vania-janet/multiturn-rag-retrieval-data huggingface dataset:
I assume by not-so-good prospects you mean small account clients whose revenue will not justify the time required to close a deal and/or post-sale service.  Glad to see you are being realistic about the value of your time vs. what a prospect is paying.    A big part of your practice is going to come down to what infrastructure/processes your dealer firm or back office support has.  Is yours one with a formal small account policy that assigns servicing to a centralized service center (aka call center)?    I've also seen others separate direct at fund vs held in-house (omnibus) based on client assets.  Small accounts go direct to at fund and are directed to the mutual fund transfer agent for post-sale servicing needs.  The up-front sales charge compensates for the initial consultation and the rest is self-servicing / support by the fund transfer agent.
Been digging through all the EU VAT directives and have called HMRC as well.. There does not seem to be any lower threshhold for charging VAT into the EU. If you sell £10 of goods/services you have to charge VAT and file a VAT return. Your options are: 1) Register for MOSS and file a single VAT return in your home country for all countries. In the UK this means that you also have to be VAT registered and have to charge VAT locally as well - even if you are below the UK threshold. 2) Register and file a VAT return in every EU country you sell into.  You also have to apply the correct VAT rate for each country (typically 15% to 27%), and you have to keep at least two pieces of evidence for the customer location. eg. billing address, IP address, etc.
Attempting to treat every BU as a profit center is doomed for failure.   Some of the record keeping for charge back models are good for data collection and any BU that primarily acts as a profit center can easily do charge backs with other BUs that utilize their services (say a publishing company asking the BU in charge of printing to provide some internal material). If the business function is not a core competency and is not a profit driver it is a cost center and should be treated as such.   For cost center based BUs record keeping, budgeting and controlling your commitments are key however you have a higher chance of being jerked around in some scenarios, this really comes down to the kinds of leadership around the BU.
"Do you know if you were approached by a carrier or a tower vendor?  Edit/addendum:  As someone in the telecommunications industry, I will say that you should NOT lease to a vendor who will sublease the space to the phone companies for a profit.  Depending on the availability of space, the population of the area, and the value of the location, and the amount and size of hardware to be installed, the rental pricing can vary wildly.  A cell site on a choice tall building in Chicago, NYC, Boston, LA, etc., can go for over $25000 per year (more in the case of rental of inside equipment room).  On the other hand, renting space on a church steeple in the middle of a low population rural town, with the equipment installed in a gated paddock at ground level, may only net around $1500 per month.  A ""small cell"" site, which is actually small enough to put on a lamp post or utility pole, can go for around $250-750 per month.  A turf contractor/tower vendor actually leasing a chunk of land to build a structure whose space will be leased out to telecoms should be expected to pay between $2500 and 8000 per month depending on the value of your site.  This value is determined by land form details like elevation, nearby tall forests (can the tower ""see"" over the tree line), terrain contours, and need (local population/tourist/traveler numbers).  Carriers prefer to lease from vendors rather than building their own structures, but roof top sites are a different story.  Carriers are generally more than happy to work with you to lease a portion of your tall building's roof.  FYI...  If they offer to compensate you for the electrical requirements if they cannot get their own meter in, don't worry.  A cell site uses less than 1000 watts, which translates to about $.10-15 per hour in most locations."
You can do a bunch of sales if you price your product too low to make any money. Lots of sales, not much revenue. Kind of like what Square is going through right now.  Now if you do a lot of sales at a good price, leading to good revenue and cash flow, THEN you are winning.  EDIT: Before people get pedantic over my Square analogy, yes, I know they are making a lot of revenue but their margins are  incredibly thin and the bulk of their revenue goes immediately to Visa/MC etc so the analogy still works. Lots of sales, not much green.
Just a few observations within the Black-Scholes framework: Next, you can now use the Black-Scholes framework (stock price is a Geometric Brownian Motion, no transaction costs, single interest rate, etc. etc.) and numerical methods (such as a PDE solver) to price American style options numerically, but not with a simple closed form formula (though there are closed-form approximations).
Drop shipping is the term your looking for. Stay away from anything overseas, drop-shipping from anywhere other than where your primary market is located can be a nightmare.  Research the company your going to use pretty heavily. Try to talk with someone on the phone and ask them questions. Ask them about pricing, billing terms, shipping procedures, returns/exchanges and things of that sort.  Remember, even if your not physically handling the merchandise you are still responsible for the business. It doesn't need to be complicated but it does need to done responsibly. It is a business after all!
