Bank Approvals for Non-PPP Loans Increase Slightly | Small Business Trends

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Loan approval rates for small businesses are increasing slightly. The uptick in lending of non-PPP loans to small businesses was unveiled in the latest Biz2Credit Small Business Lending Index based on March 2021 figures. Since mid-January, Biz2Credit has been a leading processor of PPP applications in the US.

The amount of lending by big banks increased to 13.5% in March 2021. The increase is welcoming news for the small business community, as in February 2021, the figure stood at 13.3%. This was just a 0.1% rise from January 2021.

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Choosing a Paystub Generator | business.com

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Finding the right paystub generator is an important part of processing payroll.

If you run a small business and don’t partner with a payroll processing company, you have to process payroll manually. This means understanding your state’s laws, finding your employer identification number, calculating employee hours and handling deductions. It’s also crucial that you provide pay stubs to your employees. Pay stubs allow your employees to track important financial information, like taxes paid, and help you keep payroll records.

Generating pay stubs can be time-consuming, especially if you have a lot of employees. Pay stubs are a necessary part of payroll, so it’s important to develop a system to quickly churn them out. Spending all your time calculating pay stubs and running payroll defeats the purpose of running a small business – you should be focused on business decisions, not administrative work.

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7 Things You Didn’t Know Your Alexa Smart Speaker Could Do | Digital Trends

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There’s no doubt that an Alexa-powered smart speaker is useful. After all, the ability to control your smart home, play games, and choose music with your voice is phenomenal — but did you know there are a lot of abilities that go overlooked?

Alexa is jam-packed with features that don’t get as much time in the limelight. Some will keep you entertained, while others can help you give back to the world around you.

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The Habit Burger Grill delivering much more than great burgers during pandemic| Food Truck Operator

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When COVID-19 hit the U.S. in the spring of 2020, many a food truck and restaurant collapsed from the onslaught of challenges, which range from mandated municipal shutdown orders, to limited seating rules, to stay-at home orders and the pandemic’s impact on the global supply chain.

But that wasn’t, and isn’t, the situation at The Habit Burger Grill, a fast casual brand founded in Santa Barbara, California in 1969, which operates 306 restaurants as well as 10 catering food trucks in Southern California. It launched its first catering food truck in 2011 and has four more trucks in development by builders Wyss Bros Trucks & Trailers Inc.

In 2020 it became part of parent company Yum! Brands Inc., a restaurant conglomerate with more than 50,000 locations across more than 150 countries and territories. The Habit Burger Grill, which has locations in China and Cambodia, aims to open 50 more locations in 2021.

At its start, The Habit Burger Grill had a simple philosophy — high-quality food and great service at reasonable prices. But it also believes just as strongly in giving back and supporting the community.

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Family Trusts for Entrepreneurs and Business Succession Planning | The Startup Magazine

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A family trust is an important element of any estate plan and is important for entrepreneurs and business succession planning. A family trust is built upon a trust document. This document, created by you, the “settlor” of the trust, nominates a trustee who will manage your trust’s assets on behalf of your beneficiaries, according to terms which you outline in that document. There are many types of trust structures, each with its own pros and cons, so it’s important for entrepreneurs to seek counsel before deciding on what type to choose.

Trusts are associated with the very rich, but anybody can use them, so long as you have assets. Broadly, there are two main kinds of trusts: revocable trusts, whose terms can be changed and which can be dissolved at your discretion; and irrevocable trusts, whose terms cannot be changed and which cannot be dissolved.

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Smaller and better smartphone cameras are on the way | BBC News

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“Today’s smartphone cameras can make a better image than cameras I paid NZ$10,000 ($7,110; £5,165) for only 20 years ago,” says Tom Ang, an Auckland-based professional photographer and author of more than 30 books on digital photography.

The cameras embedded in our smartphones have become so good, many of those too young to remember anything different would scoff at the idea of carting around a separate camera.

While Mr Ang is still fond of his high-end DSLR cameras, most of us rely on smartphone photos and videos to capture our memorable events and duckface selfies.

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Pandemic-Era Shipping Delays and Product Scarcity to Last Through Summer | Inc.com

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When the Covid-19 crisis first hit, demand plummeted for Romy Taormina’s flagship product, a band travelers wear on their wrists to ease nausea. Now that travel is coming back, her business is being whipsawed by the same supply issues that marked the start of the global pandemic.

“We are doing our best to weather this Covid storm and catch the wave to the other side. But it’s been a ride,” says Taormina, the CEO and founder of Psi Health Solutions, the Pacific Grove, California-based maker of Psi Bands.

Her exasperation is felt by small-business owners across a range of industries in the U.S. Besides the global microchip shortage, which President Biden recently called a “national security issue,” electricians can’t source the little plastic boxes they need to rewire light fixtures. Contractors are reporting a 200 percent surge in the price of lumber. Even the supply of Taiwanese tapioca is drying up.

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Daily Crunch: Google Earth gets an update | TechCrunch

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Google Earth gives users a new look at a changing planet, Facebook tests new business discovery features and Autodesk acquires Upchain. This is your Daily Crunch for April 15, 2021.

The big story: Google Earth gets an update

Google is describing this as Google Earth’s biggest update since 2017, though there’s really just one major addition: A time-lapse mode bringing together satellite photos from the past 37 years, in 3D.

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Pausing the J&J Vaccine Was Easy. Unpausing Will Be Hard | WIRED

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DESPITE THE HASTILY called press conference on Tuesday, the late-night meetings, and the growing worry over a potentially fatal side effect, the decision to pause the use of one of the three Covid-19 vaccines available in the United States was a relatively easy one.

Figuring out how to unpause, though—that’s going to be a lot trickier.

The public health community had some hope that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention might find a fast path through the data fog. But that vanished late Wednesday, when an emergency meeting of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices ended without a recommendation. Amid a global pandemic and a race for mass vaccinations, the pause continues pausing.

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Nike seeks to recycle your tennis shoes and resell them at a more affordable price | Entrepreneur

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The shoe and sportswear company, Nike, announced on Monday an initiative that seeks to recycle footwear and thus avoid waste. What does it consist of? Sneakers that are short-lived or have a manufacturing defect will be accepted at select US stores. Afterwards, they are in charge of cleaning, disinfecting and restoring them to later be put up for sale at a lower price.

Currently, this service is offered in eight Nike stores in the United States, with plans to expand it to 15 more by the end of April and a few more by the end of the year in other parts of the world. However, they have not yet specified where it will be.

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