordPress only hosting. You account comes pre-loaded with the newest version of WordPress and these hosting companies update it to keep it current with the latest version of WordPress. One host, http://zippykid.com/, even offers scaled hosting services using a CDN service for $25 a month. Basically CDN (Content Delivery Network) automatically adds speed to your site when you need it. So if you have a very big day and a lot of visitors end up at your site, they throw some resources at it so your site doesn’t slow to a crawl.

Page Speed is more important than you realize. When a page loads quickly, within two seconds, visitors are more apt to keep browsing. In fact, 47% of consumers expect a page to load within 2 seconds or less. A 10-second delay will more than likely force the customer leave immediately.

ZippyKid does things to supercharge your site with a CDN to get your site to load 3 times faster than other hosting services.

So if you have been thinking about moving to WordPress, or you WordPress site is rolling too slowly, look for a new hosting service. It can make a huge difference in your visitor’s experience and it makes it easy for those not technical, and don’t want to be, get up and running faster than you thought.

By: Lou Anne McKeefery

Many people are entranced by the latest tool or gadget to help them be more organized and productive.  “I need to get a Smartphone,” or “This app will make my life so much easier.”  But oftentimes it’s not the tool that will help you get more done, but rather how you are spending your time when you are trying to get things done.  Getting things done efficiently requires FOCUS.  However, in today’s world of easily accessible distractions (e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, the web) and constant interruptions (from colleagues, phones, and all the bells and alerts set to remind you of what you need to do next), focus can be a challenge. What follows are six tips for helping you to achieve better focus.

Define Your Goals – If you don’t have a sense of the big picture of what you need to accomplish, you will have a VERY hard time prioritizing your time.  Be very specific in what you are trying to achieve whether it’s a life goal (“I want to retire by the time I’m 52,”) or a project related goal (“I want to increase my customer base by 25% by the end of the year.”)

Ensure Your Passion – You spend so much time doing things because you think you should or someone is telling you to.  When you’re passionate about your goals and direction, you are more likely to stay focused on the steps to get you there.

Use Time Blocking – Schedule time for focused activities.  Turn off all external interruptions, set a timer, and focus on the task at hand.  Time blocks can be anywhere from 40 to 90 minutes, and should be followed by restorative activities in order to keep you energized.

Be In The Moment - If your biggest interrupter is your own thoughts, use the “Be Here Now” technique.  When you notice your thoughts wandering, say to yourself, “Be here now.” and return to what you were working on.  If your mind wanders again, repeat the phrase, “Be here now,” and bring your attention back to what you are working on.  Keep doing this and eventually it will be habit.

Schedule “Worry Time” – Oftentimes negative thoughts will creep into your focus time (e.g. “I can’t do this,” or “How will I ever pay for college?” or “I hope Bill returned the call to customer x.”).  Don’t let these thoughts derail you!  Schedule “worry time” into your day instead.  It can be 5 minutes or whatever length you determine, but you need to schedule the time and commit to it.  When distracting thoughts enter your mind, remind yourself that those are for your “worry time” and move on.

Practice, Practice, Practice – Focus is like a muscle in your body, the more you use it, the stronger it will become.  It may take planning and discipline to improve your focus, but if you commit to the practice you will eventually become an expert.

I encourage you to continue to use some of the great productivity tools that are available to you, and there are some great ones out there.  However, you also may want to take a step back and stop chasing the latest gadget or tool that you think will save your sanity and make you more productive.  Work on your focus technique and relish in how much more you get done!

By: Lori Krolik

Basic Rules: Here are some basic rules you need to know to ensure that all your entertainment expenses are deductible:

1. Do you have an ordinary and necessary business reason for the entertainment?
2. Did you have a quiet business discussion before, during or after the event? No discussion, no deduction!  You’ll need to explain why the entertainment would benefit your business in the future.
3. The discussion must be conducted in a business setting that allows an active business discussion.  This could be a restaurant, for example.  If the main entertainment is done in a non-business setting such as a bar with loud music or a cocktail party, you must speak about business before or after the event in a business setting.
4. Do you have proof?  Keep documentation of who, what, where, why and how much.  This documentation must be written within one week of the meeting.

Reasonable, Lavish, and Extravagant: So does the entertainment need to be reasonable?  Can you get in trouble if the entertainment is lavish and extravagant?  Actually, no.  The only rule is that it is must be an ordinary and necessary expense.  There are no parameters on how much you can or cannot spend.  In fact, a self-employed business person spent over $60,000 on entertainment (rock concerts).  His entertainment expense was disallowed – not because of the amount – but because he did not have documentation to support the deduction.

The IRS looks at how much business was generated as a result of the entertainment. There is no rule regarding the number of times you may entertain a potential client, but a wise business person would limit the frequency within reason.  But then again, what is reasonable?  Taking your spouse out on a date once a month would not qualify.  However, you could consider taking your mother out if she is a potential client/customer who will buy services or products from you – nothing wrong with that!

50% vs. 100% Deductible: Almost all entertainment is deductible at 50%, meaning that if you spend $500, you receive only a $250 deduction.  Here’s the good news – any entertainment that revolves around a sporting event is deductible 100% ; that includes any ticket  or sports event, only if:

• It is organized for the primary purpose of benefiting a 501(c)3 charity
• It donates all the net proceeds to a 501(c)3 charity
• It uses volunteers to put on the event

So a PGA tour event would be 100% deductible because they donate the net proceeds to charity, but a ticket to a college or high school sports event does not qualify since that usually goes toward the coaches’ pay.  Other events that may qualify for a 100% deductible are tennis, skeet shoots, ski tournaments and fishing tournaments, just to name a few.

Another thing to keep in mind is that generally, you will get a better deduction if you list an expense to a sporting event as a business deduction rather than a charitable donation.  For the contribution to a charity, you can deduct only the amount that exceeds the benefit you received from the item (the value of the entertainment).

Additional 100% deductible entertainment expenses are employee holiday parties, annual picnics or summer outings.  For example, a service corporation rented a powerboat and was able to deduct 100% of the $41,000 expense since it did not discriminate between the owners and employees and it was deemed ordinary and necessary.

*Note:  Create two accounts in your books – one for 50% and the other for 100% deducible entertainment.

Be strategic:  Plan a business meeting for a substantial amount of time (say two hours) and then go skiing.  You cannot deduct your personal skiing with your family (unless your spouse is active in the business), but you can deduct the entertainment with people who you plan to do business with.  After skiing, resume your meeting for another two hours and one minute.

Happy Entertaining!

By: Renee Daggett