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How’s Your Credit? Take Our Credit Check Quiz Now to Find Out

Do you know whether your credit rating is good, bad, or average? While the only way to know for certain is to get a copy of your credit report, you can get a pretty good idea where you stand by taking our credit check quiz. Just keep a running tally of the number of A’s, B’s, and C’s you choose as you go along, and we’ll tell you how you did at the end.

First, the Mini Credit Check Quiz

1. Have you been bankrupt or entered into an individual voluntary arrangement in the past six years, or are you currently being hounded by one or more creditors?

A. Yes. A bankruptcy or IVA stays on your credit for six years, and creditors don’t hound you if you are paying your bills on time. If either of these applies to you, you can skip the quiz. You have bad credit, and you probably already know it.

B. No. Continue on and take the 8-question credit check quiz below.

The Credit Check Quiz

1. How many accounts do you have open?

A. I have a mortgage and one credit card. I prefer not to take on more than I can handle.

B. I have a mortgage, a car payment, and one or two credit cards.

C. I have a mortgage, a car payment, and several credit cards.

2. Do you pay your bills on time?

A. I haven’t had a late payment in years.

B. I always pay the full amount due, but sometimes my payment is a few days late.

C. I frequently pay my payments late. Sometimes I pay less than the amount due or miss a payment completely.

3. How much of your revolving credit are you actually using?

A. I keep the balance on my credit cards below 30% of the limit.

B. I’m using about half of the credit available to me on my credit cards.

C. Most of my credit cards are maxed or close to it.

4. Do you spend more than you earn over the course of a year?

A. I rarely carry a balance on my credit cards. If I can’t afford to pay cash, I certainly can’t afford to pay interest on top of the cost of the item. If I have a car loan, I expect to continue driving the vehicle for at least two years after the loan is repaid.

B. I try to stay within my means, but often find myself buying something on credit that I wouldn’t have purchased without the card.

C. I use my credit cards to buy things I couldn’t otherwise afford. That’s what they’re for, right?

5. Have you gotten a debt consolidation loan, remortgaged your home to pay off your debts or participated in a debt management plan?

A. No.

B. Yes, but I learned my lesson and have changed my spending habits.

C. Yes, and now that my debt payment is smaller I can afford the minimum payments, so I have started using my credit cards again or have gotten a new one.

6. Do you have an emergency fund?

A. I’ve saved up at least six months’ worth of expenses in case of a major emergency, such as a job loss.

B. I have at least £1,000 in a savings account that I don’t touch except in an emergency.

C. I have little or no savings. I find myself scrambling to pay for repairs if the car breaks down.

7. Do you add to your savings regularly?

A. I have weekly or monthly contributions being made automatically to my savings account and my retirement fund.

B. I am regularly funding either my savings or my retirement, but not both.

C. I am not funding my retirement or savings account on a regular basis.

8. How often do you check your credit report?

A. I subscribe to a service that sends me alerts at least monthly if my credit rating drops.

B. I check my credit report at least once per year.

C. It has been more than a year since I last saw my credit report.

How Did You Do?

If you have mostly A’s, you are a good saver who tries to use credit sparingly and responsibly. You probably have good credit.

If you have mostly B’s, you are on a slippery slope. You’re probably keeping up with your payments for now, at least most of the time, but you are spending more than you should, at least occasionally. If your circumstances change for the worse, you could find yourself in trouble very quickly. Your credit rating is likely average.

If you have C’s, you are struggling to keep up with your debt repayments and sometimes failing. You have bad credit and should consider making an appointment for debt counselling with a non-profit debt management organisation.

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Some significant advantages of ERP for the retail industry

The retail industry nowadays is one of the fastest escalating sectors worldwide. Relying on the improvement of the sector, there are obstacles to management. Mitigating these issues with ERP software solutions offers a great advantage. This article will display some advantages of ERP in the retail industry.

The roles of ERP in the retail industry

As the retail industry uplifts, so do the issues in administering it. The retail industry is formulated with a series of sub-sectors and proficiently maintaining them is crucial to manage or escalate the profits. ERP in the retail sector fortunately could be the solution.
ERP tool has attained wide popularity in the overall industrial sector in recent years, and for an effective reason. The tool lets you maintain the resources of your company with simplicity and ease.But, is that the only purpose to elicit an ERP business solution? It is hardly so. The following are some advantages of selecting ERP in the retail sector.

Real-time information-

The vital role information plays in business operations is unquestionable. Yet, the more you extend your company, the harder it becomes to harmonize the data across all units. So, what downsides can this head to?

For beginners, a price change might not be uniformly mirrored across the units, permitting some to take benefit of this mismatch. Also, there is the feasibility of incorrect records being utilized while the improvements are not properly reflected. This greatest drawback would be the delay in information propagation that in turn causes the delay in entire operations and loss of proficiency.

However,ERP implementation consultantscan solve most of this. It needs to be perceived that the overall ERP system uses data and information. In short, information is the petroleum for ERP. The tool seeks and deals out real-time information to all the pertinent units, creating no scope for delay or error.

Customer management-

Anyone in retail would understand that the customer is everything. Brand loyalty is crucial, and there is a fear of losing customers always.

ERP for retail could act a pivotal role in customer retention and management. As previously
discussed, ERP operates on information, information that can be essential once you scrutinize it. For example, you can sort the purchase history of customers and select the most active ones, offering them reward points.

Also, customer history provides you with an insight into customer habits and lets you create
promotions and deals that cater to their requirements. Going beyond sales and marketing, the assistance of an ERP software company assists you in solving customer grievances on-time.

On the whole, ERP offers you an incorporated view of all customers and makes it obtainable to each relevant faction of your venture.

