Damages For Breach Of Contract: What Can You Claim?
You’ve entered a contract, and the other party hasn’t fully delivered on their promises. Maybe their products or service quality were unsatisfactory. Maybe they were repeatedly late in fulfilling their duties. Maybe their contractual failures even caused you to suffer financial losses. Whatever the case, you are legally entitled to claim damages for such breaches of contract. Here’s a breakdown of when you can claim for damages, and how much you can claim.
What is a breach of contract?
Let’s first understand what constitutes a breach of contract. A breach of contract occurs when one party, without valid justification, fails to live up to their contractual obligations.
Here are some breach of contract examples:
A party fails to perform their duties in the contract
A party fails to fulfill the overall objective of their contract
A party is late in fulfilling their promise in the contract
A party prevents someone else from performing their duty in the contract
A party does something they promised not to do in the contract
Is there a time limit to claim damages for breach of contract?
Yes. Generally, under Section 6 of the Limitation Act, you must sue someone for breach of contract within 6 years of the date of breach.
How do courts go about calculating damages for breach of contract?
No. The court will only award compensatory damages. This means the amount you can claim is limited to restoring you to the position you would have been in if not for the contract breach. The court will not award punitive damages to punish the other party for breaching the contract.
Important: If you have a “penalty clause” in your contract, make sure that the damages specified are a genuine estimate of the loss you would suffer if the contract were to be breached. If the court finds that the penalty is designed to punish the other party (over and above compensating you), the court may invalidate your penalty clause.
What types of damages can you claim for breach of contract?
There are four types of damages you can claim for breach of contract.
#1. Contract damages: These are the damages you would have suffered if the contract had not been breached. This can include the amount stated in the contract, plus consequential damages if you suffer financial losses stemming from the breach.
#2. Liquidated damages: These are damages that are specifically laid out in the contact to compensate parties for breaches. Remember – the courts will only award compensatory damages. Make sure the terms of your contracts – especially any “penalty clauses” – are drafted reasonably. If you’re aiming to punish the other party for breaking the contract, you won’t succeed in front of a judge!
#3. Specific performance: Instead of monetary damages, you can ask the court to order the party in breach to perform their contractual obligations. This occurs when paying damages alone would not adequately compensate the plaintiff. For instance, if the contract involved delivering unique property, like a plot of prime land, damages would likely not sufficiently compensate you.
#4. Injunction: Sometimes, contracts specify for the other party not to do certain things. If the other party fails to live up to such obligations, you can ask the court to serve an injunction on the other party. The court will order the other party not to perform the actions stated in the contract. This is the opposite of specific performance.
How do you go about claiming damages for breach of contract?
There are four methods you can use to claim compensation for breach of contract.
#1. Small Claims Tribunal: If your claim is under $20,000 (or $30,000 with both parties’ agreement), you can file your case with the Small Claims Tribunal. You can’t split your claim into smaller parts to bring it under Tribunal jurisdiction. Both parties cannot be represented by lawyers. You must file your suit within 2 years of the contract breach to file suit with the Tribunal.
#2. Civil litigation: Lawyer up and sue their pants off. Prepare your war chest – legal fees can easily reach hundreds of thousands of dollars, with cases often stretching for years.
Note that court proceedings are open to the public, so if privacy is a concern then arbitration or mediation will be better choices.
#3. Arbitration: If you don’t relish the idea of a long-drawn court battle, you can choose to arbitrate the matter. Both parties will appoint 1-3 independent arbitrators to facilitate a middle-ground resolution to the contract breach. Note that the decision of an arbitration panel is legally binding. If you don’t like the outcome, you can’t abandon the arbitrator(s)’ decision and then file a civil suit. You have to live with the decision.
Arbitration is not necessarily much cheaper than civil litigation; total legal expenses can also easily reach several hundred thousand dollars. However, arbitration is quicker than civil suits, so you won’t have to spend as much time and effort trying to get compensation for the contract breach. There is also the advantage of privacy – arbitration proceedings must legally be kept confidential.
#4. Mediation: If you claim is more than $20,000 but less than $500,000, you should consider mediation.
You can approach the Singapore Mediation Centre to facilitate private mediation between you and the other party. Mediation is significantly less costly than lawsuits or arbitration proceedings. Settlements are also much quicker – disputes can typically be resolved in weeks, rather than years as with lawsuits. Mediation is also a strictly confidential process.
However, mediation is not legally binding. If the other party fails to live up to the agreed settlement, you’ll either have to commence more mediation, or bring them to court.
#5. Ministry of Manpower: If the breach of contract was between an employer and employee, then as a worker you can approach the Ministry to resolve the dispute. This applies to any worker covered by the Employment Act. The only workers not covered by the Act are:
Seafaring workers
Domestic workers
Civil servants
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Delighting large numbers of people with food can be a really rewarding profession. However, it’s also a business that’s fraught with significant liability and operational risks. If you run a catering business, it’s important to understand what could go wrong, so you can take active steps to prevent them from happening to you.
We break down the 5 worst risks for caterers, and how business owners can protect themselves from them.
#1. Foodborne illnesses
This is probably the biggest liability risk that catering businesses face. Food that isn’t cooked and stored properly may become contaminated with dangerous bacteria, causing sickness or even death in people you serve it to. Employees may forget to wash their hands, or allow raw food to come into contact with cooked food. It only takes one minor mistake to contaminate an entire batch of food – using a knife for raw meat to cut salads, forgetting to clean a kitchen table, leaving cooked food uncovered for long periods of time, forgetting to wash your hands after using the restroom, etc. So many things can easily go wrong and cause cross-contamination in catering kitchens.
Singaporean caterer causes mass food poisoning, man dies:
In 2018, a local restaurant called Spize caused a mass food poisoning outbreak after it had catered food for a corporate client. More than 75 people came down with severe gastroenteritis. One man even suffered organ failure and died. Singaporean authorities swiftly investigated the restaurant. The NEA (National Environment Agency) discovered severe hygiene lapses that caused a widespread salmonella outbreak in both Spize’s food and kitchen facilities. NEA uncovered faecal matter in the bento sets Spize had catered. Salmonella and other bacteria were also discovered throughout Spize’s kitchen: on door handles, fridge handles, and multiple work surfaces. There was no soap in Spize’s employee toilets, which likely contributed to faecal matter passing from workers to the food they were preparing. Workers had also freely mixed cutting boards and knives for raw meat with uncooked food, causing cross-contamination.
#2. Food spoilage
Catering businesses usually have to maintain large inventories of food to meet customer demand. However, having such big stockpiles of produce creates serious risks of food spoilage if something goes wrong. If the fridges and freezers break down, coolant leaks occur, the power trips for extended periods, or other mechanical failures occur, then all this produce would rapidly spoil in our tropical heat.
Spoiled produce isn’t just a health hazard, it’s massively costly to your catering business
Spoiled produce creates two big adverse impacts to caterers:
Food poisoning liability: As in point #1, food that isn’t properly refrigerated can quickly become contaminated with dangerous bacteria. Customers who fall sick from consuming your food can hold you liable for medical expenses, and demand legal damages.
Inventory replacement cost: Spoiled stocks need to be replace.
Many catering businesses operate on slim margins. Labour costs and ingredient prices are high and rising. Having to replace a big amount of spoiled stock can cause a significant cash flow crunch. It’s important to have a Business Package Insurance policy, which will cover replacement costs if your produce or cooked food spoils due to storage equipment breakdowns.
#3. Machinery damage & breakdown
If you operate a central kitchen, you’ll need coverage to protect your expensive kitchen equipment from damage and breakdowns. You’ll want to protect costly industrial equipment like stoves, ovens, hoods, from mechanical failures, power surges, and other damage that could harm your ability to produce food for customers.
Machinery damage or breakdowns levy two significant costs on caterers:
Repair/replacement cost: Broken machines have to be fixed or replaced entirely.
Lost income: Broken machines can’t produce food. You might lose some sales if you can’t deliver sufficient quantities of food.
All this pretty kitchen equipment is expensive
The great thing about Business Package Insurance is that it covers machinery damage and breakdowns (from selected insurers). This means damage to your machines (e.g. from fire or water leaks) will be covered. Business Package Insurance also covers lost income from machine damage/breakdowns, so you’ll get a daily cash payout for each day that you can’t operate your business because of broken kitchen equipment.
#4. Worker accidents
Injuries are common with catering workers, creating liabilities for business owners
With so many food workers operating in a fast-paced environment filled with hot items and sharp tools, it’s inevitable that accidents will occur. Under the Work Injury Compensation Act (WICA), businesses are legally liable to pay for injured workers’ medical expenses and lost wages.
It is a legal requirement to have Work Injury Compensation Insurance for:
Manual workers, regardless of salary
Workers earning less than $1,600/month (salary limit will be raised to $2,100 from 1st April 2020)
Here are some amounts your catering business would have to pay for different worker injuries:
Worker job scope: Kitchen assistant
Injury: Severed thumb (injured while cutting food ingredients)
What your business must pay for
Amount
Lump sum compensation for permanent incapacity
$104,040
Medical expenses
$10,000
Lost wages (2 weeks MC)
$1,000
Total:
$115,040
It really is a remarkably staggering cost, isn’t it? More than $100,000 if your worker loses a single thumb – a frighteningly common occurrence especially when you spend 8-12 hours a day chopping stuff non-stop.
Catering staff that commonly need Work Injury Compensation Insurance are: chefs, cooks, kitchen supervisors, kitchen assistants, dishwashers, cleaners, and delivery drivers. It’s also advisable to have Work Injury Compensation Insurance for sales staff, who may get into car accidents if they travel frequently to meet clients.
#5. Business property damage
Fire, explosions, and water leak damage are very real risks that caterers face. A worker could leave the stove on and cause a fire that burns down your kitchen. A malfunctioning oven could explode. Water pipes could leak, damaging your equipment and causing expensive repair costs.
#2. Work Injury Compensation Insurance: This protects you against legal liability for worker injuries. It pays for medical expenses, and legal expenses if you get sued for work-related injuries.
With Provide, you’ll save up to 25% on your insurance premiums. Our online operating model creates lower overheads, so we pass every dollar saved back to you. At Provide, we take pride in understanding the unique risks that each industry and business faces, so we can recommend the best solutions to protect you from such risks.
Non-profits do a great service to the community, but this service is fraught with risks. Hackers could steal highly sensitive data from you. Injuries could strike your staff and volunteers. And worse still, you might inadvertently hurt the people you’re serving if you’re not careful. All these situations create tremendous legal liability and operational disruptions. It’s crucial for non-profits to take steps to mitigate these risks, so that they can fulfil their organisational mission to the best of their ability.
Here’s a list of the 3 biggest risks for non-profits while serving the community:
#1. Data breaches
Imagine telling all your donors, staff, and volunteers that you’ve just been the victim of a data breach.
How bad would their reactions be? How much faith would you lose from your donors? How would it affect staff and volunteer morale? Do you think people would ever trust your organisation as much as the used to?
Getting hacked is a very real threat to non-profits – hackers are increasingly targeting charitable organisations because they’re seen as “soft targets”. If you accept donations online, your organisation will be an even bigger target for hackers looking to steal sensitive information like credit card details or bank account numbers.
The unfortunate reality is that many non-profits are indeed very vulnerable to such attacks because they don’t have robust cyber protection. It’s important for non-profits to have a strong cyber security plan in place. It’s also crucial for non-profits to have cyber insurance to shield themselves against legal liability if they get hacked. Non-profits will face significant legal repercussions if the personal information of their donors, beneficiaries, or volunteers get stolen or leaked all over the internet.
