You may know that QuickBooks offers a terrific cloud-based solution, as well as a desktop solution, but how do you decide between the online version and the desktop version? 

Where will you be doing your accounting?

To make a smart decision for your business, take into consideration where you will be doing most of your accounting work and what kind of remote access you will need. Will you be working from an office or traveling a lot?  Are you the only one that will be accessing the program? 

Check out the comparison below to help you decide what’s right for you!

QuickBooks Online (Cloud Version)

• Anytime/Anywhere Access
• Mobile Access
• Simultaneous Users from Multiple Locations
• $12.95 - $39.95 Monthly Fee
• 3 – 5 Free Additional Users
• Up to 25 Additional Users (Additional Cost)
• Phone and Chat Support Included
• Automatic Upgrades Included
• No Software Installation
• Requires Internet Connection
• Backups Occur in Real-Time
• Online Only Features
• Location Tracking
• Integrates with Online Banking
• Delayed Customer Billing
• Automated Email Reports
• Activity Log

QuickBooks Pro – Hard Copy

• Stationary Access from your Desktop
• Remote Access App is Available for $3.95/Month
  (you can also remote login to your computer using something like GoToMyPc.com and access your desktop QuickBooks)
• No Simultaneous Users from Multiple Locations
• $249.95 - $399.95 Product Purchase Fee
• No Free Trial
• Limited to 3-5 Additional Users
• Upgrade Every 3 Years on Average
• Software Installation Required
• Does Not Require an Internet Connection for Desktop Access
• Requires Periodic Manual Backups
• Superior Functionality to Online Version
• Prepares 1099s
• Budget vs. Accrual Job costing
• Balance Sheet by Class
• Mileage Tracking
• Advanced Excel Export
• Supported by More 3^rd Party Apps than Online Version
• Offers Approx. 40 More Reports than Online Version

Either version of QuickBooks may serve you and your business well.  Analyze your business strategy to select which QuickBooks platform will be most beneficial to you.  Each business is unique and what works best for one company may not for another. If you require remote access often and multiple user accounts, the cloud solution may be a perfect fit! If you don't travel often and only need access to QuickBooks at your desk, the desktop version may be the more cost effective solution for your company. Ultimately, as a business owner, it is your decision and you need to determine which features will help your business grow and thrive!

3 Quickbooks Resources to help you compare!

• FishBowlInventory QuickBooks InfoGraphics
• OSYB Number Crunch Blog
• QuickBook-Training.net

WHO WE ARE

Novera Payment Solutions is a provider of credit and debit card payment services for businesses across America, transparently guiding business owners through the complicated world of credit & debit card acceptance. Novera delivers a unique combination of value, integrity and price transparency that is unparalleled throughout the payment processing industry.

WE BRING VALUE TO OUR CLIENTS

The value lies in both our solutions and our pricing model. Novera delivers an integrated credit card payment solution for QuickBooks® called InstantAccept® that allows users to automatically have credit/debit card payments made on invoices post into their QuickBooks® accounting software.

It's no secret that B2B (business to business) marketing and B2C (business to consumer) marketing has changed significantly in the past five years. One of the primary reasons for this is the growth of social media.  Successful businesses are becoming resources for their customers, regularly creating valuable content of interest and sharing it freely across the social sphere.

If your auto dealership (or any business for that matter) has yet to dive in to social media, it's time to get on the bandwagon. You're already behind, so there's no time to waste! One of the big mistakes made by companies, however, is jumping in without a plan.

Here are six tips to prepare your auto dealership for social media marketing so you do it right from the start.

1. Set clear goals for the social media efforts of your auto dealership.
   Like anything else, without goals you cannot measure whether anything has been acheived. Good goals are measurable and have a timeframe associated with them.
   
   
2. Ensure that you have enough personel resources dedicated to the effort.
   If you don't have the personel in house, then consider hiring an agency to assist you. The key to an effective social media presence is great content, consistency, engagement, and monitoring. This does not happen by logging in to Facebook just once per week and making a sales post.
   
   
3. Commit to building great content and giving it away.
   This is the age of the customer. Customers have access to more information, reviews, testimonials, and studies than ever before. If you want to position yourself as the expert in your field and have your auto dealership dominate in your area, you need to make helpful information available to your client-base freely and regularly, across multiple channels.
   
