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An HR payroll system is an essential software tool that streamlines the management of employee compensation. It automates various tasks, such as calculating wages, processing tax withholdings, and managing deductions. By integrating with timekeeping systems, it guarantees accurate tracking of hours worked. Comprehending how these systems function and their importance can greatly impact efficiency and compliance within your organization. As you explore further, you’ll discover the key features that make payroll systems indispensable in today’s workplaces. Key Takeaways An HR payroll system automates employee compensation, calculating wages, taxes, and deductions to ensure accurate and timely payments. It integrates with timekeeping systems to track hours worked, enhancing payroll accuracy and compliance with labor laws. The system automatically calculates tax withholdings, maintaining compliance with federal, state, and local regulations to avoid penalties. Employees can access pay statements and update personal information through self-service features, improving engagement and transparency. Payroll systems can be in-house, outsourced, or cloud-based, offering flexibility to fit various organizational needs and sizes. What Is an HR Payroll System? An HR payroll system is a crucial tool for managing employee compensation efficiently. This software application automates the management of wages, taxes, and deductions for each pay period, ensuring accuracy and compliance. By integrating with timekeeping and attendance systems, it accurately tracks hours worked, which is particularly important for hourly employees. With the HR payroll system, you don’t have to worry about manually withholding taxes and deductions, as it automatically handles these tasks, reducing the risk of IRS penalties. Furthermore, many businesses use an HCM platform that offers a human capital management login, giving employees access to pay statements, tax documents, and the ability to update personal information. This self-service feature improves transparency and boosts employee satisfaction. Depending on your organization’s needs, you can manage the HR payroll system in-house, outsource it to third-party providers, or opt for cloud-based solutions to fit various business sizes and intricacies. Importance of HR Payroll Systems HR payroll systems play a crucial role in ensuring you make timely payments to your employees, which is fundamental for maintaining their satisfaction and loyalty. They likewise help your organization comply with regulatory requirements, reducing the risk of penalties from inaccuracies. Furthermore, these systems improve financial recordkeeping, providing accurate data that supports effective decision-making and audits. Timely Employee Payments Timely employee payments are essential for maintaining a productive and satisfied workforce, as studies indicate that 82% of employees view prompt payroll as a key factor in their overall job satisfaction. Using an HR payroll system like HCM to Go helps guarantee employees receive accurate payments on scheduled paydays, whether weekly or monthly. These automated systems integrate time tracking with payroll processing, reducing financial stress for employees and enhancing engagement. By making timely payments, you not only enhance retention but also avoid costly penalties associated with late payments, which can accumulate to thousands annually. For more information on effective HR payroll solutions, visit the HCM to Go website and explore how HCM companies can support your payroll needs. Regulatory Compliance Assurance Ensuring regulatory compliance is crucial for any business, as failing to meet payroll tax obligations can lead to significant penalties and legal issues. HR payroll systems help you stay compliant by: Automatically calculating and withholding federal, state, and local taxes, minimizing the risk of costly penalties. Providing real-time updates on changing labor laws and payroll regulations, so you’re always informed about evolving requirements. Maintaining detailed records of employee payments and tax filings, supporting your compliance with documentation requirements set by agencies like the IRS. Enhanced Financial Recordkeeping As businesses often juggle multiple responsibilities, maintaining accurate financial records is essential for effective payroll management. An HR payroll system helps you systematically track employee wages, hours worked, and deductions, ensuring compliance with tax and labor regulations. By automating payroll tax calculations, it reduces the risk of human error, which is critical for precise financial recordkeeping. The system generates detailed reports on payroll expenses, enabling you to analyze labor costs and make informed financial decisions. Furthermore, by securely storing payroll data, it facilitates easy access during audits and compliance checks. Improved financial recordkeeping can prevent costly penalties, like the $8.5 billion in civil penalties the IRS assessed in 2023 as a result of payroll compliance issues. Key Functions of Payroll Management Software Many businesses find that payroll management software plays a crucial role in streamlining their payroll processes. This software offers several key functions that improve efficiency and accuracy: Automated Calculations: It automates the calculation of employee wages based on hours worked, salary agreements, and necessary deductions for taxes and benefits, ensuring accurate payments. Tax Processing: The software handles payroll taxes by automatically calculating and withholding federal, state, and local taxes, keeping you compliant with regulations and deadlines. Employee Access: It provides employees with pay statements and access to self-service portals, which boosts transparency and allows them to easily track their earnings and deductions. Furthermore, detailed record-keeping features maintain accurate financial records necessary for audits and compliance with labor laws. The system can likewise alert you to changes in local laws, reducing the risk of penalties associated with payroll mismanagement. How Payroll Systems Calculate Employee Wages Payroll systems play a vital role in accurately calculating employee wages, a process that hinges on precise data input and effective time tracking. For hourly employees, the system tracks the hours worked and multiplies this by the hourly rate. For salaried employees, it divides the annual salary by the number of pay periods to compute gross pay. These systems can handle various pay structures, such as commission and piece rates, providing flexibility in compensation models. Accurate input of employee data is fundamental since even minor errors can lead to significant discrepancies in wage calculations. Once gross pay is calculated, the payroll system determines the net pay by automatically deducting necessary taxes and contributions, ensuring compliance with federal, state, and local regulations. This systematic approach helps maintain accuracy and efficiency in payroll processing, ultimately ensuring that employees are paid correctly and on time. Processing Payroll Taxes and Deductions Processing payroll taxes and deductions is a crucial aspect of managing employee compensation. Your payroll system automatically calculates and withholds federal, state, and local taxes from employee paychecks, ensuring you comply with tax laws. Furthermore, you need to take into account various deductions that affect net pay: Social Security and Medicare: Contributions to these programs are mandatory and help employees secure benefits in the future. Retirement Plans: Deductions for 401(k) or other retirement savings options can help your employees plan for retirement as well as reducing taxable income. Health Insurance Premiums: If you offer health benefits, these premiums are likewise deducted from paychecks, impacting take-home pay. Your payroll software generates necessary tax forms like W-2s and 1099s, ensuring they’re filed accurately and on time. Keeping track of these deductions helps maintain organized financial records and prepares you for audits or reviews. Ensuring Compliance With Regulations When you implement an HR payroll system, you’re not just streamlining payroll but additionally ensuring compliance with various regulations. This system automatically monitors tax withholding accuracy, keeping you informed of any changes in laws that could affect your business. Plus, it helps fulfill recordkeeping requirements, making audits and compliance checks much easier to manage. Regulatory Compliance Monitoring Ensuring compliance with regulations in payroll systems is vital for businesses aiming to avoid costly penalties and maintain operational integrity. By implementing regulatory compliance monitoring, you can effectively adhere to various tax laws and reduce risks. Here are three key benefits of such systems: Automated Updates: Payroll systems automatically update tax rates and labor regulations, keeping you informed of any changes that affect employee paychecks. Alerts and Reminders: Many systems offer alerts for important compliance deadlines, such as tax filing dates, helping you stay on track. Detailed Recordkeeping: Compliance monitoring tools maintain records of employee payments and tax filings, which are critical for audits and meeting legal requirements. Tax Withholding Accuracy Tax withholding accuracy is a vital aspect of payroll management, as it directly impacts compliance with various regulations at federal, state, and local levels. Incorrect withholding can lead to costly penalties; in 2023, IRS penalties totaled $8.5 billion. Your payroll system should automatically calculate and withhold the correct amounts for federal income tax, Social Security, and Medicare, ensuring adherence to the latest tax laws. Regular updates are important to reflect any changes in tax rates or regulations. Furthermore, collecting accurate W-4 information from employees is important, as it determines the correct withholding amounts. Implementing automated payroll solutions can greatly reduce human error, enhancing accuracy and protecting your business from compliance-related issues. Recordkeeping Requirements Fulfillment Accurate recordkeeping plays a crucial role in payroll management, directly supporting compliance with various federal and state regulations. To guarantee you’re meeting these requirements, your HR payroll system should maintain detailed records, including: Employee Information: Names, Social Security numbers, and hours worked. Payment Details: Wages paid, tax withholdings, and adjustments. Compliance Documentation: Automated pay statements for transparency and audit readiness. Different Approaches to Payroll Management In relation to managing payroll, businesses have several approaches to choose from, each with distinct advantages and drawbacks. You can opt for a manual payroll system using spreadsheets, but be cautious, as this method is prone to errors and inefficiency, especially in larger organizations. On the other hand, in-house payroll software automates calculations and integrates with other systems, enhancing reliability by reducing administrative burdens. If you prefer to minimize in-house tasks, outsourcing payroll to third-party providers allows you to leverage external expertise, though it may incur higher costs. A hybrid approach combines in-house software for regular payroll cycles with outsourced services for specialized needs, such as international payroll compliance. Each method has unique pros and cons, so it’s essential to evaluate your organization’s size, complexity, and growth potential when deciding the most suitable approach to payroll management for your business. Benefits of Using an HR Payroll System When considering the implementation of an HR payroll system, you’ll find that it offers numerous benefits that can greatly improve your payroll processes. Here are three key advantages: Time Efficiency: Automating wage calculations, taxes, and deductions can reduce payroll processing time by up to 80%. This allows your staff to focus on more strategic tasks. Employee Satisfaction: By ensuring accurate and timely payments, these systems can boost employee satisfaction and retention, leading to a 25% increase in engagement metrics within your organization. Compliance and Accuracy: HR payroll systems help you stay compliant with evolving tax laws and labor regulations, reducing the risk of penalties that can average $8,500 per year for small businesses. Moreover, integrating time and attendance tracking can lead to a 30% reduction in payroll errors, ensuring employees are compensated correctly for their hours worked. Challenges and Limitations of Payroll Systems In spite of the many advantages of HR payroll systems, they come with a range of challenges and limitations that can impact their effectiveness. For instance, inaccurate calculations often arise from incorrect data entry, necessitating regular double-checks to avoid costly errors. Compliance issues with changing payroll tax rates can lead to penalties if the system fails to automate updates or provide timely reminders. Furthermore, many payroll systems struggle with scalability, making it critical for you to choose solutions that can grow alongside your increasing workforce. Handling diverse pay rates and varying employment contracts can complicate payroll processing, highlighting the need for flexible systems. In addition, researching potential systems is vital; overlooking common payroll pain points can create significant administrative burdens and financial implications for your business. Addressing these challenges is fundamental for ensuring that your payroll system operates efficiently and effectively. Choosing the Right HR Payroll System When you’re choosing the right HR payroll system, start by evaluating your business requirements to identify what features you truly need. It’s additionally important to analyze how well the system integrates with your existing software, as this can streamline processes and reduce errors. Finally, consider scalability options to guarantee the system can grow alongside your business, adapting to changes in employee numbers and payroll complexity. Assess Business Requirements Choosing the right HR payroll system starts with a thorough assessment of your business requirements, as this decision can greatly impact your organization’s efficiency. To guarantee you pick the best system, consider these key factors: Organization Size and Employee Count: Analyze how many employees you have and how your business may grow to guarantee the system can scale effectively. Payroll Frequency: Determine whether you need weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly payroll, as this influences system functionality. Compliance Needs: Evaluate local, state, and federal compliance requirements, guaranteeing the system can adapt to changes in tax laws and labor regulations. Evaluate Integration Capabilities Evaluating integration capabilities is vital for selecting an HR payroll system that meets your business needs, as seamless communication between payroll software and other HR applications can greatly improve operational efficiency. A robust system should support API integrations, allowing real-time data exchange and minimizing manual entry errors. It’s important that the payroll system is compatible with your existing business software, such as ERP and accounting tools, to guarantee streamlined financial processes and accurate reporting. Furthermore, the ability to integrate with third-party applications, like tax compliance and benefits providers, improves functionality and guarantees you meet regulatory requirements. Evaluating these integration capabilities can save you time and resources, helping you avoid disruptions and inefficiencies often caused by disjointed systems. Consider Scalability Options As your organization grows, ensuring that your HR payroll system can scale accordingly is crucial for maintaining efficiency and accuracy. To choose the right system, consider the following scalability options: Modular Components: Look for systems that allow you to add functionalities as needed, such as advanced reporting or multi-currency support for international operations. Cloud-Based Solutions: These typically offer greater flexibility, enabling easy access to payroll data from anywhere, which is important for remote work environments. Vendor Track Record: Evaluate vendors’ experience in your industry and their ability to adapt to regulatory changes, ensuring long-term compliance and operational efficiency. Frequently Asked Questions What Is the Payroll System in HR? The payroll system in HR automates employee compensation management, calculating wages and tax deductions. It guarantees compliance with regulations by automatically withholding federal, state, and local taxes. You can access self-service portals to view pay statements and track hours worked. Integrating with timekeeping tools improves accuracy, reducing manual entry errors. A reliable payroll system boosts employee satisfaction by guaranteeing timely payments, ultimately leading to better retention rates and reduced financial stress. How Does HR Do Payroll? To manage payroll, HR first collects and verifies employee work hours, including overtime. They use software to automate calculations of gross pay, deduct taxes, and guarantee compliance with tax laws. HR maintains organized records of compensation and tax filings, adhering to legal retention requirements. After processing payroll, they issue payments and handle necessary post-payroll tasks, such as filing tax reports, streamlining the process during reducing manual errors through self-service portals for employees. What Are the Three Types of Payroll? There are three main types of payroll systems you can choose from: in-house payroll, outsourced payroll, and hybrid payroll. In-house payroll means your internal staff handles everything, providing more control but requiring significant administrative work. Outsourced payroll shifts responsibility to a third-party provider, reducing your workload but often at a higher cost. Hybrid payroll combines in-house management for regular tasks with outsourcing for compliance or international needs, offering flexibility customized to your business. What Is an Example of an HR System? An example of an HR system is ADP Workforce Now, which combines payroll processing with human resource management. This system automates payroll calculations, tracks employee time, and manages attendance. It furthermore offers self-service portals for employees to access pay statements and tax documents. In addition, ADP Workforce Now provides compliance support to help businesses adhere to labor laws, ensuring they minimize risks associated with penalties and maintain accurate employee records. Conclusion In conclusion, an HR payroll system is vital for efficiently managing employee compensation and ensuring compliance with labor laws. By automating wage calculations, tax withholdings, and deductions, these systems streamline payroll processes and reduce errors. They furthermore provide valuable self-service features for employees, enhancing job satisfaction. Although there are challenges to take into account, choosing the right payroll system can notably improve organizational effectiveness, making it a key investment for any business focused on efficiency and accuracy in payroll management. Image via Google Gemini This article, "What Is an HR Payroll System and How Does It Work?" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

