finance america

If you were to dissect the culture of a business, and you ask various people in an organization what the real roles of each department are, you’ll find the well-known dichotomy between “front office” and “back office” operations.

Front office staff are the people who deal with customers. They might be the customer service department, the sales department, and sometimes the marketing department (depending on how involved the marketing department is in the sales cycle). Back office staff are usually the admin assistants, HR, and the killjoy of all businesses – the Finance department.

In businesses I’ve observed, Finance departments often face silent derision or disrespect. Part of it is an us-versus-them mentality that comes out of the front office staff who feel their jobs are more difficult because they deal with customers (compared to Finance, who deal with numbers). And no one from the front office sends memos to the back office saying “please spend less time crunching the numbers” but it can feel like the back office is constantly memo-ing the front office with “watch this expenditure” or “spend less on client lunches”.

Unfortunately, this view is supported by management at all levels that give Finance the nasty job of accounts receivable, the inputting-heavy job of accounts payable, and the dull job of budget forecasting. Compared to the highly creative marketing department and the edge-of-the-seat, in-the-trenches feeling of the sales department, finance is like the broccoli side dish on a plate of steak and fries.

But it doesn’t have to be this way! Finance departments shouldn’t be relegated to the back office in the hopes that their sharp pencils won’t poke a customer in the eye! Finance departments can and should play a far more important role in the organization. Here are some ideas:

POSSIBILITY 1: Finance should be more about business strategy than number prophecy. When the Finance department hounds the sales managers to get in their budgets and then turns them around for a final target budget for the year, their role is reduced to mere numerical interpreter. But what if Finance sat down with sales and talked to them about how their numbers connected to expected outcomes? And then, what if Finance sat down with the executives of the company and actually worked out a forecast that was tied to what the market was anticipating! Imagine a world where Finance’s numbers were more than just a spreadsheet that gets pulled out at every quarterly review.
POSSIBILITY 2: Finance should be more about opportunity. Many sales managers have some limited view into which customers are sending business. But the view isn’t always perfect. Or complete. Finance should get involved to show how a customer is really impacting the business’ bottom line. If Finance and Sales talked to each other, Sales might be shocked to discover that their biggest client is actually less valuable than expected because of the amount of work involved in keeping them as clients, or they might discover that a seemingly profitable client isn’t profitable at all because their receivables get very, very old. Imagine a world where the Finance department can relate true business impacting information to Sales to tell them which opportunities are truly the most profitable.
POSSIBILITY 3: Finance should be selling, too. When Finance gets the job of following up on accounts receivables, they can potentially do more harm than good. Finance people are highly skilled at numbers, and they might be good “people-oriented” staff, but they are rarely trained in the art of sales. However, when a Finance person, tasked with accounts receivables, gets adequate training in receivables AND customer service AND sales, their success rate at getting the receivables paid can increase, but so will their success rate at winning more business.
There are so many more opportunities, too. Businesses should be using their accounts payable list as a prospecting list. They should be temporarily swapping roles between Finance and Sales for brief “see-how-the-other-side-does-it” days to enable new appreciation and new connections. Finance should sit in on sales calls to see why Sales sometimes feels like they need to bend the rules to close the deal (and Sales should shadow the work of Finance so they know what work needs to happen at the back-end if they don’t assess risk adequately during the sale).
The bottom line for businesses should not be derived from a cloistered Finance department. Instead, a business can uncover new and exciting opportunities when it makes its Finance department an integral part of the entire business.

Heavy trucking equipment can be extraordinarily expensive. Trucking companies of all sizes often rely on commercial truck financing to lease or buy semis, dump trucks, and other equipment that they need to provide their services. However, finding financing for a commercial truck can be difficult in some cases.

Understanding how commercial truck loans work is crucial when trying to lease or find a loan, as this allows businesses to improve their chances of getting approved for affordable financing options.

This starts with understanding the credit issues that commercial trucking companies look at when issuing loans. There are numerous criteria involved which a financing company considers to try to accurately determine whether a business will pay off its loan in a timely manner.

These criteria include specific information about a loan applicant company, such as the amount of time that a company has been in business. Most financing companies will prefer to issue commercial truck financing to an established business, as this greatly improves the chances that a loan will be paid back. A good credit history and strong financial records will also improve a company’s chances of receiving financing at a preferable rate, so before getting financing on any type of trucking equipment, a company should prepare its financial records and be ready to present a great deal of tax and income info. A history of profitability can show a financing company that a business has a relatively low credit risk.

The other major factors are the exact equipment being financed and the type of loan that is being requested. Longer loans are more difficult to find, as they can carry a greater risk for financing companies.

It will be very difficult to receive commercial truck financing from an institution that is not familiar with the uses, benefits, and costs of the equipment that is being financed. Businesses should choose financing companies that specialize in loans for heavy-duty commercial trucks and related equipment, as these institutions will be able to accurately assess the risks of a loan and can often offer low rates to buyers. Many financing companies have lists of commercial trucks that they will finance or lists of equipment and brand types that they do not support.

