August
17, 2018

6 min read

Mind over matter? Try mind over money.

The more you believe you can accomplish your financial goals, the more likely you are to actually do so, suggests a newly published study that followed millennials over the course of 10 years, starting with their freshman year in college.  

When researchers looked at subjects’ overall well-being, they found that the concept of financial self-efficacy (or believing you can accomplish your money goals) had the strongest correlation not only with financial well-being but also with peer relationships, psychological well-being and satisfaction with life. So, yes — believing you have the ability to meet your money goals could help you turn them into accomplishments. But more than that, it could help increase your happiness in areas like relationships, mental health and overall outlook on life.

It’s especially important for women to get in financial formation (sorry, Beyoncé). Why? The same study found that only 27 percent of women earned more than $60,000 per year, compared to 45 percent of men — and that’s on par with national figures suggesting women earn 17 to 20 percent less than their male counterparts. That gender pay gap can lead to less in retirement savings, which means less compounding interest, which means a smaller nest egg when we do decide to stop working and take a fair-weather cruise to Florida.

Since there’s no shortage of reasons why it’s vital for women to take control of our finances, we’ve rounded up four personal finance apps to help you do just that.

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Digit

Image credit: Digit | Entrepreneur

What We Love: Digit connects to your financial accounts and analyzes your spending patterns, then auto-saves small amounts of money on your behalf. More than $1 billion has been saved with Digit to date, according to the app, and those savings are FDIC-insured with a no-overdraft guarantee. One of the best aspects of Digit is its subtlety — it only pings you when you’ve reached certain savings milestones, meaning it’s easy to “set it and forget it,” then be happily surprised once you see the stockpile you’ve built up. Plus, you can set specific savings goals — like $1,000 by June 1st for a summer trip — and it will save with your goal date in mind.

What Users Say: One reviewer says, ‘Love this app. Saves money little by little that you don’t really notice but adds up very quickly.’ Another writes, ‘Great app! Saved over $600 in 5 months not touching anything!’

How to Download: $2.99 per month for iPhone and Android

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Clarity Money

Image credit: Clarity Money | Entrepreneur

What We Love: Clarity Money is all about displaying your complete financial picture: total cash, credit card debt, spending, monthly income, subscriptions and credit score. You can sort through recent transactions by category — “June spending on entertainment,” or “What did I spend on Lyft this month?” — to get a better idea of your spending habits, and the app also lists out your recurring subscriptions and offers to cancel them for free on your behalf. Plus, you can turn on automatic savings to meet long-term goals (for example, saving $5 every Monday for your nest egg).

What Users Say: One reviewer says, ‘This app is really something else. It’s comparable to Mint or Level Money (RIP), but it gives a lot more insight and helpful guidance than those in my opinion.’ Another writes, ‘Great app! Super useful for tracking all spending across multiple accounts, seeing ongoing subscriptions and keeping a detailed budget.’

How to Download: Free for iPhone and Android

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Qapital

Image credit: Qapital | Entrepreneur

What We Love: Qapital is a savings app specializing in IFTTT (if this then that), meaning users can set savings “rules” based on spending habits, location, day of the week and more. The team behind the app built it to drive behavioral change and help users spend money on things they actually wanted in the long term. For example, every time you spend less than $25 a week on coffee, or go to the gym, or make a purchase you’ve tagged as a “guilty pleasure” (like ordering takeout), you can set Qapital to save a certain amount for one of your longer-term savings goals. You can also tell the app to round up to the nearest dollar for every purchase you make and save the change.

What Users Say: One reviewer says, ‘I’ve been using this app to save for a trip with my mom to Italy. It’s very easy to use, and totally customizable. You can use it with IFTTT and make automatic triggers for different actions, whenever you enter certain locations, or save for your rainy day fund whenever it rains.’ Another writes, ‘This app makes it so easy to save money that I don’t even realize I’m doing it!’