Running a background check on yourself can be a smart move, especially if you’re preparing for a new job or simply want to know what information is out there. Start by gathering your personal information, like your full name and Social Security number, which is essential for accuracy. Next, you’ll need to choose a reliable background check service. Each step is important, and the results can reveal surprises that you might want to address. Key Takeaways Gather your full legal name, SSN, previous addresses, date of birth, and employment history for verification purposes. Choose a reliable, FCRA-compliant background check service that offers thorough checks and has positive customer reviews. Submit your personal information accurately through the chosen background check service’s online form. Review the background check results carefully, focusing on identity verification, criminal history, and employment details for discrepancies. Address any inaccuracies by gathering supporting documentation and contacting the provider to dispute errors promptly. Gather Your Personal Information To effectively run a background check on yourself, start by gathering vital personal information. First, collect your full legal name, including any past names or aliases, to guarantee accurate results. Next, you’ll need your Social Security number (SSN) for identity verification and tracing address history. Compile a list of all your previous addresses from the past seven years, as this information is often required for thorough checks. Prepare your date of birth, which is fundamental for verifying your identity and accessing public records. If you’ve had a job, include details about your employment history, such as job titles and employment dates, to facilitate accurate verification. By organizing this information, you’ll not just understand how to run a background check on yourself but additionally know how to check your background check for free later on. Taking these steps will guarantee a smooth background check process. Choose a Background Check Service Choosing the right background check service is crucial, as it can greatly impact the accuracy and completeness of the information you’re able to gather about yourself. Start by prioritizing FCRA-compliant providers to guarantee they adhere to legal standards and protect your rights. Look for services that offer thorough checks, including criminal history, employment verification, education verification, and social media assessments, for a well-rounded view of your background. When evaluating options, consider the speed and cost of the service. Basic checks usually range from $20 to $50, whereas more extensive options might exceed $100. Don’t forget to read customer reviews and ratings to gauge reliability and accuracy. Guarantee there’s a clear dispute process for inaccuracies. Check for detailed reporting on your background. Look for user-friendly interfaces. Verify turnaround times. Compare pricing against features offered. Submit Your Information Submitting your information for a background check requires careful attention to detail. First, provide your full legal name, including any previous names, along with your date of birth and Social Security number. This guarantees the results are accurate and relevant. Choose a reliable, FCRA-compliant background check service, such as Checkr or iprospectcheck, to protect your privacy and rights throughout the process. When filling out the online form, make certain all information is complete and accurate. Discrepancies can lead to incorrect results or delays in processing. After submitting, you’ll typically receive the background check results electronically, allowing you to review them quickly. Be prepared to take action if any discrepancies arise; gather evidence to correct or dispute inaccuracies found in the report. This proactive approach helps you maintain an accurate personal record and addresses any potential issues swiftly. Review the Background Check Results Once you’ve submitted your information and received your background check results, it’s important to carefully review every detail in the report. Focus on sections like identity verification, criminal history, and employment verification to guarantee everything is accurate and up-to-date. Pay close attention to discrepancies between the report and your personal records—incorrect addresses or employment dates can raise concerns for potential employers. Check for any criminal records, making sure no felonies or misdemeanors that aren’t yours are listed, as these can greatly impact your job prospects. Evaluate public records, like court documents or driving records, to verify they accurately reflect your history. If you notice any inaccuracies, act quickly to dispute the findings with the background check provider. Your future job prospects depend on it. Wrong information can lead to missed opportunities. Peace of mind is crucial. Accuracy shapes your professional image. Stay proactive to protect yourself. Address Any Discrepancies or Errors When reviewing your background check report, it’s crucial to identify any discrepancies or errors that could impact your professional opportunities. Look for outdated information that doesn’t align with your records. Type of Discrepancy Action to Take Employment Inaccuracies Gather pay stubs or employment letters Education Errors Collect transcripts or diplomas Identity Theft Concerns Consider a fraud alert or credit freeze General Inaccuracies Contact the background check provider If you find inaccuracies, contact the background check provider with supporting documentation to dispute errors. Furthermore, monitor your credit report regularly. You can access a free copy annually through the FCRA to check for mistakes. If you suspect identity theft, placing a fraud alert or credit freeze can prevent unauthorized access to your information. Taking these steps guarantees you maintain accurate and reliable records, safeguarding your professional prospects. Frequently Asked Questions How Do You Run a Basic Background Check? To run a basic background check, start by gathering your full legal name, date of birth, and Social Security number. Next, choose a reputable background check service that provides thorough searches, including criminal records and employment verification. Request a national criminal records search to uncover any past convictions. After receiving your report, carefully review it for discrepancies. If you find inaccuracies, quickly dispute them with the provider to confirm your record is accurate. How to Run Your Own Background Check on Yourself? To run your own background check, start by collecting crucial personal information, like your full legal name and Social Security number. Next, select a reputable background check service that follows FCRA regulations. After obtaining your report, review it carefully to identify any inaccuracies or outdated details. If you find errors, contact the service to dispute them. Familiarize yourself with your rights under the Fair Credit Reporting Act to guarantee you can access and correct your information. Can a Regular Person Run a Background Check? Yes, a regular person can run a background check on themselves. You can access various online services that provide detailed reports, including criminal records and employment history. Many reputable platforms, such as Checkr and iprospectcheck, offer simple processes for requesting your own report. Furthermore, comprehending your rights under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) is essential, as it allows you to dispute inaccuracies that could impact your reputation. What Is the Quickest Way to Get a Background Check? The quickest way to get a background check is to use a professional background check service like Checkr or iprospectcheck. These services often deliver results within 1 to 5 business days. To speed up the process, provide accurate personal information, including your full name, Social Security number, and past addresses. Make certain you choose a provider compliant with the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) for accurate and lawful information. You’ll access your report easily online. Conclusion Running a background check on yourself is a practical way to guarantee your personal information is accurate. By following the five steps outlined, you can gather necessary information, choose a reliable service, and review your results methodically. Addressing any discrepancies swiftly is essential for maintaining your credibility. Regularly checking your background can likewise help you stay informed about what others might find. Taking these steps will empower you to manage your personal information effectively. Image via Google Gemini This article, "How to Run a Background Check on Yourself in 5 Simple Steps" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