Employee management-

The core benefit of utilizing ERP in the retail sector is administering the employees. The retail sector,in specific, operates through retail outlets, spread over multiple geographical locations. Hence, aside from the general obstacles of maintaining a huge number of employees in any sector, geographical restrictions make it more complex.

The assistance of ERP consulting services eases employee management through an integrated system. Vendors mostly provide mobile solutions with the ERP package, thereby securing employee management more realistic. Vital employee details are stockpiled in the ERP system, and real-time information like work hours, shift timings, and so on.

All of these adjoin in controlling the employees more proficiently and making communication with them simpler, like undertaking out new assignments, monitoring goals met and providing
promotions or bonuses.

Inventory management-

The retail sector primarily includes FMCG that makes demand very dynamic and volatile. Inventory management is a very vital problem in retail because both excess inventory and inability to gratify the demand can head to financial losses.

Comprehending the significance, ERP provides inventory management as an integral feature. It accumulates details of your overall inventory, consisting of the individual product details. This enables you in knowing what is present exactly in your inventory and which products are going to be out of stock. Also, it monitors the shelf life and informs if any product is about to conclude.

Also, the ERP software solution can make demand forecasts. Scrutinizing past trends and customer habits, it can be estimated if the future demand would rise or fall. It furnishes you with a frame by permitting you to adjust your inventory accordingly for gratifying the demand.

Point-of-sale system-

Certainly, the PoS system is new compared to traditional sales methods, but it has become
improvingly crucial in the retail sector. PoS machines are a system that manages the transactions taking place in any retail outlet. A core benefit of the PoS machine is that it feeds automatically the transaction details into the system, thus omitting the requirement for the extra effort and the scope of human errors.

Now, ERP tools come integrated with the PoS machines that are a vital reason behind real-time data. ERP takes the benefits of PoS machines one step further; all transactional data is instantly mirrored not just in the retail outlets, but in the central ERP tool too.

e-commerce integration-

Nowadays, none can deny the significance of e-commerce in the retail sector. Some might disagree that e-commerce the poster boy for the overall retail sector. In any scenario, e-commerce is crucial for retail that is why ERP tools now appear with e-commerce integration.

Like PoS machines, e-commerce integration lets the ERP tool to get access to real-time data about transactions. This data can then be utilized for demand forecasting, inventory management, and so on.

Sales analytics-

Sales are what the overall retail sector boils down also. A bulk of decisions taken in any retail
ventures are about improvising sales. ERP business solutions come with the features that can support you in this.

Primarily, ERP lets you perform analytics on past sales and customer trends. It provides you with insights into what products have been popular and what have not that assists you to decide which item you need to promote and which you should discard. Multiple factors clung with sales, like discounts, pricing, sales offers, discounts, and so on can be improvised with ERP.

It would not be an exaggeration to illustrate that ERP is vital to the retail sector especially given the fierce opposition nowadays. Multiple benefits of ERP solution company in the retail sector, most of which we explained above, will only permit you to get an edge over your rivals.

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A Beginner’s Guide to Essential Oils

Often, people buy essential oils and keep them at home over a period without storing or reading necessary information about the usage. So, when they finally stumble on the oil again, the next thing they are preoccupied with is how to apply the oil without having any side effects.

If you have an essential oil at your disposal and you remain unclear on how best to make use of it, then you need to make out time to read through this piece. It contains helpful tips on essential oils for beginners.

There are different types of essential oil, and don’t be surprised that most of the oils being paraded by most vendors are not 100% pure essential oil. Most of them contain only a fragment of essential oil elements.

On the other hand, some essential oils cannot be recommended for new beginners; not because they are bad, but because it is advisable to acquaint yourself with other common essential oil that can be easily used as a beginner. For instance, Oregano essential oil is not bad and does not have a side effect, but this oil’s complexity rules it out as an essential oil that you can recommend for new beginners. Oregano oil is powerful, and you will need to dilute it right before you contemplate using it.

Now, let us talk about lemon and peppermint. Do you know that one teaspoon of fresh lemon juice plus one drop of peppermint essential oil very early in the morning is sufficient to clean out toxic elements in your body system? Well, now you do.

Essential Oils that can be recommended for new beginners: Lemon and Peppermint

Lemon:

We live in a pandemic period, and what that means is that you need to be careful of where you go, eat, and touch. Rubbing a drop of lemon essential oil on your hand after you have been around areas suspected to be infected can help you disinfect yourself from germs and bacteria.

Lemon Essential Oil is also effective when it comes to handling repertory issues such as cold and cough. For a fast recovery from cough and cold, make yourself a lemon tea.
Peppermint:

When most people visit the gym for exercise, they always want to push beyond their limits, which are not bad in the real sense, but those gains come with negative consequences. One of such is body aching. For instance, you find yourself in a position where your muscles are strained, put some peppermint into a carrier oil, then rub appropriately on any part of your body that is aching. In no time, you will feel your muscle is relaxed.

Peppermint Essential Oil is also effective in healing sore throat. All you need is to prepare a cup of peppermint tea, add a drop of peppermint to one teaspoon of honey, and then add one and a half cups of hot water. Peppermint tea helps in soothing our sore throat.

Lavender essential oil

A lavender essential oil can be used for different purposes. Your usage depends largely on your need. You can use lavender essential oil on a bodily burn, ache, rash, and wound, among other usages. What if you are applying on a wide area but you have limited lavender essential oil? All you need is to mix your lavender essential oil with carrier oil and use it to your body’s area that needs the touch. From that moment, your recovery process has begun. However, you must ensure the essential lavender oil you are using is a hundred percent pure.

Conclusion

To strengthen your immune system, eliminate aches, burns, and rashes in your body? Now is the perfect time to unseal the lead of your essential oil. Nevertheless, it would be great if you always remembered to seal the oil cover after each usage.

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