   
4. Identify what social channels your customers are using and how they are using them.
   There are only so many hours in the day. Ideally, you would be publishing across all the major social channels, but if your time is limited then you need to find out where your customers are hanging out and make those channels your priority. Are they on Facebook? Twitter? Google+?  Are they using Pinterest?  Find out the answer and make sure your auto dealership has an active presence there.
   
   
5. Clean up your website.
   One of the by-products of effective social media campaigns is increased traffic to your website. What does your website do for your auto dealership today? Does it have effective calls to action and lead capturing capabilities? If not, take the time to fix this. When you are driving new traffic to your site, you want to make sure you have the ability to capture information and get the prospective customer to do what you want them to while they are there!
   
   
6. Measure your results regularly.
   Remember tip number one? If you've set measurable goals, make sure you actually stop after the time period you specified and review what you've done and the results that you've achieved. Review what did and did not work. Tweak your process, set a new goal, and repeat!

Just like anything else in business, if you start with a plan, your chances of success are amplified!  With these simple steps, your auto dealership (and again, ANY business) will be off and running building great social media presence.

Who is Novera Payment Solutions?

Novera Payment Solutions is well known as a leader in the credit card payments industry and is committed to helping auto dealerships and other businesses improve their bottom line by providing significant savings on credit card processing fees through our innovative flat fee pricing model.

Contact Novera to learn more about how we work with small businesses, auto dealers and auto dealer associations to provide the most fair and transparent pricing structure available on the market today for credit card processing.

Join the Novera Payment Solutions team for a free webinar focusing on what you need to know about credit card processing.

The webinar is April 15, 2014 @ 2:00 PM EST and is designed to help you understand the in's and out's of the credit card processing industry. This valuable free webinar will be 45 minutes or less and we guarantee you will learn practical information to help you make better choices when shopping for credit card processing services.

As a participant in this webinar you will learn the following:

• Understand Visa/MC/Disc. true underlying cost which in turn will help you negotiate better pricing
• How to make sure you are getting a truly fair deal for payment processing services
• Awareness of the latest in technology available in the market place today
• Tips for keeping credit card processing costs down
• Best practices for keeping cardholder data secure and maintaining PCI compliance

You can register for this free webinar using the link below.

About Novera Payment Solutions

Novera Payment Solutions is a leader in the credit card payments industry. We are committed to helping businesses improve their bottom line by providing significant savings on credit card processing fees through our innovative flat fee merchant account pricing model.

Contact Novera to learn more about how we work with businesses  to provide the most fair and transparent pricing structure available on the market today!

SPACE IS LIMITED!

FREE WEBINAR : WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT CREDIT CARD PROCESSING

APRIL 15, 2014

2:00 PM EST

Facebook is rolling out a new look to business pages in April 2014. The new look not only allows visitors to view your business information more easily, but it also helps your page administrators better navigate through the available Facebook business tools. 

Key Changes to Facebook Company Page Layout

1. Timeline Design

No more jumping from the left to the right to read the most recent posts on a business page.  The new timeline design for business pages will be similar to the news feed and current personal profile timelines.  Now you will see the most recent posts on the right side of the page, while the left side of the page is filled with your business information.  All of the information that is currently horizontal along the top of your business page will be moved to the left-hand column on the timeline.  This information includes a map, your business hours, phone number and website URL. Your videos, photos and apps will also be featured in the left-hand column.  Below that information you will find your reviews and posts by others on your page.  Now your posts will be the first thing visitors see on the right instead of who likes the page and posts by others.   

2. Access to Admin Tools

Wherever you are on your page, you will always have access to the most important information for business administrators: page likes, post reach, notifications and messages.  A box on the right-hand side will display these numbers for you to easily view at anytime as it moves along with you while you scroll down the page.  Instead of the current admin panel you have at the top of your business page, the new layout features a navigation bar where you can easily access the specific information that you want.  These tabs include Activity, Insights, Settings, Build Audience and Help.  On the Insights page, you can access the statistics on your likes, reach, engagement, visits, people and posts.  The Build Audience tab will provide access to your Ads manager.   

