Startups, here’s how to cut through the crap when you’re looking for a CRM tool

Mikita Mikado for QuoteRoller / VentureBeat writes: There are too many CRMs. Heck, there are too many CRM add-ons. Sales is our livelihood, and part of the job has become navigating the labyrinth of choices (and customizations) to make something that actually makes your job easier. Marc Andreessen says that software is eating the world, but for salespeople, software is eating us alive.

For the new SaaS company or sales organization, you have to hire the right people, find the right strategy, and define the right market. Now you also have to find the right Customer Relationship Management software. The thing that was meant to make your life easier — little software hacks and tweaks — has now become annoying on the same level as office management and HR issues.

Choosing and implementing the right CRM is a necessary evil, just like finding the right chairs and a reliable Internet provider. And, as you’d expect, All CRMs suck if implemented in the wrong way for the wrong type of company, just as they are all beautiful if they’re implemented correctly.

While building my startup — the proposal software Quote Roller — I’ve tried (and dumped) many CRMs for organizing sales, hiring, and fundraising. I’ve explored many CRM systems to consider integrating with our app, and I’ve whittled down a list of hundreds to only 12.

It’s been an awful rollercoaster, and I’m happy to share the ups and downs as a way of helping you find out what you do and don’t need to get.

You don’t need a CRM when …

… you don’t have a business (or a product-market fit) yet

It’s day 1. You have a chair and a desk and a computer. Don’t buy eight different pieces of software because you think you need to. When you need them, buy them. If you don’t know you need them, don’t. As a founder, you should start contacting potential clients before you even start the company. There’s no need to over-engineer at this point. Finding the product-market fit is hard enough already. Keep it simple (and free) using spreadsheets.

… when there is no sales process to organize

CRMs are made to organize repeatable sales processes and to organize processes that, at first, might not even be there. If you are just going after your first few clients, don’t mess it up with unnecessary data entry.

… you don’t know who you’re selling to

Once all the necessary tests are done, you should be able to answer the following questions:

1.   Who are your clients? Be specific.
2.   How do you find, contact, and persuade them to close?
3.   What is the approximate amount of money you can make on average from each client?
4.   How long is it going to take to close a sale?

… when there’s no use for the data

If you have a few people, and they’re still in the very early sales stages, there’s no process to break down for them. Making someone log a call isn’t useful unless you have a great deal of things to monitor and need organization.

Before you’re established, CRM can be a curse. Don’t buy it or use it unless it’s going to make your life — or your salespeople’s lives — easier.

PipeDrive vs Intercom: choosing a CRM based on your CLV

Your customer’s lifetime value (CLV) is the amount of money your company can make during a single customer’s lifetime. A higher CLV usually requires more time and effort to sell to. A six-figure sale may take months (if you’re lucky) or even years (if you’re realistic).

If your CLV is high, your CRM pipeline (the sales process’ steps) should have many stages and fewer deals in each stage. Creating a visual of your sales process makes it easy for you and your reps to see where things are with any prospective client and keep them from wanting to drown themselves mid-sale.

PipeDrive CRM is a great pipeline visualization app for companies with a high-deal size and a low-deal volume, where a company is focused on high-value customers. By sectioning out each part of the deal, PipeDrive lets you break down the thoughts, feelings, and processes of a sale in a way that’s far more human.

We managed our seed round via PipeDrive, where investors were “contacts” and investments were “deals.”

Pipedrive is a great software. However, if you’re making a lot of low-value deals, it’s overwhelming and unnecessary. The process is probably as simple as “make call, send email, close deal,” and thus entering in the data becomes useless.

In many high-volume, low-value deals, the sales are likely inbound, low-touch, and automated, which is exactly what Intercom focuses on.

Intercom is plugged into your website or app with a JavaScript snippet. It imports the client data and allows easy flagging, searching, and filtering in your client database.