Business owners or other people with a sales quota to meet will often often take that deal. Especially when there isn't a physical thing being sold. If the Yoga class has an open spot, why not let another person in and get the $20? The sales clerk at the front desk usually doesn't have the authority to give a discount like that and won't stick their neck out to do so without prior approval.
You can depreciate equipment as a valid expense, even for a sole proprietorship.  The concept is simple, but the details are pretty complicated (and probably even more so given the added complexities of agricultural economics).  Definitely speak to an accountant who specializes in the field.
"You are confining the way you and the other co-founders are paid for guaranteeing the loan to capital shares. Trying to determine payments by equity distribution is hard. It is a practice that many small companies particularly the ones in their initial stage fall into. I always advise against trying to make payments with equity, weather it is for unpaid salary or for guaranteeing a loan such as your case. Instead of thinking about a super sophisticated algorithm to distribute the new shares between the cofounders and the new investors, given a set of constraints, which will most probably fail to make the satisfactory split, you should simply view the co-founders as debt lenders for the company and the shareholders as a capital contributor.  If the co-founders are treated as debt lenders, it will be much easier to determine the risk compensation for guaranteeing the loan because it is now assessed in monetary units and this compensation is equal to the risk premium you see fit ""taking into consideration the probability of default "". On the other hand, capital contributors will gain capital shares as a percentage of the total value of the company after adding SBA loan."
My approach won't work for everyone, but I keep a longer list of things I want in my head, preferably including higher value items.  I then look at the cost of an item vs the amount of benefit it gets me (either enjoyment or ability to make more money or both).  If I only had a few things I wanted, it would be easy to buy them even if the payback wasn't that great, but because I have a large list of things I'd like to be able to do, it's easier to play the comparison game in my head. Do I want this $50 thing now that will only give me a little bit of enjoyment and no income, or would I rather be able to get that $3000 digital cinema camera that I would enjoy having and could work on projects with and actually make money off of? (This is a RL example that I actually just bought last week after making sure I had solid leads on enough projects to pay myself back over time.)  For me, it is much easier to compare with an alternative thing I'd enjoy, particularly since I enjoy hobbies that can pay for themselves, which is really the situation this strategy works best in. It might not work for everyone, but hobbies that pay for themselves can take many different forms.  Mine tends to be very direct (get A/V tool, do projects that pay money), but it can also be indirect (get sports stuff, save on gym membership over time).  If you can get things onto your list that can save you money in the long run, then this strategy can work pretty well, if not, you'll still have the overall saving problem, just with a longer wish list. That said, if you are good about saving already and simply want to make better use of your disposable income, then having a longer list may also work to let you seek out better deals for you.  If you have funds that you know you can healthily spend on enjoyment, it is going to be difficult to choose nothing over something that gives enjoyment, even if it isn't a great return on the money.  If you have alternatives that would give you better value, then it's easier to avoid the low value option.
Insurance - get estimate from an insurance agent who works with policies for commercial real estate. See comments below regarding incorporation. Taxes - if this was basic income for a simple LLC, estimating 25-40% and adjusting over time might work. Rental property is a whole different prospect. Financial experts who specialize in rental properties would be a good source of advice, and worth the cost. See below regarding incorporating. Real estate appreciation - not something you can count on for developed property. Appreciation used to be almost guaranteed to at least keep up with inflation. Now property values are not even guaranteed to go up. Never have been but the general rule was improved real estate in good repair appreciated in price. Even if property values increase over time, rental properties depreciate. In fact, for rental properties, you can claim a certain rate of depreciation over time as an expense on taxes. This depreciation could mean selling for less than you paid for the property after a number of years, and owing capital gains taxes, since you would owe the difference between the depreciated value and the sale price. Related to taxes are local codes. Some areas require you to have a property management license to handle buildings with more than a certain number of units. If you are going to own rental properties, you should protect your private financial life by incorporating. Form a company. The company will own the property and hire any maintenance people or property managers or security staff or any similar employment activities. The company takes out the insurance and pays taxes. The company can pay you a salary. So, bottom line, you can have the company pay all the expenses and take all the risks. Then, assuming there's any money left after expenses, the company can pay you a manager's salary. That way if the worst happens and a tenant breaks their hip in the shower and sues you for ONE MILLION DOLLARS and wins, the company folds and you walk away. You might even consider two companies. One to own the property and lease it to a property management company. The property management company can then go bankrupt in case of some sort of liability issue, in which case you still keep the property, form a new management company, repaint and rename the property and move on.
