Why finding a Good New York Bookkeeper Should be the First Thing a Start-up Does

New York City is one of the trickiest, yet most potentially rewarding areas, in which a new company can start a business. There is often significantly more competition, talent acquisition and retention difficulties because of how many other options exist out there, real estate is both expensive and difficult to acquire while we are also facing the trickiest recession in many decades. For a new business owner lacking bookkeeper training, adding those responsibilities and dealing with complex tax laws make it seem almost impossible to get a new business off the ground. Starting to allay those concerns can come from forming strong initial partnerships. Finding one with good New York bookkeepers can put aside many of these concerns and can truly help a new business focus on their core competencies.

The IRS and the New York tax authority have notoriously been hard on many start-ups. This isn’t done to pick on new business owners, but because a lot of mistakes are made in how new companies are drawn up and how they approach the tax code. A good New York bookkeeper can help in the case of that dreaded audit. A really good New York bookkeeper can make sure the situation is avoided all together if they are working with the start-up from day one.

Finding a good New York bookkeeper that can help avoid these costly missteps is a difficult process in its own right, but it should be one of the first things that a business acquires before doing much else. They can help draw up documents and create tax shelters that can be extremely beneficial down the road. The problem is that there are many bookkeepers, all with differing specialties and experience plus new ones are joining the industry all the time. Separating a good New York bookkeeper from a bad one can be a lot more difficult than one would initially assume.

Only considering New York bookkeepers with relevant start up experience is a good starting base point. Many New York bookkeepers follow the money and specialize on corporate accounts and large multi-national companies. These are some of the most talented New York bookkeepers, but that doesn’t make them a good fit for newer start-ups. A lot of accountants have good knowledge, but they may not have the time or customer service focus to properly work with someone just creating a start up. And by working with a company and its owner from day one will require someone who has good customer service focus. In these scenarios, it’s simple to imagine that a person setting up their first business will have many more questions and require significantly more guidance than a more experienced customer who only needs an accountant to balance books and file paperwork. New York is a difficult, but very rewarding place. Finding a good New York bookkeeper is also difficult, but finding a good one from day one can also be ultimately rewarding.

The World of Extended Reality Technology in 2021

You probably have heard of AR/VR/MR technologies in the past. They are collectively known as XR (extended reality). For most people, these terms are quite abstract and often perceived as the science-fiction in Hollywood movies. But the infiltration of computer-generated objects already exists in our lives, we just don’t realise as a user.

You might have tried to catch Pokemon in recent times or using bitmoji with the Snapchat camera. That is actually AR (Augmented Reality). There are various other groundbreaking use cases of AR in several industries. Many tech companies and engineers around the globe are working to implement these technologies into business operations to bring efficiency.

What is the Extended Reality (XR)?
Extended Reality (XR) is an umbrella term for all the immersive technologies including Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), and Mixed Reality (MR). All the technologies that extend reality by blending virtual worlds with the real or creating only virtual worlds are included in XR, including those technologies that are still to be developed. A recent surveyrevealed that more than 60% of respondents voted for XR being the mainstream in the upcoming five years. Following are the technologies included currently in the XR technologies:

AR – What is Augmented Reality?
Augmented Reality (AR) is a technology that provides a view of the real-world environment with superimposed computer-generated elements (graphics), which ultimately changes real-world perception. In other words, it is the technology that adds layers of digital information to the real environment.

Unlike Virtual Reality (VR), AR doesn’t create a whole artificial surroundings that replace the real world. AR modifies the existing real-world environment with elements like sounds, motions, and graphics.

The term Augmented Reality (AR) was coined back in 1990. The initial commercialisations of AR were in the television and military sector and the rise of smartphones and internet connectivity has introduced a second wave, introducing AR into the common man’s life.

The technology is massively improving the manufacturing sector where products are directly projected via 3D models and fused together in real-time. Also, there are many augmented reality apps that are helping individuals with their health and entertainment.

VR – What is Virtual Reality?
In almost opposition to AR, the virtual reality experience is a fully immersive simulated digital environment, which is experienced by the users through wearable gadgets i.e. VR headsets or head-mounted displays. These VR gadgets provide users with a 360-degree view into the completely artificial world that literally fools the brain into believing that it is the reality.

Many tech companies and VR developers have created artificial environments using VR technology, i.e. swimming underwater, walking on mars, battlefield, and many more. The gaming and entertainment industry are the early adopters of VR technology and many other industries including healthcare, military, education, engineering are pilot testing VR for several use cases.

MR – What is Mixed Reality?
Though this technology is still in its initial stage, Microsoft has tested it with their product HoloLens. It allows users to place a virtual digital object into the real environment (your room) and gives the users an ability to move, spin or interact with that digital object.

Also known as hybrid reality, the mixed reality is where the real and digital world objects co-exist and can interact with each other in real-time. MR technology requires very high processing power as compared to AR and VR. There are many tech companies that are exploring the possibilities where they can put MR to work.

