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Chefs and restaurant owners want to know how to prevent customers' identity theft, so the speaker at the August 2007 meeting of the Myrtle Beach chapter of the American Culinary Federation was Jay Shavitz of Infinity Computer Systems. He explained how credit card information theft can occur at restaurants.

Its called credit card skimming, he said, and some restaurant servers are recruited by crime rings. The bad guys give the servers pocket-size skimmers. When the server gets a credit card and takes it to swipe in the restaurants credit card terminal, he also gives the card a quick swipe through the skimmer. The skimmer gets the cards information off its magnetic strip and stores it.

The skimmers can hold information from 200 to 300 credit cards, Jay said, and then they download the info on their computers at home and send it out of the country.

Restaurants account for about 90 percent of all credit card skimming, he said, because a restaurant is just about the only environment where upon payment the credit cards are removed from customers views.

Jay then explained how the hand-held system his company sells can be used to take orders tableside (servers can even write on the mini-computers screen), and it doubles as a portable credit card terminal. That way the credit card is never out of the customers view. The units batteries are good for about nine hours, so one unit can get through three shifts on two batteries. Its also possible to have a belt-size printer so customer receipts can be printed on the spot.

Becky Billingsley is a professional writer who publishes daily news about Myrtle Beach area restaurants at http://www.myrtlebeachrestaurantnews.com

Find out more about the Restaurant Manager Write-On Handheld Point-of Sale system at http://touchscreenpos.com

Deciding to sell your business can be one of the biggest decisions in your life, whatever the reasons are for the sale. It is impossible not to become emotionally attached to your own business. Seeing a business grow can be a wonderful thing on the flip side deciding to sell the business can be gut wrenching experience.

Ideally a business owner will have prepared for the sae at least 2 years previously. This process is generally started by assessing the financial state of the business with a view to creating audited financial statements with future projections that show the company's revenue and potential growth.

Documentation should be put together to clearly show all transactions, this is vital information for any purchaser, it will allow the company to be easily evaluated. Information on customers should also be available; a new owner would not want to face a customer who expects to be treated in a particular way, not armed with this information

All supplier and customer contracts should be examined. Terms and conditions for each process should be available, if required. Contracts should not be coming to an end as new owner takes charge. Terminating contracts out of spite simply because you are selling the business serves no purpose at all. Remember when selling a business it is not simply about financials, it is also about keeping your reputation.

Start codifying business policies and procedures, if necessary, create a handover file this file should document exactly how to best run the business including as much information as possible as to aid the new owner, even your thoughts on future growth and development will be useful.

You will need to review your real estate leases, if your business is tied to a particular location you will need to make sure the lease is not set to expire or require renegotiation at the time you are planning to sell the company. The location of the company may discourage buyers; if so consider moving to a different location before you put the business on the market.

Equipment leases and material contracts will have to be checked so they have plenty of time to run when the business sis handed over. You will need to fully evaluate and catalogue all the company assets.

Finally, don't forget about the employees. The loss of key employees during the sale of the business can ruin a deal. Key employees are crucial to the new owner's success, so it's important to determine which employees are prepared to stay with the company during and after the transition. It is important that employees don't hear about the sale of the company from a third party.

If you would like any more information on this subject then please visit our website at http://www.bizseller4u.com/

Peter Arkwright recently retired from the military; he is now the Managing Director of Bizseller4u Ltd - Providing business solutions in sales, advertising, funding, debt collection and recovery plans

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