Looks like you need marketing. How many others (competitors) are in the area? Hospitals? Determine your total market by figuring your revenue and that of your competitors. This is your potential.  Now, how to get business from your competition. Yes, website is the cheapest most effective first step.   But WHO is your TARGET market or your customers? Where do they get their information? Are they watching local TV or listening to local radio and you need to take out some ad space?  Are they even on social media? Decide what promotion would be effective for your target (coupons?)  Check out a used marketing textbook or continue to research on Google to get a feel for what I am talking about.
If you want to subcontract some of your excess work to somebody else, you better be in business!  While some kinds of employees (e.g. commissioned salespeople) are permitted to deduct some expenses on their income tax, generally only a real business can deduct wages for additional employees, or the cost of services provided by subcontractors. Do you invoice your clients and charge HST (GST)? Or do you tell your clients each pay period how many hours you worked and they compensate you through their payroll system like everybody else that walks through the door? If you're not invoicing and charging HST (GST) (assuming you exceed the threshold, and if you have too much work, you probably do!), then perhaps your clients are treating you as an employee – by default – and withholding taxes, CPP, and EI so they don't get in trouble? After all, Canada Revenue Agency is likely to consider any person providing a service to a company to be an employee unless there is sufficient evidence to the contrary, and when there isn't enough evidence, it's the company paying for the services that would be on the hook for unpaid taxes, CPP, and EI. Carefully consider what form of business you are operating, or were intending to operate. It's essential for your business to be structured appropriately if you want to hire or subcontract. You ought to be either self-employed as a sole proprietor, or perhaps incorporated if it makes more sense to your situation. Next, act accordingly. For instance, it's likely that your business should be taking care of the source deductions, CPP, and EI. In fact, self-employed individuals shouldn't even be paying into EI – an independent contractor wouldn't qualify to make an EI claim if they lost a contract. As an independent, one doesn't have a job, one has a business, and EI doesn't cover the business itself, only the employees that the business deals with at arm's length. As a business owner, you would be considered non-arms-length, and exempt from EI.
We're in our fifth year of business.  We never had a business plan and never took out a loan.  We started tiny, and grew to be small.  Many of our competitors have left the field, mostly due to debt and a local market that can be very hard to predict.  I like this guy's focus on entrepreneurship for low-income people.  For most of us, if you can start a business that ends up being a fairly decent-paying job for yourself and maybe a couple other people, that's good enough.  Jobs for average people are disappearing, but those with the dedication and discipline can scratch out an alright living running their own show.
If it's the former, just like a physical shop reserves the right to kick you out if you're not behaving, (but usually doesn't because they'd like to keep you as a customer), an online shop can update its prices whenever they like. They can change their prices too, and cancel orders. If it's the latter, then start putting together some documentation on how many times this has happened and how it has damaged your business. But before you get on the warpath I would recommend you look for another place to buy whatever you have in mind, or else try a pound of sugar in your approach to this supplier... My own business experience has shown that can go a lot way in figuring out a mutually beneficial resolution. If you want to see a bit more... Here is the EU Justice Commission's website on false advertising, Here is a PDF leaflet from the UK Office of Fair Trading that spells out what is explicitly not allowed from a business by way of advertising & business practices."
To be confident in your solution, and get the best solution for you, consult a local accountant, preferably one who is specialized in taxes for businesses.  Or muddle through the code and figure it out for yourself.  The primary advantage in consulting with an accountant is that you can ask them to point out ways you can restructure your expenses, debts and income in order to minimize your tax burden.  They can help you run the numbers for the various options and choose the one that is right, numerically.
I admit, in the long term there are a good number of kinks to work out, but in the end I want to see some system where people in general can seize the means to their own well being without stepping on one another. The management corruptions you talked about is another reason why I prefer Worker-Co-ops to be the optimum form of issuing business, because its not just a few people in charge, it's a whole social group acting in unison. When you discuss the mom-and-pop store having no suppliers, it would be good to promote some way of each money supply to have a share of each industry within it. There are always some people in every trade looking for their next job. They just have to find a supply where there trade is in demand. The process is self feeding. Next off, or course the mechanism of the system would work in a way that firm's can't just pay themselves with their own debt, they have to issue it to their creditors first, and even then it's practically impossible to accept your own debt as payment. You would have to take some from a competitor at best. What I've been trying to do is find some system where no one institution or no one alliance holds the keys to the definition of value. If you have five to eight dictators fighting at once as opposed to one financial dictator who can oversee all, like the fed scenario you just described, It's more possible for people who are freer relatively to survive freely between the borders of these spheres of influence, as they can play each dictator off the other. at least from your dialogue I can see you're one of those who gets what I'm trying to aim for. Here's another idea I've explored with it, that's similar but may make the environment slightly different, so let me know what you think what I call the Revolving Tax Window, where the government accepts different bondnotes, both in quantity and specific assortments of notes, in intervals of every business quarter, so that the demand for specific notes changes four times a year. From January until the end of March they could accept Taxes in notes from Firms A,F,H, and T, and for April into June it could be just B and S, and so on.