3. Pages to Watch

Currently, there is a spot in your admin panel where you can add pages to watch such as your competitors or other pages related to yours.  This feature has been moved to Insights tab in the new admin navigation bar.  In the Overview section, you can see some key statistics about the pages you are watching and compare them to your own page.  You can view more detailed information on what posts are working for them and their engagement over the past week under the Pages tab of the Insights.  This feature allows you to stay on top on your competition! 

4. Relocation of Facebook Tabs

The Facebook tabs for photos, events, apps and more that were customizable with photos and text will no longer appear horizontally under your cover photo.  These are now available under the more tab and in the left-hand column of the newly designed timeline layout under your business information. 

5. Encouragement to “Like” Page

Visitors to your business page (who have not already) will be encouraged to “like” your page.  As they are scrolling through your timeline looking at the content, a white bar prompt will pop –up that says “Get updates from Your Business in your News Feed” with a call to action button to “Like” your page.  As the visitor scrolls down, the bar floats along with them so it is always in front of them while they are on your page. 

Administrators should watch for a notice as Facebook gradually rolls out this new look.  Once you have clicked to reserve your spot on the waiting list, give it a few days for the new version of your page to appear.  As with other updates, Facebook is known to reset your page settings to a default setting.  This can actually cause some of your posts to be hidden which will result in a “Facebook Oops” graphic on your page instead of the content you intended to be shown.  Once you receive the new 2014 Facebook page layout, be sure to check and reconfigure your settings where needed. 

For more information:

https://www.facebook.com/business/news/A-Streamlined-Look-for-Pages

http://www.steamfeed.com/new-facebook-page-layout-2014-expect/

About Novera Payment Solutions

Novera Payment Solutions is a leader in the credit card payments industry. We are committed to helping businesses improve their bottom line by providing significant savings on credit card processing fees through our innovative flat fee merchant account pricing model.

Contact Novera to learn more about how we work with businesses  to provide the most fair and transparent pricing structure available on the market today!

LinkedIn Company Pages provide a way for businesses to gain exposure online by including details about products and services.  Recently, LinkedIn evaluated how their "products and services" pages were being used. They found that people visited the company pages, but didn't click through to view the detailed products and services pages. As a result, the "Products and Services" tab will no longer be available after April 14th.  Instead, busineses will now have the ability use "Showcase Pages" to highlight their servces.  With Showcase Pages, you can extend your Company Page presence and focus your message to engage very specific audiences. 

Use these step by step instructions to set up LinkedIn Showcase Pages for your business, to replace your existing Products & Services pages.

You must be a LinkedIn Company Page administrator to create new Showcase Pages.  The information you will need to gather before creating your page includes:

• Showcase Page Name
• Showcase Page Description (75-200 characters)
• Industry
• Name of at least 1 Showcase Page administrator
• Hero Image (974 x 330 pixels in PNG, JPEG or GIF format with a max. file size of 2 MB)

On your LinkedIn Company Page, click the down arrow next to the blue Edit button near the top of the page.  Then select Create a Showcase Page.  You will then be prompted to enter the name of your Showcase Page that will be visible to the public.  You are automatically assigned as an administrator to the new page, but you also have the opportunity to add other administrators.  However, you must be a 1^st degree connection to that person to add them.  Once you hit create, the page exists, but won’t appear in search results or in the linked pages shown for your Company Page yet.  At this point you can start editing the page and inserting all the information you gathered beforehand.   

Once the page looks the way you want, either you or one of the other administrators you assigned has the ability to finalize the page.  Once you click Publish, your new Showcase Page will be public.  Just like with Company Pages, you should post updates to your new Showcase Page regularly.  The Showcase Pages are child pages of your existing Company Page and therefore LinkedIn members can actually follow those pages to get those updates as well.  This allows you to target certain messages to certain audiences. 

As an example, Novera Payment Solutions created a LinkedIn Showcase Page off our company page to feature our QuickBooks online credit card processing plugin. You can see what the updates look like in the image below.  Much like updates you make on Facebook, you can push messages, links, and images to your Showcase Pages daily.

