Moneyandbusiness.ca - Your Ultimate Small Business Guide
For small business owners and professionals who work alone or choose to work remotely from home, a comfortable and suitable home office can be a good start before branching out to an office elsewhere.
Based upon experience, MoneyAndBusiness.ca recommends the following items and ideas.
Its Important to Work With The End In Mind.
All of the home office items mentioned on this page should someday be transferred to an office out of your home.
A lot of time will be spent at that desk. As an entrepreneur or new business owner, everything initially is your responsibility so get accustomed to having lots of different things to do and many tasks to complete.
Therefore, expect that desk to be crowded and littered with paper, files and other accessories. Lots of space will be needed. To cater for such a large amount of items, a large desk is needed and MoneyAndBusiness.ca recommends a L Shaped desk or a U Shaped Desk, and preferable one with overhead shelves for more items to be stored.
A comfortable office chair is a necessity as hours will be spent reclined there (and an occasional snooze with your feet on the desk). One of the least expensive convenient chairs is the Staples Faux Leather Managers Chair. Its inexpensive, and it works.
However, for a very comfortable and satisfying office chair, be prepared to spend between $250.00 to $900 plus tax. The Global Arturo Executive Leather High-Back Tilt Chair is one of the best that can be used, or at least the Staples Bonded-Leather Executive Chair.
The modern office is increasing becoming a paperless office, however, until that time comes, there will be some books present. A place will be needed to store magazine subscriptions, and sometimes a clock or family pictures.
At a minimum, a 5 shelve bookcase is recommended. A relatively inexpensive recommendation is the Whalen Trinity 5 Shelf Bookcase. There are of course, other options for color and size.
To Keep desk clutter to a minimum and provide you the space to work, the printer should preferably not be on your desk. The printer can be to the side of the desk, on a printer stand.
A reliable and fast Internet connection is an absolute must for today’s business. When selecting a high-speed Internet connection two factors must be considered. One is the upload speed, and the other is the download speed. An Internet connection allows you to upload as well as download information and both factors are equally important specifically where VoIP phone services are concerned. MoneyandBusiness.ca recommend that a minimum of 5 Mb per second download speed and a minimum of 2 Mb per second upload. To test your Internet connection we recommend this site http://www.speedtest.net/
Many banks and merchant services will require that your computer has a minimum level of security before installing credit card merchant processing virtual terminals. At a minimum, they will require an antivirus, a firewall and increasingly, an anti-spyware program.
It is possible sometimes to buy one product that supposedly offers all of these functions in one. However, this is not necessarily the best thing to do as few companies tend to be a specialist in one product and some do add in the other two products as an afterthought to package and sell a particular suite software pack.
Moneyandbusiness.ca however recommends that several software be installed and this collection of programs will achieved the varied functions described above.
For the antivirus requirements, the Avast! Pro Antivirus should suffice. This is a dedicated antivirus software.
In addition to the Avast Pro Antivirus program, a dedicated anti-spyware anti-hacking program is also needed. Moneyandbusiness.ca recommends Malwarebytes as the program to be used. The Malwarebytes anti-malware Pro version is suitable for most applications.
And lastly, and the absolute must by many financial institutions, is a dedicated firewall program. This is a program that shields your computer on the internet from those seeking to control it without your consent.
At the time that this article is being written there is a firewall program that is offered for free. This is the Zonealarm free firewall. This is a password-protected firewall program.
It is preferable to install the Malwarebytes first, then the Avast Pro antivirus program. The Malwarebytes is designed to operate in tandem with antivirus programs.
The last program to be installed should be the Zonealarm firewall as if it is installed first the previous programs may not be allowed to function correctly.
Sometimes it may be necessary to work remotely on a computer. You may be at home to working on a computer at work or vice versa.
To do so for free, the program called TeamViewer can be used. This allows remote control of computers that were previously set up, or alternatively, a one-time session can be initiated if someone is at the remote computer to be controlled. The free version will allow approximately 4 hours of remotes support per day. For extended remote hours the full version will need to be purchased.
TeamViewer also has a chat program which allows easy interaction within a team.
To be Added!!!
Waste Paper Bakset
Shredder
Desk Lamp
Organisers
Computer
Desktop or Laptop?
Monitor
Wireless Adapters
Surge Protector
Power Bars
Printer
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