How to Download: Free for iPhone and Android

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Debitize

Image credit: Debitize | Entrepreneur

What We Love: It’s too easy to spiral into credit card debt. That’s probably why Americans kicked off 2018 owing more than $1 trillion in credit card debt for the first time in history. Debitize aims to help consumers take advantage of that credit — and reap as many rewards as possible — without paying the price later in interest. The app does this by acting as a middleman so you can treat your credit card like a debit card: Each time you swipe, it deducts what you’ve spent from your checking account balance, then pays off your credit card on your behalf. Since the purchase amount is immediately deducted from your account, you don’t have to worry about racking up a revolving balance.

What Users Say: One reviewer says, ‘I have never been disciplined with money, and every time I would use a credit card for rewards, I would end up paying interest for not being able to pay off full balance — this solves it. In the first three weeks I’ve received $65 in rewards with no extra debt!’ Another writes, ‘This app helps curb you from yourself.’

How to Download: Free for iPhone

August
14, 2018

7 min read

This story originally appeared on GOBankingRates

Thinking about starting your own business or taking on a second job? You’re in luck.

GOBankingRates asked today’s top finance experts and bloggers the following: What is the No. 1 thing you wish someone had told you before you started your side hustle and why?

Related: 10 Things to Know About Working With Your Spouse

Below is expert advice on side gigs that will help you keep your sanity while working two jobs.

(By Terence Loose)

Make a daily to-do list

When you’re juggling two jobs, be aware of what you actually need to get done each day.

“I’ve worked a full-time job while maintaining several freelance contracts on the side, and the critical advice I can give is to stay organized,” said Glenn Carter, author of the personal finance blog The Casual Capitalist.

Carter recommends taking 15 minutes at the beginning and end of each day to make a task list and organize it in order of importance. If you want to be successful, you have to spend your time wisely.

Begin your day with a proactive task

It can be easy to get sucked into checking email and social media first thing in the morning, but Nick Loper, founder of Side Hustle Nation, advises that it’s best to start your day by checking a concrete task off your to-do list.

“For me, the biggest productivity win in the last 12 months came from a simple micro-habit of forcing myself to do one proactive task before diving into email or social media,” he said. “It’s way too easy to start your day in reactive mode, and before you know it, hours have gone by and you haven’t touched any of your highest priority projects. Itemize out those high-priority tasks the night before, and make sure to accomplish at least one of them first thing.”

Make sure you know what customers want

It’s important to have a unique idea for a product or service if you are launching a side hustle, but make sure your idea is viable and is something consumers actually want before investing time and money into it.

“Ideas alone possess little value until you actually start building, creating, making and most importantly — selling your idea,” said Ryan Robinson, a content marketing consultant to the world’s top experts and growing startups.

Related: The First Thing These Famous and Successful People Do Every Morning

“Most side hustlers I talk to wish they would’ve spent more time validating their idea by going out and talking to would-be customers, and asking them to pre-order the product or service they’re thinking of creating before investing tons of time and financial resources into things like a website, legal business entity, flyers and business cards. At the end of the day, if you don’t have paying customers, nothing else matters.”

Prioritize sleep

It might seem impossible to get seven to nine hours of sleep each night when you are working more than one job, but it’s important to make sleep a priority — otherwise, your performance at both jobs could suffer.

“Other things in life may fall by the wayside when you are working two jobs in order to make ends meet, but sleep should not be sacrificed,” said Jeff Proctor, a finance expert at DollarSprout.com, who himself has worked two jobs at the same time. “Missing sleep can quickly compound into less focus and decreased productivity at work, which can actually lead to depression. Moral of the story: get your sleep.”

Have a clear end game

When you’ve got your nose to two grindstones, trying to earn additional cash and putting in extra time, it’s easy to lose sight of your overall goal. Bobbi Rebell, financial expert and author of “How to Be a Financial Grownup,” said that there’s a difference between having a career-boosting side hustle and working two jobs. The latter involves having a clear, strategic reason for working hard.

“For example, to earn money to pay down a debt. Or to save for a vacation. Or to acquire a new skill that can expand your professional options. Or to explore whether a business is financially viable. You have to be careful not to just work two jobs for the sake of it, because that can be exhausting,” she said.