The Showcase Pages are designed for building long-term relationships with members rather than for short-term marketing campaigns.  With this change, unfortunately members can no longer recommend your products and services.  If you currently have recommendations through your products and services tab that you don’t want to lose, you can either copy them to your own document or request a copy from LinkedIn here:

http://help.linkedin.com/app/ask/path/rcpsr

While the products and services pages are going away, these new pages will be able to showcase the most important aspects of your business such as a specific brand, business unit or company initiative, so there's a huge upside to LinkedIn making this change.

LinkedIn is one of the most powerful online marketing tools, especially for B2B marketing, so invest some time to make your new Showcase Pages stand out!   

For more information, you can visit LinkedIn's Help & Support area:

http://help.linkedin.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/47952/~/company-pages-products-%26-services-page---no-longer-supported

http://help.linkedin.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/44865

http://help.linkedin.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/44863

About Novera Payment Solutions

Novera Payment Solutions is a leader in the credit card payments industry. We are committed to helping businesses improve their bottom line by providing significant savings on credit card processing fees through our innovative flat fee merchant account pricing model.

Contact Novera to learn more about how we work with businesses to provide the most fair and transparent pricing structure available on the market today for credit card processing and our QBPlugin for QuickBooks!

Looking for QuickBooks online credit card processing?

Consider InstantAccept

How it Works

InstantAccept provides an application that integrates with QuickBooks® and allows you to process transactions as the point of sale either online or via a mobile device or tablet.  Customers can pay however they like, cash, credit or debit cards, ACH, electronic check or Check21.  Without even opening QuickBooks®, you can assign payments to an invoice or customer.  The seamless two-way data exchange allows the data you create in InstantAccept to automatically generate a corresponding record in QuickBooks®. 

Bookkeeping is a Breeze

InstantAccept takes care of all the behind the scenes bookkeeping making sure all the details are taken care of.  The application can create new accounts and new invoices, update accounts as needed and generate reports in real time. You don’t even need to reconcile or rekey data because all of it happens automatically. The bookkeeping that used to take you hours is much quicker and more efficient when you use InstantAccept. Rather than opening QuickBooks®, looking up the customer and creating a new record, InstantAccept makes it easy to maintain your QuickBooks, while freeing you and your customers to complete transactions quickly, simply and securely. 

Robust Reporting Functions

InstantAccept also allows you to generate daily, weekly, monthly or annual reports so you can keep close tabs on transaction processing issues and gain quick insight into payment status and activity.  In addition, you can use the executive dashboard to view a visual representation of key customer metrics on the entire database or you can filter it by active or inactive customers, customers with open balances, customers with overdue balances, etc.   

Novera Integration

The great thing about InstantAccept is that you can easily use Novera Payment Solutions as your payments processor and take advantage of our money saving flat fee merchant account pricing model.  We provide the InstantAccept plugin for  our customers who are QuickBooks® users!  We are committed to helping your business improve the bottom line, and Novera Payment Solutions is a leader in the credit card payments industry.

Sometimes referred to as the business version of Facebook, LinkedIn is considered a critical place to connect with other businesses.  While many people have profiles set up, most are not optimized to provide the best business opportunities possible. 

Here are 7 tips to help you get your LinkedIn profile to All-Star status.

1. Create a Complete, Detailed and Updated Profile

The only way to effectively be found on LinkedIn is to have your profile complete. The LinkedIn search algorithm looks for 100% completed profiles, so if yours is not complete, you will likely end up at the bottom of search results.  Not only does a complete profile help you rank well within LinkedIn searches, public LinkedIn profiles are also indexed by Google.

Look to the right of your profile page and you should see a space titled “Profile Strength.”   The levels are Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced, Expert and All-Star.  You can increase your profile strength by clicking the “Improve Your Profile” button at the top of your profile page.  You will be prompted to answer questions that will help to complete your profile.  You can also manually edit any section of your profile that you wish. 

The following areas must be filled in to reach All-Star status:

• Your Industry and Location
• Your Current Position (with a description)
• Two Past Positions
• Your Education
• Your Skills (minimum of 3)
• A Profile Photo
• At Least 50 Connections

Think of your headline on LinkedIn as the subject line of an email.  You need something to catch the reader’s attention and make them want to check out your profile.  By default, your company name and title is used by LinkedIn in the headline area. This does not make for a very good headline.  Fortuantely, you can edit the headline, but you only have 120 characters, so make them count! 

