Toolkit

Startup Assessment Tool: By answering these questions, you will take an important step towards gathering information critical to starting a business and determining the feasibility of your business idea.

Growth Assessment Tool: If you are already in business, complete our Business Needs Assessment to find out what you need to know to move your business to the next level.

Business Portals

Business.gov
Business.gov helps small businesses understand their legal requirements, and locate government services supporting the nation’s small business community

Start or Expand a Business
From the Texas Workforce Commission, you’ll find resources for starting and expanding your business, tools to help your business thrive, and career and economic data.

TexasOnline: Business Portal
Find guides for starting your business, required licenses and permits, business research and statistics, government opportunities and much more. TexasOnline is intended to serve as the official compilation of Texas government electronic resources, both at the state and local levels, and as an index of Texas governmental or taxing authority web sites and services.

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Business Plans

BizToolkit
To develop your business plan, it is best to use a guide to step you through the process, such as a template or business planning software. Two templates that may help you in developing your business plan are found in the James J. Hill Library’s BizToolkit. First, select the Free Access option, and you will be logged in automatically. Next, choose the Beginning category. From the list provided, select Create a business plan where you will find the FastTrac Business Plan and FastTrac Financial Plan templates.

Bplans.com
Created by Palo Alto Software, Bplans offers thousands of pages of free sample plans, planning tools, and expert advice to help you start and run your business.

Mplans.com
Get practical ideas and good models with dozens of examples of successful marketing plans.

SBA Small Business Planner
Careful planning is fundamental to success.  The Small Business Planner includes information and resources that will help you at any stage of the business lifecycle.

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Business Forms/Templates

Business.Gov Essential Government Forms
Here you will find info on how to obtain important business forms at each stage of your business.

Business Owner’s Toolkit: IRS Tax Forms
Browse the list of IRS tax forms. There is no charge to access these forms, but you will need to register first.

Entrepreneur.com: Free Business Forms
FormNet® is a tool designed to save you the time and expense of creating business documents from scratch. You can download and customize each form according to your needs, and immediately put them to work in your business--all for free.

SCORE
Find free, downloadable templates to help you with small business plans, start-up expenses, cash flow and more.

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Finance

BRS Critical Issues Toolkit
Get prepared for uncertain times with the Critical Issues Toolkit from Business Resource Services. The Toolkit provides articles, checklists and forms for you to download and share. Visit the links for more business resources.

Business.gov: Small Business Grants
Learn the truth about getting free money from the government.

Business.gov: Small Business Loans
There are hundreds of government loans available for small businesses. Each loan program has unique application and eligibility requirements, however, most lenders ask for the same information from you. Before you apply for a loan, you should get some basic documentation together that will go into just about any loan package.

CCH: Business Calculators
Check out the interactive Financial Ratios calculator found within the Business Calculators section of the CCH Financial Planning Toolkit. This tool allows you to enter your projected or actual numbers and then view a report that analyzes the results.

QuickBooks
QuickBooks offers small businesses a portfolio of products and services that go beyond accounting. Whether brick-and-mortar or on the Web, from home-based businesses to firms with hundreds of employees, more small business owners choose QuickBooks products and services to help them manage and market their companies – and succeed – than any other product.

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Human Resources

Business.gov: Employment and Labor Laws
Whether you hire your own employees or independent contractors, you will need to have a solid understanding of federal and state labor laws covering everything from benefits and wages to discrimination and harassment. These resources will help you understand federal and state labor laws, which ones apply to you, and how to comply.

Salary.com
Resources for reliable information about employee pay levels and compensation-related best practices, trends, and policies.

Texas Workforce Commission: Businesses and Employers
The Texas Workforce Commission (TWC) is the state government agency charged with overseeing and providing workforce development services to employers and job seekers of Texas. Visit the Businesses and Employers section for valuable information on labor law, labor market statistics, employee training programs, starting or expanding a business and other useful information and resources.

U.S. Department of Labor
Browse by topic, audience or location for your specific information needs. The Department of Labor (DOL) fosters and promotes the welfare of the job seekers, wage earners, and retirees of the United States by improving their working conditions, advancing their opportunities for profitable employment, protecting their retirement and health care benefits, helping employers find workers, strengthening free collective bargaining, and tracking changes in employment, prices, and other national economic measurements.

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Market/Business Research

PatentLens
Search and retrieve the full-text of more than 9 million patent documents from US, Europe, Australia and WIPO, their status and counterparts up to 70 countries.

SBDCNet
You’ll find many useful resources through the Small Business Information Center section found on the homepage of this website. If you are currently a client of the Navarro College SBDC, our Counselors can request research for you from the SBDCNet at no charge, which may include: industry overview and trends, demographics and GIS reports for populations and best customers, financial ratios, sample business plans, preliminary patent and trademark searches, and limited lists of manufacturers, suppliers, and/or competitors

Search NAICS
Find your NAICS 2002 or SIC code; search by number or keywords; search only specific fields or entire database

Texas Corporation Search
Search by company name, file number or tax ID number for a corporation or LLC operating in Texas.

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Technology

GnattProject
GanttProject is a cross-platform desktop tool for project scheduling and management. It runs on Windows, Linux and MacOSX, it is free and its code is opensource.

Jing
Jing is free software that adds visuals to your online conversations.

PortableApps
PortableApps.com Suite™ is a complete collection of portable apps including a web browser, email client, office suite, calendar/scheduler, instant messaging client, antivirus, audio player, sudoku game, password manager, PDF reader, minesweeper clone, backup utility and integrated menu, all preconfigured to work portably. Just drop it on your portable device and you're ready to go.

Smallbiztechnology.com
Smallbiztechnology.com helps small-medium sized businesses strategically use technology as a tool to grow their businesses and provides news, articles, discussion boards, resources, analysis & events for the owners of small to medium sized businesses.

SurveyMonkey
SurveyMonkey has a single purpose: to enable anyone to create professional online surveys quickly and easily

Zoho
Zoho.com is a comprehensive suite of award-winning on-line business applications. Customers use Zoho to run their business processes, manage their information and be more productive while at the office or on the go, without having to worry about expensive or outdated hardware or software.

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Tutorials

BizToolkit Tutorial
Through this step-by-step tutorial, you’ll learn how to use the James J. Hill BizToolkit to find business useful resources and tools that include plan templates, financial calculators, industry information and much more.

FFIEC Geocoding System Tutorial
Using this tutorial, you’ll learn how to find demographic information by MSA, state, county, and census tract/BNA codes for street addresses that is useful for obtaining population and income data.

New York Public Library: Prospecting for Business Information
Whether you are searching for a new job, looking for a company to invest in, or trying to find out what the competition is for your small business, this course can help you learn how to find the information you need.

Virtual Advisor Interactive
Available through the North Texas SBDC Network, these free online training modules can help you develop your business plan, manage your finances, and market your Business.

YourEconomy Tutorial
Developed by the Edward Lowe Foundation, YourEconomy is a free research tool that enables visitors to take a closer look at business activity in their local communities—and across the United States. This tutorial will assist you in accessing data in this free tool.

ZoomProspector Tutorial
This tutorial will take you through the steps of using this excellent tool for finding local community data. Businesses define the community and property characteristics that are important to them. ZoomProspector speeds up and simplifies the process of site selection analysis so that companies can quickly identify the optimal location for their business start-up, expansion or relocation.

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