Developing an Invoice The first step to better leveraging your invoice is having a better invoice to leverage. When it comes to creating an invoice from scratch, Microsoft Office?s Excel and Word have templates to assist you, and there are also integration that help G Suite users. Otherwise, there are plenty of other software titles available to you that may better fit your business? particular requirements. Once you have your software, you can create your invoice document. You should make sure to include the following information on each: Description – When you demand money from people, they will naturally want to know what they are paying for. This means that you need to include a detailed summary of why they are being charged what they are, especially if it is for the time spent rendering a particular service or another. By including the order number, the total amount owed, the accepted payment methods, and the payment due date in addition to a comprehensive description of your services, you can often avoid pushback. Schedules and Policies – Fair is fair. You were beholden to a certain timeframe to deliver your service, so it only makes sense that your client returns the same courtesy. By establishing and upholding a set payment schedule, your clients will find themselves becoming accustomed to paying you on time. By clearly laying out your policies about discounts, due dates, and late payments and the fines they incur, you can establish an understanding with your client, and if necessary, support your position when demanding payments be made. Discount Details – Any and all discounts that you offer should be clearly marked as such on all invoices. This is especially true for those clients who are brand new to your services. Let?s face it, you wouldn?t want to create a false impression of the cost of your services, just to incur the wrath of someone who budgeted incorrectly and did not expect their costs to increase. Naturally, this is not a comprehensive list of what your invoices should include – these are just the especially crucial bits. There are far more possibilities of what you could add, and the white space on the invoice is too valuable of an opportunity to let go unfilled. Try adding some personalization for each client based on what they are being billed for. Suggesting their next steps both proves your competence as a provider, and gives them a little more value for their money?s worth. You could also personalize it by adding a thank-you message to the invoice. A short message expressing your appreciation for their business can go a long way – not only does it allow you to show your gratitude to your client, this gratitude may help nudge your client into paying you sooner and coming back to you again and again. Getting Your Invoice to Your Clients A good-looking invoice helps, but to really encourage your clients to settle their bills with you, they need to be sent a certain way as well. Part of this is being sure to send them promptly. It isn?t uncommon for an invoice to go unpaid for long periods of time. In fact, it was estimated that unpaid invoices totalled well over $800 billion? in January. This is why you don?t want to […]

The Sovrin Network While the majority of people might only know the blockchain in regard to cryptocurrency, there are some organizations out there that understand the benefits a blockchain can bring to networking and secure online exchanges. One association like this is the Sovrin Foundation, which founded the Sovrin Network. This network allows each user to have their own digital wallet, complete with specific identification, banking, and financial credentials, as well as employment credentials or a company ID. Their Mission A glaring fault in the way that the Internet functions was showcased last year when 2.9 billion records were exposed to various data breaches and cyberattacks. The Sovrin Foundation was created for the purpose of discovering a way to confirm one?s identity online without exposing themselves to potentially threatening scenarios. Cybercrimes are a major issue nowadays, making it especially important to preserve the authenticity of one?s identity. The idea is to create a standardized way to take advantage of digital credentials and verify their authenticity. The blockchain is an ideal way to approach this concept. How Does it Work for the End User? People don?t always like to embrace change, even if it?s to their benefit. It?s unlikely that the average user will feel the need to download an application to keep them safe online with a secure online identity wallet. In an attempt to make it easier for people to embrace these changes, organizations are using QR codes and other identification methods. The blockchain could potentially allow various organizations to make contact with others in a secure fashion, making it much less risky to share important information. Only the bare minimum amount of information will be shared. If a user wants to try taking out a bank loan, the loan provider might need access to information on salary. If each of them are part of the blockchain network, the employer could provide just enough information to confirm the salary threshold without sharing the exact number itself. Basically, the Sovrin Network aims to place the power of information sharing in the hands of the user. In Case You Lose Your Phone? If you?re using your phone as a digital identity wallet, you?ll want to be just as careful as you would be with your physical wallet. What can you do if your phone has been lost or stolen, and your credentials are stored in the Sovrin Network? All you would have to do is create a new credential for your digital identity. This brings up the question of whether this method is any better than the old-fashioned way of handling security. As society continues to rely on access to data and information, the blockchain?s focus on privacy will only grow in importance. What are your thoughts on the blockchain? Let us know in the comments.