Running a background check on yourself can be a smart move, especially if you’re preparing for a new job or simply want to know what information is out there. Start by gathering your personal information, like your full name and Social Security number, which is essential for accuracy. Next, you’ll need to choose a reliable background check service. Each step is important, and the results can reveal surprises that you might want to address. Key Takeaways Gather your full legal name, SSN, previous addresses, date of birth, and employment history for verification purposes. Choose a reliable, FCRA-compliant background check service that offers thorough checks and has positive customer reviews. Submit your personal information accurately through the chosen background check service’s online form. Review the background check results carefully, focusing on identity verification, criminal history, and employment details for discrepancies. Address any inaccuracies by gathering supporting documentation and contacting the provider to dispute errors promptly. Gather Your Personal Information To effectively run a background check on yourself, start by gathering vital personal information. First, collect your full legal name, including any past names or aliases, to guarantee accurate results. Next, you’ll need your Social Security number (SSN) for identity verification and tracing address history. Compile a list of all your previous addresses from the past seven years, as this information is often required for thorough checks. Prepare your date of birth, which is fundamental for verifying your identity and accessing public records. If you’ve had a job, include details about your employment history, such as job titles and employment dates, to facilitate accurate verification. By organizing this information, you’ll not just understand how to run a background check on yourself but additionally know how to check your background check for free later on. Taking these steps will guarantee a smooth background check process. Choose a Background Check Service Choosing the right background check service is crucial, as it can greatly impact the accuracy and completeness of the information you’re able to gather about yourself. Start by prioritizing FCRA-compliant providers to guarantee they adhere to legal standards and protect your rights. Look for services that offer thorough checks, including criminal history, employment verification, education verification, and social media assessments, for a well-rounded view of your background. When evaluating options, consider the speed and cost of the service. Basic checks usually range from $20 to $50, whereas more extensive options might exceed $100. Don’t forget to read customer reviews and ratings to gauge reliability and accuracy. Guarantee there’s a clear dispute process for inaccuracies. Check for detailed reporting on your background. Look for user-friendly interfaces. Verify turnaround times. Compare pricing against features offered. Submit Your Information Submitting your information for a background check requires careful attention to detail. First, provide your full legal name, including any previous names, along with your date of birth and Social Security number. This guarantees the results are accurate and relevant. Choose a reliable, FCRA-compliant background check service, such as Checkr or iprospectcheck, to protect your privacy and rights throughout the process. When filling out the online form, make certain all information is complete and accurate. Discrepancies can lead to incorrect results or delays in processing. After submitting, you’ll typically receive the background check results electronically, allowing you to review them quickly. Be prepared to take action if any discrepancies arise; gather evidence to correct or dispute inaccuracies found in the report. This proactive approach helps you maintain an accurate personal record and addresses any potential issues swiftly. Review the Background Check Results Once you’ve submitted your information and received your background check results, it’s important to carefully review every detail in the report. Focus on sections like identity verification, criminal history, and employment verification to guarantee everything is accurate and up-to-date. Pay close attention to discrepancies between the report and your personal records—incorrect addresses or employment dates can raise concerns for potential employers. Check for any criminal records, making sure no felonies or misdemeanors that aren’t yours are listed, as these can greatly impact your job prospects. Evaluate public records, like court documents or driving records, to verify they accurately reflect your history. If you notice any inaccuracies, act quickly to dispute the findings with the background check provider. Your future job prospects depend on it. Wrong information can lead to missed opportunities. Peace of mind is crucial. Accuracy shapes your professional image. Stay proactive to protect yourself. Address Any Discrepancies or Errors When reviewing your background check report, it’s crucial to identify any discrepancies or errors that could impact your professional opportunities. Look for outdated information that doesn’t align with your records. Type of Discrepancy Action to Take Employment Inaccuracies Gather pay stubs or employment letters Education Errors Collect transcripts or diplomas Identity Theft Concerns Consider a fraud alert or credit freeze General Inaccuracies Contact the background check provider If you find inaccuracies, contact the background check provider with supporting documentation to dispute errors. Furthermore, monitor your credit report regularly. You can access a free copy annually through the FCRA to check for mistakes. If you suspect identity theft, placing a fraud alert or credit freeze can prevent unauthorized access to your information. Taking these steps guarantees you maintain accurate and reliable records, safeguarding your professional prospects. Frequently Asked Questions How Do You Run a Basic Background Check? To run a basic background check, start by gathering your full legal name, date of birth, and Social Security number. Next, choose a reputable background check service that provides thorough searches, including criminal records and employment verification. Request a national criminal records search to uncover any past convictions. After receiving your report, carefully review it for discrepancies. If you find inaccuracies, quickly dispute them with the provider to confirm your record is accurate. How to Run Your Own Background Check on Yourself? To run your own background check, start by collecting crucial personal information, like your full legal name and Social Security number. Next, select a reputable background check service that follows FCRA regulations. After obtaining your report, review it carefully to identify any inaccuracies or outdated details. If you find errors, contact the service to dispute them. Familiarize yourself with your rights under the Fair Credit Reporting Act to guarantee you can access and correct your information. Can a Regular Person Run a Background Check? Yes, a regular person can run a background check on themselves. You can access various online services that provide detailed reports, including criminal records and employment history. Many reputable platforms, such as Checkr and iprospectcheck, offer simple processes for requesting your own report. Furthermore, comprehending your rights under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) is essential, as it allows you to dispute inaccuracies that could impact your reputation. What Is the Quickest Way to Get a Background Check? The quickest way to get a background check is to use a professional background check service like Checkr or iprospectcheck. These services often deliver results within 1 to 5 business days. To speed up the process, provide accurate personal information, including your full name, Social Security number, and past addresses. Make certain you choose a provider compliant with the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) for accurate and lawful information. You’ll access your report easily online. Conclusion Running a background check on yourself is a practical way to guarantee your personal information is accurate. By following the five steps outlined, you can gather necessary information, choose a reliable service, and review your results methodically. Addressing any discrepancies swiftly is essential for maintaining your credibility. Regularly checking your background can likewise help you stay informed about what others might find. Taking these steps will empower you to manage your personal information effectively. Image via Google Gemini This article, "How to Run a Background Check on Yourself in 5 Simple Steps" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

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David Nemecek moves after private capital groups pushed back against his tacticsView the full article

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Google is releasing their budget a-series version of the Pixel 10 on March 5, a whole month earlier than the 9a was released in 2025. There is not much dividing the 10a from the 9a, but there are a few software updates that can make it worth it for some people. Throw in a $100 Amazon gift card, and it's hard to say no. Google has the pre-orders for the Google 10a out already, going for $499, plus the gift card. Alternatively, you can get their Pixel Buds 2a instead of the $100 gift card for the same $499 price. Google Pixel 10a - Obsidian - 128 GB with Pixel Buds 2a Bundle $499.00 at Amazon $628.00 Save $129.00 Get Deal Get Deal $499.00 at Amazon $628.00 Save $129.00 Google Pixel 10a 128GB 6.3" Unlocked Smartphone + $100 Gift Card $499.00 at Amazon $599.00 Save $100.00 Get Deal Get Deal $499.00 at Amazon $599.00 Save $100.00 SEE -1 MORE Lifehacker's Associate Tech Editor Michelle Ehrhardt actually got her hands on the Pixel 10a during a recent Google demo event. As she pointed out, the specs on the Pixel 10a are not like the Pixel 10. It's more similar to the 9 instead. It has a Tensor G4 processor, 8GB of RAM, and up to 256GB of storage, as well as the same camera system, with a 48MP main lens, a 13MP ultrawide lens, and a 13MP selfie camera. The battery life is the same 30+ hours, too, and the MagSafe-like Pixelsnap feature is gone. The main upgrade here is a brighter 3,000 nits screen, a thinner bezel, and an improved Corning Gorilla Glass 7i cover glass. But the value might be in the software and AI. There are two AI camera features that debuted with the Pixel 10. One is Auto Best Take, which takes 150 frames in one click, chooses the best picture, and automatically deletes the rest (or stitches together elements from multiple shots to make a new "best" image). And Camera Coach, which guides you with AI on how to take the best picture. Google also brought Satellite SOS for the first time to an a-series phone. It lets you connect to a Satellite and ping emergency services for help if you have no cell signal. If you're thinking of upgrading from a Pixel 9a or later, there's not much here to make it worth it. However, if you have anything older than a Pixel 9 or are switching to Pixel for the first time, this is a great opportunity and phone to do so. Our Best Editor-Vetted Tech Deals Right Now Apple AirPods 4 Active Noise Cancelling Wireless Earbuds — $158.00 (List Price $179.00) Apple iPad 11" 128GB A16 WiFi Tablet (Blue, 2025) — $329.00 (List Price $349.00) Apple Watch Series 11 [GPS 46mm] Smartwatch with Jet Black Aluminum Case with Black Sport Band - M/L. Sleep Score, Fitness Tracker, Health Monitoring, Always-On Display, Water Resistant — $329.00 (List Price $429.00) Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Plus — $29.99 (List Price $49.99) Bose QuietComfort Noise Cancelling Wireless Headphones — $229.00 (List Price $349.00) Samsung Galaxy Tab A9+ 64GB Wi-Fi 11" Tablet (Silver) — $159.99 (List Price $219.99) Deals are selected by our commerce team View the full article

Peec AI analyzed fan-out queries from 10M+ ChatGPT prompts and found 43% of background searches ran in English, even for non-English prompts. The post ChatGPT Search Often Switches To English In Fan-Out Queries: Report appeared first on Search Engine Journal. View the full article

