5 Things to Consider Before Making an International Money Transfer

Whether you are sending money internationally for personal or business reasons, today, this can be done in just a few minutes. If you only do this once every two years or rarely, then you probably do not give much thought to the international money transfer service you use. But if you frequently conduct international money transactions, you have to ensure the service provider you are working with has a good reputation. Here are five things to consider when making international money transfers.  

Fees

Even with the growth of digital banking or online apps for money transfer, one thing that a lot of people are concerned about is the transaction fees. Financial institutions and currency specialists charge a fee for every transaction done. Look for someone affordable and reliable. Also, when you notice an institution is charging a flat rate, inquire whether there are hidden costs associated with currency conversion or the bank receiving the money. This ensures you know the exact amount the recipient will be getting.

Speed

When sending money internationally, one of your major concerns is when the money will get to the recipient. Maybe your loved ones need money for a medical emergency, or you want to finalize a deal. In that case, you need the money to get there as fast as possible. You should also check whether there is a cut-off time with the provider when you are making same-day transfer requests. If a bank or currency specialist receives the money after the cut-off time, the payment is processed the following day. Note that there are fees associated with various timelines. An urgent transfer will cost you more than a regular transfer.

Customer Support

Customers need to be informed of the entire money transfer process and get help whenever they face a problem. The Olympia Trust currency exchange in Vancouver reminds clients of the importance of a support team that is available, whether via phone or email. A good team will address any challenges with transfers from sending money to when the beneficiary receives it. Any provider that makes clients wait unnecessarily for long periods should be avoided.

Reputation

Recently, the popularity of currency specialists as an alternative to banks has been growing. However, before doing a foreign currency transaction with any bank or specialist, check whether the institution has been authorized to perform international money transfers. An authorized firm has high safety measures to safeguard a customer’s finances.

An Online Option

People had to have long queues in the bank before making transactions in the past. Not only was this a waste of time, but frustrating as well. However, a good international money transfer company should provide an online platform where a customer can simply conduct a transaction at any time.

When you have worked hard for your money, you need to ensure that your transactions are done reliably. Consider these five factors next time you make an international money transfer for a safe and secure transaction.

Top 10 Sources of Finance for Small Businesses

One of the challenging issues that emergent businesses face is the lack of adequate capital to fund their operations. According to Pret Commercial small businesses can still find a wide range of financial arrangements to kickstart and finance day to day activities. Here are sources of capital they may consider.

1. Business Line of Credit

The form of business finance allows you to access the capital as many times as you want-it's a revolving fund. To qualify for this loan, you need to have a $50 000 annual turnover and a higher credit score, ideally 560 and above. Also, you'll need to provide personal collateral security to guarantee the loan when you default. Two advantages of this financing are that it's available quickly, in a week or two, and you can borrow between $1000-$500,000.

2. SBA Loan

The Small Business Administration is a federal agency that helps small businesses to get funding and resources. The agency isn't the lender but a guarantor to financial institutions to lend you money. With this loan type, you can access any amount between $50,000 and $500,000, which is payable from 10 to 25 years. Although the paperwork takes longer, SBA offers a wide range of loans to micro-businesses. 

3. Short-term Loan

If you're hard-pressed for time and want a loan at the speed of lighting, you can apply for the SBA Express Loan. It can take less than 24 hours for you to have the money, and you can borrow up to $50,000. However, you must repay it quickly between 1-3 years.

4. Business Term Loan

It's suitable as working capital for acquiring equipment, expanding your business operations, recruiting more staff, etc. You can get $5000 up to $2 000,000 in a couple of weeks. The repayment period ranges from one to five years, and the interest rate is quite low.

5. Merchant Cash Advance

Merchant Cash Advance is a flexible form of business finance because it allows you to borrow against your future income. You'll need to authorize the lender to deduct a certain amount of your daily credit bank deposits. The minimum you can access is $5000, going up to $200,000 as the maximum capital. Since you can get the funds in under 24 hours, the interest is pretty high. 

6. Business Credit Card

As the most-user friendly loan, you can use a business credit card to borrow amounts up to $ 500,000 with little paperwork. It's possible to get the money within two weeks, and if your credit score is 680, you're a good candidate.