I would question whether your stated goal (of strictly controlling your expenses) is really the problem you should be tackling. In my opinion, unless you're under financial hardship where you can barely make ends meet, you're much better off using a budget as a high-level, descriptive tool rather than a low-level, prescriptive tool. This is what I would do in your situation: After the first few months, you can start to think about high-level changes that you can make to your spending habits to get the most bang for your buck. I wouldn't worry about the little expenses, unless they're really adding up to a sizable chunk of your total expenses. Instead, I would look at things like: eating out too often, buying too many movies, too many impulse buys over $100, etc. Identifying patterns like that will help you make lifestyle changes that will allow you to spend less money without having to micromanage every single expense. I have tried the micromanaged approach in the past, and it simply doesn't work for me. There's too much overhead, and eventually I start to feel that it's just not worth it. Think about it - is it really worth the extra time and energy required to worry about where every dollar goes all month long just to save an additional hundred bucks over what you can do with this passive approach? I think that by focusing on the big picture, you can get within a couple percentage points of the same amount of savings as if you had micro-managed your expenses, but with much less work and mental strain. Let's put some numbers on this and see what the hourly returns are with each approach, always being optimistic about the micromanaged approach and conservative on the passive approach. Let's assume you earn $50,000/year. Let's also assume that if you micromanage all of your expenses, you could manage to save $5000/year beyond what you do now. And let's say that with the passive approach, you can get within 20 percentage points instead of the 2 I stated earlier, for a savings of $4000/year. Now what will your hourly returns look like? The following are based on how I would personally use both systems, so your numbers may vary a bit.
Most economies are able to calibrate prices naturally through supply and demand. I'd look at building an efficient market if the economy will be a central feature. Looking at mature game economies like Warcraft to see what drives price changes in both finished and input goods may provide good examples of what yours might look like.
"This is colloquially referred to as a ""pump and dump"" scheme. You basically buy up some stock, and then try to pump up the demand through false and misleading positive statements and market activity. You then close your position once market interest is sufficiently high. If your firm has access to high frequency trading mechanisms, you may even be able to front run other market participants attracted by your buying activities.  &gt;I am wondering what is the best route to go down.  Definitely micro-cap stocks. Things listed on the OTC markets, especially penny stocks, have this tendency to attract retail buyers just begging to be scammed. Emerging biotech firms also have a lot of potential due to investors' hopes of successful clinical trials.  I should warn you though, this is very illegal and falls under market manipulation [according to the SEC](https://www.sec.gov/fast-answers/answerspumpdumphtm.html) and can lead to up to 25 years in prison. So make sure you stay small enough to avoid the regulatory radar.  (But seriously, this belongs in r/personalfinance or elsewhere, r/finance isn't the sub you want)."
We don't really have much to work with. I'm not going to recommend some advanced marketing strategies for you. Hell none for that matter. I think a very simple, doable, and effective strategy for you is to make yourself stand out.  Remember people do business with people, not corporations. Kind of lol. But interact with your customers as if they're more than customers. Be genuine, try and see things from their point of view. All of that goes a long way.  I don't know how similar your industry is, but when I look for somewhere to get a haircut I look at 3 things in order: Quality -&gt; Friendliness -&gt; Price. If you're a good barber, and you're easy and fun to talk to, I won't mind paying however much you charge.
If the business activities are closely related you could combine them into a single Schedule C, but in your case it sounds like it should be two separate Schedule C's. The loss from one will offset profit from the other, and your self-employment and income taxes will be based on the net of the two businesses. Any business can generate losses, make sure your expenses are reasonable and documented, there are plenty of resources out there for helping you decide which expenses are proper for each business. There is some truth to the warning that not showing profit in 2/5 of years can raise flags at the IRS, and they may deem your business a hobby, which disallows losses. That is not a hard rule, legitimate businesses can lose money for years on end without issue, if you're trying to make money at it, you'll likely be fine.