This week we focus on two new services that can help you in your business to get paid faster and share information. Both services are provided over the Net and illustrate the changing nature of our world today.

Get Paid Faster

Getting the money that is owed you is always a challenge for small businesses. A new service from Checkspace (www.checkspace.com) provides the ability to send and receive payments over the Net. This means your business will get the payment it needs faster and easier.

This service can save you time and effort in sending paper invoices over the old paper method. You can also use the service to make payments.

The cost of the service is a flat transaction fee of $0.95 per transaction paid by the payment recipient. Each member can receive five payments per month with no transaction fee. There is no fee to join and no fee to send payments.

This service caters specifically to small businesses. Other services are available that provide payment through the Net but they focus on consumers (like Paypal, Billpoint and Payme.com) or large businesses (like Bottomline, Inpurchase, BillingZone and BankServ). This service is designed for and supporting small business transactions.

A small business can also download transaction information into an existing accounting system. To use the system you'll need an e-mail address and a checking account with a U.S. bank.

This is an example of the type of service available over the Net that can save small businesses money, time and effort. More than that, CheckSpace provides a way to get paid faster and for a small business that is critical.

(CheckSpace, www.checkspace.com, $0.95 per transaction with first five each month free)

Get Your New Hard Drive in CyberSpace

The Internet is all about sharing and communication. Small businesses around the country are finding that the Internet provides the greatest tool of increased communication since the telephone.

However, sharing information like documents, pictures, video and other files has required long and lengthy uploads through slow lines. Once uploaded to a central point it has been difficult to share that information due to file conflicts, updated versions and different programs.

A new service called Mangomind from Mangosoft provides the ability for your business to share information on a common hard drive that is on the Net. You can treat this drive like a physical drive that you have attached to your local computer. The advantage is that you can have a local area network (LAN) that is really in cyberspace but links all the people you want to link with in a convenient, easy access point.

There are other services that provide a drive for storage on the Net (like Idrive.com). However, with these services you are not able to share information without extra effort. Security becomes a big concern when you deal with a service that is largely designed for consumers and you have mission critical applications for your business.

I tried Mangomind on my computer, setting up the 100MB file that is currently allowed for free. I was able to set it up in less than 5 minutes on my Dell Inspiron 7500 using a cable modem connection. Later, I copied several folders into my newly-created drive and was able to access them.

The real benefit of using a service like Mangomind for a small business is that you can have Word documents or project files that are available for a select group of people, regardless off where they happen to be. Each person will need to have access to the Internet and have a browser. No additional training is needed because the Mangomind drive acts just like a hard drive on your computer, except that it is securely protected in Cyberspace.

For working on an on-going project this is an ideal solution. As changes are made on, say, a Word document, those in your select group can access this and see the changes. That way you stay up to date on the information. If there are mobile users (working from their laptops, for instance) they can still upload the files and a "Conflict Bin" is created so the people involved can make their own decisions as to what should be changed and what should not.

Mangomind has partnered with RSA, the security experts to insure that data sent and received over a Mangomind drive is safe. Data is secured with 128 bit encryption which provides adequate security for most business applications.

A benefit for a small business on this would be to allow a client to have access to a given drive to see files as they are produced. Instead of uploading and waiting for the client to receive the information it would be constantly available for their investigation. This can also help to strengthen the ties between you and your clients.

This is a concept that holds great potential for a busy and mobile professional. You can safely have the data you need stored in a secure area. If your hard drive crashes, your laptop is stolen or you just can't get access to your own computer for any reason, you can still get the information you need from your on-line Mangomind drive and be productive. No more loosing that vital, mission-critical application.

The service is free for 100MB and up to 10 users through December 31, 2000. After that there is a charge of $29.95 per month per user for 10MB and the price drops per user as more are added.

This is one to check out while it is free. Stretch your mind on the uses of an additional hard drive that can be shared with those you want.

Terry Brock is an internationally recognized professional speaker, consultant and author in the fields of business productivity, technology and marketing. His is a regular columnist for Business Journals across America and can be reached at 407-363-0505 or by e-mail at terry@terrybrock.com.