When Apple released the first beta for iOS 26.4 this week, testers immediately got to work looking for each and every new feature and change. To their credit, there's more new here than in iOS 26.3, including an AI playlist generator for Apple Music and support for end-to-end encryption with RCS (finally). But one update slipped under the radar, since it's not actually available to test in this first beta: CarPlay support for AI assistants like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. AI assistants are coming to CarPlay in iOS 26.4As spotted by MacRumors, CarPlay's Developer Guide spills the beans on this upcoming integration. On page 13, the entitlement "CarPlay voice-based conversational app" is listed with a minimum iOS version of iOS 26.4. While it doesn't specifically mention integrations with ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, the documentation does suggest that voice-based conversational apps are a supported app type in iOS 26.4. As such, MacRumors is reporting that companies that make chatbots (i.e. OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google) will need to update their apps to work with CarPlay. According to MacRumors, drivers will be able to ask apps like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini questions while on the road, but they won't be able to control functions of the car or the driver's iPhone. You also won't be able to use a "wake word" to activate the assistant (e.g. "Hey ChatGPT," or "OK, Gemini"), so you'll need to tap on the app itself to talk to the assistant. Apple is issuing guidance to developers on how to implement these assistants in CarPlay starting with this latest update. On page seven, Apple notes that voice-based conversational apps must only work when voice features are actively being used, and avoid showing text or imagery when responding to queries. It's the first time Apple is allowing developers of "voice-based conversational" apps to develop for CarPlay. While the company has allowed other developers to make apps for its in-car experience, it has obviously put limitations on what types of apps can get through. It makes sense for Google to develop a Google Maps CarPlay app, but TikTok has no business offering drivers a CarPlay-version of its algorithm. Install the iOS 26.4 at your own riskThis addition is coming to iOS 26.4, but likely in a future beta. Don't install the beta at this time expecting to try this feature out—though, you should think twice before installing the beta at all. Betas like iOS 26.4 are temperamental, as Apple is currently testing the software for bugs and stability issues. By installing it early, you risk dealing with those issues, which could impact how you use your iPhone, or even result in data loss. View the full article

We may earn a commission from links on this page. A new software update for recent Garmin watches adds “glances” for types of data that weren’t previously viewable from the watch face. These include battery usage stats, lifestyle logging, sleep alignment, and even a few extras like sports scores. The update also includes features other than glances, including, notably, fitness coaching. The features I’m writing about are now available in the Forerunner 570, Forerunner 970, and Vivoactive 6, as well as the Fenix 8 series, Venu 4, and X1. (The watch in my photos here is a Forerunner 570.) New glances for Garmin watches Credit: Beth Skwarecki Glances are those little strips of data that you can see when you scroll up (or down) from the main watch face—things like the weather and your training status, for example. Garmin’s newest stable update for the Forerunner 570 and 970 is numbered 16.28, and has been rolling out slowly over the past week. (I just got it on my 570.) Here are my favorite new glances: Battery usage: The new battery widget has the charge level, of course, but tapping it shows you a graph of your battery life, including its long-term history, and a list of which apps or functions have been using the most battery. Lifestyle logging: If you’ve been using the new Lifestyle Logging feature in the Garmin Connect app, you can now do it from your wrist. This is where you select a few health-related habits to track every day. The glance will tell you how many items you’ve logged today, and you can quickly answer these yes or no questions without opening your phone. Sleep alignment: The sleep glance has been around a while, but it now includes more data, including your optimal sleep window and whether you’re aligned with it. Sports scores: You can select a handful of your favorite teams to receive up to date scores on your wrist. This was surprisingly easy to set up without even unlocking my phone: You just choose a league (MLB, NFL, NCAA men’s or women’s, to name a few) and then scroll until you find the city name for your favorite team. Alphabetizing by city rather than team name is smart, especially if you’re going through the menus picking all your hometown teams. This widget seems to show the next upcoming game if your chosen team hasn’t played a recent game. Weight tracking: From this glance you can see your current body weight, and tap through to see trends and history. Other new features Garmin added in its latest update Credit: Beth Skwarecki Besides the glances, Garmin added a bunch of other features to its watches. According to the release notes, Garmin says that pace readings (presumably during runs) have been improved to be more responsive. I look forward to trying that out. There are also color filters—instead of just turning on a red shift for nighttime, you can choose other colors as well. Training plans also get more capabilities. In addition to the usual running and cycling plans, there’s now a fitness coach, similar to what launched on the Venu 4. This lets you set up a plan that gives you a mix of cardio and strength workouts, though I found that the coach's endurance workouts don’t actually specify the activity. Typically, when selecting my “basic endurance” workout that’s planned for today, the watch prompts me to select from my usual list of endurance activities: run, trail run, treadmill run, indoor bike, and so on. The coach, however, will simply tell you to do "endurance" or "cardio" for 20 minutes. You could choose to run, but you could also hike or use the elliptical, for instance. For the strength workouts, I told the coach that I have access to a full gym, so my next strength workout will include deadlifts and squats. It looks like a pretty solid plan for somebody who wants well-rounded fitness without committing to running a race. View the full article

TransUnion projected moderate growth in 2026 for mortgages, projecting purchases and refinances to increase 4% and 4.2% year over year. View the full article

Big Tech chief takes stand in legal case over whether company’s products are addictive to childrenView the full article

New residential construction in the US rose to a five-month high in December, as homebuilders boosted production to take advantage of lower borrowing costs. View the full article

Google Ads now surfaces Performance Max (PMax) campaign data in the “Where ads showed” report, giving advertisers clearer insight into placements, networks, and impressions — data that was previously unavailable. What’s new. The update makes it possible to see exactly where PMax ads are appearing across Google’s network, including search partners, display, and other placements. Advertisers can now track impressions by placement type and network, helping them understand how campaigns are performing in detail. Why we care. This update finally gives visibility into where PMax campaigns are running, including Google Search Partners, display, and other networks. With placement, type, and impression data now available, marketers can better understand campaign performance, optimize budgets, and make informed decisions instead of relying on guesswork. It turns previously opaque PMax reporting into actionable insights. User reaction. Digital marketer Thomas Eccel shared on LinkedIn that the report was historically empty, but now finally shows real data. “I finally see where and how PMax is being displayed,” he wrote. He also noted the clarity on Google Search Partners, previously a “blurry grey zone.” The bottom line. This update gives marketers actionable visbility into PMax campaigns, helping them understand placement performance, optimize spend, and identify which networks are driving results — all in one report. View the full article

Google I/O 2026 is nearly upon us. This is Google's annual opportunity to showcase the software features (and perhaps some of the hardware) the company has been cooking up behind the scenes. Like other big tech keynotes, anyone can tune in live and catch Google's latest announcements as they happen. Here's when Google I/O 2026 will kick off, and what we know about the conference at this time. When and what time is Google I/O 2026?Google tends to kick off its I/O event in May of each year, and 2026 is no different. This year, Google I/O will run May 19 through May 20. If you're used to watching one single livestream, that two-day schedule might come as a surprise. But I/O isn't just an announcement: It's a developer conference, spanning keynotes, demos, and product sessions. But if you're only interested in the company's main keynote, you'll want to get May 19 on your calendar. Google hasn't announced the exact time for its presentation, but it usually starts at 10 a.m. PT (1 p.m. ET), based on previous years. How to watch Google I/O 2026While Google invites a select group of journalists to watch its presentations live, and encourages developers to register to attend its various events, you can tune into the livestream wherever you are in the world. Google hasn't confirmed where its livestreams will be hosted this year, but looking to the past, you'll likely be able to stream the keynote from the official I/O website, as well as Google's official YouTube channel. What will be announced at Google I/O 2026?The short answer? We don't really know! Google is keeping I/O news close to the vest, and rumors haven't been particularly prolific this year—at least, not yet. Seeing as it's only February, it's entirely possible we'll hear more about Google I/O 2026 as we get closer to May. That said, there are some things you can expect to see regardless of leaks and rumors. Android 17 will almost assuredly take center stage at Google I/O this year. Google just released first beta for the OS on Wednesday, though it doesn't change all that much about Android 16 at this time. That said, I suspect beta testers will discover a number of new features and changes between now and May, as Google continues to add new things to its test software ahead I/O. Like the past couple of I/O's, this year should also be all about AI. Google seems to come out with new AI announcements multiple times a week, including adding its Lyria 3 AI music model to Gemini, or adding an agentic bot to Chrome to browse the internet for you. I expect Google I/O 2026 to be full of AI features—perhaps more than some of us would like to hear about. I/O 2026 could also show off some hardware, but that's no guarantee. Google did just announce the Pixel 10a, the company's latest "budget" phone, and it could reveal other devices in May, but I/O really is more about the software than the hardware. (It is a developer conference, after all.) View the full article

Federal Reserve Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman said in comments Wednesday that the central bank plans to publish its Basel III endgame capital proposal for public comment before the end of March. View the full article

Some market sectors face growing challenges related to a K-shaped economy as servicers play an increasingly important role in keeping customers. View the full article