7. Equipment Financing

Equipment financing provides capital up to $5,000,000, and you can use it to purchase any useful resource for your business. The loan's approval and processing are less than 24 hours, provided your business has been generating a $50,000 annual turnover, and you've got a 650-credit score. If your credit score is low, you can still apply for the loan as long as you have a water-tight financial statement of your three to six months earnings.

8. Commercial Mortgage

With this type of loan, you can expand your retail space, acquire a warehouse, or venture into another business. It also allows you to buy a piece of land and build your property. Although you can access between $250,000 to $500,000 as loan capital, the amount you'll get depends on the property value you'll provide as collateral security and your credit score.

9. Accounts Receivable Financing

Also called factoring, it provides you with capital based on your unpaid invoices by your clients. With this arrangement, you need to sell your receivables or purchase orders to the financing company. It's also possible to receive more than 80 % of your purchase orders within three days of your application.

10. Start-up Loan

As a new business owner, you might find it an uphill task to secure a loan because of non-existent revenue and a solid balance sheet. A start-up loan can be your savior as you can borrow from a minimum of $ 500 to $750,000 as the maximum amount. One good thing about this loan is that you can get the money in a couple of weeks.

The Smartest Ways To Protect Your Company’s Finances

Running a company would be oh so much more straightforward if the money situation just took care of itself. If you knew that your finances were under control and healthy, then you’d be able to engage in the more fun aspects of owning a business, such as putting your ideas into practice. Alas, you can’t have everything your own way -- if you want to run your own company, then you’ll need to work on the finance part of things.

You’ll have a lot more peace of mind regarding your business finances if you know that they’re well protected. In this blog, we’re going to look at some of the best ways to do just that. 

Active Management

If there’s one piece of advice that all company owners should follow, it’s to spend some time actively managing their financial situation. These things won’t take care of themselves! And while there’ll be some aspects that you can outsource, you should have a solid grip on the fundamentals. Spending a little bit of time going over your incomings and outgoings will give you a solid overview of where, if anywhere, you need to improve. By doing this, you’ll also be able to identify any potential problems as soon as possible. 

Legal Safeguards and Professional Advice

Furthermore, as you actively manage your business's financial situation, having a legal professional by your side ensures that you're not only compliant with existing laws but also proactive in anticipating and addressing any legal issues that may arise. They can assist in creating a solid legal framework that aligns with your business goals and mitigates risks.

While we've discussed the importance of managing costs, maintaining cash-flow, and addressing late payments, it's equally crucial to invest in professional advice to secure the legal foundation of your business. By incorporating the services of an estate lawyer into your overall business strategy, you're taking a proactive step towards ensuring the long-term success and legal resilience of your company.

Cut the Costs

It sounds obvious to say that you can protect your company’s finances by cutting your costs, but it’s true -- you can. A lot of businesses end up spending wayyyy more money than they should, for various reasons. The biggest reason is that the costs keep on adding up and up, yet rarely get purged. So have a look at where you’re spending your money. Are all of those expenses necessary? It could be that you can cut some of them without having any negative impact on your business.

Don’t Write Things Off

There’ll be times when it seems like you’re not going to get the money that you were owed. At that point, you’ll have the option to write it off and move on. While you may eventually have to do this, don’t make it your first option. Take action first. You can use skip tracing software to track down a non-paying customer. If it’s a business that isn’t paying, then you may have legal options available to you.

Maintain Cash-Flow

The reason why so many companies fail isn’t that the ideas behind them were bad. It’s that they didn’t have a solid grip on their cash-flow. If you’re going to survive in the business world, then you need to have access to money. There’s no getting around it! Cash-flow problems can stem from investing too much in your business and by late-paying customers. Rather than buying hardware, you can rent. Instead of waiting for customers to pay, you can offer incentives to pay early (such as a 5 percent reduction).These tips will help you to keep a solid grasp of your financial situation and prevent things from getting too out of hand. They’ll be beneficial to both your business and your peace of mind.

How To Achieve Bulk Business Savings

In business, it’s incredibly important for us to ensure a routine and deliberate goal of optimization. Optimization may mean being able to review our staff every year to ensure they’re functioning as promised and trained, and if they’re not, we may decide to make adjustments to our ranks. 