With Singapore’s PDPA law (Personal Data Protection Act), there is also a strong regulatory imperative for securing your data. In 2019, the largest fine for breaching the PDPA was levied on a company called Learnaholic, which was fined $60,000 for data breaches. Non-profits must seriously guard their data.
#2. Professional Liability
Organisation Liability
Unfortunately, just because you’re doing good doesn’t mean you’re absolved from legal liability (if only the world were that kind). Non-profits have a legal obligation to ensure that your services don’t cause harm to anyone. If your services end up injuring people, or causing illness, that you’ll be just as liable as a for-profit corporation in the eyes of the law.
Example Situations:
If you deliver cooked meals, the people who eat your food might fall sick. If the food was contaminated, they may even end up hospitalised. You can be held legally liable for making them ill.
If you run a home or a hospice, you can be held liable for injuries or illnesses that occur to your residents. If a resident falls and injures themselves because there was a puddle on the floor, you can be found negligent and held liable. If a resident falls sick, or has a worsening illness due to your staff providing insufficient care, you ca be found negligent and legally liable.
Directors Liability
Beyond organisational liability, directors of non-profits also face personal liability risks. If your non-profit gets sued, chances are the directors will also get sued personally as well. If you’re a non-profit director and you get sued, your personal assets like your house and savings will be exposed to claims.
Example situation:
You run a non-profit counselling centre for people with mental health issues. One of your counsellors befriends a client outside of work. The counsellor makes inappropriate romantic advances towards the client. The client suffers psychological trauma, and decides to file a lawsuit against your organisation’s directors for not having proper governance structures in place that would have prevented the counsellor’s inappropriate behaviour.
#3. Employee/Volunteer Injuries
Your employees or volunteers may get injured while carrying out work. Non-profits will have often members travelling around the country, or even going overseas, to perform duties. Car accidents could injure your members while they’re on the road. Your members’ duties might involve manual labour like building shelters or lifting heavy items. Accidents can easily occur while doing such physical work. If your members are volunteering in a developing nation, they’re at even great risk of accidents, or falling sick due to diseases contracted there. Many injuries or illnesses could occur during all this travel and work, creating significant legal liabilities for your organisation.
Examples Situations:
Your staff are out delivering food to low-income households. A staff member slips and falls during a delivery, breaking her arm. Under the Work Injury Compensation Act (WICA), your organisation would be liable to pay for her medical expenses and lost wages.
You organise an overseas mission trip to Cambodia to build homes for villagers. While there, some of your volunteers get injured when a roof collapses on them. Some other volunteers contract parasites from dirty water and fall very sick. Your non-profit would be liable for their medical expenses, and could potentially have to pay damages for not sufficiently ensuring your volunteers’ safety.
Under WICA regulations, if you had 4 staff members who died while working, your non-profit would have to pay up to $1 million in compensation ($225,000 * 4) to the families of the deceased.
You might have heard of the terms libel, slander, and defamation. What are the legal differences between these terms? Defamation is actually an umbrella category for statements that harm the reputation of another person or entity. Libel and slander are subcategories of defamation: libel refers to permanent (written or broadcast) defamation, while slander is temporal (spoken) defamation. In this article, we’ll break down 2 of the biggest legal differences of libel vs slander, and how this impacts companies.
Libel
Slander
Communication method
Permanent – written or broadcast
Temporal – spoken
Examples of communication mediums
Newspapers, articles, blog posts, social media posts, videos, radio broadcasts, TV shows
In-person communication, talks, comments at meetings
Need to prove special damages?
No
Yes, with exceptions
Difference #1. Libel is permanent, slander is temporal
You might have read before that libel is written, while slander is spoken. That’s technically incorrect. Libel covers any defamation that’s permanent, whether it’s written or spoken. Under Section 3 of Singapore’s Defamation Act, the “broadcasting of words by means of telecommunication shall be treated as publication in permanent form.” So, if someone makes a video or radio podcast and says insulting words about you, that’s actually libel, not slander.
Slander is temporal defamation that’s spoken. So this would cover rumours that are spread by word-of-mouth, insulting comments made in meetings, or verbal attacks in speeches.
The origins of separating libel from slander hail from the US and UK, which operate on common law systems just as we do. In the US, a landmark defamation was Hartman v. Winchell in 1947, which established that defamatory radio broadcasts constituted libel and not slander. Another landmark “libel vs slander” case was Shor v. Bilingsley in 1956, which ruled that defamatory remarks in a television broadcast were libelous, not slanderous.
This distinction between libel vs slander is important, because the type of evidence you’ll need to produce in a lawsuit alleging libel is different from one alleging slander. This leads us to point 2 below.
Difference #2. Special damages are assumed for libel, but not for slander
Let’s first understand what “special damages” means. Special damages are quantifiable losses that you’ve suffered as a result of the defamation. For instance, you could show that your business has lost “x” amount of sales after the alleged defamation. For individuals, you could show you lost job opportunities, causing “x” amount of lost income.
When you sue someone for libel, the lawsuit is “actionable per se”. This means the court assumes that damage has been done to you. You don’t need to prove special damages.
With slander, the lawsuit is not actionable per se. The court does not assume damage has been done to you. You must prove special damages.
There are some important exceptions to this rule, however. The Defamation Act sets out some types of slander which are considered so harmful that special damages are assumed.
You don’t have to prove special damages for slander in the following categories:
Slander of women: Accusing or implying that a woman is unchaste or adulterous.
Slander affecting official, professional, or business reputation: Disparaging the professional reputation of someone, or the reputation of a business.
Slander of title: Slandering the quality of someone’s goods, or slandering someone’s right to a property.
If you’re a business owner, point 2 (slander affecting official, professional, or business reputation) is particularly important.
Not having to prove special damages makes it easier to file defamation lawsuits. It may not always be easy to show that your losses were directly connected to the alleged defamatory statement. For instance, if you run a business and lose several big contracts after the defamatory statements surface, it may be hard to prove that the statements were the primary cause. The court may decide that a multitude of other factors, like your business management, could have caused these losses – even if you know instinctively that it must be the defamatory statements harming your business.
Not having to show this greater burden of proof means you have greater ability to hold people who slander your business accountable for their words.
Can insurance protect against libel and slander?
Yes, absolutely! Professional Indemnity Insurance covers you from libel and slander lawsuits. If you accidentally make statements that end up defaming someone else, and they sue you for it, Professional Indemnity Insurance can protect you. This coverage would pay for lawyer’s fees, and damages/settlements stemming from the defamation suit against you.
Beyond libel and slander, Professional Indemnity Insurance also covers a broad range of other business lawsuits, including:
Negligence lawsuits
Errors & omissions lawsuits
IP infringement lawsuits
Patent infringement lawsuits
Joint venture liability
…and more
Click here to buy Professional Indemnity Insurance from $42/month, in 3 mins.
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Have you ever been told that “you can’t make a living as a writer”? That’s probably the biggest myth about freelance writing that exists in most people’s minds. Freelance writing is an excellent side gig for you to earn extra income while you hold a day job. Heck, if you’re really good at it, you could even quit your regular job and do content writing full-time.
Here’s a list of 11 of the most useful freelance writing tips that beginners need to know at the start of their creative journey.
#1. Start your own blog, preferably using WordPress
If you’re going to write for a living, it’s imperative that you have:
A platform for you to showcase your work and skills 24/7, and
A high-outreach, low-cost marketing channel for you to acquire new clients
A blog does both of the above things spectacularly well. So, which platform should you use? You should definitely start with WordPress. Why? With WordPress, you’re able to have full control over the look and feel of your site. You’ll be able to rank highly in search engines with SEO – much more so than with other sites like Medium. Once you’ve started your WordPress site, you can always syndicate your content to alternative sites like Medium and Tumblr. WordPress also allows you to be able to process payments, which you may want if you’re taking job bookings online.
Also, buy yourself a catchy domain name that’s easy to remember – GoDaddy has a great selection of these. Use a good hosting service, like Digital Ocean, that offers affordable and fast website hosting.
#2. Start contributing, even for free
There’s a million freelance writers out on the internet competing with you for the same writing jobs. The most important thing when you’re first starting out is to have a good portfolio of work that you can showcase to potential clients. Start writing lots of articles on your own blog to demonstrate your writing abilities. Then, start offering to contribute guest posts to other sites. These articles that you contribute could cover anything under the sun – it could be something that you’re knowledgeable about, something you’re interested in, or a writing niche that you think would pay well.
If you get paid for these articles – that’s all well and good. However, if you haven’t worked with the particular site before, or you don’t a list of previous clients you can talk about, you might not get offered any monetary compensation. That’s okay – if you’re just starting out. The credibility that you’ll be able to build with just a few articles published by someone other than yourself will be more important than the comparatively small, one-time fees you might get paid. And no, you’re not throwing yourself down some endless “do it for the exposure” rabbit hole – you’re just building a brand for yourself and getting a good head start in a very saturated, highly competitive field.
You’ll be much more likely to get signed on by clients if you can show them you’re not only capable of producing quality writing, but that other sites have trusted you enough to write for them.
#3. Network with other freelance writers
Even though freelance writing might seem like a solo adventure (and it often is), you can give your career a boost by forming great working relationships with other freelance writers just like yourself. You can ask more experienced writers questions about rates, handling clients, or even for project referrals. Having a professional network that you can tap on is never a bad thing, and you shouldn’t allow yourself to just operate in a silo as a freelance writer. Make the effort to actively connect with fellow professionals in your field, and you’ll find that it’ll pay off handsomely in the long run. Use a site like Meetup to connect with fellow freelance writers.
#4. Set aside time each day to read great content
Stephen King famously reads 80 books a year (that’s one-and-a-half books every week!). Why would one of the world’s most famous writers even bother with the writing of lesser mortals than himself? King says: “if you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.” The latter is almost guaranteed if you’re a freelance writer (doh!), but the first is certainly not. Many writers make the mistake of spending all their time producing, and not enough time absorbing. Yes, I get it – you don’t get paid to consume writing. But reading other people’s writing (and great writing, at that) is so essential to furthering your craft as a writer. How can you hope to deliver better writing each new day if you don’t learn from those better than you?
If a writer like King (who’s sold 350 million books) religiously reads writing other than his own, you definitely should too. Set aside at least an hour a day to read a diverse set of content, preferably from the top publications in each niche.
Here’s a useful set of reading material that writers would do well with:
News sites: Great learning for assignments that ask you to cover world events, politics, current affairs, or the like. You won’t go wrong with storied publications like The New York Times, The Guardian, or the South China Morning Post.
Magazines: Choose wisely here. Stay away from tabloids (unless that’s what you’re writing for). Editorials from Rolling Stone Magazine and Vox tend to be particularly eloquent.
Top fashion sites hardly need introducing: Vogue, GQ, and Womens Wear Daily are renowned staples.
Consumer product/service reviews: Lots of good choices here. Sites like PCWorld, Nerdwallet, or Wirecutter produce thoroughly researched, well-written content that’s read by millions of people.
By reading a diverse set of content, you’ll quickly become comfortable writing about any topic. The next time a job comes by on a topic you’ve never written about before, you’ll be twice as confident approaching it if you’ve been reading widely and religiously.