Headline tips to consider:

• Use Keywords When Appropriate
• Use Words that Appeal to Your Clients
• Include a Call-to-Action

A LinkedIn profile with a professional headshot is seven times more likely to be viewed than a profile without one.  In order to obtain a 100% LinkedIn profile status, a profile photo is required. 

Profile photo tips:

• Use a headshot, preferably in professional attire
• Do not use images with cropped out people or selfies
• Do not use grainy, pixilated or poorly lit photos
• Your photo should be square, rather than rectangular in layout
• Limit the file size to 4 MB (maximum size allowed by LinkedIn)
• Crop the photo to pixel size between 200 x 200 and 500 x 500

Don't annoy your profile viewers with excessive keywords; however, LinkedIn’s search algorithm does value keywords in certain sections more than others, so keep that in mind when writing various sections of your profile. 

The strategic use of keywords in your LinkedIn profile can be important, so be sure to place them in these sections:

• Headline
• Summary
• Current Work Experience
• Past Work Experience
• Skills and Expertise

To gain "All-Star" profile status you have to boost your connections to at least 50.  So how can you get more connections? Make your message stand out, so the person on the other end wants to connect with you. LinkedIn gives you an option to include a personalized message with the email that LinkedIn generates ... be sure to use it.

Adding your skills is also necessary for "All-Star" profile status; however, you can go beyond that and use recommendations to build credibility on the skills you’ve listed. People tend to give more credibility to a third party recommendation, so LinkedIn recommendations are so important. When trying to build your recommendations, embrace the idea of givers gain. If you give a recommendation to someone else, they are more likely to give one in return. 

Tips on giving great recommendations:

• Keep it short and sweet
• Include specific facts (eg. "saved our company $1,000 quarterly) in credit card processing fees)
• Add sizzle (eg. "Jane Doe is absolutely brilliant!” rather than “Jane Doe is great at what she does.” 

By default, your LinkedIn profile URL consists of random alphanumerical characters.  However, you can edit this by going to “Settings,” “Edit Public Profile,” then “Customize Your Public Profile URL.”  You can enhance your personal brand by adding your name to your LinkedIn URL.  For added coverage, make sure that your Facebook, Google Plus and LinkedIn vanity URLs are all the same.  For example: www.linkedin.com/profile/janedoe and www.facebook.com/janedoe.    

You can enhance your profile in different ways by taking advantage of LinkedIn applications.  For example, if you write a blog for your company, you can install the WordPress app allowing you to sync blog posts with your LinkedIn profile.  Other sample applications that allow you to show off your work include Slideshare (for sharing presentations) and Box.net (for embedding videos in your profile).   

LinkedIn is All About Business Connections

Whether you are an entrepreneur, working for a non-profit, working for a company, or new to the business world altogether, LinkedIn is a great networking and connection tool to help you achieve your professional goals.  Having a professional LinkedIn profile set up with "All-Star" status can help you take advantage of business opportunities and connect with influencers in your industry.

About Novera Payment Solutions

Novera Payment Solutions is a leader in the credit card payments industry. We are committed to helping businesses improve their bottom line by providing significant savings on credit card processing fees through our innovative flat fee merchant account pricing model.

Contact Novera to learn more about how we work with businesses  to provide the most fair and transparent pricing structure available on the market today!

LinkedIn Groups are powerful online forums that QuickBooks® users can take advantage of.   By joining or creating groups, you can not only engage your customers, but interact with industry peers, and QuickBooks power users.

A Quick Overview of LinkedInGroups

Features of LinkedIn Groups

Through LinkedIn Groups, you can collaborate with like-minded professionals and join in discussions about your interests.  Not only can you read and share content, but you can find answers to questions, post and view jobs, make business contacts and establish yourself as an industry expert.  By starting your own group, you can create customer relationships, gain access to an audience of professionals, raise brand awareness and position yourself as a thought leader. 

Creating and Joining LinkedIn Groups

From geographical location to industry trends, you can create or join a group on just about any topic you want.  Some groups are set up so the manager has to approve new members, but others are open to anyone who wishes to join.  Members can start a discussion on any topic, but occasionally the manager will have it set up to be approved before it is publicized. 