In this guide, you’ll find everything you need to know about setting up an integration to sync Wrike with Asana using an automated flow from Unito. This integration supports Wrike tasks as well as Asana tasks, projects, and portfolios. Since Unito is a completely customizable platform with a no-code interface, you can set up this integration without any technical resources or extensive routine maintenance. No troubleshooting complex automations or relying on expensive consultants, either. Overview Tools: Wrike and Asana Use cases: Task management, project reporting, marketing reporting Great for: Project managers, consultants, marketers Unito’s two-way sync integration for Wrike and Asana allows users of any technical background, from product managers to software developers and team leads, to sync Wrike tasks with Asana tasks, projects, and portfolios. This integration syncs updates back and forth between both tools, creates new work items, and can even automate repetitive actions. This in-depth guide shows you how that’s done. Step 1: Connect Wrike and Asana to Unito Sign up for Unito. Click +Create Flow in the Unito app. Click Start Here to connect Wrike and Asana. Click +Choose Account for each tool and complete the authorization process. Click Confirm. Connecting tools to Unito for the first time? Here’s a quick guide to doing that. Step 2: Choose flow direction for new work items With flow direction, you determine where Unito automatically creates work items to match the tasks you open manually in Wrike or the work items you create in Asana. You have three flow direction options: 2-way: Both Wrike tasks and Asana work items are automatically created by your Unito flow to match the items you create manually in each tool. 1-way from Wrike to Asana: Asana work items will be automatically created by Unito to match the Wrike tasks you create manually. Unito won’t create new Wrike tasks. 1-way from Asana to Wrike: Wrike tasks will be automatically created by Unito to match the Asana work items you create manually. Unito won’t create new Asana work items. Want to know more? Here’s a guide to flow direction. Step 3: Build rules to sync specific work items Unito rules can do two things: Filter out work items you don’t want synced. For example, you could create a rule that only syncs Wrike tasks with a certain status. Automate certain actions. For example, you could create a rule that automatically assigns new Asana tasks to a certain person on your team. To start building your rule, click Add new rule, then choose a trigger and action. Need to learn more about rules? Check out this guide. Step 4: Map fields between Wrike and Asana When you map fields, you pair fields in Wrike with fields in Asana so data goes exactly where it needs to. Unito can usually map most fields automatically, whether they’re exactly the same (Assignee→Assignee) or just compatible (URL→Text). You can also choose to map fields manually to fully customize your flow. Here’s what you’ll see when Unito maps your fields automatically. You can add a field mapping by clicking +Add mapping, then Select a field. When you choose the field you want to map in one tool, Unito automatically recommends compatible fields in a dropdown under the other tool. Some fields have a cog icon. They can be customized once they’re mapped. For example, a Status field can be customized so its options match those in another field. Step 5: Launch your Wrike-Asana integration That’s it! You’re ready to launch your flow. Unito will automatically keep Wrike tasks and Asana work items in sync. This will allow your teams to collaborate more effectively without copying and pasting data or constantly switching tools. Ready to optimize your workflow? Meet with our team to see what Unito can do for your workflows. Talk with sales FAQ: Wrike-Asana integration Why should I integrate Wrike and Asana? Syncing Wrike tasks with Asana work items allows your teams to collaborate more efficiently without needing to constantly switch back and forth between tools. This allows: Leaders who plan strategies in Asana projects and portfolios to dispatch tasks to Wrike projects where individual collaborators work. Teams working in Asana can sync updates to Wrike so stakeholders have up-to-date reports in the platform they use regularly. Project managers working in Wrike can collaborate with freelancers and consultants using Asana. How do I add a Wrike task to Asana? While many teams transfer data between Wrike and Asana manually by copying and pasting or using spreadsheets, the best way to add a Wrike task to Asana is to use Unito’s two-way integration. A single flow can turn tasks in Wrike projects to work items in Asana automatically, syncing any updates between tools as you work. How much does a Wrike-Asana integration cost? The cost of a Wrike-Asana integration depends on the platform you use. Unito’s plans, for example, start at $49 a month, scaling up in price for custom enterprise plans. Other integration solutions, like Workato, can cost thousands of dollars a year or more. Why should I use Unito’s Wrike-Asana integration? Unito integrations offer the best of both worlds: deep two-way integrations with a setup that only takes minutes. When you connect Asana with Wrike, Asana work items become Wrike tasks and vice versa. That means everything from comments to due dates and assignees can get synced across with no extra work. Eliminate copying and pasting, reduce data entry errors, and never miss an update again. A Unito integration is as close as you can get to working in a single tool with forcing anyone out of their preferred platform. What’s next after integrating Wrike with Asana? Need to integrate Wrike or Asana with other tools in your stack? Check out our other guides: Syncing Smartsheet with Asana Syncing Wrike and Microsoft Excel Integrating Jira and Wrike Integrating Asana and Rovo Connecting Wrike and Salesforce Connecting Asana and Salesforce View the full article