#5. Maintain the highest standards of professionalism
The freelance writing industry is filled with lots of cowboys who pump out shoddy work, oftentimes delivered with unethical practices like plagiarising other people’s content. Your reputation as a freelancer is everything, so make sure you are completely professional 100% of the time when dealing with clients. Here’s some useful professionalism tips for freelance writers:
Never plagiarise someone else’s work. Not only is this unethical, but you’re probably not going to achieve good results if you just copy-and-paste an existing article, and then make some minor edits. Search engines won’t rank the content well, and sharp-eyed readers/clients might even spot the similarities.
Use a professional email domain. Nothing gives a worse first impression than seeing a “gmail” or a “hotmail” address.
Answer emails/enquiries promptly.
Don’t undersell your abilities, but don’t oversell either – you want to manage expectations.
Don’t get upset at clients. If they’re demanding more revisions than necessary, or stressing you in some other way, state your position firmly but politely. A happy customer might tell a friend how good you are – an unhappy one will tell 10 about how bad you are!
Send professional-looking invoices (check out our Xero review, FreshBooks review, and QuickBooks review, all of which give you great-looking invoice templates).
If you’re going to be late on a deadline, make sure you let your client know in advance. If something’s due at 11:59PM, don’t send an email at 11:50PM saying “Yeah, I’m gonna need 1 more day on that job you gave me”. If you’re really swamped, and you just need a little extra time, most clients will be understanding as long as you let them know early.
#6. Your qualifications are (mostly) irrelevant. The only thing that matters is your content.
Unless you have a specialized body of knowledge in a particular field, and your clients are looking to tap into that knowledge (e.g. you have a law degree and you’re writing law articles, or you know a particular industry in and out), your qualifications won’t mean anything. It’s really going to be irrelevant whether or not you have a university degree, or any other academic title – in freelance writing, those are (most of the time) just literally really expensive pieces of paper. So if you don’t have any of these qualifications, don’t feel like you’re less than. In this industry, the only thing clients care about is how good your writing is. The best way to move up the hierarchy of freelance writing is to write as much as you can, as best as you can, so that your writing skills and reputation become second to none.
#7. Develop a comprehensive marketing strategy
You’ll need to have a well thought-out strategy to market your services to clients. It’s not going to be enough to just dive in, thinking “I’ll just write for money”. There’s millions of other people offering the exact same service as you on the internet. How will YOU stand out?
The fundamental parts of a good marketing strategy for freelance writing are:
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO): You’ll definitely want to be on the first page of Google (and preferably in the top 3 positions) for keywords like “best freelancer writers for hire”, or “find freelance writer Singapore”. You’ll need to publish lots of great content for this (see tip 1), and ensure that your content is optimised for search engines.
Pay-Per-Click Ads (PPC) / Display Ads: This basically encompasses ads on Google AdWords, social media ads on sites like Facebook, and those banner display ads that you see on websites. You might want to consider buying ads to drive traffic to your business when you’re just starting out. Your website likely won’t be on the first page of Google yet for very many search terms, so ads will be the most effective way to get yourself customers.
#8. Get really good at keyword research
To be a great freelance writer, you’re going to want to get really good at keyword search. Your clients are probably going to judge the performance of your articles by how much readership they acquire. If your articles aren’t getting in front of people, they won’t be read, and you’re unlikely to get much repeat business from the same client.
Being skilled at keyword research allows you to hone in on the best choice of topics for your clients. If your client wants to write an article on a really competitive keyword, you can certainly take on the job. However, why not first suggest some less-competitive keywords for them to write content about? Having content pieces that rank on page 1 of Google is much better than having pieces that wallow in obscurity on page 10. (When was the last time you even clicked past Google’s first page?) This helps you add value to your clients, and also boosts your own content performance. If you perform smart keyword research, your articles are likely going to rank much higher in search engine results (SERPs). This is going to result in more views for your content, more brand awareness/sales for your clients, and therefore more repeat writing jobs for you. It’s a beautiful virtuous cycle.
Good tools for keyword research are SEMRush (USD 99/month) or Long Tail Pro (USD 37/month).
#9. Understand how your content fits into your clients’ overall marketing objectives
When you get a client who’s interested in hiring you to write something, make sure you understand their business, and what their broader marketing goals are. What is your client trying to achieve specifically with this content?
Some basic questions any good content marketer should be asking:
What are your content goals over the next 12 months?
How much revenue do you expect to generate from this content?
What is your targeted conversion rate?
How many leads do you want to generate?
What are your marketing objectives with this content?
Brand awareness
Lead generation
Conversions
Market education on products/services
Ask the right questions. Don’t just passively accept the writing assignment without understanding what the clients’ goals are. If you don’t try to understand your client’s goals, you’re not going to develop a deeper business relationship with them.
The most successful freelance content writers have a firm understanding of their client’s industry, what their client’s customers are looking for, and how to accomplish specific marketing goals via the content they’re publishing. These writers are the ones with the ability to charge the highest fees, the most loyal clients, and will earn the most repeat business. Remember, you’re not here to just churn out type. You’re here to intelligently analyse your client’s business/marketing needs, and then develop targeted pieces of content to address those needs. If you can do this, you’ll already be two steps ahead of the competition.
#10. Offer full-service content marketing
You’re probably not going to be able to charge very much if your only service is to passive take topics from clients, then churn out a bunch of words for them to use. You’re going to add much more value if you offer a full marketing service for your clients.
A full-stack content marketing service includes:
Formulation of marketing goals, and how content marketing fits into the overall marketing strategy
Keyword research
Topic generation/ideation
Writing
Follow-up analysis of performance, in relation to marketing goals
You can see that writing is really only one component (albeit the most important and time-consuming one) of the entire content marketing value chain. You’re going to create so much more value for your clients if you offer them services from steps A-E. Don’t just be a tool that clients use to pump out words – be the entire machine that creates ideas for them, relates the content to their business objectives, and then spins out beautiful content that helps them achieve their goals.
#11. You could start an agency, eventually
Freelance content writing is a great side gig that you can do to earn some extra income. But if you do this full-time, and do it really well, you could actually start your own content marketing agency. XXX is a great example of a content marketing agency, started by a couple that left full-time corporate jobs. They’ve just turned over $300,000 in annual revenue last year in this insightful blog post. Don’t underestimate the earning power of freelance writing. If you enjoy writing, you’ve probably been told by countless people that you “can’t make a living as a writer”. Well, actually you can. You’re probably not going to end up with millions of dollars and a private island to call your own, but you can definitely build a successful and fulfilling career out of writing.
Protect your freelancer business
Get liability insurance for your content writing agency.
Product Liability in Singapore: 6 Must-Knows for Small Businesses
Selling a defective product to customers can create massive liabilities for your business. If your items injure someone, don’t function as intended, or were even misleadingly advertised, you can be sued for product liability.
The median settlement cost of a product liability lawsuit is $1.5 million. Could your business handle such a huge expense? Product liability lawsuits are incredibly expensive, and could easily bankrupt most small businesses.
Here’s 6 things you have to know about product liability, and how to reduce your liability risk to protect your sales, your reputation, and your livelihood.
What factors lead to product liability lawsuits?
Your business can be held liable for product liability if the victim can prove:
Your product was defective
Your defective product caused injury
The product manufacturer, designer, or retailer owed a duty to provide the buyer with a safe product
It’s not only the consumer who directly buys your product who can hold you liable. Many third-parties can file lawsuits against you for product liability.
For instance, if someone gets injured in a bike accident because the bike’s brakes were faulty, they can sue the brake manufacturer for producing an item that didn’t work as it was supposed to.
In Singapore, your business can also be held liable for product liability by government regulators. This can occur if you use false/misleading advertising in your products.
#2. There are 3 types of defective products
A defective product is one that is not able to serve its original, intended purpose. Many products will have minor defects like cosmetic blemishes. However, the ones you should be concerned about are defects that could potentially cause harm to consumers.
The 3 main types of defects are:
Design defects: The product’s design makes it fundamentally flawed, causing danger to consumers even when they use it as instructed. A famous example is the Ford Pinto, a sub-compact car that was sold in the 1970s. The Ford Pinto had an inherently flawed design that placed the car’s fuel tank in a vulnerable position, causing it to be prone to explosions if hit from behind. This design caused a string of deadly fires to occupants. Ford was hit with 117 product liability lawsuits, and the company lost many millions in damage payments awarded to victims, plus many uncountable millions in lost sales due to their tarnished reputation.
Manufacturing defects: These occur when product manufacturers don’t follow the design blueprints correctly. These cause the product to become dangerous. In 2007, Mattel had to recall 967,000 toys in the US because their third-party manufacturer used lead paint to produce the toys. Lead paint is toxic, and has been linked to developmental issues in children who play with toys produced with such paint.
Marketing defects: These occur when insufficient/inaccurate/misleading information or instructions are provided with the product. In Singapore, the Consumer Protection (Fair Trading) Act allows customers to sue companies who use false claims to advertise their products. In 2017, AVA (Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority) took action against 4 margarine brands for falsely claiming their products had “zero trans-fat”.
#3. Adopt a proactive approach to reduce product liability risk
Perform detailed quality control and product testing before selling it to retailers or consumers
If you design and/or manufacture products, make sure you run your products through many rounds of rigorous testing to ensure that it doesn’t cause its users harm. This is the most important stage of limiting liability that could affect many people – potentially millions, depending on what you’re selling. Repeated tests will likely expose most of the defects in a product, allowing you to correct them before they end up in the hands of the public.
If you’re a retailer, make sure you research the products you’re stocking before actually putting them up for sale. Do research about the ingredients or the source of the product to ensure it’s not dangerous. You’ll also want to test your products to ensure they live up to their manufacturer’s claims. You can test your products in-house, or send them to an independent laboratory or testing agency to certify that they meet advertised standards, and are safe to use.
Have proper product information labels
Don’t include misleading claims on your product labels. Don’t leave out important or legally-required information from your labels.
If your product has a risk of causing injury to users, make sure you have a warning label and a set of instructions for proper use. The warning you give must be adequate to protect all foreseeable users of reasonably foreseeable dangers of the product.
You should be specific and transparent about potential risks that come with using your product. This way, if users end up getting injured or sick, you’ll be able to mount a stronger legal defence by stating that you effectively warned users about the risks that may come with using your product.
Inspect and maintain manufacturing equipment thoroughly
Maintenance might seem like a dreary cost, but it really is an important investment to ensuring that your goods come out consistent, well-built, and above all, safe. If you don’t maintain your equipment, it might not function properly, and may introduce serious defects into your products.
#4. Inform your broker immediately if you get sued for product liability
If you get hit with a product liability lawsuit, make sure you inform your insurance broker immediately. Your broker will then inform your insurer. Reporting this in a timely fashion is important, because your insurer could deny you coverage if you don’t.
You should also quickly seek advice from a good lawyer who specialises in product liability cases.
Your lawyer may, among other things, advise you to:
Gather documentation on all employees involved in manufacturing or selling the faulty product
Retain some samples of faulty products
Get employees and other relevant stakeholders to sign confidentiality agreements to protect any proprietary product knowledge
If you end up losing the product liability lawsuit, you’ll have to pay for legal expenses and damages. If you have product liability insurance, these costs will be covered for you by the insurance company.
#5. Take immediate action if you suspect product defects
Don’t wait until the defect results in someone getting hurt or sick. You need to act quickly before it’s too late. Defective products that end up harming your customers could cause irreparable damage to your reputation and your bottom line.
Here are some useful pre-emptive actions you can take to minimise your liability:
Issue a public statement that you’ve discovered a defect in your product.
Contact the distributors/retailers that sell your product, and inform them of the defect.