Today?s world is driven by data. As a result, information systems have to be secured. That really is the bottom line. Business is all about relationships and without proper security protocols in place, there are some very serious situations that could completely decimate the relationships you?ve worked so hard to forge. While today?s hackers have a lot of different ways to breach an organization?s network, data breaches that occur as a result of lax security are unforgivable from a customer standpoint. Some organizations can spend more on security than others, but it with the landscape as it is today, it has to be a priority, no matter your IT budget. Here are some of the regulations all business owners and IT administrators should know: GDPR: The European Union?s General Data Protection Regulation is as comprehensive a data protection law as there is. Its aim is to protect the citizens of EU-member countries from data breaches. The GDPR applies to every organization that processes personal information of people residing in the EU. GPG13: Known as the Good Practice Guide 13, it is the U.K.?s general data protection regulation for organizations that do business in the U.K. HIPAA: The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act puts several guidelines on how patients? data is shared and disseminated by insurers and health maintenance organizations. SOx – The Sarbanes-Oxley Act requires corporate records to be kept for seven years to ensure that there is transparency in the accounting. For IT this means being able to have access to data to run reports when called upon. PCI-DSS – Payment Card Index Data Security Standard are regulations enacted to try and reduce fraud by protecting an individual?s credit card information. That?s just a few of the regulations business owners and IT administrators have to be cognizant of. For business owners there are several more, like the federal and state tax codes, and the adherence to the Affordable Care Act. All these regulations seem pretty straightforward and necessary until you begin to roll them out for your business. Then they just get expensive. In the first-ever Small Business Regulations Survey conducted by the National Small Business Association, the numbers reported, although not comprehensive by any means, weren?t pretty. To put it frankly, the cost to the small businesses that reported, would sink as many or more new businesses. ?The average small-business owner is spending at least $12,000 every year dealing with regulations,? NSBA President Todd McCracken said, ?This has real-world implications: more than half of small businesses have held off on hiring a new employee due to regulatory burdens.? The report goes on to state that the average regulatory costs to start a new business venture add up to a whopping $83,019. These figures don?t take in to account the dozens of man hours each year spent on these very complex problems. It should be stated that the NSBA has been a long-standing advocate of reducing regulations on small businesses. Regulators are paid to be skeptical, but overall they are put in place for a purpose, as oversight to ensure sustained adherence to data protection laws. How much can they demand from a small business? The question begs for analysis, as to listen to entrepreneurs talk about them regulations are unnecessary, but as stated before, these regulations aren?t […]

This should come as absolutely no surprise. Cryptocurrencies are ideal for cybercriminals, largely due to their high values and equally high levels of anonymity. However, mining even the smallest amount through legitimate means is an expensive and lengthy process that requires specialized computer hardware and significant amounts of electrical power. As a result, there has been a rise in a new threat to users called crypto jacking. Malware will infect a user?s device and hide in the background, leeching off of the host computer?s resources to mine for cryptocurrency. This causes the exact side effects that you would expect: increased electric bills and hindered performance for the user, with an increased rate of wear on their computer components. Worse, this malware only requires a compromised website to be visited for the malware to go to work – and while this once meant that the malware would only work as long as the unwitting host was on the website, cybercriminals have even found a way to work around that. Now, some infected sites will create a pop-up that hides behind the computer?s taskbar, unnoticed, and continues to eat up resources for the cybercriminal?s profit. In addition to malware downloads, crypto-miners are often spread through hidden code on the websites themselves, as well as untrustworthy browser extensions. This variety of the malware has been discovered in the websites for the United States Courts, the United Kingdom?s National Health Service, and the Australian state governments of Victoria and Queensland. It was found in a text-to-speech and translation plugin used on those sites. The developer of the plugin removed it from all websites immediately. Business owners should pay close attention to these events, as they could easily have a direct effect on business operations. After all, you pay a pretty penny for your Internet and its bandwidth – why should it profit some cybercriminal, and not you? Furthermore, mining cryptocurrency is no easy task for any hardware, which means it shortens the life of the machine and the components inside. This ultimately means that you will also be on the hook to replace that hardware sooner, costing your business even more. Fortunately, not all hope is lost. Many browsers are incorporating anti-cryptocurrency measures, and some antivirus programs can block crypto jacking attempts. There are also some extensions available for some browsers that help to stop cryptomining and crypto jacking scripts. At White Mountain IT Services, we?re here to help keep your IT running efficiently. This includes preventing threats and malware. Give us a call at (603) 889-0800 to find out what we can do for you.

What Does a CPU Do? A CPU, or central processing unit, sits atop the motherboard and decodes the instructions that it receives from the RAM, or Random Access Memory, before sending these instructions to the appropriate components of the computer. Whether you?re accessing a document from your computer?s local memory or even starting up the operating system, your CPU is playing a key role. This is not to say that a better CPU necessarily translates into better performance, mind you. What it will do is help your programs, applications, and system-as-a-whole run faster. Other beneficial effects require other components to be improved. How Does the CPU Work? The CPU has worked in essentially the same way since it was first introduced. Its function can be effectively split into three distinct tasks: fetch, decode, and execute. Fetch – First, the CPU receives its instructions from the RAM in the form of a series of numbers. These instructions are small portions of the greater operation that the computer is performing. As the CPU receives each instruction, it is stored in what is called an Instruction Register. Decode – Once the instruction is stored, it is sent to a specialized circuit, referred to as the instruction decoder. The decoder translates the instruction into actionable signals to the rest of the CPU. Execute – Finally, the instruction is forwarded to the part of the CPU that can enable it to be completed. This final version is also written to the memory on the CPU register, so it can be quickly accessed later. Choosing Your Next CPU If you?re considering an upgrade, switching your CPU for a better one can be an effective way to improve some aspects of your computer?s performance. A good rule of thumb to remember: the more cores, the better. While the earliest CPUs only had one, the latest go all the way up to 18 cores and beyond. Most modern PCs have two to four cores. Of course, you should also consider other factors when selecting a CPU. For instance, you may have heard the terms ?32-bit? or ?64-bit? tossed around in reference to CPUs. This determines the size of the data sample that the processor can handle. Frequency is another variable you should keep in mind, as it refers to the operating speed of the processor itself. It isn?t outside the realm of possibility for a faster dual-core CPU to outpace a slower quad-core. On top of all of this, your computer?s motherboard might only support a limited number of CPUs on the market. Want Help? For assistance and consultation into upgrading your systems, the trustworthy technicians at White Mountain IT Services are here for you. Call (603) 889-0800 for assistance.