Home Business Information

Too often, people sit there in their muddled mess of a home office and wonder why they're not happy," says Bruce Wentworth, vice president of Wentworth-Levine Architect-Builder Inc. (www.wentworthlevine.com), a Silver Springs, Md.-based architect and general contractor that specializes in residential remodeling. "They'd be surprised at some of the solutions they can come up with," he adds.

Perhaps the most obvious solution is to find ways to do more with your home's existing space. You can convert a spare bedroom into an office or find niches that can be used to store space-eaters like files or supplies. But while remodeling is a good possibility, it's not the only one. You can outsource space-hungry tasks or turn to technology--a vast array of options stand ready to help you make the most out of the space you have.

Technology is probably the answer that presents the most flexibility. John Girard, vice president and research director with Gartner Group, a Stamford, Conn.-based research firm, cites the growing wealth of Web-based application service providers (ASPs--see related story), which offer free or fee-based services like accounting, collaboration, and calendar tools.

Home-based business owners can conduct research using Hoovers (www.hoovers.com), a business network site, examine clients or companies with Stockmaster (www.stockmaster.com), or have topical information pushed to their PC or wireless device with products like Alerts.com. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. "You can troll the Internet or the phone book for services that are freebies or value-adds to make yourself more efficient and come off as bigger than you really are," Girard says.

Another way to save space--and time--is to outsource repetitive tasks you might delegate to inside staff. Kerry Gleeson, president of the Institute for Business Technology (www.ibt-pep.com), a Boca Raton, Fla.-based organizational and effectiveness training firm, and author of The High-Tech Personal Efficiency Program ($17; Wiley & Sons), notes that it isn't easy to let go of some of those tasks. "Many people are perfectionists. They've been used to doing these things themselves," Gleeson says. "That's one set of skills, and another is getting other people to do things for you."

Bookkeeping and banking, preparing invoices, shipping products, and running errands are good outsourcing candidates. Print and ship collaterals or client projects using Kinkos.com; tap an Internet postage service like E-Stamp Corp., Stamps.com or Neopost Inc.; set a pick-up by FedEx--all save time and space. The question, says Gleeson, is whether you can bill more for the time you would spend doing the task than you would spend to have someone else do it for you. Mundane tasks are "very time-consuming, and it doesn't take a genius to do it," he says.

The solutions are there--if you take the time to search for them. Home Office Computing spoke with some home-based business owners who kept their home offices--and their sanity--by exploring a variety of alternatives. Here's what they said.

TECHNOLOGY EXPANDS HORIZONS

In the small Utah town of Highland, Art Berg runs Invictus Communications Inc., his home-based speaking business, with a little help from technology.

Actually, the business is run from Highland, Lehi, Springville, and West Jordan, Utah, as well as Budapest, Hungary--the cities where Berg's outside staff work, complementing his two inside employees. But, increasingly, his business is run from cyberspace.

Berg's office space is tight, with the two full-timers manning four Dell PCs, networked with three dedicated servers; two network printers; a scanner; a fax machine; and a copier in a 200-square-foot home office. He recently purchased a Canon Imagerunner 400 multifunction digital copier, fax and scanner so his staff can digitize documents and save space by "going more toward paperless," he says. His outside staff gain access to Berg's Windows NT server using a remote terminal server.

Not many years ago, getting proper coverage on a homebased business was challenging and expensive. But insurance companies have now responded to homebased businesses' needs with a variety of flexible products to provide appropriate, affordable coverage. You have three basic options for insurance, says Loretta L. Worters, vice president of the Insurance Information Institute.

First, you can buy an endorsement to your existing homeowners policy. Standard homeowners policies provide minimal coverage (usually about $2,500) for business equipment and include no other business coverage. An endorsement increases your business property coverage, and the cost is nominal.

Second is an in-home business policy, which provides greater comprehensive coverage for business equipment as well as liability. Worters says some in-home business policies also cover such things as important papers and records, business interruptions and the cost of operating out of temporary locations.

Third is a business owners policy (BOP), a policy de signed for small to midsize companies. Worters recommends a BOP if you operate in multiple locations or often work at your customers' sites.

A home inspection covers everything from the foundation to the roof, excluding areas that are not visible or accessible, such as crawl spaces or insulation behind walls. In addition to inspectingthe building; checking for lead paint, radon gas and termites; and evaluating the well water and septic system, the inspector may perform mold and air-quality tests. (Go to homeinspection.com/YourHome.asp for a list of checkpoints.) Here's how to assess the property:

1. DON'T JUDGE A HOUSE BY ITS CURB APPEAL AND WINDOW DRESSING A fresh coat of paint and a well-manicured lawn and shrubs can give any home the "buy me" look But it takes special expertise to figure out if the structure is solid.

2. DIG DEEPER Unless you do, you can't tell if there are plumbing, electrical or structural problems. And even if you tour the home a number of times, you may not be able to gauge the actual condition of the heating and air-conditioning equipment. You need a home inspector--that is, someone to certify the condition of your property and to warn you of items that could cost you hundreds or thousands of dollars down the road.

3. FIND A HOME INSPECTOR Get several recommendations from your agent or friends. Most states require home inspectors to be licensed, but it's important to check them out yourself. The National Association of Home Inspectors (nahi.org) and the American Society of Home Inspectors (ashi.org) can help you find an inspector who belongs to their trade associations. Before you hire anyone, contact the local Better Business Bureau and the Department of Consumer Affairs to find out whether any complaints have been registered against the inspector or the inspector's company. Ask the inspector for references and an example of the report he prepares. And "make sure the home inspector has coverage for errors-and-commissions [a special type of insurance] so that if he or she fails to discover a defect, you can seek damages for negligence," says Ulysses "Deke" Clayborn, chair of the National Bar Association's real estate and probate law section and general counsel of the Missouri Housing Development Commission.

Our Home Buyer Updates

Just a few months shy of completing their goals of purchasing their first homes, our home ownership participants need to make sure they select a house that doesn't have hidden problems. This month we asked Mark Foreman of Cornerstone Capital Mortgage & Real Estate Services, Inc., in Fairfield, Connecticut, to talk to each of them about the home inspection process.