Our CEO and President Michael Alter writes on Inc.com about how being young and relatively unattached can be a good time to chase after the dream of starting your own business.

He also explains how most entrepreneurs are not necessarily big risk-takers, like a Mark Zuckerberg perhaps, but rather people with a particular skill in a given area.

Check out the article and let us know what you think on Twitter and Facebook.

So be sure to check out our brand new infographic featuring charts, graphs, maps and survey data that gives you a real “picture” of the small business landscape.

You can find the SurePayroll Scorecard inforgraphic here, along with information from past Scorecards, or view it below:

Rather than continue to fill multiple roles, it is time to delegate tasks and rely on services and products that can free up space in your workday. By doing so, you will have more time to focus on the essential details associated with growing your business.

Chart how you spend your time

On the surface, you may realize that you are wasting a lot of time on tasks unrelated to the actual growth of your organization. However, you may not have a complete understanding of how you are spending your time and where you can cut back.

Take one week to chart every hour of your day. Write down the tasks you completed –from sales to marketing to payroll (among others) – as well as how much time you spent on each one.At the end of the week, calculate your total time spent on each task. Only then will you truly know how you are spending your time.

Cut back with the help of software

Now that you are aware of your biggest “time drains” you must focus on finding a solution. Along with hiring new employees, you can use technology to save time.

Software-as-a-service (Saas) is an excellent way to maximize efficiency.  Here are several software services that can help you save time without jeopardizing efficiency:

• SurePayroll: provides online payroll accounting and management services.
• Resumator: helps companies recruit, interview and hire the right employees.
• FreshBooks: for tracking time, organizing expenses and invoicing clients – without all the paper.

With these services at your disposal, you are no longer directly involved with every step of the process. For example, SurePayroll can handle all aspects of your payroll. In turn, you don’t have to spend hours on end cutting checks and staying current with changing laws and regulations.

By revising your work schedule and relying on the power of multiple software programs, you can cut back on responsibilities that are unrelated to growing your business. Subsequently, you will find more time for the tasks that matter the most!

While our business is providing easy online payroll at an affordable price, we’re also in the people business. We care about your story and what brought you to our service. We’ve recently opened up a LinkedIn group where you can share your small business experiences.

We also receive regular emails from customers with feedback. This recent example we thought was worth sharing because it illustrates an important service we provide for paying nannies:

I recently hired a nanny to care for my 5-month old daughter. I quickly realized how hard it would be to handle the taxes and paperwork myself. I called several companies but was quite discouraged. They either wanted to make me an elaborate sales presentation (and charge me a fortune for their services) or they were not interested in my business because my payroll needs were so small and simple.

It was such a relief when I spoke with Ryan and he told me how SurePayroll could do everything I wanted for a reasonable price. Within minutes he emailed me all the forms and explained exactly what I needed to do. A big factor in my decision to use SurePayroll was having Ryan as my account rep. Whenever I had a question, he usually responded within a few minutes to my email. Best of all, he walked me through the first payroll over the phone and constantly exceeded my customer service expectations. I would certainly recommend Ryan and SurePayroll to anyone who wants to outsource the headache of payroll and taxes.

We would love to hear more about your experiences in the small business community and what brought you to SurePayroll.

Please connect with us on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn and share your stories.

SurePayroll’s Michael Alter offers “5 Steps to Drive Your Business, and the Economy” in his latest column for Inc.com.

Also be sure to explore our extensive catalog of small business resources and consider how an easy online payroll service could help save you the time and money you need to grow your business.

Sure, pay and benefits are the main way you reward employees, but sometimes it’s important to take an extra step to show your appreciation and further motive the people working for you. The president, Michael Alter, and other executives at SurePayroll regularly wheel around a food cart (with everything from cookies to apples), offering people a mid-afternoon snack. The president also congratulates employees via a companywide email on a daily basis when they get positive feedback from customers they’ve helped. Other events during our busy season included a food drive and holiday ornament-making contest.

There is also a quiet room set aside for people who need a break or have to make an important personal call during lunch. They’re small touches, but SurePayroll feels they’re an important part of our workplace “culture.”

Share some of the perks of your workplace culture in the comments section or on our Twitter or Facebook pages.

SurePayroll’s President and CEO Michael Alter put together an informative five-point checklist for Inc. that is definitely worth checking out.

We also recently finished a four-part series on year-end tax tips. You can find the series here.

Take a look at these year-end tips and see if you could benefit from our easy online payroll services. Also connect with us on Twitter and Facebook to share your ideas on year-end.

With the NBA getting underway on Christmas day, we thought it would be interesting to look at payrolls around the league and how they correlate to performance. Based on our data mining of last year’s costs per win and costs per loss, we have projected the overall league standings for this year’s 66-game regular season.

At the end of the season, we can measure our projections against the real world standings*, and see what teams are able to maximize their payrolls. Some key data points to monitor:

• The L.A. Lakers have the highest payroll in the league (more than $90 million), but are only projected to finish 6th overall.
• The Chicago Bulls are projected to finish 1st in the standings, but only rank 11^th in payroll.
• The Miami Heat are projected to finish 2^nd and rank 3^rd in payroll and San Antonio, projected to finish 3^rd, are ranked 4^th in payroll. The Heat and Spurs are the only two teams projected to be in the top 5 in the standings that are also in the top 5 in payroll.
• The Oklahoma City Thunder are projected to finish 5^th with only the 21^st largest payroll.

Orlando and Denver project to finish well above their payroll rank while teams like Atlanta, Philadelphia and Detroit appear to be spending more for less. The New York Knicks are also notable for jumping 14 spots in payroll spending, which projects them to jump eight spots in the standings.

Take a look at our data to see how well you think your favorite team is spending on its payroll and give us your feedback in the comments section or on Facebook and Twitter.

Data provided by www.spotrac.com/nba

*With the caveat that our standings can’t necessarily account for the impact of trades and acquisitions—payroll figures can’t measure how lethal the alley-oop combination from Chris Paul to Blake Griffin will be on the new-look L.A. Clippers—or what role major injuries might play during the season.