At SuiteConnect 2026 in New York, I caught up with Craig Dubitsky—Founder and CEO of happy®—for a wide-ranging conversation about what it really takes to scale a fast-growing consumer brand. While happy is known for its cold brew lattes, pods, and whole bean coffee, Craig’s story goes far beyond the product lineup. He’s built high-growth brands before, and he shares a memorable (and painful) lesson from his previous company, Hello: when your systems can’t keep up with rapid expansion, the business can grind to a halt. In this interview, Craig explains why he chose to build happy on NetSuite from day one, how real-time visibility helps his team make faster decisions, and what operational pressure points show up first when you expand to tens of thousands of retail locations. We also dig into practical topics every growing business faces—inventory complexity, supply chain surprises, deductions and chargebacks, and using data to decide which products to push (and which to stop chasing). And as the conversation closes, Craig shares the deeper mission behind happy’s name: a serious commitment to supporting mental health and helping remove stigma through its partnership with NAMI. Here is a transcript of the interview: Leland McFarland All right, I am here at SuiteConnect 2026 in New York with Craig Dibbsky. Craig Dubitsky Dubitsky. Dubitsky. Yes, it’s like, don’t, don’t, no, no, it’s good. You haven’t had enough coffee yet. That’s okay either was I and now I’m in it. Leland McFarland I’ve got to try yours. do have to try yours. you know, it’s free out there. Craig Dubitsky So. Yeah, we have a happy camper out there. Leland McFarland All right, he is the founder and CEO of Happy, a coffee cold brewed, is it cold brewed? Craig Dubitsky Cold brew lattes dry coffee. We have ground coffee whole bean coffee Pods aka k cups for those who celebrate. Yeah Leland McFarland All right, so in the press release, it was said that elevating the everyday requires a system that can keep up. What was the moment that you realized your old system just kind of keep Craig Dubitsky Well, true story. Prior to happy, I was the founder of another company called Hello. It’s an oral care brand and oral care and some personal care as well. And we were on another system that shall remain nameless. And basically it didn’t it didn’t just implode. We grew so quickly and ferociously in a friendly way. that the system completely crashed. We broke it. And when I say we broke it, you know how there things that to like Defcon 5, like internal tech companies will have like a SWAT team that’s, know, like, they’ve never seen this before. We gotta bring in the SEALs, you know? We had that level of attention and they hadn’t seen anything like we had inadvertently caused to their system before. So we realized in a very painful way we had to make a move. And frankly, because someone asked me like, well, didn’t you know that? like, no one would plan for that. Like no one plans for like, let’s totally decimate a technology platform. Like, no, that was not the idea. And it was not, by the way, sold to us. Like, by the way, this stuff is great until you get to this magic moment where your business hits an incredible reflection point and then it’s going to shut down. It was really this unforeseen thing. So we had made this move over a weekend. went. the old business that I’m referring to, which is an amazing brand, and I hope you try it. It’s called Hello, in oral care products. And we have this moment where we went from 18,000 doors of retail distribution to 55,000 doors in just a couple of months. And it went wild. Now, with that growth, with great growth comes great responsibility. With great growth comes a whole bunch of other things that just happen. Systems. need to change, your team might need to grow. There are a lot of things that come with growth. And we had to literally migrate from this other system to another system over a weekend because our entire business was paralyzed. supply chain, inventory, all the componentry, all the retailers, ERP, everything, ARAP, every acronym you could think of. And we added in this other acronym, was WTF. So we were in dire straits. We made the move to NetSuite over a weekend, a full migration over a weekend, which was incredible. Talk about a Herculean task. It was a big deal. And it worked and we just never looked back. So when we got to a point where, you know, going to start another company, try to build another brand from day zero, we started with NetSuite because we’d had this incredible experience and the platform grew with us. It wasn’t just like, it’s one and done, like here it is and it works. like, no, was more like, instead of just fixing a problem, it’s going to help us see other solutions. We’re going to be able to see around other corners and we didn’t even know what corners. So it was incredible given our growth of Hello, but also incredible when you’re starting a new business, you’re able to tap into the fact that you have a platform that’s going to Move and grow with you not limit you as you grow nice And by the way, just sorry for the record. I’m not a spade a paid I don’t think I’m spade either I’m not a paid spokesperson just on the record I’m not a paid spokesperson for NetSuite. I I’m a super fan Leland McFarland Well, they haven’t bought you yet. Craig Dubitsky No, but you know, they can buy some coffee. Leland McFarland Well, they have, in terms, of bought your glowing reviews by just doing this. Craig Dubitsky Yeah, well, they do a great job. So I thank them on the daily. Leland McFarland So Happy grew fast across 70,000 distribution points. What operational challenges showed up first? Craig Dubitsky The four touch touch touch wood The biggest operational challenges have not really been around how are we managing our ERP Again, I can throw every acronym right every financial acronym. It’s been about how do we get additional awareness? Because we have a lot of distribution. So our awareness is growing. We just started doing some Leland McFarland if you had any. Craig Dubitsky really, really exciting marketing. There’s a lot more coming. And after this little bit of testing that we did in about seven states, our sales at a certain retailer went up 28%, a certain online retailer, 32 % physical, 28 % online with two different players. And our awareness amongst women nationally doubled. So for us, the biggest challenge has been, all we have this great product, how do we get people to know that? Because operationally, we’re in good shape. The products are great, they’re winning awards, which is great. Great reviews, great being able to ship on time and in full. Great being able to manage our inventory because we’re dealing with product that has shelf life in many cases, right? So when you’re dealing with freshness and componentry, and manufacturing schedules and a lot of retailers, and being able to integrate into EDI systems and manage payroll and do everything else we have to do. The challenge has just been keeping our heads down. Just the signal-to-noise ratio, we try to keep that in check because the operational bits are rock solid. It’s a combination of the platform and the team we have. because we’ve been through this, we built another business together and watching it really accelerate on NetSuite has given us this leg up from day zero with this thing. Leland McFarland So the release also says that NetSuite helped maximize visibility across the business. What does that look like in practice? What can you see now that you couldn’t before? Craig Dubitsky Short answer everything Everything so we see where every every moving part now is visible and when we start to play around with the AI Functionality bits which may be another question you have in there. I don’t know. I might be combining questions We can see around corners that we didn’t even know we’re there to look at and we’re getting we’re getting information Proactively as opposed to always having a search for it, you know, it’s this idea. I think of moving from Just using AI and getting the intelligence part to getting to a deeper level of understanding and I think understanding is I think a higher order versus intelligence in a lot of ways So we use the platform or using AI to help us analyze things in real time Like what’s working? my god. Look at that I didn’t know that retail was blowing it out. Like how did we miss that so fast? You know, there’s there’s positive things that we see and then we have to react differently to the positive things, which is a good problem to have. And sometimes it’s things that need a little more attention. So being able to have things highlighted for you as opposed to just having, you know, there’s some dashboard, I have to look at it interpret everything. It’s like having a freaking genius with you all the time who’s minding all your numbers for you is way more evolved than just, yeah, I simplified my tasks. Tasks are great. Understanding and figuring out things that you didn’t even know you needed. help figuring out before you know you need to figure it out. That’s miraculous. That’s incredible. It’s just incredible. Leland McFarland So what’s one decision that you made faster because NetSuite gave you the numbers and records? Craig Dubitsky Let’s see. There are probably a couple of things. One is figuring out which areas of the country to market in when we were going to spend marketing dollars. Because obviously, any time you’re about to spend money on something, there’s ROI. You’re thinking about, how is this thing going to pay off? So you want to make sure you’re mindful about where you’re putting your dollars. So we use NetSuite to figure out where are we seeing the largest bump and where are we seeing the valleys where we wanted to see them. And we wanted to fine tune our marketing to see what worked in different regions of the country and what worked in different states of play in those regions, given retailer penetration, promotional activities we might have been working with and leveraging. So the first thing that comes to mind is that, like where are the parts of the country where we wanna apply marketing dollars based on performance in the marketplace, good and less optimized, it’s a nice way of putting it. So that was great to have. insight into where we should play. That to me was probably number one. Yeah, let’s go with that. That was a biggie. The other thing is kind of an obvious one, which is what’s working, what isn’t working? Which products are running? I used to be in a prior life, I was a futures trader, a derivatives trader. just in old adages, you want to let your winners run and your losers, you want to take care of those quickly. Not everything’s gonna work all the time. That’s just life. And as a founder and as someone who’s had a couple of trips around the sun, you can’t fall in love with your own stuff and you can’t fall in love with your inventory. So being, I think, informed enough and hopefully emotionally secure enough to know that not everything’s gonna work and use tools like NetSuite has to figure out where the winners are and where the ones that aren’t quite. living up to your fantasies are and knowing how to sort of like decrease your exposure on the ones that aren’t working and increase your spend and your profitability on the ones that are working. That’s amazing. It’s great. Because intuition can only take you so far, right? Intuition can get you started, but it doesn’t mean it’s going to sustain you. So having tools that will take your intuition and back it up with data that will let you win, that’s a magical math, if you can pull that off. Leland McFarland I like that idea of letting go of products because so many people are attached to the products that they make. sometimes letting go of something that just isn’t working is going to be one of the hardest things. But being able to see data that says, no, the rest of the country doesn’t like your product. It’s niche. Craig Dubitsky Right and you know, there’s there’s riches in the niches as they say And all that stuff is great right if it rhymes it’s right it’s true I I applaud anyone who has an idea and works hard to make it into something real. That’s great. I think the challenge is How do you go from being? An entrepreneur people like oh you have an idea to like a good entrepreneur someone has an idea and they make it real But they also make it real and profitable and able to grow Like that’s really important and having the right tools in terms of platform, yes, and in terms of people and partners is everything. Because at the end of the day, we only have so much time as humans. I hope we have a lot of it, right? But we have to make really sound decisions and we have to be emotional because that’s what got us to start things in the first place as entrepreneurs. And as part of our team, I say like everyone’s a fan. Robert Tangi and I are the co-founders. Everybody on our team is a founder because everyone’s touched it and made it better. So we set it up that way. We want people to help us make it better. And if we are mature about it, we can say, well, that