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Finance Basics in Web Dev: Income Earning & Management
By Eric Gondwe

Financial objectives are essential whether your web dev career is in the business or in the non-profit sector. Businesses sell products or services and promote their organizations online. Non-profit organizations have fundraising objectives to finance their overall activities.

There are numerous income earning methods in the websphere, as many as one can imagine and be able to effectively apply. This is as long as you’re applying legal and ethical strategies.

For example, as you’ve noticed this site and most of our websites serve Google click ads, known as Google Adsense. Google Adsense and other affiliate income earning methods are convenient for us because they allow us to earn income through our websites while enabling us to focus on our work.

Thus instead of selling products and all the work it entails we’re able to focus on our career work, which is building websites with free relevant content and services in various fields: religious, humanitarian, health, IT, business, and so on.

Some web developers earn income through their web dev services such as building and managing websites for other organizations, through internet marketing web dev services, and so on. It all depends on your overall web dev mission, goals, and objectives which will influence the type of income earning strategies that are worthwhile.

Needless to say that there are scams out there. Most of the scams fall in the category of affiliate income earning ventures known as Multi Level Marketing (MLM) or pyramid schemes. Not all MLMs are bad. Most are. Thus it’s worth giving a word of caution.

The old adage still applies: “If something sounds too good to be true, beware because it usually is.” Any venture that’s too good to be true is not worth taking, at least until you do your own research online and consulting people who have indepth understanding.

For instance, you’ll find so many people on Youtube.com that cover on specific MLM ventures.Thorough research is worthwhile before you decide to commit yourself, your time and resources. Most MLMs require money upfront while promising to bring big internet profits in the near future -with lazy work level and zero skills. If only that were true.

Web development responsibilities in finance areas do not just focus on formulating, coordinating, and applying income earning strategies through web dev. The responsibilities include all the duties that a chief financial officer (CFO) in web dev would be concerned with.

These include:
1) budgeting for the entire web dev organization (a financial plan based on priorities).
2) monitoring and reporting progress in achieving financial plans.
3) establishing and maintaining a system of internal controls to provide assurance that resources are properly used and safeguarded against waste, loss and misuse (e.g. setting up proper approvals, security of assets and records, safeguarding against unauthorized transactions).
4) forecasting of the web dev organization's future earnings or expenses.
5) Overseeing the investment of funds and managing associated risks to support an organization’s growth or expansion objectives.
...and so on.