Communicate to consumers a specific plan to rectify the defect. You may have to offer refunds, discounts, or some other compensation to assuage public anger.
If the defect is serious enough, or could cause bodily harm, it’s best you issue a full product recall.
A case study of effective product liability management is how Toyota handled a fault in its hybrid vehicles. In 2014, Toyota issued a massive global recall of 2.4 million hybrid vehicles, after it discovered a defect that could cause the car to lose power. The recall was initiated before any accidents had actually occurred as a result of this power fault. As a result of Toyota’s swift and forward-thinking response, the carmaker avoided what could have amounted to tremendously destructive product liability lawsuits hitting it from around the globe.
#6. Protect your business from expensive product liability lawsuits
With the median product liability settlement costing $1.5 million, you’ll definitely want to have product liability insurance to protect your business. Small businesses could easily be bankrupted by such a massive cost.
Get yourself an online product liability insurance quote. You’ll get broad coverage, and save up to 25% on your premiums with Provide. Our online operating model creates lower overheads, so we pass every dollar saved back to you.
If your business manufactures products or sells goods, consider also investing in the following protection:
No business owner likes having the quality of their business questioned. However, there’s a difference between fair reviews and comments on a business, and attacks designed to harm the reputation of a company. If someone is spreading bad news about your products/services, talks bad about your company, or leaves scathing online reviews, you cansue them.
In Singapore, defamation against a business can be held to either be a criminal offence (Section 499 of the Penal Code), and/or a civil tort (Chapter 75 of the Defamation Act). There are 2 types of defamation: i) Libel, and ii) Slander.
Libel
Slander
Communication method
Permanent – written or broadcast
Temporal – spoken
Examples of communication mediums
Newspapers, articles, blog posts, social media posts, videos, radio broadcasts, TV shows
In-person communication, speeches, talks, comments at meetings
To sue someone for defaming your business, the statements in question must meet the 3 elements of defamation in Singapore.
Element #1. The statement must be defamatory in nature.
For a statement to be considered defamatory, the statement must meet 1 or more of the following criteria:
Lower the victim in the estimation of right-thinking members of society, or
Cause the victim to be shunned or avoided, or
Expose the victim to hatred, contempt or ridicule
For instance, a viciously opinionated online review would very likely fulfill the above standards. Such a review would cause your business to be held in lower regard (Criteria 1), and probably cause you to lose potential customers (Criteria 2). It might even invite people to make internet memes out of you, or mock your business on social media (Criteria 3).
Element #2. The statement must identify your business explicitly or implicitly
Explicit identification is simple: the defamer must identify your business or you directly. A review left on your Google page, a social media post titled “ABC Company Is Trash”, or videos that mention your business by name are all examples of direct identification.
However, identification can also be implicit. You can still sue someone even if they did not name your business directly, but made remarks or references that could be reasonably inferenced to identify your business. Examples of implicit identification include:
Making remarks about some aspect of your business that can be reasonably used to identify your company
Making remarks about a unique service or product that only you offer
Posting pictures of your products that can be reasonably linked to your business
Element #3. The statement must be communicated to a 3rd party
The defamatory statements must have been made known to someone other than yourself. For online reviews, or online comments, this standard is easy to meet, since the statements would have been published online and exposed to the public.
For verbal statements without written proof, or video/audio evidence, you can call upon witnesses to support your defamation claim.
Can I sue someone for writing a bad review about my business?
Yes, you can. The review must meet the 3 defamation elements as outlined above.
Can I sue someone for talking bad about my business?
Yes, you can. The review must meet the 3 defamation elements as outlined above. If the person is spreading rumours or criticism about your business without the use of published mediums that you can cite as evidence (e.g. he’s saying these remarks in-person to other people), you’ll have to call on witnesses to prove your case.
Defences against defamation
Defence #1. Justification
The defendant can win against your lawsuit by proving that the defamatory statement is true in substance and fact. For instance, say a client publishes this Facebook post about your business:
“ABC Company’s interior design services were so poor. The designs they gave us were so different from our requests, and they didn’t bother to include many details. They were also frequently late in submitting designs. Would not recommend at all.”
If you sued them, the client would have to prove the designs they received from you deviated significantly from their requests. They would also have to prove you didn’t meet submission deadlines. For instance, if they requested a French-style interior décor and you instead submitted a Japanese-style design, and you repeatedly sent designs days after you were supposed to, then they would prevail against your defamation suit.
Defence #2. Fair comment
The defendant can prevail against your defamation lawsuit by proving all of the following:
The statements in question were comments, not statements of fact.
The comments were based on facts.
The comment is fair, meaning it is something a fair-minded person would say or write. Some leeway is allowed for personal bias or exaggerations.
The comment is in the public interest, meaning it is something the public may be interested in knowing or have concern for.
In the case of a bad review, if the person you’re suing left a review that was composed entirely of opinions, then you are unlikely to win your defamation lawsuit against them. Take the following review for instance:
“The food tasted absolutely disgusting. The fish was so salty, the vegetables tasted bitter, and the meat was overcooked to death. I hope this place shuts down. Please do not EVER come here!!!”
Now, that’s a really nasty review. I’m sure if your business received a review like that, you’d be hopping mad. But are the contents of this review grounds to sue for defamation? The answer in this case, unfortunately, is likely to be no. The review doesn’t contain any statements of fact – in fact it’s composed entirely of opinions. That the food was “disgusting”, “so salty”, “bitter”, or “overcooked” are all matters of personal judgement, however strongly worded they might be (Criteria 1). These opinions were based on the fact that the reviewer dined at your restaurant, and did not personally enjoy the preparation of the food (Criteria 2). The statement can be adjudged to be reasonably fair (it did not contain a vicious litany of vulgar comments, for instance – Criteria 3). Also, it could be said that the statement merited public interest, since reviews help people to decide if a restaurant is worth visiting or not (Criteria 4). Because of these 4 defence elements, you likely won’t be able to successfully sue this angry reviewer.
Here’s another version of the above review, worded differently:
“The food tasted absolutely disgusting. Everything was terrible, and the restaurant was really filthy. I found dead insects in my soup. I even saw two rats running around on the floor! Please do not EVER come here unless you want to fall SICK!!!”
If you received a review like this, it would likely be grounds for you to sue for defamation. This review makes multiple allegations of fact. The poster claims the presence of harmful pests, insinuating there are serious hygiene lapses which could introduce diseases to patrons. Remember that when you sue for defamation, you don’t have to prove that the defamatory statement is false. Instead, the defendant must prove that their statement is true in substance and fact. In this case, the burden is on the defendant to prove that they in fact “found dead insects” floating in their soup dish, and in fact witnessed “two rats” scurrying around in your restaurant. If they can’t prove this to be true, then you’ll likely succeed in your lawsuit against them (hooray!).
In fact, you can not only sue for defamation in the above example – you could also sue the reviewer for spreading malicious falsehoods. If you can prove that the reviewer acted knowing that what they said was false, or they had intent to harm your business, you can seek further damages for the additional tort of perpetuating malicious falsehoods.
What compensation can you claim for defamation?
If you succeed in your defamation lawsuit, you can seek monetary damages. These damages are designed to compensate you for damage to reputation, damage to your business income, and to vindicate your name in public.
The amount of damages awarded will be based on:
The severity of the defamatory statement
How widely circulated was the defamatory statement
Any mitigating actions taken by the defendant (e.g. retracting the statement, issuing a public apology, etc.)
Sometimes, “aggravated damages” may be awarded in addition to regular damages (called “general damages”). Aggravated damages are compensation for the defendant’s behaviour or intent that cause additional harm to the plaintiff. For instance, if the defendant continues publishing more defamatory statements about you, even after being informed of the lawsuit/the untruthfulness of their statements, and they published especially malicious claims, that may be grounds for aggravated damages. Take note that Singapore’s High Court has ruled that aggravated damages can only be awarded for defamation against persons, but not corporate entities.
Suing for libel vs slander
If you sue for slander, you ordinarily have to prove that you suffered “special damages” – this is basically proving that you suffered quantifiable financial losses as a direct result of being slandered. Without proof of special damages, you won’t be able to sue. However, some exceptions to this rule exist: slander that affects official, professional, or business reputation does not require this proof. So, if someone slanders you as a company director, or your business, you don’t need to prove special damages.
If you sue for libel, you don’t have to prove special damages. The law automatically assumes you suffered special damages.
Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should
Launching a defamation suit against a hostile reviewer is much easier in Singapore than say, the US. The defence of fair comment is defined more narrowly here, unlike in America where the 1st Amendment covers all public opinions.
However, just because you can sue, doesn’t mean you should sue. From an operational perspective, launching a lawsuit against a single bad review is probably not the smartest thing to do. Why? Lawsuits are incredibly costly, and drain a lot of your time and energy. You could have spent the money on growing your business, and getting new customers who will actually leave your business positive reviews. Also, in this age of social media, the customer you’re suing could well expose your lawsuit against them online. The optics of a company suing an individual – potentially for something that others might deem trivial – are probably not going to reflect well on your business. By suing them, you might actually be shooting yourself in the foot by generating more bad press for yourself.
In 2018, a dessert shop in Singapore called Fantasy Desserts caused a big online commotion. The shop owner had publicly threatened to sue someone who had left a poor review of their food. The store owner engaged the reviewer with many combative remarks, and threatened to sue for defamation unless the reviewer deleted her unflattering opinion. Netizens swarmed to criticise the store owner, and the case even got picked up by news outlets like Asiaone and Mothership. The store closed in 2019. Whether or not the closure was due to the online furore is unclear, but it wouldn’t be difficult to draw a connection between its angry public threats, the permanent damage to its own reputation, and lost business. The amount of viral attention the store received (and not the good kind) is a clear lesson that good customer management, and not legal threats, should be your first response when handling public criticism.
Here’s a useful action plan for handling poor reviews or criticism of your business:
Respond politely, or just let the review/comments slide. There will always be that one unhappy customer out of all the clients you serve.
If the client continues to spread bad news about your business, or seems particularly upset, initiate a conversation directly with them. Why are they unhappy? Did they feel you didn’t deliver what you promised, causing them disappointment, disruption to their own affairs, or even financial losses? Try to work out a solution – maybe you could offer them a refund, a replacement, or try to rectify a mistake if you did make one.
If step 2 doesn’t work, and the client continues attacking your business, analyse how your business is being affected. If sales are noticeably being affected, then you should consider initiating legal action.
Ready to protect your business?
Online attacks against your company aren’t the only thing you should worry about. Employee injuries, business-related lawsuits, even getting sued for defamation yourself – these are all very real threats that your business will face everyday. Since we’re on the topic of defamation lawsuits, ask yourself this: what happens if a competitor accused you of defaming their business? Whether your competitors’ allegations are true or not doesn’t really matter, because you’d still have to hire a lawyer to defend yourself. And when it comes to hiring lawyers, let’s be real – it’s going to cost you a lot of money. Did you know that there’s a liability insurance policy that can protect you from such large legal costs? Enter Professional Indemnity Insurance.
Professional Indemnity Insurance covers the costs of defamation lawsuits. It pays for lawyer’s fees and the cost of damages/settlements. This ensures you’re not left with a large hole in your pocket. It also covers a wide range of other business-related lawsuits, like negligence lawsuits (e.g. you make accidental mistakes in your work, and a client sues you. That’s covered too.).
The cost of dealing with a massive lawsuit could bankrupt a small business. Don’t take any chances with your livelihood – make sure you protect your business with the best insurance policies possible.