Understand that there are no rules

Get a job, buy a house, start a family, save, retire — or don’t. Just because most of your friends follow a certain path in life doesn’t mean you have to walk in their footsteps.

Mohawk-donning financial blogger J. Money, who broke the rules by posting his net worth online, was able to leave his 9-to-5 job. In fact, in seven years he managed to save $400,000 through side gigs, blogging and financial smarts, mostly against the advice of others.

The BudgetsAreSexy.com blogger wants entrepreneurs to remember that there aren’t any rules in life, particularly when it comes to your career.

“I had no idea you could make a living as a blogger or freelancer or anything outside of a standard 9 to 5, really,” said Money. “Or that you can craft your own lifestyle, too, even if the rest of the world thinks you’re crazy! The ‘early retirement’ movement online is doing a great job helping get this message out, which I’m beyond thankful for.”

Scale up sooner

If you dream of turning your side hustle into a full-time gig, you will probably need to scale up sooner rather than later. However, expanding your business can be intimidating.

Millennial money expert Stefanie O’Connell says you should never be shy about believing in yourself. A professional speaker and author of “The Broke and Beautiful Life,” O’Connell has a passion for helping people achieve financial greatness. However, those with successful side gigs sometimes doubt that they can or should be able to earn more, she said.

Related: How to Set Career and Financial Goals You’ll Actually Achieve

“When you find out you can make money doing something on your own time and terms, it’s so exciting and you feel lucky. Often to the point that you stop being aggressive in your money asks,” she said. “Remember, you’re still a business, and you should always be seeking growth. Once you’ve validated your side hustle idea with a few paying clients, think about your next step — raising your rates, finding more prestigious clients, building a team, etc.”

Set up a corporation

David Bach, a best-selling author and respected financial expert, said the best thing someone told him before he started his business was to set up a corporation for his new business.

He said that, at first, he was unsure of the decision. He had an attorney, bookkeeper and tax accountant, but no income. His attorney told him the reason he needed to be setup was because “‘there will be business. And you want to be set up from day one like a real business,'” Bach recalled.

Stick to your schedule

When you’re working two jobs, distractions can mean the difference between success and financial failure. A money expert, blogger and financial consultant, John Rampton said that success relies on creating a schedule and sticking to it with laser focus.

“It seems like we never have enough hours in the day,” he said. “This is especially true when balancing a full-time gig with a side hustle. It’s doable, but you need to budget your time to the minute.”

Set regular hours

Yes, you need to work hard and stick to a schedule if you hope to succeed at your side hustle, especially if you’re picking up work as a stay-at-home parent. However, money expert Lauren Greutman said you should also create a schedule that allows for life outside work. If you don’t budget time for yourself, your side gig could overwhelm your life.

Greutman currently operates LaurenGreutman.com — a finance website that helps women live better lives for less. She said the one thing she wished someone would have told her when she launched her business was to set regular work hours.

“A side hustle is something that can easily get in the way of your life if you let it. I started my website in 2010 with two kids at home, and it quickly grew into a full-time job with irregular hours,” she said. “I wish the phrase, ‘Work Smarter, Not Harder,’ was one that I knew back then. Once I started treating my side hustle like a business, I was able to make more money and put stricter boundaries on my work time.”

August
12, 2018

2 min read

While you might be smart and have all the right skills to succeed at your job, if you lack emotional intelligence (EQ), there’s a high chance you’ll struggle to fully succeed in the workplace.

Related: Why You Need Emotional Intelligence to Succeed in Business

The official definition of “emotional intelligence” is “the capacity to be aware of, control and express one’s emotions, and to handle interpersonal relationships judiciously and empathetically.” How you carry yourself and how you communicate with others can make or break your success at work and in life. This is especially true if you’re working on a team, because succeeding together means understanding, connecting and building relationships with others. If you identify yourself as being self-aware and socially aware, then there’s a good chance you’ve got a high EQ.