worked and that didn’t work and why didn’t it work and how do we make it better? We have the tools that help us isolate and analyze the stuff that’s working or not. That is how you get better. That’s how you get to a place where you can be profitable and where you can grow and where you can scale. So all these things are It’s like the professor is legally giving you the answers to the Sure, but they’re teaching you so much. It’s not like I just got the cheat code, know I can get a good grade. It’s multiple choice and I know what all the You know, I know what all the answers are ready. They gave me a copy of the test. No, it’s much more than that It’s kind of like you’re getting all the all the knowledge all the intellect all the magical thinking behind why the decisions could be made better That’s That’s unbelievable. We didn’t have tools like that. There was a lot of trial and error before. There still is. But now, again, you can let your trials accelerate, and you can extrapolate really quickly and figure out what’s working in a small way so that you can scale the good stuff and nuke the bad stuff. data is really helpful with that. Leland McFarland Definitely is so the release mentioned improving the speed and accuracy of financial reporting What’s? specifically changed in your clothes Craig Dubitsky Well, Adam, our finance guy, if he were here, I’d probably make him blush. It’s also part of my job. I have to make Adam blush. Adam is a machine. And for him to have tools to let him close out the month, like quickly, I cannot under-appreciate. No, I can’t over-appreciate. No, what’s the best way to put it? Overstate. I can’t overstate. can’t oversimplify. I can’t express. Just in words, I’ll have to do it in song How invaluable it has been to get people more time back in their life That’s a big deal so to give Adam the ability to close out the month and share that with our team Share that with our we have investors by the way most of the team everybody at happy is an equity stakeholder and a whole bunch of our team Myself included we’re investors in the business as well. So to be able to have visibility Yes, but also have a very concise clear tight beautiful by the way looking Instead of of of Metrics and data points that can tell us like here’s where the month closed. Here’s you know, here’s what we have Here’s what we don’t have. Here’s what we need like that’s important because you can’t run a business just on hope you have to have you know You have to have the data. have to know what’s going on in your business. So to be able to do that quickly and give people time back in their life, by the way, which then gives them the ability to think and read what the hell happened. What do we do? What’s working? What isn’t working? Now, how do we use some of the AI tools that are embedded in these systems to help us make better choices and do it quicker? Quicker is better because it gives you more time to then think about other aspects of your business. It’s amazing. I’m trying to think if I’ve really answered your question sort of like, you know being able to close out the month on time Is great, but it’s not just about finishing it on time. It’s finishing it on time with really accurate and pertinent and Like intellectually robust information. It’s not just like here’s the books Yeah, we close you made this much you didn’t make this much. There’s how much we have in the bank There’s so much we have an inventory the end like That’s okay. That’s a snapshot in time. That doesn’t tell you what’s working, what isn’t working. That then leaves that to you to interpret. This helps provide a much clearer picture on a monthly basis at speed with a lot more information. And that’s really cool. It’s really helpful. It’s really helpful. And also, because I’m an investor person, there’s nowhere to hide. I don’t want to, I don’t, you we’re not looking to hide. We’re looking to learn and grow and move fast. So yeah. Those are the big wins for us. It’s like no pride of authorship, pride of ownership and in sharing and being able to make good decisions again at pace with the best information we can get. That’s the magic of this stuff. Leland McFarland All right, so where did errors or delays usually come before channel data or deductions or chargebacks? Craig Dubitsky Don’t get me started on charge backs and deductions and you know, look these I don’t want to sound untoward, but we know Some of those areas For some are profit centers, right? You know, so Having again a clear picture as to what you have when you shipped When you shipped it how it’s sold through is very helpful because sometimes look mistakes happen I don’t want to cast aspersions on anyone’s intent, but we’ve had we’ve had know retailers before that’ll tell us about a certain thing that requires a deduction will be like no actually we we did what we said we did and we actually sent you all the stuff and arrived when it was supposed to and we have all the information that’s sorry Mistake, I mean mistakes happen. I don’t want to again paint a picture that there was any You know negative intent on everybody’s part Accurate information helps you avoid some of these things. It’s part of it’s part of life when you’re operating at scale. It’s a lot of moving so things can happen. So being able again to have accurate reporting is extremely helpful, extremely helpful. Leland McFarland So distribution and logistics can be quite brutal. What was the hardest part of your scaling up to like that 70,000? Craig Dubitsky It’s a great question. What was the hardest part? Hardest part? Well, at one point, it was very, very difficult to get cans, believe it or not. Cans were in very short supply. that was tricky. Managing componentry was tricky. We were making these. These are custom containers. this whole thing is curbside recyclable. Even the label is a custom substrate. You don’t have to peel this off. Sometimes you get something that’s like, Remove the label. No, it’s custom label. Even this could be recycled as the curb. Well, this was being made. And by the way, coffee, and this dates the story, but there were these things called tariffs that were going on. So talk about an interesting wrinkle. So all of a sudden, you had components made in certain parts of the world. had coffee grown. And we were sourcing from seven countries and every other. pick a point in time, there was a new tariff or not a tariff and a tariff and a different tariff. there were a lot of moving financial parts as well as moving parts. So where cans were coming from, where they were going, getting filled, where componentry for primary packaging was coming from, how that was getting filled, how that was getting sealed, how cans in the beginning before they were printed aluminum cans, they were sleeved cans. So there was just logistics involved with everything. because you had to get your hands on the cans. You had to fill the product. You had to bring the product back to get it sleeved in a different place because the same place I was filling it didn’t have a sleeving mechanism. Oh, you got a Costco order. That’s great. We don’t palletize product like that. We don’t create case packs. There’s so many moving pieces. I could talk to you and you for hours at end. Yeah, this stuff, it’s not for the faint of heart. So again, having tools that can help you keep track of all this stuff and having a team of people that are very comfortable using those tools, that’s some secret sauce. Yeah. I don’t know if I’m really answering your question, but. All right, thank you. Yeah, it’s tough. So supply chain logistics, moving stuff from point A to point B, when you have a lot of point Bs and a lot of A, lowercase a, uppercase A, Leland McFarland That was good answer. Craig Dubitsky A.1, A.2, A.3. Having a platform that lets you keep track of all that stuff in the process is really great. Really great. Because again, there are a lot of components. We’ve called these blends. There are multiple beams. This stuff comes out of the ground. Like, you know, working to make sure you’re creating something that’s consistent. Because, that’s right. It goes in people’s mouths. It has to taste great. It has to be consistent. managing all the aspects of your manufacturing. with your partners to make sure that your product quality is ACES. All these things are dependent on a whole bunch of factors coming together. So again, it’s Herculean task management, plus, plus, plus, plus, plus. And if you have the right tools, you can do it. Leland McFarland All right, so that’s what I got for you today. So why don’t you tell everyone where they could learn more about your drink and where maybe they could buy it. Craig Dubitsky Sure. Well, you can learn more at happyproducts.com. So please come by. If you’re not near a Walmart, a Target, a Kroger, an Albertsons, a CVS, an HEB, a Meyer, probably leaving a whole bunch out and I apologize, a Sheetz, you can certainly find us at amazon.com slash happy. There’s some fun videos up there as well you can check out. And obviously on our website, you can come and and see everything we have and order everything. And I thank you for listening. I hope that you give our products a try, that you love them as much as we love bringing them to life. And the thing that I want to point out is we’re called happy because coffee makes people happy and now happy is going to make their coffee. But the bigger point of this, as big as that is, is that we know not everybody’s happy. So we… wanted to reimagine the relationship between entrepreneurship and philanthropy. And we want to help people. We want to do our best to remove stigma from mental health, which is at epidemic levels here and abroad. Mental health doesn’t care how much you do or do not have in your bank account, what your native tongue is, where you’re from. It plays no favorites. It impacts everybody. depending on which study you look at, one in four or one in five people in this country have some form of mental illness. How can we remove stigma from that? Suicide rates have gone up 30 % in the past 20 years Number one killer teens used to be car accidents all by leukemia now number one is handguns and number two is death by suicide often one and two are Connected so we want to remove stigma. We partnered with NAMI the National Alliance on mental illness we have a QR code on every product we make toll-free number there’s free professional help and Call somebody, you know Call somebody you haven’t spoken to in a long time. Just tell them you’re thinking about it. Text them. Tell them I said to give them a call. You can call me if you want. My cell is 917-392-1000. If you need help, there’s 988. NAMI helped create 988, which is the 911 for mental health. And we gave NAMI a piece of the company. So NAMI’s on our cap table. This isn’t a performative thing. you know, let’s do a thing with mental health. No, this is a serious thing that we’re involved with as humans. And we want to try to remove stigma. So that’s the important thing. Supply chain. Got it. Making sure our balance sheet is tight as a drum. Got it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. NetSuite for all of that. I mean that sincerely. You know, we’re in the happy business as much as the coffee business. So give some a try. The coffee’s epic. I promise. You know, two to five acre small grower farms, 40 % of them are run by women. pretty amazing and they represent less than half of 1 % of all available commercial coffee growers. So really picky about the coffee. Coffee is amazing, chefs kiss stuff. But do something kind for somebody, say hello to somebody and that’s it. That’s what I got. Be in the happy business. Leland McFarland All right, well thank you for coming on and sharing happy and also all about NAMI and mental health. Craig Dubitsky Thanks for having me. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Thanks. Good to meet you. Leland McFarland Thanks. Bye. Craig’s story is a reminder that growth is exciting—but it can also expose every weak link in your operations. From packaging constraints and shifting supply chain realities to the constant need for accurate reporting and clean data, scaling isn’t just about selling more—it’s about staying in control as complexity multiplies. What stood out most was Craig’s focus on visibility: not just seeing the numbers, but using better tools (and increasingly AI-driven insights) to spot what’s working faster, react sooner, and make decisions with confidence instead of guesswork. Just as important, Craig makes it clear that happy is building more than a coffee brand. The company’s partnership with NAMI and its push to normalize mental health conversations reflect a bigger goal: connecting entrepreneurship with real-world impact in a way that isn’t performative, but embedded into the business itself. To learn more about happy or to find where to buy it, visit happyproducts.com or look for happy in major retailers and online marketplaces mentioned in the interview. This article, "Interview with Craig Dubitsky – Founder and CEO of happy" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

