Software and Technology Tools That Make a New Start-Up a Breeze

By Gregory Grabowski, PE, LEED AP

We’ve all started with the same question — How do I get my home business off the ground when I have to pay the bills? The bald facts are that most of us will have to have two jobs for a while; our Day Job, and what we ultimately will be our fulfilling Home Business. With a little planning and a lot less money than you think, you can begin building your Home Office infrastructure while sneaking it around the day job. Let’s see how.

Your PC is Probably Powerful Enough

You probably already have a home PC and it works fine for what you need — but will it stand up to the demands of a home business? It’s so easy to be lured into investing into a top of the line machine for a home business, but do you really need to sink that expense right at the beginning when funds are tightest? You likely already have everything you need! With minimal time and expense, you can set up a home office operation with enough power and capacity to work the business part-time in the evenings to get things started. First, find a quiet space that can be easily dedicated for your Home Office use so you can take advantage of potential tax advantages.

Next, you’ll need basic software and office tools which are compatible with your customer base, so we’ll spend some time talking about your options. I recommend the Microsoft© Office Standard 2007 Suite of tools along with basic publishing and accounting applications.

Microsoft Office© for the Basics
Let’ start with Microsoft© Office Standard 2007, which can be purchased online for about $250 and is filled with powerful office applications. This includes Word™, Excel™, PowerPoint™ and Outlook™. If you are not familiar with these basic tools, go to your local library and check out a training video or book this weekend! Like it or not, they form the basis of office documentation worldwide and you will need them.

With Microsoft-Word™ you get full service document development with spell check, archiving, and a full suite of fonts and colors. I’m using Microsoft-Word™ to type this article. For basic number crunching, graphs, charts, and database operations you will need Microsoft-Excel™. This is where I spend the most of my time as I do not use a dedicated accounting application. I create invoices with it; use it to estimate jobs, as well as to track time and materials. It is an outstanding tool in every respect and the new home business owner will do well to learn its power. Microsoft-PowerPoint™ is a presentation tool that is the standard in the industry. You will use it to make flyers, business graphics, and presentations. When you are a bit more of an expert you can use it to publish web pages and keep your clients fully up to date on your products and services. Finally, and most importantly to keep connected to your clients, vendors and suppliers, you will need Microsoft-Outlook™. This e-mail, Personal Information Manager (PIM), and business contact tool can integrate with your Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) like a Blackberry™ or Palm Pilot™ to eliminate any more lost contacts or e-mails. I have over 4,600 contacts in my Microsoft-Outlook™ database, and all are replicated onto my Blackberry™ so they are with me when I travel or am working away from my home computer.

Smartphones and Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) — Keeping Your Information on Hand
Now that we’re talking about it, the options for PDA's today are numerous and powerful, but you don’t need one to get started, especially if you work from home most of the time. However, an integrated PDA with e-mail and cell phone, called a Smartphone, is essential when starting a home business so that you can leverage your day job hours (lunch, commuting on the train, etc). I use a Blackberry© (www.blackberry.com) Smartphone and have for years. Other vendors include Nokia (www.nokiausa.com), Palm Computing (www.palm.com), and Apple’s iPhone (www.apple.com/iphone). Please though, do not use your PDA or cell phone while driving — your family and your business depend on you and your safety.

Money, Money, Money! (Accounting Applications)
If you are going to bill someone, pay someone, track time, monitor your receivables, communicate with your bank, and otherwise understand if you are making money or not you will have to have a basic accounting application that is designed for the small business. Some options are Peachtree© Accounting (www.peachtree.com) and QuickBooks™ by Intuit© (quickbooks.inuit.com). They both list for about $200. Check out the web sites and compare the features to tailor them to what you need. Don’t buy more than what you need right now — you can always upgrade later.

Data is the Life of your Business
Today’s high speed technologies enable our systems to automatically back-up our business data online in secure and accessible archives. In order to reduce initial costs for starting up a home office, I recommend the use of online backups. For about $5 a month, you can have all of your data encrypted and backed up in a server farm away from your home. If your PC or Laptop should crash or be stolen, your data can still be accessible and intact. The online backup services available today are too numerous to mention, but if you do your research and test them out you will find that these services are secure and reliable. Many offer free trials — take advantage of them!

Virus,  Virus Everywhere!
Protect your system’s data integrity by the disciplined use of up-to-date anti-viral software. Two excellent applications most commonly used are Total Protection™ by McAfee (www.macafee.com) and Norton 360 by Symantec (www.symatec.com). Both of these robust applications provide 24x7 protection for your PC and e-mail applications from virus infections, spyware, and spam, and offer quite capable firewall and intrusion detection capabilities. Both are available in home office versions for about $80.

Just the Fax
There are very reliable and cost effective services that will route your incoming fax to you as a portable document format (.pdf) file directly to your e-mail for viewing anywhere you are. These services are referred to as “Internet Fax” and for less than about $20 a month you can get a dedicated local or 800 fax number that all your clients and vendors can “send” to. Your fax is then electronically forwarded to whatever e-mail you desire and is viewable just like a scanned document. Some well known providers are eFax (www.efax.com) and MetroFax (www.metrofax.com). Take a look and compare features and prices and select one for you.

Avoiding Voice Mail Hell
You don’t like voice-mail-hell and neither do any of your clients or vendors. The goal is to keep it simple, but separate and more professional than your home voicemail system. Again, here I advocate an online system to keep your initial costs and headaches low (about $30 a month), as well as present your clients and vendors with the most professional (and easiest) voicemail system. These online voicemail services are sophisticated enough so that when your home office phone doesn’t pick-up the call is automatically routed to any other number you choose. Try the online Voicemail demos at eVoice (www.evoice.com) and eFax (www.efax.com) and check out what the latest technologies can offer you.

This is about Getting Started
The basics listed in this article are just enough to get the computing infrastructure of your home business started while you continue with your day job to pay the bills. As your home business grows and you consider going full-time, then you might eventually consider upgrading the home office as necessary to keep pace with your business. But don’t sweat it — you probably have all the basics already! HBM

Gregory Grabowski, a registered Professional Engineer and reserve Naval Officer, focuses his Project Management talents to design and build facilities for corporate and government clients worldwide. His professional experiences have taken him to six of the seven continents. He resides in Southern California and enjoys adventure sailing.

Previously published in the October 2009 issue of HOME BUSINESS® Magazine, an international publication for the growing and dynamic home-based market. Available on newsstands, in bookstores and chain stores, and via subscriptions ($19.00 for 1 year, six issues). Visit www.homebusinessmag.com