Related: 11 Signs That You Lack Emotional Intelligence

However, you’d be surprised to know just how many people lack these important EQ skills. Average EQ scores have dropped 25 points while average IQ scores have increased 25 points in recent years. While this might look good on paper, a number of advantages come with a high EQ such as employee retention, increased productivity and overall increased business profits because teammates are happy and working together.

Related: Use These 7 Emotional Intelligence Tips to Be a Better Leader

If you feel like you’re lacking a good EQ, it might be time to better manage your stress, change your attitude, constructively resolve conflict and think before you speak. To learn more about the importance of emotional intelligence in the workplace, check out Initiative One’s infographic below.

August
11, 2018

2 min read

The bigger your network is, the better off you are in every aspect of your life. At work, among friends or with family, the more people like you, the more they want to help you. Whether you’re trying to get a promotion or trying to ask someone out on a date, getting in people’s good books is important for personal growth. But that can be harder than it sounds. To make it easier, here are some tips to help.

Related: How to Network, for Those Who Hate to Network

For starters, when talking to someone, always try to bring up shared interests. According to research, people are inherently attracted to those who are similar to themselves. And in a more literal sense, when actually talking to a person, you can show your similarities by mirroring a person’s gestures. This “chameleon effect” has been found to encourage the development of bonds.

Related: 25 Tips for Having Meaningful Relationships

Another important tip when communicating with someone is to always say that person’s name throughout a conversation. Using a person’s name not only shows that you remember and acknowledge who they are, but that you’re paying attention and think they are important. Beyond just saying a person’s name, you should also try opening up to them. Sharing personal things about yourself rather than just making small talk instills a sense of trust and closeness. This can be a great way to jumpstart a relationship.

Related: The Key to Success? Relationships.

From having a sense of humor to smiling and having open body language, check out QuidCorner’s infographic below for 12 science-backed ways to get people to like you.

August
8, 2018

6 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Check out any publication talking about HR these days and you’ll see that diversity and inclusion is a hot topic. And we’re totally on board and encouraged, because from any and all angles — ethically, socially, culturally and in every sense of business success — the mission to create more inclusive work environments is a positive development.

Related: This AI Tool Helps Companies Eliminate Hiring Bias in the Name of Productivity

This move to create a more diverse and inclusive workplace (beyond just playing lip service to it on a website) is pushing employers to evaluate their practices at every level — from recruitment to learning and development, to terminations and everything in between. Thought leaders and leading practitioners are reckoning with more than just outright discrimination in their talent programs, too. It’s now time to dig into the accidentally biased practices that, though unintentionally prejudiced, are problematic nonetheless. And unfortunately, they’re also pervasive.

Think you’re in the clear? Take a look at the examples below. These six slip-ups are in fact common primarily because the underlying bias is accidental (and, for many, non-obvious at first glance). See if any of these sound familiar …

1. Writing exclusionary job descriptions

Well-meaning managers and recruiters can inadvertently discourage whole groups of would-be applicants by using gendered, ageist or otherwise restrictive terms in job descriptions. Consider postings that use titles such as social media “rock star” or analytics “ninja” — these are both male-oriented words, and could turn some people off.

Another thing to be careful of: labeling certain skills, degrees or experiences “required” when they’re really just nice-to-haves. Research shows that women are significantly more likely than men to interpret listed requirements as literally required and forego applying if they don’t meet the exact qualifications.

(Tip: Tools such as Textio Hire and Koru’s Job Description Analyzer can help you refine and optimize your job descriptions.)

Related: What Google Learned Fighting Hiring Bias, Bad Meetings and Failing Products

2. Overlooking (or not expanding beyond) certain job boards

Think about where you post your jobs: Are your listings reaching a diverse audience? Do you stick only to mainstream job boards? Are you partial to niche sites, exclusive networks or certain college job hubs?

None of these approaches are inherently bad but be mindful of how wide (or not) of a net you’re really casting. It’s fine to target these sites and networks, but not at the exclusion of other job boards and communities that could just as well send you great candidates.