Intercom also aggregates additional data about your clients from around the web — like location, social networks, and avatars — as well as from your own system – like the number of purchases, dates of first sign, and your last visit. The system maintains a history of messages sent to a client.

Another neat thing about Intercom is that you can send custom and automated messages to clients in real time, enabling you to save money on email marketing apps like MailChimp.

Your goal with any CRM is to support your salespeople and their process and have an idea where your next meal is coming from. If your CRM makes this process worse, you don’t want that CRM.

Nimble vs Base: choosing a CRM based on how you interact with customers

What makes for the best CRM for a team often depends on the way you build leads and interact with customers. Some companies are prospecting via LinkedIn, some are cold calling, and some buy email lists to reach out to potential clients.

If you sell using social networks, take a look at Nimble. Nimble’s integration with social networks is one of the best. Nimble imports your LinkedIn connections as CRM contacts and allows you to message them from the interface. Your message history attaches to your contact dashboards and deals. The same applies to your reps, so you can manage the sales process even if most of it happens in LinkedIn. Nimble also imports all contacts’ social streams, posts, and shares. That allows you to send relevant messages, much more personalized than cold, salesy emails. Similarly to LinkedIn, Nimble integrates, allows messaging via, and imports social streams from Twitter and Facebook. Plus you can take steps that show immediate customer loyalty, like following prospects on Twitter even before making a call.

Nimble also helps to set up “social signals,” or the notifications, for a contact’s birthday, new connections, career change, and more. For instance, you can automatically assign sales reps to prospect anyone who liked your Facebook page or mentioned services you provide in a tweet.

Essentially, it cuts down on research time and supports a great sale. However, if most of the conversations are taking place over the phone, it’s a bunch of information that’s nowhere near as useful. For companies who are planning to interact with clients via the phone, Base CRM is a better option. Base has built-in voice over IP (VOIP) functionality with very cheap international calling rates, saving time on both call-logging and the physical act of calling (and money, I suppose). The calls are recorded and automatically attached to contacts and deals, removing the awful call-logging data entry of classic salespeople.

Base is also great if you want your reps in the field. Imagine you have a team of five sales reps running around the city, talking to customers and closing deals. They need a tool with real-time access to contacts and deals in progress, and your sales manager needs real-time access to the deals they’re closing, places they’re visiting, and calls they’re making. The data’s already there without the reps having to struggle to log it.

Base’s mobile apps (as well as helping you make calls) provide access to the CRM’s data and display an interactive map with all the nearby contacts. You get to know where they are geographically at any point. All this makes Base a perfect solution for companies that practice “outside” or “field” sales and close deals in person.

CRMs can’t save your business, but they can make it better

Many believe that productivity tools and CRMs are the golden goose — the way to make an organization ‘great.’ The truth is, if someone is a bad sales rep, they’ll only be more obviously awful in a CRM-based solution. Furthermore, adding a useless CRM to your business will make your employees hate you and slow down those that don’t.

A CRM is a force multiplier. Success in sales is made by people who deal with your clients, the relationships they build, the needs they identify, the support they offer, and, of course, the product or service they’re selling. A great CRM will support them and catapult them to success, but a bad implementation will steer them to drinking (or to your competitors).

Is Award Travel Tax Deductible?

Scott Mackenzie for Travel Codex writes: Some small business owners wonder if they can claim a tax deduction when they use frequent flyer miles to book a trip. This is the flip side of a question I addressed yesterday, whether the miles and points you earn need be reported as taxable income. I think today’s issue is far more interesting because you can actually take actions that work in your favor.

I am not an attorney, tax specialist, or other financial advisor. You should probably contact your own advisor if you have these concerns. But I can tell you what I’ve learned over the years and how I interpret it.

Is there even any value to deduct?

I explained yesterday that most miles and points are not tax deductible. At least one bank, Citi, chooses to send out 1099s to its customers who earn a lot of miles through credit card sign-up bonuses. But that’s an isolated case. Most banks don’t do this, and the IRS has a stated position that you don’t owe taxes on miles earned through personal travel, business travel, or ongoing credit card spend since these qualify as rebates.