Provide’s online platform helps business owners like you get quick & easy business insurance. Coverage is comprehensive, while premiums are affordable. Get these essential business covers now:
If you’re taking up professional indemnity insurance coverage, you’ve probably heard of the term “retroactive date” when arranging your policy. It’s a very important part of any liability insurance policy, so if your agent/broker didn’t walk you through what it means, maybe it’s time to switch to a better broker. (Hint: we’re really good at what we do.)
A retroactive date is the date from which your business has had uninterruptedprofessional indemnity insurance. From this date onwards, all liabilities you incur (subject to your policy’s wording, exclusions, etc.) will be covered by the insurer, no matter how far in the past they happened.
This means that if you’ve held continuous professional indemnity insurance coverage (with no lapses in coverage) from the day you started your business, you’ll be covered for all the years of services that you’ve provided in the past. So, even if you a lawsuit arises from work you did 10 years ago, you’ll be covered – as long as you didn’t have breaks in coverage!
If, however, there was a period of time when you did not hold professional indemnity insurance (for example, you cancelled your policy following the end of a contract or chose not to renew it), you will only be covered for work since the start of your new insurance policy.
What is the purpose of retroactive dates in professional indemnity insurance?
Retroactive dates are meant to exclude coverage for claims that arise before you bought professional indemnity insurance. They also function as a powerful incentive to keep your professional indemnity coverage continuous, because you’ll be covered for liability that might have occurred long ago but has only recently resurfaced to haunt you.
Retroactive dates are found in all professional indemnity insurance policies. This is because professional indemnity insurance is issued on a “claims made” basis (“claims made and reported” is the full technical term). This means that your policy will protect you from claims you make with your insurer while your policy is active, even if the event you’re claiming for events occurring before you bought your current policy.
What are the requirements to filing a claim under a “claims made” Professional Indemnity policy? There are 3 essential requirements:
You must have had coverage when the incident occurred
You must have coverage when you’re reporting the claim to the insurer
There can’t be lapses in coverage between the incident date and the reporting date
What are examples of how retroactive dates work?
Retroactive Date Example #1:
Let’s say you run a financial advisory firm. You provide M&A advice to a client. The deal closes and you move along, happy to have collected handsome fees. You had professional indemnity insurance during this period.
Right after the deal closed, you saw no need to continue paying for professional indemnity coverage. You allow the policy to lapse, and then buy a new professional indemnity policy later on.
However, several months after the deal closes, your client comes back to allege that you provided negligent advice on their deal. You file a claim with the insurer. Unfortunately, the insurer notifies you that you aren’t eligible for coverage, because you’ve had interruptions in your liability coverage. Your retroactive date is after the date of the incident you’re being sued for. Unfortunately in this case, you’ll have to pay for your own legal costs and damages – which are likely to be hundreds of thousands (or even millions) of dollars. If you had instead chosen to maintain your professional indemnity insurance, you would have been protected and the insurer would have stepped in to pay the costs for you.
Retroactive Date Example #2:
You run a construction company. In 2018, you finish a big project for a client. In 2022, this client discovers structural issues with the building. With the help of a building inspector, they determine it was your employees’ shoddy work that caused these structural instabilities. Your client sues you for negligence. You have held uninterrupted liability cover from 2018 to 2022.
When you file a claim with the insurer, you’ll be covered. Because you’ve held continuous liability cover, your retroactive date will be before the claimed incident. You won’t have to pay for legal costs out of your own pocket.
What are the different types of retroactive dates?
There are 2 main types of retroactive dates that you can request when purchasing professional indemnity insurance.
Type 1: Unlimited Retroactive Date
If your policy states that you have an unlimited retroactive date, it means that you will be covered for all work you’ve performed, regardless of how long it was done. You must still maintain active professional indemnity insurance to enjoy protection, but the insurer will not impose a time limit on the work that was done, even if it was a long time ago (e.g. 10 years ago).
Professional indemnity insurance policies with an unlimited retroactive date will cost more than policies with a specific retroactive date.
Type 2: Specific Retroactive Date (e.g. 1 January 2022)
If your policy contains a specific retroactive date, this means that liability for any work you performed before that date (e.g. 1 January 2022) will not be covered.
Specific retroactive dates are more commonly seen than unlimited retroactive dates.
How do retroactive dates work if I switch insurers?
Some insurers will provide you retroactive coverage even if you’re switching from another insurer, as long as you’ve held continuous coverage. However, other insurers will require that you’ve held continuous coverage with them only. This is completely dependent on the insurer you choose. If you’re shopping for a new professional indemnity policy, and you’re unsure which of these terms will apply, make sure to speak with an insurance broker – they’ll be the best person to assist you.
Send us an email at [email protected], or call us at +6588747011, if you are looking to switch Professional Indemnity insurers, and need advice on transferring your retroactive date.
How should I protect myself from liability for past work?
Easy: ensure your professional indemnity insurance is active at all times. Don’t let your cover lapse. Make sure you renew your policy. Although you might see it as an unnecessary expense, the amount you’ll pay for renewing your policy each year is much smaller compared to what you’d pay to defend a lawsuit. Many legal claims aren’t filed immediately against businesses – clients often don’t discover the negligence right there and then in the middle of busy projects. In fact, many claims against your business will happen several months, or even years, after the alleged negligent act occurred.
Always remember: Because retroactive dates function as a coverage cut-off point, dropping liability coverage for even one single day could cause you to lose all lawsuit protections if you get sued in the future. Without prior coverage for past work, you’ll be left completely exposed when your client’s lawyers come knocking at your door. You think you might be able to save a few thousand dollars, but you could very well instead be left with a legal bill for hundreds of thousands (or even millions of dollars). Professional liability is serious, and if you’re not careful could permanently damage the business you’ve worked so hard to build. Maintaining continuous coverage is something business owners must take very seriously!
How long should I keep professional indemnity insurance active if my business is no longer around?
It really depends on what kind of business you used to run.
Businesses that are exposed to large amounts of potential liability, like construction-related businesses, may need to keep professional indemnity insurance active for many years (e.g. 5 years or more) even after they stop operating their company. This is because structural defects that can result in lawsuits commonly occur only years after the project is completed. An architect or construction contractor could complete a project successfully, but get sued only 5 years later when defects in the building start showing up.
In general, a rough rule-of-thumb would be to keep your professional indemnity insurance active for at least 3 years after you’re no longer running your business. A minimum of 3 years strikes a balance between maintaining protection and maintaining a reasonable amount of insurance expenditure. If you understand the severity of legal costs enough to purchase professional indemnity insurance in the first place, then ensuring you renew your policy even after your business closes should be a natural thing to do. The last thing you want is to close your business, retire into the sunset (or start another business), and then find legal papers being served onto you without having any insurance protection!
Where can I get great professional indemnity insurance?
You can buy Professional Indemnity Insurance on our website, within 3 minutes. Simply fill in the details below, and you can get your policy in a few clicks.
What’s the difference between Public Liability and Professional Indemnity?
Public liability is used to protect businesses from third-party lawsuits due to injury or property damage caused by your business operations. Professional Indemnity is used to protect businesses from client lawsuits due to services they’ve provided.
Public Liability vs Professional indemnity Coverage
Coverage
Public Liability Insurance
Professional Indemnity Insurance
Physical injury or property damage to third-parties (e.g. customers, members of the public)
Yes
No
Professional errors & omissions
No
Yes
Defamation
No
Yes
Here are real-world public liability vs professional indemnity claims examples, which will illustrate the differences in more detail:
Example Company
Public liability
Professional indemnity
Construction firm
You’re constructing a building, and accidentally damage surrounding properties.
You’re liable to the property owners for the damage you caused them due to your business operations.
You’re constructing a building, and your workers do a shoddy job causing structural instability.
You’re liable to your client for financial losses you caused them due to your negligence/errors/omissions.
Doctor’s clinic
A patient slips and falls in your clinic, injuring themselves.
You’re liable to the patient for their injury, since it was caused by your business operations.
Your medical advice worsens the patient’s condition.
You’re liable to the patient for causing them bodily harm due to your negligence/errors/omissions.
Financial services firm
You post some advertising signboards in public. One of your signboard falls on a pedestrian,injuringthem.
You’re liable to the pedestrian for their injury, since it was caused by your business operations.
You trash a competitor with exaggerated claims about how bad their business is.
You’re liable to the competitor for defamation.
In each of the above scenarios, this is how each type of insurance would respond to protect your business against legal liability:
PublicLiability Insurance: This policy would protect you from the legal fees and damages awarded to your injured client. Some public liability policies will also have Food & Beverage extensions, which will cover food poisoning caused by your business.
Professional Indemnity Insurance: This policy would protect you from the legal fees and damages awarded to your client.
Common misconceptions about public liability vs professional indemnity:
#1. Public liability covers liability to the entire “public” body right? So shouldn’t it cover me if I make mistakes while providing a service to clients?
Nope. Public liability is designed to protect you when your business accidentally causes injury or damage when conducting business activities in public, or that involve congregations of people. It’s not designed to protect you if you make a negligent mistake while providing your services. In fact, public liability policies will often come with clauses that will expressly exclude coverage for any protection offered by a professional indemnity policy.
#2. Public liability should cover me if my business makes defamatory statements, right?.
That’s another nope. Public liability will not protect you if you make defamatory statements about someone else, like a competitor. Defamation encompasses slander (which is spoken), and libel (which is written). Only professional indemnity would cover you if you had committed such an act.
Do businesses need both public liability and professional indemnity insurance?
If your business involves providing any kind of services to clients, then yes – you need both insurance types. As you’ve seen in the above examples, public liability and professional indemnity protect you from very different – and very real – risks. If you only have one or the other, then you’re really exposing yourself to 50% more risk. If you have one of these policies, make sure to get the other so that you’ll be fully protected against lawsuits.
If your business sells only goods instead of services, then instead of professional indemnity, you’ll need a product liability policy. Product liability insurance will protect you from lawsuits targeting your business because of injuries or damage caused by goods you sold. Depending on what kind of goods you sell, the potential liabilities on your business may be huge. For instance, if you sell car parts to auto workshops that later turn out to be defective, you could cause fatal car accidents. You’d be legally liable for someone’s death in that scenario.
How much does it cost to have both public liability and professional indemnity insurance?
Public liability insurance is very affordable, with a large amount of $1,000,000 coverage starting at only $16/month (depending on the industry). That’s the price of a single meal in a restaurant!
Professional indemnity insurance will have higher premiums, and due to its highly tailored nature, quotes can only be produced with more precise information about the business seeking coverage. Get in touch with us for a quote on professional indemnity coverage for your company.
Remember that with Provide, you save up to 25% on your insurance premiums. Thanks to our digital operating model, our overheads are much lower, and we pass every dollar saved back to our clients.
Sometimes business owners might brush off the need for commercial insurance, viewing it as an unnecessary expense for a risk that will never materialise. We would urge extreme caution in this regard – legal liability is one of the most serious risks any business can face, particularly for small businesses that have limited resources to handle sudden, large expenses.
What are the typical coverage amounts businesses should have
What other types of liability insurance do businesses need?
In addition to public liability and professional indemnity, businesses should also have:
Directors & Officers (D&O) Liability Insurance: This type of insurance protects company directors & officers from personal legal liability. Most company directors are blissfully unaware that their position exposes them to a stunningly wide variety of legal liabilities. Get an instant D&O insurance quote here.