3. Filtering for big-name schools or brands

We totally get it. Recruiters are slammed and need to sift through hundreds, sometimes thousands, of resumes. So, it’s understandable that they’ve historically used markers like alma mater or previous employer to quickly cut down a giant pile of resumes. But, consider the baked-in privilege and prejudice that’s perpetuated with this approach. By favoring certain universities or companies, you’re adopting other institutions’ admissions or selection criteria, which are undoubtedly rife with their own biases.

Related: How to Stop Unconscious Bias Before It Starts, Against the People You Hire

Check out how diversity in a talent pool changes for campus recruiting initiatives when filtering for school or GPA. As the data shows, if you screen by top brand colleges, you reduce the opportunity for underrepresented minorities by 23 percent.

Better to select for criteria that are proven to be predictive of performance.

4. Using non-diverse interview panels

Even the most informed, most kind-hearted, most self-aware humans among us are not entirely objective. No one is immune to developing implicit biases, the automatic assumptions and generalizations based on society’s stereotypes we all subconsciously make. Unfortunately, these skewed views often go unchecked in the interview process due to using a non-diverse mix of interviewers. Having multiple backgrounds and worldviews in the interview loop helps counter incorrect presumptions and illegitimate hiring decisions.

Related: Why It’s Still So Difficult to Hire a Diverse Team

5. Using unstructured interview processes

When you’re hiring for a particular role at your company, do your interviewers ask a consistent set of questions or do they ask whatever’s on top of mind? Do each of the interviewers follow the same framework for assessing and ranking candidates from interview to interview?

It seems obvious that standardizing all elements of the interview process is the only way to make it fair, but too often, things are a little (or a lot) less streamlined. And when things are loose, the door for bias is left open. Moreover, they aren’t effective anyways. An unstructured interview adds only 8 percent to the predictive power of knowing someone’s raw intelligence alone.

6. Letting likeness or likeability sway decisions

We have all heard of “the beer test” and “mini-me hiring,” or at least the general concepts behind them: hiring someone based on if you’d enjoy having a beer with them, or hiring someone who reminds you of yourself, respectively. These are pretty plainly biased ways of choosing a new team member, but people aren’t always aware they’re engaging in them (diverse panels and structured interviews really help here).

Two related issues under the likeness/likeability umbrella are: hiring based on communication skills (really, interviewing skills) and hiring for “culture fit” (when your culture itself contains biases). In the former, a strong interviewee can beat out a more qualified candidate just by virtue of being more likeable or sounding more competent. In the latter, a great candidate can be overlooked because he or she is deemed “not a fit” — which itself is a perfectly fine reason to pass on someone, but only if your cultural principles are free of bias.

The HR world has certainly made progress on reducing bias and increasing diversity, but there’s still a long way to go. The more recruiters and talent leaders examine their organizations’ hiring habits, the more they uncover, and the more things improve. Take these examples and run with them — and let’s all keep looking, listening, and learning.

August
7, 2018

5 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

It seems like almost everyone has a side hustle these days. According to Bankrate, more than 44 million Americans have one. Having a side hustle is a great way to make a little extra money, do something you enjoy and feel empowered. But, do you dream of quitting your 9-to-5 and turning the side hustle you love into your full-time gig?

Related: How to Turn Your Side Hustle Into a Full-Time Gig

That’s the ultimate goal, but it can be difficult to achieve. The daily grind of working a day job and coming home to work on your side hustle can wear you down. You might think you don’t have enough time or money to turn your dream into a reality. So, how can that be possible? In fact, there are some simple, low-cost hacks to take you from hobbyist to professional.

So, whether you write, sell products online, flip houses or plan to start a podcast, with a little luck and a lot of hard work, you can take your side hustle full-time and make more than you would have working for someone else. Now, pull up your bootstraps and check out these four tips to take your side hustle to the next level.

Determine your goals.

One of the first steps to starting any business is to determine your goals. You have to know where you want to go, and when, in order to keep your business on the path to success. Not only will setting your goals keep you more organized, but it will keep you accountable and motivate you to keep pushing forward.

Once you’ve written down your goals, you should create smaller but necessary tasks that you can complete in less than an hour. For example, if you have a goal of writing three blog posts a week, you can break down those individual tasks to create: a blog idea, an outline, the necessary research, a draft and a revision.