If you don’t owe any taxes on the miles when you earn them, it would appear self-evident that you can’t deduct the value of those miles when you redeem them.

Think about it. A tax deduction isn’t a flat amount deducted from your taxes. That’s more accurately described as a “tax credit.” Instead, a tax deduction is an adjustment to your net income. If the gross income of your business is $10,000 and you spend $2,000 to earn that $10,000, then you really only earned $8,000. You pay taxes on $8,000.

Some people might try to say they redeemed 100,000 miles to book a ticket that would otherwise cost $5,000, and so they want to claim a $5,000 deduction. Good luck with that. Did you also report those 100,000 miles as $5,000 in gross income when you earned them? I didn’t think so.

You can’t deduct something that has no value. And if you want to assign value to your miles, then you’re effectively telling the IRS that they also ought to tax them when you first earn them.

I see only two cases where you could legitimately deduct the value of an award ticket. One is if you buy miles and then redeem them for an award, but you run into some serious questions of how you separate your “business miles” from your “personal miles” if they’re all mixed into the same account. It seems like an accounting nightmare. The second case is when a bank like Citi files a 1099 that makes you liable to pay taxes for a sign-up bonus. You could reasonably deduct the value of those miles, and you have the paperwork to back it up. If Citi says you earned 50,000 miles at a value of 2.5 cents each — a taxable amount of $1,250 — then you could claim a deduction on only those 50,000 miles and only at a value of 2.5 cents.

You can still deduct some award travel expenses.

Every award ticket comes with associated fees and taxes. Those can be deducted if you booked the trip for legitimate business purposes; your fare is merely much lower than it would normally be. However, this is a more complicated topic and one where you would definitely want to consult a qualified professional. I am not a qualified professional, just a guy on the Internet.

For example, if I booked a trip to a conference in Berlin and paid $400 in addition to redeeming 100,000 miles, then I would deduct $400 — not the $5,000 list price of a regular business class fare. Or if I had booked a regular coach fare, and then upgraded with miles and a $600 co-pay, I could deduct both the coach fare and the co-pay.

Some tricks help when traveling with a companion.

I occasionally bring my wife along on trips that otherwise qualify as business travel. My wife isn’t significantly involved in my business, and her travel expenses are not deductible. But if I need a hotel room and a rental car to do my job, I can still deduct those expenses despite the fact she sleeps next to me and rides shotgun. I also can do things like book myself a paid fare and redeem miles for my wife’s travel. Our travel costs are lower on average, while I maximize my deduction. It would be a mistake to use miles for my own travel and pay cash for her fare.

On a related note, when I use a companion fare, I will ensure that I am listed as the primary traveler so that my wife pays the discounted price. Alaska Airlines even breaks down the itinerary in the receipt so you can clearly see that I paid a separate, more expensive fare.

Conclusion

Taxes really aren’t that difficult. You calculate your gross income minus your expenses and pay a percentage on the net income. If you didn’t pay for your miles — because you got them as a tax-free “rebate” — then they aren’t a real expense.

Common Sense Tips for Avoiding Common Tax-Filing Blunders

After a tax season of crunching numbers, filling out forms and signing the bottom line, one of the best moments is finally sending your return to the IRS — especially if you’re getting a refund. However, not reporting taxable income and expenses or finding out later that you weren’t entitled to claim a deduction could return a headache instead of a check.

Honest mistakes can happen, but anyone purposely exaggerating a few details or bending the rules in their financial favor could be looking at serious legal penalties — including tax evasion charges, fines and even a prison sentence. To prevent tax mistakes that could lead to trouble, Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting US identifies some common blunders that can cause turbulence if not caught before signing-off on your return.

