Purchasing resources for Legal Forms

Legal Forms Business Guide: Income, Expense and Work Order Forms

Legal forms make it easier for you to handle office administration tasks, reducing the amount of time spent managing your business. Monthly income forms make it easy to track job income, investment income, income from sales commissions, and self-employment income. Expense forms streamline the process of reporting business expenses such as employee mileage reimbursement, office supplies, business equipment, payroll expenses, and other items. Work order forms summarize the work needed by customers, the amount of money spent on materials, and the number of labor hours taken to complete a job. Invoice forms provide a template for billing customers for completed work. Legal forms also make it easier to manage human resources, produce financial reports, and create correspondence.

Benefits

Professional Appearance

Sole proprietors and small business owners benefit from using legal forms to present a professional appearance to customers. Many companies allow business owners to customize their forms with a business name and logo, contact information, and Web site address. This makes the business appear more credible to current and potential customers.

Improved Efficiency

Most business owners produce several of the same reports on a regular basis. Typing these forms from scratch each time reduces efficiency and wastes time that is better spent on other activities. C. Marlin Brown, the author of Human-Computer Interface Design Guidelines, studied a group of average computer users to determine their typing speed. The slowest typists produced an average of only 23 words per minute, with an average of 19 words per minute for composing text from scratch. Using legal forms reduces the amount of typing necessary for producing reports, saving valuable time.

Better Accuracy

Typing business reports from scratch increases the risk for errors and omissions. Sean Coughlan, a BBC News correspondent, reports that spelling mistakes cost businesses millions of dollars in sales each year. Producing reports with errors decreases your credibility with customers and makes them question your attention to detail. Having standardized legal forms helps small business owners and sole proprietors avoid errors that reduce their credibility and result in lower revenues.

Reduced Expenses

Legal forms actually reduce expenses for small business owners and sole proprietors. Instead of paying someone an hourly rate or salary to produce reports, you can use templates to easily create your own reports. This reduces or completely eliminates the need to hire another employee.

Pitfalls

Technical Issues

Using legal forms for business can create several technical issues. Printing errors waste pre-printed forms and increase the amount of time it takes to produce a final report. Some companies sell their legal forms on CD, making it necessary to boot the CD, run a software program, and navigate a program menu in order to use the forms. If you have weak computer skills, you may find this process too difficult. If you do not have a printer compatible with the CD program, you may need to purchase a new printer or install special software to make the program work properly.

Legal Issues

Human resource managers have very specific requirements when it comes to documenting hiring and recruitment activities, employee training, terminations, promotions, and disciplinary actions. Managers need to review these forms carefully to ensure they comply with all state and federal requirements. Business owners who use lease and contract templates also need to use caution. Even one omission or error in a form could render a contract null and void or invalidate the terms of a lease.

Customization

Some business owners may need to customize legal forms based on their industry or business type. Some companies do not allow form customization beyond the inclusion of business contact information. If you cannot customize these forms successfully, it makes them more difficult to use.

Training

Switching from one type of report to another increases the need for employee training. If you purchase legal forms for business use, employees will need time to learn how to use the forms and print them successfully.

Pricing

Pricing for legal forms depends on the quantity ordered, the types of forms needed, the format of the forms, and several other factors. Some companies offer free forms, but these forms are often very basic and have no customization options. Downloadable forms cost less than forms on CD. This is due to the cost of producing and shipping CDs to customers. Some companies offer a discount to business owners who order multiple forms. Prices range from as little as $4.95 for a simple Web form to $29.95 and up for professional form collections. The cost of purchasing these forms is negligible when compared to the many benefits of using legal forms for business. The Worcester Polytechnic Institute says using business forms saves time and eliminates the need to manually change document settings every time you need to produce a report.

Using legal forms reduces the risk of errors, decreases expenses associated with paying administrative employees, helps build credibility with customers, and improves report accuracy. Even though users require training to use legal forms correctly, the benefits of using these forms greatly outweigh the cost of purchasing the forms and training employees. Most people find these forms easy to use, but those with limited computer skills may find the forms difficult to understand. If you want to use these forms, you should shop carefully and ask vendors questions before making any purchases. Comparing several vendors makes it possible to find the best product at the best price.