When truck financing is needed, it’s often possible to improve the chances of loan approval by choosing used trucks or inexpensive models. Supply as much credit information as possible and look for loans that can be paid off as quickly as is affordable. First-time truck buyers and buyers with bad credit can look for special companies that specialize in commercial truck financing for these situations. Know the terms and interest of your financing agreement and work with specialized financing companies that understand the costs and risks of the trucks that you need. An organized approach will help any business to finance heavy trucks at an affordable rate.

On the 9th of September 2021, I received a surprising email from AdSense saying “Your Google Publisher Account has been disabled” upon further investigation, it seemed that my AdSense account was banned due to “invalid click activity” and I had no idea what this even meant or how it could have happened.

So I did some digging…

And this is what I found out…

Google, YouTube, & AdSense do not care about individual creators!

In the Spring of 2021, just when everything in life seemed to be going back to normal after the lockdowns, I decided that I wanted to pursue an interest in a college project based on creating a website. So I spent the Summer break building up this website that was based on providing art resources to students for free, sharing other students’ articles with them, and also providing free portfolio storage (I was taking an extended diploma in Art & Design, and had also spent the last 3–4 years creating content for my YouTube channel, which was all based around my own art but had never been monetised due to not reaching the threshold of requirements).

So, after I set up my website, I decided to show my teachers and classmates… and to my absolute shock, it took off!

Everyone in the art department was using my site, and I was getting traffic and content uploaded to it like I’d never even thought about.

Now, I was 18 when I created this website, and I was doing it pretty much as a project for college, and I didn’t even know what an IP address was. I was an artist that had an idea to make a few people’s lives easier in the art world.

A few days after my website started getting loads of traction, a friend of mine suggested that I put ads onto it to see if I could earn some money, and I thought it was a great idea, so I looked into the best monetisation platforms to use, and like many people, I decided to go with AdSense (I had also built my site with Wix, and they only really support AdSense ad implementation).

A only put on 3–4 ads on the site as I wanted people to focus on the content, not the ads, and then a few days later, I was earning some really nice income, and then a week or so after that, I got the email saying my account had been deactivated, and that I was not allowed to make a new account using a different email or anything, and so I filled out an appeal form then very same day as receiving threat devastating email, as in my mind, I had done nothing wrong, and I was sure I would get my account back in a few hours.

I couldn’t have been more wrong!

AdSense sent back an email saying that they had reviewed my case, and that they were not going to reinstate my AdSense account.

I was so confused by all this, so I started asking around my college and classmates about it all, and I found out that all the computers at the college use the same IP address, and also that a whole group of my classmates loved my website and wanted to support me so they decided to click on the ads a whole bunch of times over a period of time (which is an action that I would never condone) and then I realised that this must be the reason my account got banned.

So, I filled out another appeal form, so hopeful that Google would listen to me and that it was an honest misunderstanding. I wrote out every little detail about what had happened, and explained my story, hoping that they would understand and I would get my account back.

I was so so wrong!

Once again they came back with the most mundane email, and at this point I was starting to panic and become rather upset about the whole situation.

So I decided to try and fool the so-called ‘God of the internet named Google’ by creating a new AdSense account under my main email address, thinking that I’ve had the account forever, and they may see that I’ve always been a loyal Google user so I might be able to get a new account for AdSense up and running.

I signed up and everything and then within a day of being accepted into the programme, I was told my account was related to a blocked account and that this one was also now closed down permanently.

So I decided to sidetrack my website, and focused solely on my YouTube channel, as being a content creator/artist is really all I’ve dreamt of, and I honestly can’t imagine a better scenario where I get to make videos of my art and teach people on YouTube about how to draw and paint.

A few months went by, and all of a sudden, one of my videos became really popular, and I was finally about to reach the threshold of becoming monetised on YouTube and my dreams were finally coming true… I was in college, watching my laptop on the YouTube analytics, and boom, I had reached the requirements, 4 years of content creation and finally I was able to start earning something back from my efforts. My thought process as this point was that if I could start earning something… anything off of my YouTube efforts, I could help support myself slightly through university, and I was over the moon with happiness I had reached this point…

(Now at this point I didn’t actually know YouTube ran solely off of AdSense or anything like that, I thought it was a completely separate way of earning to be quite honest… I know, stupid right!)

I hit the apply button, and within minutes, I was told I can’t monetise my videos because my account is linked to a closed AdSense account, and I honestly felt my entire embodiment just sink with sadness.

I filled out 3 more appeal forms, before reaching this point where, I realised I needed to get my account and sort this whole mishap out… so I got on the phone to try and ring Google and speak to someone, literally anyone who I could try explaining my story too, that failed and no one answered at all, so I tried calling the London based office, also no answer, then I tried social media, forums, every single Google or AdSense account or contact I could find, and I found that AdSense has absolutely no contact form, email, or any form of support… I was basically being told that my account was banned for life and I wouldn’t even get the chance to explain my situation. So I went on LinkedIn, and found the AdSense account page, and contacted everyone I could find who worked there but to no avail. AdSense just did not care, and I am 90% sure that they don’t even have a single person who actually works in the department at all.

So… after all that, I fell into a really deep depression. I won’t lie, I was at the borderline of just giving up everything, and quitting completely in life. I didn’t even know it was possible to feel that down and depressed about anything at all… but I decided to keep filling out an appeal form every single month, and try to explain my story and just pray someone will listen to it, and I’m still filling out those monthly forms to try and get somewhere with it.