WICA Insurance (Work Injury Compensation): This type of insurance protects the business from liability when workers get injured on the job. Under the 2012 WICA Act, your workers can file a WICA claim against you if they get hurt or sick due to work-related causes. You’ll have to pay their medical fees and damages if the WICA claim is approved by the courts. MOM (Ministry of Manpower) regulations also stipulate mandatory WICA insurance for employees earning less than $1,600/month, or employees performing manual labour. Get an instant WICA insurance quote here.
Where can I get great public liability and professional indemnity insurance quotes?
Get broad-coverage and affordable quotes for public liability here, and professional indemnity here. With Provide, you save up to 25% on your insurance premiums. Our digital operating model creates lower overheads, and we pass every dollar saved back to you.
Xero Review 2020: Online Accounting for Small Business
Pros
Cons
Rich accounting features
User interface could be more intuitive
UI fairly intuitive
Customer support takes longer than needed to respond, needs improvement
Can generate 80+ different accounting reports
Mobile app functionality is poor
Inventory tracking
Fixed asset management
Customisable invoices
Extensive third-party integrations to extend functionality even more
Xero is overall a great software package for online business accounting. Xero serves more than 1 million businesses globally, and its easy-to-use interface and advanced features make it loved by many small-medium enterprises (SMEs). Xero boasts great functionality: extensive reports, customisable invoices, inventory tracking, and 800+ integrations. It also has unique features like allowing you to manage fixed assets, which other competitors don’t.
Xero is really ideal for small-medium businesses that need strong accounting features, put together in a well-designed package that really helps save time on accounting.
Xero Add-Ons
Payments
You can accept online payments with Xero Payments, which are powered by Stripe. Transaction fees are 3.4% + SGD 0.50 for online payments.
Payroll
Xero comes with a helpful Payroll add-on. You can schedule automatic wage payments (weekly, bi-monthly, monthly, etc.). You can pay employees specific amounts for the type and amount of work they do (e.g. software engineers who did both coding and graphic design for a project). You can also easily reimburse employees for work expenses.
New Additions
In the latest global update in September 2019, Xero added several new features on top of its already impressive function-rich base.
HubDoc Permissions
Xero acquired HubDoc in 2018, which allows users automate manual tasks like data entry and document collection. HubDoc scans documents like your receipts and bills, automatically extracts information, and uploads it as transaction data.
Previously, if you granted employees permission to HubDoc, they were able to see all uploaded documents without the possibility of individual restrictions. Xero’s latest update allows you to set specific permissions for each user: upload only, standard, or accountant/bookkeeper.
Stripe Live Feed and Auto Pay
You’re now able to view your Stripe transactions in real-time via Xero. This allows for easy reconciliation and simple importing of transactions. You can do this even if you don’t use Stripe as a payment service within Xero’s platform.
You can also receive automatic repeat payments from customers directly with Xero. You can set up repeat invoices for customers, and your clients can save their credit card details to make automatic payments to you.
Zendesk API
If you use Zendesk to manage your support functions, you now have a really useful integration. Your support team can now input the time they’ve spent on their support tickets directly into Xero’s time tracker. Logged hours can be instantly invoiced and reported, so there won’t be double entries caused by your support team manually entering hours in their own schedules.
Xero’ Features
Dashboard
Xero’ dashboard is clean and well-designed. It gives you a quick overview of your total cash balance, invoices, owed bills, and bank balances (if you’ve connected your bank accounts). You can move these accounts around, which is nice if you want to prioritise certain information. Xero’s dashboard gets the job done by giving you the most important information about your business every time you log on.
All the most important information about your business in one place
Chart of Accounts
Xero will create a chart of accounts template for you based on your industry. You can also import another chart of accounts into Xero. The layout is clean and it’s easy to filter through the list to find specific transactions.
General Ledger
Xero’s general ledger is well laid out. Transactions are sorted by account (e.g. advertising, utilities, etc.), so it’s easy to see the overall status of major parts of your business. The general ledger shows you debits, credits, net movement, and the YTD balance. All this is helpful in quickly understanding how each account is performing, and if major inflows/outflows are occurring you can easily spot them.
Business Performance
Xero’s Business Performance dashboard gives you a comprehensive look at a wide variety of performance metrics. You can see total revenue, expenses, your top 5 customers, cash balance, payables, overdue bills, and much more. You can view many common financial metrics that gauge liquidity, efficiency, leverage, and profitability. These include Account Receivable (AR) days, Account Payable (AP) days, Inventory Turnover, Current Ratio, Debt to Equity Ratio, etc. All these metrics are presented in graph form over time, so you can easily track how your business is improving (or declining). Having a business intelligence tool like this in your accounting software is certainly helpful.
Monitor key financial metrics within QuickBooks
Invoices
Xero only has 1 default invoice template, which is lacking compared to competitors that offer many different options. You can create your own custom templates though. Invoices are highly customizable: you can change the logo, font, colour, background, header, footer, and many other elements. Xero’s feature-rich strengths come into play here – you can set up recurring invoices to save time on billing, schedule automatic invoice reminders, send invoices in bulk, and set default payment settings for customers. You’re able to see when your customers have viewed your invoices. There’s even a live preview for invoices so you can see exactly what you’re sending.
Xero has a unique service called “Xero to Xero”, where you can easily send invoices to other companies that also use Xero. Do note that Xero to Xero invoices can’t be sent if your invoice has tax adjustments or credit notes. Xero only supports English for invoicing.
Create clean, professional invoices to send to your clients
Contact Management
Xero’s client management system is one of the most comprehensive in the game. On top of basic information like contact details, you can add discounts, and sales tax rates. You can even tag attachments to each contact (like legal documents, images, etc.) You can group different customers into “smart lists”. This allows you to target each group with different marketing offers. You can also send invoices to entire groups with a single click.
Payroll
Xero’s payroll add-onXero comes with payroll functions included, which is a nice touch. Most competitors charge extra for this function. You can schedule automatic wage payments (weekly, bi-monthly, monthly, etc.). You can pay employees specific amounts for the type and amount of work they do (e.g. software engineers who did both coding and graphic design for a project). You can also easily reimburse employees for work expenses.
You can also subscribe to Xero Payroll alone if you don’t want to use the full Xero package.
Manage your employees wages, taxes, leave schedules, and logged work hours
Client Portal
Xero offers your clients a clean-looking portal where they can view invoices. Your clients can pay you directly on the portal, and can also send you comments if they have queries or issues with your invoice.
Your customers can pay you directly via Xero’s client portal
Estimates
You can easily send professional estimates to your clients, which can then be converted into quotes when your client accepts.
Purchase Orders
You can create purchase orders. If your supplier ships your goods to you piecemeal, you can record how much inventory you’ve already received. You can convert purchase orders into bills.
Expenses
You can connect Xero to your bank accounts to enable “live” importing of transactions. When you connect your bank account to Xero, the software will automatically import your last 90 days of transactions.
Categorising expenses is easy with over 80 default categories to choose from. You can also create your own custom expense categories. Xero has a useful receipt capture function that allows you up to upload receipt images, with Xero automatically extracting key information like transaction amount and date from the receipt. You can then tag receipts to specific expense payments.
You can also create bank rules to automatically categorise your transactions. Xero uses machine learning tools to learn your categorisation patterns – the more use Xero, the better it gets at sorting your transactions for you. This is a big time saver.
Accounts Payable
Xero has an informative “Purchases Overview” dashboard that shows you all you need to know about your bills. You can view upcoming bills. There’s a well-designed dashboard that shows you all your vendors, your total purchase value, and your overdue, outstanding, and paid bills.
Inventory
Xero helps you track your inventory and displays basic information about your stocks. You can add inventory items with basic information like unit prices, descriptions, images, and notes. If you use Xero’s inventory tracker, you’ll be able to view helpful information like total stock value, average cost, number of items that you’ve committed in quotes, and number of items that you’ve ordered.
However, Xero doesn’t allow you to track negative inventory, so if you record the sale of goods before you’ve recorded their purchase you won’t be able to use this function. You can’t track components that make up final goods (annoying for manufacturers), and you also can’t track goods if you use periodic inventory methods (e.g. you only update at months’ end). Unfortunately, unlike with QuickBooks, you can’t set automatic re-ordering alerts when stocks are running low. If you need these functionalities, you’ll have to explore Xero’s app marketplace for third-party integrations.
Track inventory, and view important information about your supplies
Fixed Asset Management
Xero comes with this unique feature, which allows you to manage fixed assets. You can create different depreciation schedules: straight-line, declining balance, double declining, etc. You can also roll back depreciation. You can set up default disposal accounts when you need to get rid of your assets.
Manage fixed assets
Packing Slips
Xero doesn’t come with a packing slip function built in. You’ll have to download the Packing Slip template from Xero’s website. It would be easier if the platform came with this function as a default.
Project Tracking
Xero has all the industry-standard project features: managing team members, tracking individual hours allocated, and assigning invoices and other bills to projects. A nice added feature Xero has is project profitability tracking. This helps you prioritise the highest earning projects, and also enables you to quickly address margin issues that may occur with particular projects.
In terms of control over project costing, Xero allows you to set hourly cost rates for each staff member you assign to projects. You can also load your employee’s work hours into Xero Payroll to quickly calculate the wages you owe them which is a good time-saver.
Monitor all your projects conveniently
Time Tracking
Xero automatically reports time and costs into your invoices and accounting records. You can convert timesheets into invoices for easy billing. Like other time-trackers, there are automatic functions (start/stop button) and manual timesheet entries.
Budgets
You can create up budgets for various time horizons: 3 months all the way up to 2 years. You can compare these budgets with actual business performance to see how much you’ve beaten (or missed) targets by.
Outsourced Bookkeeping: Xero doesn’t have a “live” bookkeeping function like QuickBooks, but it does have an advisor directory where you can find a local accountant near you. You can then engage this accountant, and Xero allows you to give your accountant read-only access to your account so they can effectively manage your books.
Mobile Apps
Users often comment that Xero’s mobile app functionality is lacking compared to its desktop version.
Xero Customer Support
Xero’s after-sales support is where it really falls short, which is a pity given how robust the actual software package is. Customers have left numerous reviews citing poor support – long wait times for a response being the chief culprit. If Xero could invest more into supporting their customers, then the platform could really push past all its competitors.
Phone: Xero does not offer phone support. If you need to speak to someone urgently, you’re out of luck.
Email: Users have often reported having to wait for a day to get a response from Xero’s support team. Xero has a helpful function that allows you to give Xero support staff read-only access to your account, which helps them directly diagnose and solve whatever issues you might be facing.
Message: Xero has a live chat function, but it’s not located on the accounting platform – you have to go back to xero.com to access it. Users report the support representatives usually answered their queries well enough, but it’s puzzling why Xero doesn’t just include their live chat function within their accounting platform.
Documentation: Like its main competitors, Xero has an extensive base of online documentation. There are in-depth guides to all of Xero’s functions. There’s a community forum where users post questions and other users and Xero representatives will answer them, so you’ll probably be able to find an answer to whatever queries you have here.
There’s an FAQ, blog, and Q&A forum that helps users understand all of Xero’ functions, from the simple to the complex. There’s also a live “AI” chat that can answer basic questions like “how much sales did I generate last year” or “which payments are overdue”.
Videos: Xero has hundreds of video tutorials (called XeroTV) to help you navigate the platform.
Podcasts: Xero also has podcasts that feature business advice, like how to retain staff or how to build software businesses. I’m not sure if anyone really listens to these clips, but if you really want business-related audio playing while you’re on your morning drive, I suppose you could play this on your speakers.