“It doesn’t pay to guess if you’re unsure about anything on a tax return, but it does pay to check with a professional preparer or trusted resource to make sure you are completely accurate and not hoping for the best outcome,” said Mark Luscombe, JD, LLM, CPA and Principal Federal Tax Analyst for Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting US. “Not only can the IRS identify any mistakes, but it can also determine whether it was a minor oversight that can be easily corrected or a deliberate attempt to avoid paying taxes.”

Some highly-common tax return mistakes include:

• Failing to include or use correct Social Security numbers
• Claiming ineligible dependents — must meet legal definition of a dependent
• Failing to check liability on whether the alternative minimum tax applies.

The following checklist also covers potential tax pitfalls to avoid:

___ Not paying taxes on unemployment, wages, tips or other income — Those receiving unemployment benefits are expected to pay taxes on all government financial support they receive. And those in the work force are expected to report all of their income, whether it comes in wages or tips. All investment income, including interest, dividends and capital gains, also needs to be reported and may be subject to different tax rules. 

___ Not paying taxes on household help — Taxpayers who hire a nanny or other household workers are required to withhold and pay FICA taxes if cash wages totaled $1,900 or more in 2014. They also must report and pay the required employment taxes for domestic employees on Schedule H, Household Employment Taxes, with the tax amount then transferred to the appropriate line on their Form 1040 or 1040A. 

___ Not reporting gifts given over $14,000 — When someone receives a gift, its value is excludable from their gross income, meaning it’s not taxable to them. However, if they later sell it at a gain or receive any other income from the gift, that amount is taxable. Taxpayers giving gifts in excess of $14,000 as a single filer or $28,000 as a split gift by joint filers have two options to satisfy their tax obligation: Pay taxes on the amount above the limit or apply it against their lifetime gift tax exemption ($5,340,000 for 2014, up from the $5,250,000 limit for 2013). 

___ Not reporting premium assistance credit or penalty for failure to obtain health insurance — New requirements on tax returns always create problems and the new provisions of health care reform are likely to be no exception. Carefully calculate if you have received too much or too little premium assistance credit and report the correct amount on the return. Also report if you had minimum essential coverage, an exemption or the amount of any penalty due.

___ Inflating the value of charitable donations — The IRS expects people donating items to qualified charitable organizations to use fair market value in determining what each item is worth. For non-cash donations of more than $500, a written description of the donated property must also be furnished and non-cash donations of more than $5,000 must be appraised. Additionally, cash donations of any amount require proof, such as a cancelled check, credit card statement or receipt from the charity. And contributions of $250 or more also require a letter from the organization specifying the name of the donor, the amount given and the date received.

___ Exaggerating business expenses — The IRS pays close attention to fraudulent tax abuses such as inflating business expenses or attempting to write-off personal and family expenses under the guise of a home-based business, where deductions are clearly invalid or where a business doesn’t exist. For expenses to qualify as business deductions they must be ordinary and necessary expenses paid or incurred in carrying on a trade or business. Taxpayers must have proof to legitimize business deductions such as receipts.
Sole proprietorships may claim business expenses on Schedule C, Profit or Loss from Business. Partnerships and joint ventures generally report expenses on Form 1065 or 1065-B.

___ Under-withholding of taxes — Generally, income tax follows a pay-as-you-go approach, meaning taxpayers must pay taxes on income they earn during the year it’s earned. This is done through preparing a Form W-4 so an employer can withhold the correct amount or by paying estimated taxes on a quarterly basis. Under-withholding results in owing back taxes as well as a possible penalty, which is typically interest on the amount under-withheld. 

___ Not paying taxes on income earned abroad or from offshore accounts — Taxpayers must report worldwide income, within and outside of the United States, on their tax returns — including income from foreign countries and applies even if Forms W-2, 1099 or their foreign equivalents were not received. They may also have to report foreign assets on Form 8938. Those who don’t report those foreign assets or all taxable income from overseas business transactions or offshore accounts could face civil and criminal penalties.