Finding LinkedIn Groups

You can join groups by browsing the suggestions LinkedIn has picked for you through the “Groups” tab.  Another way to find groups is by using the search tool with relevant keywords for groups you are interested in.  You can also see a complete list of LinkedIn groups by selecting “Group Directories” under the “Groups” tab.  

QuickBooks® users have six active LinkedIn Groups that are worth checking out!

1. QuickBooks Tips & Tricks

Having problems with QuickBooks? We're here to help!  This is a public group that you can join to ask questions and get answers about QuickBooks.

2. Expert QuickBooks Help

This is a public group featuring QuickBooks tips, tricks and expert advice from the author of QuickBooks Solutions Guide, QuickBooks on Demand and QuickBooks Essentials DVD Live Learning Series.

3. QuickBooks Aficionados

This LinkedIn Group is composed of loyal users and product evangelists of Intuit and QuickBooks products.

4. QuickBooks Online Users

This is a public group for QuickBooks Online users, trainers, and partners. It’s a place for people to post questions about the software and share their tips & tricks.

5. QuickBooks Solutions for your Business

There are hundreds of integrated 3rd party solutions developed for QuickBooks. This group aims to help Members find the best solution for their specific business needs.

6. Integration with QuickBooks & Third Party Apps

This LinkedIn Group features questions and discussion about integrating other programs and 3rd party applications with QuickBooks, like Novera Payment Solutions InstantAccept plugin.

Sample Third Party App : InstantAccept

Novera Payment Solutions offers a QuickBooks® plugin called InstantAccept®.  InstantAccept processes transactions easily at the point of sale, takes care of all the back-end bookkeeping and integrates seamlessly with your payment processing.  InstantAccept provides fewer bookkeeping hassles, better security and the freedom to grow your business.  With such simplicity and flexibility at your fingertips, InstantAccept frees you to do what you really want to do: run your business.

WHO WE ARE

Novera Payment Solutions is a provider of credit and debit card payment services for businesses across America, transparently guiding business owners through the complicated world of credit & debit card acceptance. Novera delivers a unique combination of value, integrity and price transparency that is unparalleled throughout the payment processing industry.

WE BRING VALUE TO OUR CLIENTS

The value lies in both our solutions and our pricing model. Novera delivers an integrated accounting solution for QuickBooks® called InstantAccept® that allows users to automatically have credit/debit card payments made on invoices post into their QuickBooks® accounting software.

If you are new to LinkedIn, you may not know all of the available tools to help you and your business.  Many social media users view LinkedIn as just the business version of Facebook, but there is actually much more to it.  For example, LinkedIn Groups are powerful online forums for you to use to engage your customers and industry peers. AutoTask users have three active LinkedIn Groups that are worth checking out!

What is a LinkedIn Group?

You can discover like-minded professionals and join discussions with people sharing common interests in LinkedIn Groups.  LinkedIn Groups provide a place for professionals in the same industry or with similar interests to share content, find answers, post and view jobs, make business contacts, and build credibility as industry experts.  Companies can also benefit from LinkedIn Groups by starting or sponsoring a new group.  In doing so, companies can establish relationships with customers, gain access to an audience of professionals, raise brand awareness and position themselves as a thought leader.      

How do LinkedIn Groups work?

Current LinkedIn users have already set up many different online forums that you can join to participate in discussions or make new connections.  Groups reflect a variety of interests, from a group for a company’s customer base to a group for debating emerging industry trends or even just a group based on a specific geographical area.  There are “open” groups that anyone can join and then there are others where the group manager has to approve new members.  Members may start a discussion on any topic, but occasionally it has to be approved by the group manager before it is posted publicly.  All members can typically comment freely on any of the posted subjects.   

How do I find LinkedIn Groups to join?

There are two ways to find LinkedIn Groups you may be interested in.  Click on the “Groups” tab and select “Groups You May Like,” you will then be provided with suggestions based on your personal LinkedIn activity and profile.  Another option for finding groups is using the search tool with relevant keywords for groups you are interested in.  You can also see a complete list of LinkedIn groups by selecting “Group Directories” under the “Groups” tab.          