Ultimate Verdict
Xero is a great online accounting software for small-medium businesses, especially for beginners just starting to use an accounting platform. Its features and UI are designed to let newcomers hit the ground running, so you won’t have to spend much time at all learning how to use the platform’s key functions. It’s a great choice for businesses that don’t need complex accounting features, but still want more functionality than more basic alternatives, like FreshBooks. Xero’s highest-tier plan also supports unlimited users, which is great for businesses that have lots of staff and are growing rapidly.
Xero’s customer support could certainly do with a good dose of improvement, and is really a pity given the polished quality of its product. This, and its lacklustre mobile offering mean that Xero still has a ways to go before it can claim to be the undisputed no.1 provider of online business accounting services.
In the grand scheme though, these drawbacks are not huge, and Xero’s many strengths certainly outweigh its few weaknesses. For any small-medium business that demands advanced accounting capabilities, strong reporting, a good user experience, and lots of users, Xero stands as a fantastic choice.
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QuickBooks Review 2020: Online Accounting for Small Business
QuickBooks is one of the most – if not the most – well-known names for online business accounting. QuickBooks serves more than 2 million businesses globally, and its rich features make it a favourite of small businesses all the way to large companies. QuickBooks has great functionality: extensive reports, customisable invoices, inventory tracking, and extensive integrations. It also has unique features like SME financing via QuickBooks Capital (only for businesses in USA/Canada), and QuickBooks Live Bookkeeping, which allows you to get an accountant to help with your accounting tasks.
QuickBooks is really ideal for small-medium businesses that need strong features, in a simple-to-use package that really helps save time on accounting. It helps that QuickBooks’ highest tier plan allows up to 26 users, which allows businesses with more workers to effectively track their projects and transactions together.
QuickBooks Add-Ons
Payments: You can accept online payments with QuickBooks Payments. Transaction fees are 3.4% + USD 0.25 for online payments.
Payroll: You can add on payroll functionality, with a choice from 3 different plans: Core, Premium, and Elite. These plans range from USD 45 to USD 125/month, with an additional cost between USD4-10/employee.
Live Bookkeeping: You can outsource your accounting work to a QuickBooks accountant with this function. Fees range from USD 300 to 600 per month depending on the workload. This is one of QuickBooks’ most useful functions, and can really help you save time and ensure you have clean, accurate records.
New Additions
In their latest update in October 2019, QuickBooks added several new features on top of its already impressive function-rich base.
Instant Deposits
You can now receive instant deposits from clients via QuickBooks Payments. Clients can pay directly through the invoices you send them. This helps you pay your employees, suppliers, and other expenses much quicker. Payments are automatically matched to invoices, so that reconciliation is conveniently done for you.
Get paid invoices instantly deposited into your bank account. No more waiting!
Mobile App Re-Design
The mobile app now has a more attractive, easy to use design that uses large icons instead of long text lists. These icons help you navigate to the most used functions like invoices, transactions, customers, and sales receipts. It’s a lot easier and quicker to access these critical accounting records now with the app update. QuickBooks has been learning from its competitors about good UX, and it’s showing in the designs of their products.
Easily access the most used functions at the touch of a button
Batch Entry
QuickBooks allows you to make edits to multiple line items at once. For instance, if you have to write many cheques at the same time, you’ve probably gotten frustrated with having to repeatedly write similar things again and again. With QuickBooks batch entry, you can now duplicate cheque line items for multiple categories, as well as create one cheque and then duplicate it across multiple vendors. You can make batch entries/edits for other things like GST too – a single click allows you to set GST rates for all Chart of Accounts items that you select, which is a big time saver.
Exporting
You can now export QuickBooks reports to Google Sheets.
QuickBooks’ Features
Dashboard
QuickBooks’ dashboard gives you a quick overview of your expenses, invoices, profit & loss, sales, and bank balances (if you’ve connected your bank accounts). A navigational menu on the left lets you access important features like invoices, expenses, workers. Instead of manually going through your transactions, there’s a search function to help you bring up what exactly what you’re looking for. There’s a “see all activity” button which brings up a full audit record if you need to do a deep-dive into your transaction history. Overall, it’s a well-designed dashboard that gives you all the high-level, critical information you need to assess your business’ financial health.
View all major financial accounts at a glance
Chart of Accounts
Prior to 2018, there wasn’t a search function for the Chart of Accounts, which was a real bummer if you were trying to find a specific transaction. Even though this is one of the most critical accounts, you had to scroll up and down to find an account. There’s a search function now though, which makes pulling up information a lot easier.
General Ledger
QuickBooks’ general ledger is well-designed, and allows you to easily view all your transactions in a single glance. You can view starting balances, ending balances, and all transactions sorted by account. This report allows you to quickly spot incorrect ending balances, and how much has been posted to revenue accounts and drawn from expense accounts. If you find an incorrect or suspicious transaction, you can click on it to view transaction details. Both cash and accrual methods are supported.
Sales
QuickBooks Sales menu gives you a quick overview of how much revenue you’re generating over time, and you can set the time period from weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annually. You can see how many invoices are paid versus unpaid. You can also view all your customers’ payment statuses. If you use QuickBooks Payments or link QuickBooks to your bank account, you can also handily view all your deposits here as well. No more tabbing to-and-fro from your bank account to your accounting platform. The sales menu also lets easily send a new invoice or set up a recurring invoice.
Easily see revenue, cost, profit and more
Invoices
QuickBooks has 6 different invoice templates. Invoices are highly customizable, You can change the logo, font, colour, background, header, footer, and many other elements. QuickBooks has a recurring invoice feature that isn’t common amongst competitors, allowing you to set up recurring invoices so that you can bill clients at a particular time repeatedly. You can set up automatic email reminders when customer invoice due dates are approaching. You can also set up late payment reminders to alert customers once their invoices are overdue.
QuickBooks also features invoice tracking, so you can see when your customers have viewed your invoices. 6 languages are supported for invoices: English, Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Italian. The first two should be especially helpful to businesses in Singapore.
Easily edit and send invoices to clients
Contact Management
QuickBooks has a comprehensive client management system. Beyond the normal stuff like contact information, you can save preferred payment methods, default payment terms, tax codes, opening balances. You can even tag attachments to each contact (like legal documents, images, etc.) You can also customise the category of “customers” to different names like patients, members, tenants, etc. which makes it helpful for businesses across multiple industries.
Client Portal
Your clients have a portal that they can login to for viewing invoices (unfortunately the portal doesn’t support estimates you’ve sent them). Your clients can send you payments through the portal and ask you questions about the invoices.
QuickBooks’ client portal lets customers easily pay you from the invoices you send them
Estimates
You can easily send estimates to your clients. However, unlike FreshBooks, you can’t send detailed proposals. Estimates can be converted into invoices.
Purchase Orders
You can create purchase orders, and specify which orders will be recurring so you don’t have to keep entering them. You can convert purchase orders into bills.
Sales Receipts
Unlike invoices, which can only be closed when customers make payment, QuickBooks allows you to create sales receipts. This lets you record sales for which payment has already been received. This is helpful for industries where on-the-spot payment is the norm, e.g. food & beverage, retail, and clinics.
Watch the short clip below to see QuickBooks automatically extract receipt information:
Expenses
You can connect QuickBooks to your bank accounts to enable “live” importing of transactions. When you connect your bank account to QuickBooks, the software will automatically import your last 90 days of transactions.
Categorising expenses is easy with over 80 default categories to choose from. You can also create your own custom expense categories. QuickBooks has a useful receipt capture function that allows you up to upload receipt images, with QuickBooks automatically extracting key information like transaction amount and date from the receipt. You can then tag receipts to specific expense payments.
You can also create bank rules to automatically categorise your transactions. QuickBooks uses machine learning tools to learn your categorisation patterns – the more use QuickBooks, the better it gets at sorting your transactions for you.
Accounts Payable
You can create AP accounts, and can set up recurring payables so you don’t have to keep entering the same expenses repeatedly. There’s a well-designed dashboard that shows you all your vendors, your total purchase value, and your overdue, outstanding, and paid bills. This is a really helpful function to help you manage your payables.
Manage payables across all your vendors
Inventory
QuickBooks has a nice inventory tracking system that simplifies product handling for businesses. You can add inventory items with SKU numbers, sale prices, purchase prices, product images, and product descriptions. You can also set automatic re-ordering alerts when stocks are running low. You can create bundles, which are a collection of different inventory items that you sell together (e.g. a fruit basket, a set of clothes). This saves you from having to select each inventory item individually when you make a sale.
Track inventory and automatically reorder stocks
Packing Slips
You can create packing slips within QuickBooks, which is easier than other competitors that require third-party integrations to do this.
Project Tracking
You can create projects, add team members, add hours worked to projects, and assign expenses. One unique feature QuickBooks has is it allows you to immediately see the direct profitability of projects (e.g. 50% profit) by comparing sales value with assigned expenses. This helps you prioritise projects better, and also gives you a quick view into any margin issues that may arise with particular jobs. With each project, you can assign job costing via labour, materials, overhead, and more. Projects will track the number of hours worked by each contributor.
Track project progress, profitability, assign billable/non-billable hours, and send invoices
Time Tracking
QuickBooks allows you to track your time. Assign your time to projects, describe the work. You can choose customers to assign billable hours. This provides a transparent breakdown of what services were provided, and how many hours were put into them, which helps reduce payment disputes over completed work. You can use automatic time trackers (just press start/stop), or enter hours worked manually.
There’s even a GPS tracking function so you can keep tabs on your employees when they’re out on the road meeting clients. Users can also attach photos as evidence of completed work, or to update co-workers on the status of the job. The time-tracker function also allows you to set up schedules so you can ensure your workers meet deadlines, and you can set automatic reminders so no one forgets that important client meeting!
Track and analyse hours logged for each employee
Track employee locations to ensure they’re on the job
Budgets
You can create up to 5 budgets to plan for future revenues and expenses. You can compare these budgets with actual business performance to see how much you’ve beaten (or missed) targets by.
QuickBooks Customer Support
Phone: Monday to Friday, 6AM to 6PM; Saturday 6AM to 3PM. Many online reviews cite long wait times on the phone, so don’t have high expectations for quick customer service unlike with FreshBooks.
Message: QuickBooks has a live chat function. However, users also often report having to wait long periods of time to get a response.
Documentation: Online documentation is extensive, with lots of written guides to walk you through the platform. The documentation doesn’t have pictures, so it’s less intuitive than FreshBooks’, but it gets the job done.
There’s an FAQ, blog, and Q&A forum that helps users understand all of QuickBooks’ functions, from the simple to the complex. There’s also a live “AI” chat that can answer basic questions like “how much sales did I generate last year” or “which payments are overdue”.
Videos: QuickBooks has a series of video tutorials to help you navigate the platform.
Ultimate Verdict
QuickBooks is a great online accounting software for small-medium businesses. Its broad range of features and advanced accounting functions makes it an excellent choice for small businesses to medium enterprises. Its 600+ integrations (and counting) means you can enhance this functionality even more broadly, with great support for key functions like payroll and taxes.
Customer support does have a long way to go, but as far as the robustness of the software, QuickBooks is hard to beat. Previously, another issue that users had with QuickBooks was its limited number of users – that’s now been fixed, with the highest tier plan supporting 26 users (25 regular seats + 1 accountant seat).
QuickBooks Online is our editor’s choice for online small-medium business accounting. If you need a web-based accounting platform that has great features, saves you time, and is easy to use, we’d highly recommend you give QuickBooks a try.