___ Not reporting income from gambling or illegal schemes — Form 1040, line 21 and Schedule A, line 28 on Form 1040 tax returns are intended for reporting various financial gains and losses. Whether you had a lucky night at the casino or financially benefited from an illegal transaction, such as a Ponzi scheme, embezzlement or other types of fraud, line 21 is the taxpayer’s opportunity to tell all. For those who choose not to report gambling winnings or ill-gotten gains, they could be facing income tax evasion charges down the road.

___ Not filing a tax return — Ever since the federal income tax began in 1913, there have been many legal challenges to the system that have fallen short. Most people are required to file a federal income tax return. Income thresholds for those who must file range based on age and filing status. For single filers under age 65 for 2014, returns must be filed if they earn $10,150; returns must be filed for married couples under age 65 filing jointly if their income is $20,300 or more. Not filing a tax return when required is considered income tax evasion with penalties including paying back taxes, interest, potential fines and possibly serving a prison sentence in the most serious cases.

2015 Filing Deadline Remains April 15

For last-minute filers, the deadline is midnight on Wednesday, April 15. As usual, taxpayers can request a filing extension until October 15, but they must file that request and still pay any tax due (using IRS Form 4868) by April 15.

TaxSlayer Classic 2015 (Tax Year 2014) Review: PC Magazine

Kathy Yakal for PC Magazine writes:  With 17 years of history under its belt, TaxSlayer competes with the best of breed tax preparation services in terms of the tax issues it covers and the forms and schedules it helps taxpayers prepare. TaxSlayer Classic ($12.95 for federal returns, $14.95 per state) is affordable and offers all the basics when it comes to the tax-interview process, return calculation, navigational controls, and help. But the best personal tax preparation websites, and especially Editors' Choice TaxACT Deluxe$17.95 at TaxACT, have gone beyond the basics. They've polished up their UIs, built more context-sensitive help into the interview process, and they rewrite their content so that it's simple, understandable, and as brief as possible—unless the user wants more. They've developed a professional-yet-friendly tone, and refined their guidance systems. They offer chat and email help, if not full-blown phone support with tax professionals. TaxSlayer has a long way to go before it can compete in these areas.

Similar MechanicsTaxSlayer follows the same functional format as its competitors. It uses a wizard-like question-and-answer format to get the information it needs to complete your tax return, from the 1040 through the major supporting forms and schedules. TaxACT Deluxe and H&R Block Deluxe$29.95 at H&R Block provide the same framework and support, but TurboTax Deluxe lacks the critical Schedules C, D, and E. When you're finished with the tax preparation elements of TaxSlayer Classic, the site lets you print or electronically file your 2014 return.

Tax preparation websites used to let you try the product before signing up for an account (which also allowed you to save your data). TaxSlayer and TurboTax do not. You'll have to supply a user name and password, email address. In fact, the first thing you have to do is supply your Social Security number, which is unusual. You also have the option of importing data from a PDF of last year's return from a competitor. That sounds good, but TaxSlayer Classic's import capabilities do not extend past the most basic personal information on the 1040, and the site does not import financial data from third parties (W-2s, 1099s, etc.) like its competition does.

Like TaxACT Deluxe, TaxSlayer Classic offers a Life Events feature that precedes the preparation process. This provides information about the impact that specific life situations—housing, family, business, etc.—might have on your return. Unlike TaxACT, it offers very little guidance, just a few sentences about filing.

TaxSlayer Classic next offers three way to progress through your return. You can select "Guide Me," which walks you through the entirety of the site's countless forms and schedules by presenting a lengthy series of screens, each of which deals with only a small element of the overall return. Every page provides information and/or asks a question or questions, does any needed calculations based on your answers, and deposits the resulting numbers into the appropriate fields on IRS forms and schedules in the background.