Another tip is to use a time-tracking tool, like Time Doctor, to keep you on pace.

Get organized.

If you’re the type who has all your ideas written down on notepads thrown haphazardly all over your desk, you’ll need to get more organized, to create a successful business. A scattered mind will do you no good at managing and completingthe tasks you need to get done in a day.

You can use a free tool like Trello to visually plan out tasks, projects and company goals.

Image source: Trello Board. https://trello.com/

By organizing all your business ideas in one place, you’ll be stay on track and get more done. Create a daily to-do list as well as a calendar to track project-due dates and meetings, to make sure you’re completing the goals needed to turn your side hustle into a business. When you know what’s coming up in the pipeline, you’ll be more effective at prioritizing and meeting important deadlines.

Related: Your Side Hustle Can Become a Million-Dollar Business. These 5 Examples Prove It.

Build your brand.

Building your brand is one of the most important strategies to take your side hustle to the next level and develop an identity for your business. Get a great logo crafted and create a style guide for your brand that covers colors and font you’ll be using; then design your website around it.

Zendesk has created a brand and logo for its company that is recognizable, consistent and distinctly its own.

Image source: Zendesk Brand Consistency. https://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/34227/15-businesses-to-admire-for-consistent-stellar-branding.aspx

Your brand needs to be consistent across all platforms, including print and social media. That’swhy it’s important to create a branding style guide that you can refer to. When you make your side hustle look more professional, people will take you more seriously. As you’re building your brand, visitors will form a connection with your business, which will look more and more like a legitimate business and not just a hobby.  

Start marketing yourself.

With your side hustle you might be doing work only for people you know, or selling to friends and neighbors, but to take it to the next level, you need to widen your audience by marketing yourself. One great tactic to utilize here is a website for your personal brand. Another: Building your email list.

An email list is an awesome way to talk to targeted leads directly any time you have something to say, whether that consists of educating them with useful content or announcing a sale. The users on your email list are going to be the easiest to convert to customers for your business.

Julie Ewald was a freelancer who founded her own company. She uses this pop-up to encourage visitors to her site to sign up for her email list.

Image source: email opt-in pop-up from Julie Ewald. https://julieewald.com/

Another great way to market yourself is to get onto social media. You can reach a whole new audience for your business by promoting your business on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. By using the power of email and social media, you can connect with an engaged audience and skyrocket your sales without ever having to pay for advertising.  

Related; 50 Ideas for a Lucrative Side Hustle

In sum, starting a business can be scary. But you’ve already proven you have the chops to become the boss of your own company by starting a side hustle. By following these strategies you can take your brilliant side hustle from a part-time gif to a full-time labor of love and become the entrepreneur you’ve always wanted to be.

August
5, 2018

1 min read

Coming up with new, creative ideas can be tricky. That’s why it’s important to find a way to get inspired. After all, it’s our own unique rituals that can bring mental clarity and creativity. That could be a quirky habit or routine such as doing headstands or wearing lots of hats.

Related: 5 Science-Backed Ways to Boost Your Creativity

Igor Stravinksy did headstands, which he believed helped to rest his head and clear his brain. Author Dr. Seuss felt that wearing lots of crazy hats helped inspire his creativity and overcome writer’s block. However, those aren’t even the strangest routines that some of the world’s most brilliant minds have utilized. Steve Jobs bathed his feet in toilet water to reduce stress levels while Honore de Balzac drank up to 50 cups of coffee a day.

Related: 8 Ways to Come Up With a Business Idea

Check out Business Backer’s infographic below to learn the weird ways that nine creative minds got their ideas.

August
4, 2018

1 min read

Ever wonder what the future holds? Some of the best people to ask might be your kids, nephews or nieces. It turns out, they’ve got a tech-forward outlook on what the future holds.

Related: 11 Successful Kid Entrepreneurs Keeping Their Eyes on the Prize

Decluttr.com asked a group of children aged 4- to 11-years-old to conceptualize the tech products they predict people will use in 30 years’ time. Then, the company asked a concept artist to bring their sketches to life. The result? An “eatwatch,” a “recycle bot,” a “print-a-food” and more.