Now that you understand more about how LinkedIn Groups work and how they can help you and your business, check out some of these popular groups for Autotask users:

• Friends of AutoTask
  This is a public group where AutoTask  users ask and answer questions, discuss features and resources, and promote AutoTask related events.
• AutoTask MVPs
  The Autotask MVP's actively participate in the Autotask online community AND seek to build relationships and engagement with other Autotask community members at a multitude of industry events and conferences. Each has unique perspectives and experiences that they “bring to the table” that add value beyond the Autotask product.
• AutoTask Certified Consulting Partners
  Exclusive to Autotask CCPs, the purpose of this group is to build community by providing a collaborative forum to discuss Autotask functionality as well as business consulting best practices.

Novera Payment Solutions, LLC is an endorsed provider for credit and debit card payment services for Autotask clients.  Novera was selected to guide Autotask users through the complicated world of credit and debit card acceptance.  Novera delivers a unique combination of value, integrity and price transparency that is unparalleled throughout the payment processing industry.  For more information on how Novera can help you, please watch our video at: http://www.noverapaymentsolutions.com/autotask/

Google+ is one of the largest growing social media sites out there.  With over 300 million monthly active users, the site is not quite as large as Facebook yet, but they’re working on it.  One of the main incentives for businesses to join is being active on the site will help your website rank higher in search engine results. 

Do you have a Google+ business page yet?

Follow these simple steps to get your business page set up and see your business start rising to the top!

Step 1: You Need a Personal Page

Google+ is set up so that every business page is tied to someone’s personal page.  You can’t create a business page without first having a personal one.  If you already have one, you can go stright to step 2.  If you don’t have one, simply sign up for one by going to https://accounts.google.com/SignUp.  There you will be asked to enter your name, email, birthday and gender.   You will also be asked to create a username or use an existing email account and create a password.  The cool thing about Google is that you only need one username and password to access all the Google owned sites.  If you already have a Gmail account, you can login, go to Google+ and then click create profile. 

Step 2: Navigate to Pages

Once you are logged into your personal page, towards the left of the screen you will see a Home button.  If you hover over that, a dropdown menu appears.  There you select "Pages"(towards the bottom).  You will see a button that says create a page. 

Step 3: Choose a Category

Google+ has several categories that you can choose from: Local Business or Place, Product or Brand, Company, Institution or Organization, Arts, Entertainment or Sports and Other.  If your business fits into any of those categories, select that ... otherwise choose "Other". 

Step 4: Add Basic Information

Depending on which category you choose, the process may be slightly different.  If you choose local business, a map will pop up asking you to locate your business.  If you find it, perfect.  If not, you can click "Let me create my business" at the bottom of the listings.  Sometimes this can be challenging, especially if someone previously used your address for a different business and it is still listed on Google.  If you are having trouble with this step, go back to the category page and choose Other.  Once you have picked a category, a screen will pop-up asking you to enter your Business Name and Website Address.   You will have to accept the terms and conditions and then hit continue.  

Step 5: Customize Your Page

Now that your business page is set up, you start adding your business information.  You will be asked to provide a Tagline of approximately 10 words that describe your page.  You should also upload a profile picture.  Here you should use a nice headshot of yourself or the company logo.  In the introduction section, you should type a short paragraph on what your business core services.  You also want to be sure to add your contact infornation.  In addition to the profile photo , Google+ also allows you to add a cover photo across the top of your profile. The profile image can be as large as 2120x1192 pixels. Google+ is helpful in that it walks you through each step so you can easily add your information.  You can also always go back and edit your profile later. 

Step 6: Be Active 

Now that your profile is complete, you should start posting great content to your page regulary.  Being active on your page is what can help drive your business up in the search engine rankings.  Help your business thrive on Google+ by having your friends and related businesses follow your page, and you follow theirs.

Although no one can guarantee your website will rank number one in search results, growing your social media presence definitely helps.  Since Google recently changed its algorithm for ranking web sites, social media is now an important factor.  And since Google+ is owned by Google, it’s definitely a social media site you should pay attention to!

About Novera Payment Solutions

Novera Payment Solutions is a leader in the credit card payments industry. We are committed to helping businesses improve their bottom line by providing significant savings on credit card processing fees through our innovative flat fee merchant account pricing model.

Contact Novera to learn more about how we work with businesses  to provide the most fair and transparent pricing structure available on the market today!