When you've completed this interview process, TaxSlayer does a review of your return and alerts you to any errors or omissions. This feature is seriously lacking compared to what's offered by the competition. TaxACT and TurboTax present the errors on separate screens, one by one, and let you fix them, and H&R Block takes you back to the offending page for corrections, then it returns you to the error list. TaxSlayer Classic did send me back to a couple of pages for needed corrections, but it just dumped me there. I had to figure out where to go next myself.

You have two other options for progressing through the site. You can simply select the topics that you know will apply to you and complete those interview sections, an option that everyone offers. Or you can use Quick File, a tool that doesn't work well and really didn't need to be included. You're instructed to enter the names of the forms you need to complete, and a list of options drops down. This approach rarely resulted in matching hits in my tests, and no other site reviewed here operates this way. TaxACT does let you see a list of forms and topics included in the program, as well as tax documents you received. But those tools work in TaxACT, and they're not intended to be a navigational tool.

When you've completed the federal portion, TaxSlayer Classic moves relevant data into your state return and helps you complete it. Finally, you can print your return or file it electronically. Every other site reviewed here works this way. SNIP  The article continues @ PC Magazine, click here to keep reading....

Taxes - Do It Yourself or Tax Pro

Mark Steber for HuffPo/  Jackson Hewitt writes: As I mentioned, it could be a very complicated season - late law changes, the Affordable Care Act rules, and much reduced IRS resources. It's the perfect storm for potential taxpayer confusion, problems filing tax returns, and delayed refunds. Whether you need IRS help or not, filing electronically and as early as possible is one of your best defenses against delays. Of course, in any tax year with issues, changes, and new rules it could be best to let someone else prepare your tax return. So how do you know if you should do your own return or hire a tax pro?

Step one, either way, is organizing all your documents- you know the ones in your mailbox that have, "IMPORTANT TAX DOCUMENT" stamped on them. Take those and your canceled checks, receipts, and last year's tax return and do a quick review of your tax situation. These documents can help you determine if you have a simple return, which you might choose to complete yourself, or if you have a more complex return that might be best prepared by a trusted tax pro. 

Let's look at the do-it-yourself (DIY) approach first. If you have a couple W-2s and some 1099's, you can probably do your own return; you might miss something like a tax credit or deduction, but the odds are you will get it mostly correct. Most of the DIY tax preparation software is user friendly, walking you through the forms in a question and answer format, or allowing you to enter data directly from the forms you received. DIY is convenient; you work at your own pace, grabbing an hour here and there. Another advantage of DIY is the cost savings. Generally, if your income is less than $60,000, you can file for free right from the IRS website: Free File: Do Your Federal Taxes for Free. Certainly, there are good software products and some even reasonably priced. However, do not be fooled - YOU will be doing the work, taking the risks, and relying mostly on YOUR tax knowledge; AND, if IRS has questions, you are on your own. America is founded by risk-takers and adventurers, but is your tax return where you want to take risks or be adventurous? 

A tax pro is a good idea if you; had significant life changes (think marriage, babies, and moves), own rental properties, are self-employed, have many deductions, or you have questions about the impact of the new healthcare laws. Another reason to seek a tax pro - you have better things to do. Taxes take time and they are complex, the average taxpayer spent more than 23 hours to prepare and file a Form 1040 last year and Accounting Today reported that average tax preparation fees were $246. Being a numbers guy, that averages to less than $10.70 an hour. A tax pro ensures you get every deduction or credit you are eligible for, even the complicated or lesser-known ones, so that you get every penny that is yours. Combine the low price with not worrying about reading form instructions, forgetting a deduction, missing a credit, or worst-case scenario, making a mistake and that money is well spent. Not to mention that if you were to be audited, you would have professional help. 

For many hard-working Americans, preparing their tax return is the largest financial transaction of the year. Whether you prepare your return or you have it professionally done, make sure your tax return gets all the attention it needs to be done right. After all, it is YOUR money and you want the biggest refund you are entitled to.