Related: 5 Benefits of Teaching Young Children About Entrepreneurship

For 4-year-old Ayana, her idea of a bright future involves a futuristic smartwatch that notifies a person’s body when they are running low on energy. For Jade, 6, a recycle bot that would help make recycling easy and hassle-free is really what the world needs. From 3D printed food to driving hover cars with retractable wings, check out these eight futuristic inventions from the world’s next kidpreneurs.

August 3, 2018

4 min read

Opinions expressed by Green Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Tens of thousands of people have left traditional careers or pivoted to join the cannabis space within the last five years. The one thing all these people will all tell you is that with legalization comes new layers of business responsibilities. Taxes, and how they are levied and collected, are causing major growing pains. Getting everything right is crucial in developing positive relationships with government regulators, vendors, end consumers, and ultimately protecting the bottom line.

Here’s how the most successful entrepreneurs are managing it.

Related: What East Coast Cannabis Entrepreneurs Can Learn from Colorado

1. Understand Local Tax Laws

The importance of taxation is quite apparent in California, the largest and most diverse legal cannabis market in the world. The state is divided into 58 counties, and 482 incorporated cities and towns. By law, each of these territories is permitted to determine its own cannabis policies and taxes in addition to the state regulations. It makes things incredibly confusing for businesses and consumers alike.

Here’s a breakdown of taxes charged for a $35 eighth of cannabis in eight US cities. You’ll notice the total cost is widely different, even when comparing cities in California.

It’s never been more important for cannabis industry hopefuls to understand how state and local taxation affects them. Before setting up automated tax calculations at your dispensary, it’s wise to consult an accountant or attorney to ensure compliance and accuracy.

2. Keep Detailed Records

Though the task may seem daunting at first, even the largest cannabis retailers can easily handle its compliance responsibilities by keeping detailed records of every transaction.

Using a point-of-sale system specifically built for the cannabis industry makes it seamless, and creates a beneficial paper trail for the business, should any issues arise with finances or regulations.

Related: 5 Routes the Cannabis Industry Could Take to Get Around Federal Banking Restrictions

3. Set An Order of Operations for Taxes

Setting an order of operations for your calculations is also important, as there are several different compounding types of taxes. Standard surcharges could include a state-mandated excise tax on cannabis products, and local or municipal taxes, on top of the regular statewide sales tax. By creating a specific procedure for applying these taxes and fees, you will ensure accuracy in your tax reports and payments

4. Be Transparent with Customers

Because of tax differences, the price of a jar of cannabis can vary up to 15 percent based on geography and the policies in that area. That’s a huge shock for cannabis consumers, who end up paying between 20 and 45 percent over the sticker price in tax surcharges.

Though vendors and distributors have to pay taxes too, this particular burden is largely passed on to the retailers. They’re the ones that have to face the customer at the cash register.

Get ahead of the confusion by helping your customers understand exactly what taxes are being charged. Retailers can do this by clearly printing tax details on their receipts. Doing so will alleviate price complaints and visually explain how their total cost was calculated. Staff should also be trained on various tax types so they can intelligently answer questions and provide education about how tax revenue is being used to improve the community.

5. Fight for Fairness

The illicit market for cannabis is shrinking but still exists. If the total cost of cannabis is unaffordable, consumers will continue turning to the black market to save a buck. Additionally, if the business taxes keep climbing as the price of flower falls, the industry will continue to push out smaller players who can’t afford to stay in business.

Fairly-priced cannabis benefits the entire industry. Stay in close communication with your vendors, distributors, and other retailers in your area in order to stress the importance of responsible pricing.

Death and taxes are inevitable, even in the prosperous world of cannabis. Entrepreneurs have an inherent responsibility to advocate for fairness when it comes to taxes the taxes they pay. By taking a stand against excessive taxation and implementing customer-focused best practices, businesses can stand the test of time.

Related: 5 Things You Need to Know Before Opening a Dispensary