My 2¢ Worth

'm sure you've all heard of the crash test dummies. The first crash test dummy was the Sierra Sam created in 1949. This dummy was developed by Sierra Engineering Co. to test aircraft ejection seats.

n 1997, GM's Hybrid III crash test dummies officially became the industry standard for testing to comply with government frontal impact regulations and air bag safety.

'm impressed with the way those dummies put their "lives" on the line daily so that I may drive a safer vehicle.

ell I recently saw an ad on TV about a new show called The Crash Test Human. There's something wrong with this picture!

ow you tell me who the real dummy is...

Feature Article

Accepting Payments Online: An ECommerce Web Site Overview

by: Bobette Kyle Web Marketing Place

There are a seemingly infinite number of choices and configurations to accepting payments online. Choices range from almost total "do it yourself" programming to turnkey packages.

You can accept online payments from an ECommerce Web site in two general ways:

• Through your own online merchant account and/or
• Through a third party online payment processor.

Accepting Payments Online through your own Internet Merchant Account

Accepting payments online via a merchant account puts you in control and limits your reliability on outside payment acceptance services. This approach can also seem like a jigsaw puzzle. Besides an Internet merchant account, you will need shopping cart software, a store or site host, a processor, and a secure payment gateway.

You may fit these pieces together in several different ways. On one end of the spectrum, you can choose the provider for each piece individually. On the other end, you may choose a turnkey solution, where a single provider has completed the puzzle for you.

There is no single best solution. Your choice will depend on your particular needs and experience. Among other considerations, you should factor in your own comfort with the technologies, customer convenience, providers' service levels, available technical support, reliability, costs, and time commitment involved.

Fees

There are a myriad of potential costs and fees involved in accepting payments online, making it difficult to compare different options.

Potentially, you could be charged fees by each provider involved in helping you accept payments online - application fees, set-up fees, yearly memberships, monthly statement charges, monthly minimums, gateway access fees, statement fees, fixed transaction fees, variable transaction discount rates (processing fee for each transaction), and cancellation penalties are all common.

Often, it is easy to misinterpret the fees you will owe. Rarely are all costs revealed in one place. If you are reading about a merchant account, for example, the quoted costs may not include gateway access, hosting, and/or shopping cart. Because you may be comparing "apples to oranges", options that at first appear low-cost can - upon implementation - turn out to be pricey. Similarly, expensive-sounding solutions may actually be reasonably priced.

Accepting Payments Online through a Third Party Online Payment Processor

If you are not ready to set up your own online merchant account and/or you want to offer additional online payment options, you can turn to a variety of third party online payment processors.

Third party online payment processors provide a way to accept payments online without the extra cost and obligation of a merchant account. To compensate, transaction fees and/or discount rates are significantly higher than for merchant accounts.

Each program is a little different and no single third party payment processor is right for all situations. Clickbank, for example, helps you sell digital products online. At last check, CCNow processes payment for tangible items only.

Deciding What's Best for You

Whether you accept payments online through an Internet merchant account, through a third party payment processor, or both, read all agreements carefully before committing. Do not hesitate to ask the providers questions if information is unclear or incomplete.

There is more information about accepting payments online - including explanations of merchant account fees, finding the right ecommerce providers, and third party payment processor overview - on the ecommerce information site Take-Payments- Online.com, www.Take-Payments-Online.com.

Put together the "puzzle pieces" for accepting payments online and your ecommerce Web sales will flourish!

**************

Bobette Kyle draws upon 15+ years of Marketing/Executive experience, online marketing experience, and a marketing MBA in her writing and consulting. She is proprietor at Web Marketing Place, where she provides Web presence, marketing and strategy services. She is also the face behind WebSiteMarketingPlan.com, where you will find articles and resources to help with your marketing plans and Web promotions.

Creating an HTML slideshow

You can use the http-equiv refresh function in your <meta> tag repeatedly to load a succession of pages, creating a slide-show effect in your pages, in a different frame, or even in a popup!

Let's say you have four documents you'd like to use as slides: slide1.html, slide2.html, slide3.html, and slide4.html. When you set up your page, have slide1.html be the document that's called by the page where you want the slide show. For example: On index.html say: "Go here to see a slideshow!" then link to slide1.html. Next, open the slide1.html document and add this tag near the top:

<meta http-equiv="Refresh" CONTENT="3;URL=slide2.html">

Next, open slide2.html, and add this near the top, and so on:

<meta http-equiv="Refresh" CONTENT="3;URL=slide3.html">

If you want the slide show to end with slide4.html, don't insert the <meta http-equiv> tag there. If you want it to loop back to the first slide, add the tag and send it to slide1.html. This sets up a slide show in one frame that switches to the next image every 3 seconds. You can of course play with that number to fit you needs.

Remember, you can use more or less than 4 slides. It doesn't matter. Just make sure to change the URL each time so it doesn't go backwards!

* Get these syndicated tip feeds for yourweb site, free. *

Second Article

Accounting Police: Do They Exist?

by: John Day Real Life Accounting

Who created accounting principles? Who sets and revises accounting standards? What if you don’t follow all the rules, do you go to jail? Is there an accounting police force that investigates and arrests violators? It would seem that there must be some regulatory force to make sure that providers of financial statements conform to the rules. There is, up to a point, and here is how it works:

Mainly, it’s all voluntary and it works pretty well. First, double-entry accounting originated in Italy in the 1400’s, so its been around awhile. Accounting principles have evolved over the years just as have accounting standards. The reason why the system works is that the business community could not function if there was not commonality and consistency in financial statement reporting. It would be chaos, much like if there were no driving rules of the road. Therefore, in the United States, a body of experts known as the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB pronounced Fasbee) was established in 1973, which superseded another board called the Accounting Principles Board (APB). The FASB members go through a lengthy process of analyzing and reviewing problems in the accounting field that are brought to them. After much thought, they will make a pronouncement as to what they think the new or revised way of approaching the treatment of an accounting issue should be.

They are a non-governmental organization that has private financing. A big supporter of FASB is the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). Many Certified Public Accountants (CPAs) belong to this prestigious organization and are obligated to abide by its guidelines and principles of behavior. Other countries no doubt have similar organizations that require high levels of accounting professional conduct.

FASB established an accounting code called "Generally Accepted Accounting Principles" or (GAAP). The assumption is that if a business financial statement is prepared according to GAAP, then the user of that financial statement could rely on or trust the information more readily than if not prepared according to GAAP. Those businesses that deviate from GAAP, and many smaller businesses do, cannot say that their statements are prepared under GAAP; in fact, they should inform the reader that they are not. However, let the buyer beware.

One governmental body that has a policing function is the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC). It is primarily concerned with public companies because their job is to protect investors from unscrupulous acts. Recently, the SEC has gotten into the act of establishing accounting standards. It has its hands full today.

Since most businesses use their financial statements to prepare their required income tax returns, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) may audit those tax returns and review the financial statements upon which the tax returns are based. Not following the rules can get you in trouble with this governmental body.

You can see that in many ways compliance to the principles and standards is a mixture of voluntary and regulatory behavior. Currently, there is an effort underway to set international accounting standards due to the inexorable globalization process. This is a massive undertaking that will take years, but it is obviously necessary and inevitable.

**************

John W. Day, MBA is the author of two courses in accounting basics: Real Life Accounting for Non-Accountants (20-hr online) and The HEART of Accounting (4-hr PDF). Visit his website to download for FREE his 3 e-books pertaining to small business accounting and his monthly newsletter on accounting issues. Ask John questions directly on his Accounting for Non-Accountants blog .

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