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FreshBooks Review: Online Accounting for Small Business
FreshBooks has become known as the web-based accounting choice for freelancers, sole proprietorships, and small startups. Its popularity has also attracted a rapidly growing base of small-medium enterprises (SMEs). FreshBooks is the best choice for sole proprietors, freelancers, and small businesses with <$1 million in annual revenue. FreshBooks boasts an incredibly intuitive interface and its intelligent host of features that easily meets the needs of the smallest businesses.
Here’s a summary of the different plans FreshBook offers:
FreshBooks Pricing Overview
Plan
Number of Billable Customers
Price
Lite
5
USD 7.50/month
Plus
50
USD 12.50/month
Premium
500
USD 25.00/month
Select
>500
Custom Pricing
FreshBook’s software is clearly priced to move. You enjoy a 10% discount if you sign up for an annual subscription, and you can enjoy a 30-day free trial at any tier, too. FreshBooks costs more than free accounting alternatives like Wave, buts its sheer ease of use and rich-functions make it worthwhile for business owners.
FreshBooks’ UI: Intuitive and Simple
Setting up FreshBooks is easy. It’s a quick 3-step process: you enter details about your business, select your invoice style (logo, background colour, fonts), and then you’ll send a test invoice to make sure everything’s working.
After set-up, you’ll see your Dashboard. This gives you an overview of your company’s finances. In Dashboard, you’ll see 5 items:
Outstanding Revenue: Which customers owe you payments
Total Profit: Real-time P&L
Spending: Total expenses, with breakdown by type of expenditure
Revenue Streams: Total revenue, with breakdown by type of revenue
Unbilled Time: Useful if you need to rebill a client or if you categorised a time entry incorrectly
FreshBooks Dashboard: Your Accounting Home Page
FreshBooks user interface features training videos so you can make full use of the platform, and access to customer support so you can quickly troubleshoot issues. The UI allows you to easily invite team members (like an accountant) so you can collaborate on projects together. You can set various permission levels so you don’t have to worry about unwanted changes being made by people who shouldn’t be making changes.
FreshBooks also has excellent importing functionality. You can provide your username and password for financial institutions like banks. You can then import all your transaction records from those accounts automatically. One of the most common pros that FreshBooks users cite is its sheer ease of use. All the different functions are clearly labelled, you don’t have to go through multiple menus to find what you need, and you certainly don’t need to be an accountant to understand hwo to use the sfotware. All these are great points for people running a business on the side, or small businesses owners who don’t have complex accounting needs and want to save time on accounting.
Compared to other tools like QuickBooks or Xero, FreshBooks has the the most simple and easy-to-use UI.
Adding double-entry accounting capabilities provides business owners with well-structured accounting records, and helps improve visibility into the financial performance of the company.
Chart of Accounts
The Chart of Accounts provides a quick overview of all the company’s major accounts:
Assets
Liabilities
Equity
Revenue
Expenses
See all important assets, liabilities, and more in one look
See all important assets, liabilities, and more in one look
Being able to view the status of all these major accounts in one quick glance helps business owners stay constantly updated on the financial health of the company.
General Ledger
This is a complete record of all your financial transactions so that you can prepare your financial statements. With it, you can thoroughly understand how each account has performed, and where they stand currently.
These accounts include:
Assets
Liabilities
Revenues
Expenses
Gains and Losses
Trial Balances
As part of its double-entry accounting update, FreshBooks allows you to create trial balances to ensure that all your accounts are properly balanced. You can use this to easily check if all your debits and credits are properly matched.
Creating Invoices
FreshBooks allows you to easily create professional-looking invoices easily. The software has templates with designs customised for multiple industries like construction, web design, attorneys, and more. (URL) You can see invoice amounts that are overdue, unpaid, and currently being drafted. see dollar totals for invoices that are overdue, outstanding, and in the draft stage. Templates are also available in Word, Excel, PDF, Google Docs, and Google Sheets.
FreshBooks’ invoice function has additional features that are unique to it: the ability to request a deposit, and setup a payment schedule.
Create professional-looking invoices like this with a simple click
Besides invoices, FreshBooks features two more types of transactions: estimates and proposals. Both of these can be converted into invoices, which is very helpful.
Estimates: Send estimated prices to your clients easily. You can duplicate estimates and view their statuses (sent, viewed, accepted, declined).
Proposals: This is one of FreshBooks’ coolest features that distinguish it from other competitors. You can create detailed client proposals that are many pages long, complete with text, graphics, images, and attachments. Proposals come with default sections that help you clearly outline what you’re offering: Scope of Work, Timeline, Pricing, Notes, and Terms. FreshBooks supports electronic signatures, so your clients can sign your proposals. There aren’t any other accounting platforms on the market that offer such detailed transaction features.
Send detailed, customisable proposals to win your clients over
Retainers
Another useful feature is the ability to create retainers. With this function, you and your clients can set up budgets and work-hours to be performed. All the hours that you log via the “time-tracker” tool is automatically debited from the client’s available time balance, and invoices are even automatically generated which makes billing very easy. If you log more hours than the client has agreed to pay you for, those extra hours are automatically categorised as excess work-hours, which you can then send the client an invoice for.
This is helpful for handling continuous businesses transactions with clients, and takes the repetition out of creating invoice after invoice to the same customer.
Payments and Sales Taxes
FreshBooks allows you to accept payments from your customers. For US and Canada customers, this is powered by either WePay or Stripe, and for international customers, payments are processed by Stripe. If your business is in Singapore, domestic transaction fees are 3.4% + SGD 0.50 for every payment. International transaction fees are an additional 1%.
FreshBooks allows users to add sales taxes directly to your invoices. So if you need to add GST charges to any invoices, you don’t need to go hunting around in another panel. Unfortunately, handling sales taxes aren’t the most convenient with FreshBooks, because you do have to add sales taxes manually to each invoice that you create. FreshBooks can save the sales taxes you key in (e.g. 7% GST, 20% VAT, etc.), but you’ll still need to select them each time you want to apply the tax.
Add taxes to any invoice line item directly
Specify in detail what kind of tax you’re paying
FreshBooks has a Sales Tax Summary function that will generate sales tax reports. Business owners will find this helpful to consolidate all necessary information to file their annual tax forms.
Project Tracking
FreshBooks allows you to create projects, which are a useful way to collaborate with clients, employees, and external contractors in a single place. Project management features here tend to be more extensive than its competitors.
There are a variety of useful functions that projects feature:
Assign employees, clients, and contractors (you can set individual access restrictions for each member)
Specify budgets for projects
Set project type:
Hourly rate project (allows you to set a single hourly rate, or rates by team member/service provided)
Fixed rate project
FreshBooks’ hourly rate function is particularly useful as it allows you to customise rates by employee. So if you run a construction company, and you charge clients different rates for say, your engineers vs architects, you can make this clear in your projects. This not only helps you track your own revenues, but also provides transparency and accountability to your clients, which reduces the chances of billing disputes.
When managing a project, you can specify the services that will be provided to your client. You can create a service type (e.g. graphic design, consulting, etc.), save it, and then reuse it for all future projects which eliminates the need for you to enter the same thing repeatedly. This also helps clients understand exactly what services were provided.
When you’re tracking time in a project, you can either enter the amount of time manually, or use FreshBooks’ timer function. The Time Tracker tool will show you all the hours worked by each contributor, giving you a clear view of how much each person has worked. You can convert a project or time entries to an invoice.
Track project progress, assign project contributors, monitor employee productivity, and total billable hours
Time Tracking
FreshBooks allows you track the time spent on tasks by your team members. Time tracking can be done automatically (start/stop buttons), or can be keyed in manually. This helps you easily bill for every hour that your team and you have worked. You can view at a glance how much time each employee is spending on particular tasks, what work has been done (or not yet done), so you can intervene if certain tasks or employees are falling behind.
Never forget how much time you spent on a task again
Contacts, Expenses, and Payables
Contact Management: FreshBooks’ clients function contains all your clients’ information: it displays their contact information (in a nice graphic of a business cards). It shows you how much outstanding revenue is linked to the client, with a breakdown of this revenue into unbilled time, unbilled expenses, and invoices. You can send invoice statements directly to your clients from this panel, and can also set automatic late payment notices and invoice reminders to be sent to them.
Expense Tracking: If you connect your bank accounts to FreshBooks, you can view recent transactions you’ve made on the “Expenses” panel. FreshBooks will automatically categorise these transactions (e.g. Office Supplies, Transport, Advertising, etc.) when it imports them from your bank account (it doesn’t always get them right). Do note that these bank connections are not “live” feeds and are only updated once a day.
If you’re entering expenses manually, you can upload receipt images (accountants sing hallelujah), specify vendor names and expense descriptions, and allocate the expense to a category (e.g. advertising, rent, etc.). FreshBooks comes with a list of 45 default expense categories, which are set up to closely mirror IRS tax categories. US users will find this the most useful, but Singaporean users will benefit from this too . In any case, you can create your own expense categories to supplement the comprehensive default list. You can also designate expenses as Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) to easily track your margins. FreshBooks easily has one of the most comprehensive expense-management functionalities compared to other providers at a similar price point.
Easily keep track of all expenses
Accounts Payable
FreshBooks doesn’t have an Accounts Payable (AP) function that allows you to key in bills that you owe. It does, however, allow you to view bills that other FreshBooks users send you. This is one area that the software falls short. If you need to manage high volumes of payables, then you should probably consider using either QuickBooks or Xero.
Currency Support
FreshBooks supports 170 currencies and 14 international languages. If you do business across multiple countries, you won’t have a problem using FreshBooks.
FreshBooks’ Mobile Apps
FreshBooks’ mobile apps are available on both Android and iOS, and are very well designed. The apps are just as easy to use and have the same features as the web-based version. In both cases, the FreshBooks app opens to a dashboard that contains three critical charts, Outstanding Revenue, Total Profit, and Total Spending. Icons at the bottom of the screen take you to the working areas of the tool, where you can view, add, and edit data contained in invoices, expenses, time tracking, estimates, and client records.
Customer Support
FreshBooks has a great customer support system to ensure that all clients are able to quickly get any issues solved. Phone calls are answered immediately. Email messages are replied to within a few hours (not days). The online documentation is expansive, so if you don’t want to bother with speaking to a representative, you can always tackle the issues yourself with large amount of self-help resources available.
Phone: Monday to Friday, 8AM to 8PM.
Email: Response time is usually within a few hours.
In-Platform Help Section: Search function for FAQs, or leave a message for the support team to get back to you on.
Documentation: Huge pool of written resources that will answer the majority of your common queries. Lots of how-to guides, articles explaining new features, and other documentation that will help both new and advanced users.
Video Tutorials: Webinars are available to help new users familiarise themselves with FreshBooks.
FreshBooks: The best choice for freelancers, sole proprietors, and (very) small businesses
New users will be wowed by FreshBooks’ outstanding design, sheer simplicity of use, and host of useful accounting functions.
FreshBooks is perfectly designed for those running a solo company, or a very small business with less than 5-7 employees. This platform allows you to capably manage your finances, helps you track projects, and automates time-consuming tasks like sending repeat invoices. It does all of this with a really attractive and intuitive user interface.
Although FreshBooks is an outstanding accounting platform solo ventures or small companies, it doesn’t feature the sort of in-depth accounting functions that larger businesses will need. For companies that need web-based accounting for small businesses, Xero or QuickBooks (our choice) are better options.
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