Top 5 AR and VR trends in 2021
The year 2019 was a golden year for technological advancements, where we saw disrupting technologies such asAI & ML, AR & VR, and IoT flourishing. The XR (AR & VR) technologies have specifically shown their potential in the fields of gaming and entertainment.

IDC forecasted that the worldwide spending on XR is expected to grow with 78.5% from 2019 to reach $18.8 billion by the end of this year. The industry experts believe that we’ll witness a whole new load of next-gen XR powered gadgets that will provide users with immersion and realism of a greater extent. However, the industrial usage of XR has outpaced gaming and entertainment.

Industrial Use of AR & VR technologies is outpacing the consumer-oriented implementations
The first interaction most people have with XR technologies is in gaming and entertainment. This may be the reality till now, but it won’t be in future as some research shows that the industry’s focus is shifting towards enterprise XR solution development.

The report by VR Intelligence states that 65% of AR development companies are working on building AR-powered industrial applications whereas only 37% are working on consumer applications and gadgets.

Although the recent popular implementation of XR in consumer applications such as Facebook’s Oculus Rift and Pokemon Go has made the headlines, this industrial trend of XR isn’t surprising as it’s potential to boost productivity and ensure safety was a lucrative proposition for the enterprises.

What is Omnichannel Retail and How It Is More Buyer-Friendly?

It has been found in studies that Millennials and later generations check their mobile phones more than 150 times a day and more than half of that time is spent on non-voice activity.Therefore it can be confidently stated that a significant part of their daily lives are influenced by technology. And thus many retail businesses are looking at how to leverage the power of Omnichannel Retail to boost their customer base and revenues.

While the general belief among retailers about going online is to list themselves on retail aggregators like Amazon and eBay, or bring-in sales via social networking marketplaces such as Facebook. Big brands such as Decathlon are enjoying improved customer satisfaction and loyalty by delivering a seamless shopping experience by integrating their online and offline sales process.

But, not all retailers can benefit from a mobile app. Retailers that enjoy more frequent purchases and customer interactions are best placed to leverage the full potential of mobile apps. For example, a luxury jeweller is likely to have less of a need for a mobile app, because their customers make purchases infrequently, and when they do, they probably prefer to come in store. But a retail brand like Target that has many customers who make purchases or interact with the brand several times a week or month, can get the most out of a mobile strategy.

What is Omnichannel Retail?
In general terms, Omnichannel retail is a modern approach of retailing that largely focuses on providing a cohesive buying experience at every customer touchpoint. It is an innovative method of integrated marketing where the retailer focuses on utilising both physical and digital marketing channels to provide customers with a seamless buying experience.

Omnichannel retailing is a modern approach and encompasses optimisation and integration of all the available retail marketing channels. It differs from multichannel marketing where the retailers used to have different strategies for every marketing channel.

The Customer buying decision funnel is more Omnichannel than ever
Despite the hype of online shopping in the past few years, recent reports from the US state that 87 percent of all consumer spending still occurs offline. On paper, offline commerce may still dominate, but digital commerce plays a significant role in the purchase decision making process. When asked about their shopping behaviour prior to the offline purchase, 32 percent of the digital consumers searched for the brand on Amazon, 39 percent visited the brand’s website, 36 percent visited the brand website and 33 percent compared the online and offline prices.

Then, how do the retailers reach these hyper-connected customers? Specifically, in a highly competitive market.

The approach is simple. The retailers can adopt an omnichannel sales strategy to provide their customers with a seamless shopping experience. Regardless of where the final purchase happens, retail brands must have a strategy which includes all of the relevant physical and digital channels involved in the shopping experience. Now, retailers need to figure out how their online presence – including their website and social media presence – influence their customers. This applies even to those customers who buy on marketplaces like Amazon.

Brands have to focus on integrating their overall online presence to influence where and what the customers choose to purchase. Every customer interaction is the opportunity to improve brand awareness. By making the product/service available on all marketing channels, brands make their product/service discoverability easy, which will ultimately result in customers being more likely to buy the product.

Online Marketplaces are complementary channels to Retailers
Amazon’s dominance in the retail landscape is evident with 49 percent of the online spend in the US occurring on Amazon. In fact, in 2018, almost 83 percent of the US consumers have made a purchase on Amazon. When you are specifically looking at the digital-first Millennial generation within the US, the percentage hikes to 90 percent. It proves that Amazon has become an integral part of nearly every customer’s shopping journey.

Convenience is the number 1 reason why consumers buy from Amazon.

Despite capturing a huge market share, the growth of this giant online marketplace doesn’t significantly hamper the retailers; In fact, it brings a pool of opportunities. Merchants who consider Amazon and other marketplaces as another sales channel are thriving. According to Amazon’s Small business impact Report, third-party sellers accounted for more than half of the units sold from June 2019 to May 2020.

You might not know but consumers consider Amazon as a destination to find new products for their needs. In fact, 30 percent of the customers agree that they first saw the brand on Amazon before they bought the product from the brand’s website. Many brands remiss this obvious connection between these two sales channels. And in turn, they fail to survive in the cutthroat competitive environment.