Additionally, we must manage our own skills. For instance, we may be expertly technically proficient, or able to run accounts carefully, but the other skills that ensure your leadership value include being able to manage people, and stay calm in the face of struggle. We may choose to optimize ourselves in this direction through careful training and reflecting on our experience.

Savings are, of course, also important to optimize. This is because by reducing your costs, your revenue has further room to help you break even or contribute to your profit levels. This means that looking to cut costs in a way that isn’t as indiscriminate as randomly letting people go, nor harmful to the overall operation of your company is important. In the following advice, we’ll discuss how to cost-cut wisely:

Loyalty

Over time, the loyalty you hold with a particular supplier or business to business connection can help you grow goodwill. This may result in particular discounts given only to you, or the ability to purchase extras to your order for a fraction of the price. You’d be surprised just how much businesses are willing to help one another out, even through a few complimentary items with each order, provided it keeps a regular and trustworthy client or connection happy. Provided you reply with the same goodwill in turn, you’re sure to achieve bulk business savings with your best supplier.

Bulk Orders

Crafting the inventory requirements necessary for bulk buy and storage of orders can help you gain massive discounts when regularly supplying yourself. Economies of scale suggests that the more products are sold, the more they can afford to be given away more cheaply. This means that negotiating with your potential suppliers in regards to bulk orders may grant you better terms than you had imagined to begin with. They achieve a large and reliable order, you gain plenty of items and some for a fraction of the cost. Everybody wins.

Pay For Use

Some services are so considerate that they allow businesses or regular clients alike to pay for what they use, not some artificially inflated fee to cause confusion or to put everyone on the same standard. For instance, when you visit Unishippers for shipping rates, you will be amazed at how clear and forthright their pricing options are, and how justified they will be through the fair use of their service. This is great pricing, and it’s important to understand that these standards can exist in other firms for other purposes if you’re willing to research your best options. To that end, you can reliably achieve savings by only paying for the value you receive.

With this advice, you’re certain to reliably achieve bulk business savings in the best possible context.

High-Value Investments and Trades You Should Know About

There is no denying the fact that the internet and the widespread use of digital information technology have entirely revolutionized the business environment. In some ways, modern technology has flushed out some traditional trading methods but also opened up new investment opportunities. For instance, some investors now trade in digital currencies, tech-based stocks, and even information. 

However, there are still some investment and trading opportunities that have stood the test of time and are still viable ventures for the conservative trader. Here are three examples of such investment opportunities that have barely been affected by modern developments.

Trading in Precious Metals and Minerals

It might seem odd that in a world with so many currencies, some people still opt to invest in precious metals such as gold, silver, diamonds, and even gems. As it turns out, this is a highly lucrative niche if you can source and sell goldand other precious minerals. The prices of these materials often fluctuate as demand rises and falls, presenting unique opportunities for investors to make money. Investors in this field, however, have to be keen when deciding when to buy or sell gold, gemstones, and the like.   

Antiques Hunting

An antique can be anything from a piece of furniture, vehicle, house, or appliance that has a high value due to its considerable age. But just because something is old doesn’t mean it’s an antique; it has to be one of a kind, rare, and interesting. Antique hunters collect such items and usually restore them to their former glory to fetch a high profit during the sale. Some popular antiques include grandfather clocks, pocket watches, classic cars, and old exquisite furniture. 

The Art Business      

Some artworks, particularly old paintings from world-renowned artists, fetch ridiculous amounts of money in art auctions and exhibitions. Art lovers sometimes pay hundreds of millions of dollars for paintings, sculptures, and masterful craftsmanship. Traders in the art businesses are always on the lookout to identify and source valuable art pieces that can fetch high dollar in the market. Some of these art pieces are still being discovered today in people’s homes. Contemporary art is also making its mark on the trading scene as well.

The whole premise of trading and making investments has never changed, even with advancements in technology and changing times; it still involves putting some money on the line and hoping to rip rewards. Although the trading methods listed above have remained virtually untouched by modern technology, in some ways, recent times have boosted their viability as businesses.