At SuiteConnect 2026 in New York, I caught up with Craig Dubitsky—Founder and CEO of happy®—for a wide-ranging conversation about what it really takes to scale a fast-growing consumer brand. While happy is known for its cold brew lattes, pods, and whole bean coffee, Craig’s story goes far beyond the product lineup. He’s built high-growth brands before, and he shares a memorable (and painful) lesson from his previous company, Hello: when your systems can’t keep up with rapid expansion, the business can grind to a halt. In this interview, Craig explains why he chose to build happy on NetSuite from day one, how real-time visibility helps his team make faster decisions, and what operational pressure points show up first when you expand to tens of thousands of retail locations. We also dig into practical topics every growing business faces—inventory complexity, supply chain surprises, deductions and chargebacks, and using data to decide which products to push (and which to stop chasing). And as the conversation closes, Craig shares the deeper mission behind happy’s name: a serious commitment to supporting mental health and helping remove stigma through its partnership with NAMI. Here is a transcript of the interview: Leland McFarland All right, I am here at SuiteConnect 2026 in New York with Craig Dibbsky. Craig Dubitsky Dubitsky. Dubitsky. Yes, it’s like, don’t, don’t, no, no, it’s good. You haven’t had enough coffee yet. That’s okay either was I and now I’m in it. Leland McFarland I’ve got to try yours. do have to try yours. you know, it’s free out there. Craig Dubitsky So. Yeah, we have a happy camper out there. Leland McFarland All right, he is the founder and CEO of Happy, a coffee cold brewed, is it cold brewed? Craig Dubitsky Cold brew lattes dry coffee. We have ground coffee whole bean coffee Pods aka k cups for those who celebrate. Yeah Leland McFarland All right, so in the press release, it was said that elevating the everyday requires a system that can keep up. What was the moment that you realized your old system just kind of keep Craig Dubitsky Well, true story. Prior to happy, I was the founder of another company called Hello. It’s an oral care brand and oral care and some personal care as well. And we were on another system that shall remain nameless. And basically it didn’t it didn’t just implode. We grew so quickly and ferociously in a friendly way. that the system completely crashed. We broke it. And when I say we broke it, you know how there things that to like Defcon 5, like internal tech companies will have like a SWAT team that’s, know, like, they’ve never seen this before. We gotta bring in the SEALs, you know? We had that level of attention and they hadn’t seen anything like we had inadvertently caused to their system before. So we realized in a very painful way we had to make a move. And frankly, because someone asked me like, well, didn’t you know that? like, no one would plan for that. Like no one plans for like, let’s totally decimate a technology platform. Like, no, that was not the idea. And it was not, by the way, sold to us. Like, by the way, this stuff is great until you get to this magic moment where your business hits an incredible reflection point and then it’s going to shut down. It was really this unforeseen thing. So we had made this move over a weekend. went. the old business that I’m referring to, which is an amazing brand, and I hope you try it. It’s called Hello, in oral care products. And we have this moment where we went from 18,000 doors of retail distribution to 55,000 doors in just a couple of months. And it went wild. Now, with that growth, with great growth comes great responsibility. With great growth comes a whole bunch of other things that just happen. Systems. need to change, your team might need to grow. There are a lot of things that come with growth. And we had to literally migrate from this other system to another system over a weekend because our entire business was paralyzed. supply chain, inventory, all the componentry, all the retailers, ERP, everything, ARAP, every acronym you could think of. And we added in this other acronym, was WTF. So we were in dire straits. We made the move to NetSuite over a weekend, a full migration over a weekend, which was incredible. Talk about a Herculean task. It was a big deal. And it worked and we just never looked back. So when we got to a point where, you know, going to start another company, try to build another brand from day zero, we started with NetSuite because we’d had this incredible experience and the platform grew with us. It wasn’t just like, it’s one and done, like here it is and it works. like, no, was more like, instead of just fixing a problem, it’s going to help us see other solutions. We’re going to be able to see around other corners and we didn’t even know what corners. So it was incredible given our growth of Hello, but also incredible when you’re starting a new business, you’re able to tap into the fact that you have a platform that’s going to Move and grow with you not limit you as you grow nice And by the way, just sorry for the record. I’m not a spade a paid I don’t think I’m spade either I’m not a paid spokesperson just on the record I’m not a paid spokesperson for NetSuite. I I’m a super fan Leland McFarland Well, they haven’t bought you yet. Craig Dubitsky No, but you know, they can buy some coffee. Leland McFarland Well, they have, in terms, of bought your glowing reviews by just doing this. Craig Dubitsky Yeah, well, they do a great job. So I thank them on the daily. Leland McFarland So Happy grew fast across 70,000 distribution points. What operational challenges showed up first? Craig Dubitsky The four touch touch touch wood The biggest operational challenges have not really been around how are we managing our ERP Again, I can throw every acronym right every financial acronym. It’s been about how do we get additional awareness? Because we have a lot of distribution. So our awareness is growing. We just started doing some Leland McFarland if you had any. Craig Dubitsky really, really exciting marketing. There’s a lot more coming. And after this little bit of testing that we did in about seven states, our sales at a certain retailer went up 28%, a certain online retailer, 32 % physical, 28 % online with two different players. And our awareness amongst women nationally doubled. So for us, the biggest challenge has been, all we have this great product, how do we get people to know that? Because operationally, we’re in good shape. The products are great, they’re winning awards, which is great. Great reviews, great being able to ship on time and in full. Great being able to manage our inventory because we’re dealing with product that has shelf life in many cases, right? So when you’re dealing with freshness and componentry, and manufacturing schedules and a lot of retailers, and being able to integrate into EDI systems and manage payroll and do everything else we have to do. The challenge has just been keeping our heads down. Just the signal-to-noise ratio, we try to keep that in check because the operational bits are rock solid. It’s a combination of the platform and the team we have. because we’ve been through this, we built another business together and watching it really accelerate on NetSuite has given us this leg up from day zero with this thing. Leland McFarland So the release also says that NetSuite helped maximize visibility across the business. What does that look like in practice? What can you see now that you couldn’t before? Craig Dubitsky Short answer everything Everything so we see where every every moving part now is visible and when we start to play around with the AI Functionality bits which may be another question you have in there. I don’t know. I might be combining questions We can see around corners that we didn’t even know we’re there to look at and we’re getting we’re getting information Proactively as opposed to always having a search for it, you know, it’s this idea. I think of moving from Just using AI and getting the intelligence part to getting to a deeper level of understanding and I think understanding is I think a higher order versus intelligence in a lot of ways So we use the platform or using AI to help us analyze things in real time Like what’s working? my god. Look at that I didn’t know that retail was blowing it out. Like how did we miss that so fast? You know, there’s there’s positive things that we see and then we have to react differently to the positive things, which is a good problem to have. And sometimes it’s things that need a little more attention. So being able to have things highlighted for you as opposed to just having, you know, there’s some dashboard, I have to look at it interpret everything. It’s like having a freaking genius with you all the time who’s minding all your numbers for you is way more evolved than just, yeah, I simplified my tasks. Tasks are great. Understanding and figuring out things that you didn’t even know you needed. help figuring out before you know you need to figure it out. That’s miraculous. That’s incredible. It’s just incredible. Leland McFarland So what’s one decision that you made faster because NetSuite gave you the numbers and records? Craig Dubitsky Let’s see. There are probably a couple of things. One is figuring out which areas of the country to market in when we were going to spend marketing dollars. Because obviously, any time you’re about to spend money on something, there’s ROI. You’re thinking about, how is this thing going to pay off? So you want to make sure you’re mindful about where you’re putting your dollars. So we use NetSuite to figure out where are we seeing the largest bump and where are we seeing the valleys where we wanted to see them. And we wanted to fine tune our marketing to see what worked in different regions of the country and what worked in different states of play in those regions, given retailer penetration, promotional activities we might have been working with and leveraging. So the first thing that comes to mind is that, like where are the parts of the country where we wanna apply marketing dollars based on performance in the marketplace, good and less optimized, it’s a nice way of putting it. So that was great to have. insight into where we should play. That to me was probably number one. Yeah, let’s go with that. That was a biggie. The other thing is kind of an obvious one, which is what’s working, what isn’t working? Which products are running? I used to be in a prior life, I was a futures trader, a derivatives trader. just in old adages, you want to let your winners run and your losers, you want to take care of those quickly. Not everything’s gonna work all the time. That’s just life. And as a founder and as someone who’s had a couple of trips around the sun, you can’t fall in love with your own stuff and you can’t fall in love with your inventory. So being, I think, informed enough and hopefully emotionally secure enough to know that not everything’s gonna work and use tools like NetSuite has to figure out where the winners are and where the ones that aren’t quite. living up to your fantasies are and knowing how to sort of like decrease your exposure on the ones that aren’t working and increase your spend and your profitability on the ones that are working. That’s amazing. It’s great. Because intuition can only take you so far, right? Intuition can get you started, but it doesn’t mean it’s going to sustain you. So having tools that will take your intuition and back it up with data that will let you win, that’s a magical math, if you can pull that off. Leland McFarland I like that idea of letting go of products because so many people are attached to the products that they make. sometimes letting go of something that just isn’t working is going to be one of the hardest things. But being able to see data that says, no, the rest of the country doesn’t like your product. It’s niche. Craig Dubitsky Right and you know, there’s there’s riches in the niches as they say And all that stuff is great right if it rhymes it’s right it’s true I I applaud anyone who has an idea and works hard to make it into something real. That’s great. I think the challenge is How do you go from being? An entrepreneur people like oh you have an idea to like a good entrepreneur someone has an idea and they make it real But they also make it real and profitable and able to grow Like that’s really important and having the right tools in terms of platform, yes, and in terms of people and partners is everything. Because at the end of the day, we only have so much time as humans. I hope we have a lot of it, right? But we have to make really sound decisions and we have to be emotional because that’s what got us to start things in the first place as entrepreneurs. And as part of our team, I say like everyone’s a fan. Robert Tangi and I are the co-founders. Everybody on our team is a founder because everyone’s touched it and made it better. So we set it up that way. We want people to help us make it better. And if we are mature about it, we can say, well, that worked and that didn’t work and why didn’t it work and how do we make it better? We have the tools that help us isolate and analyze the stuff that’s working or not. That is how you get better. That’s how you get to a place where you can be profitable and where you can grow and where you can scale. So all these things are It’s like the professor is legally giving you the answers to the Sure, but they’re teaching you so much. It’s not like I just got the cheat code, know I can get a good grade. It’s multiple choice and I know what all the You know, I know what all the answers are ready. They gave me a copy of the test. No, it’s much more than that It’s kind of like you’re getting all the all the knowledge all the intellect all the magical thinking behind why the decisions could be made better That’s That’s unbelievable. We didn’t have tools like that. There was a lot of trial and error before. There still is. But now, again, you can let your trials accelerate, and you can extrapolate really quickly and figure out what’s working in a small way so that you can scale the good stuff and nuke the bad stuff. data is really helpful with that. Leland McFarland Definitely is so the release mentioned improving the speed and accuracy of financial reporting What’s? specifically changed in your clothes Craig Dubitsky Well, Adam, our finance guy, if he were here, I’d probably make him blush. It’s also part of my job. I have to make Adam blush. Adam is a machine. And for him to have tools to let him close out the month, like quickly, I cannot under-appreciate. No, I can’t over-appreciate. No, what’s the best way to put it? Overstate. I can’t overstate. can’t oversimplify. I can’t express. Just in words, I’ll have to do it in song How invaluable it has been to get people more time back in their life That’s a big deal so to give Adam the ability to close out the month and share that with our team Share that with our we have investors by the way most of the team everybody at happy is an equity stakeholder and a whole bunch of our team Myself included we’re investors in the business as well. So to be able to have visibility Yes, but also have a very concise clear tight beautiful by the way looking Instead of of of Metrics and data points that can tell us like here’s where the month closed. Here’s you know, here’s what we have Here’s what we don’t have. Here’s what we need like that’s important because you can’t run a business just on hope you have to have you know You have to have the data. have to know what’s going on in your business. So to be able to do that quickly and give people time back in their life, by the way, which then gives them the ability to think and read what the hell happened. What do we do? What’s working? What isn’t working? Now, how do we use some of the AI tools that are embedded in these systems to help us make better choices and do it quicker? Quicker is better because it gives you more time to then think about other aspects of your business. It’s amazing. I’m trying to think if I’ve really answered your question sort of like, you know being able to close out the month on time Is great, but it’s not just about finishing it on time. It’s finishing it on time with really accurate and pertinent and Like intellectually robust information. It’s not just like here’s the books Yeah, we close you made this much you didn’t make this much. There’s how much we have in the bank There’s so much we have an inventory the end like That’s okay. That’s a snapshot in time. That doesn’t tell you what’s working, what isn’t working. That then leaves that to you to interpret. This helps provide a much clearer picture on a monthly basis at speed with a lot more information. And that’s really cool. It’s really helpful. It’s really helpful. And also, because I’m an investor person, there’s nowhere to hide. I don’t want to, I don’t, you we’re not looking to hide. We’re looking to learn and grow and move fast. So yeah. Those are the big wins for us. It’s like no pride of authorship, pride of ownership and in sharing and being able to make good decisions again at pace with the best information we can get. That’s the magic of this stuff. Leland McFarland All right, so where did errors or delays usually come before channel data or deductions or chargebacks? Craig Dubitsky Don’t get me started on charge backs and deductions and you know, look these I don’t want to sound untoward, but we know Some of those areas For some are profit centers, right? You know, so Having again a clear picture as to what you have when you shipped When you shipped it how it’s sold through is very helpful because sometimes look mistakes happen I don’t want to cast aspersions on anyone’s intent, but we’ve had we’ve had know retailers before that’ll tell us about a certain thing that requires a deduction will be like no actually we we did what we said we did and we actually sent you all the stuff and arrived when it was supposed to and we have all the information that’s sorry Mistake, I mean mistakes happen. I don’t want to again paint a picture that there was any You know negative intent on everybody’s part Accurate information helps you avoid some of these things. It’s part of it’s part of life when you’re operating at scale. It’s a lot of moving so things can happen. So being able again to have accurate reporting is extremely helpful, extremely helpful. Leland McFarland So distribution and logistics can be quite brutal. What was the hardest part of your scaling up to like that 70,000? Craig Dubitsky It’s a great question. What was the hardest part? Hardest part? Well, at one point, it was very, very difficult to get cans, believe it or not. Cans were in very short supply. that was tricky. Managing componentry was tricky. We were making these. These are custom containers. this whole thing is curbside recyclable. Even the label is a custom substrate. You don’t have to peel this off. Sometimes you get something that’s like, Remove the label. No, it’s custom label. Even this could be recycled as the curb. Well, this was being made. And by the way, coffee, and this dates the story, but there were these things called tariffs that were going on. So talk about an interesting wrinkle. So all of a sudden, you had components made in certain parts of the world. had coffee grown. And we were sourcing from seven countries and every other. pick a point in time, there was a new tariff or not a tariff and a tariff and a different tariff. there were a lot of moving financial parts as well as moving parts. So where cans were coming from, where they were going, getting filled, where componentry for primary packaging was coming from, how that was getting filled, how that was getting sealed, how cans in the beginning before they were printed aluminum cans, they were sleeved cans. So there was just logistics involved with everything. because you had to get your hands on the cans. You had to fill the product. You had to bring the product back to get it sleeved in a different place because the same place I was filling it didn’t have a sleeving mechanism. Oh, you got a Costco order. That’s great. We don’t palletize product like that. We don’t create case packs. There’s so many moving pieces. I could talk to you and you for hours at end. Yeah, this stuff, it’s not for the faint of heart. So again, having tools that can help you keep track of all this stuff and having a team of people that are very comfortable using those tools, that’s some secret sauce. Yeah. I don’t know if I’m really answering your question, but. All right, thank you. Yeah, it’s tough. So supply chain logistics, moving stuff from point A to point B, when you have a lot of point Bs and a lot of A, lowercase a, uppercase A, Leland McFarland That was good answer. Craig Dubitsky A.1, A.2, A.3. Having a platform that lets you keep track of all that stuff in the process is really great. Really great. Because again, there are a lot of components. We’ve called these blends. There are multiple beams. This stuff comes out of the ground. Like, you know, working to make sure you’re creating something that’s consistent. Because, that’s right. It goes in people’s mouths. It has to taste great. It has to be consistent. managing all the aspects of your manufacturing. with your partners to make sure that your product quality is ACES. All these things are dependent on a whole bunch of factors coming together. So again, it’s Herculean task management, plus, plus, plus, plus, plus. And if you have the right tools, you can do it. Leland McFarland All right, so that’s what I got for you today. So why don’t you tell everyone where they could learn more about your drink and where maybe they could buy it. Craig Dubitsky Sure. Well, you can learn more at happyproducts.com. So please come by. If you’re not near a Walmart, a Target, a Kroger, an Albertsons, a CVS, an HEB, a Meyer, probably leaving a whole bunch out and I apologize, a Sheetz, you can certainly find us at amazon.com slash happy. There’s some fun videos up there as well you can check out. And obviously on our website, you can come and and see everything we have and order everything. And I thank you for listening. I hope that you give our products a try, that you love them as much as we love bringing them to life. And the thing that I want to point out is we’re called happy because coffee makes people happy and now happy is going to make their coffee. But the bigger point of this, as big as that is, is that we know not everybody’s happy. So we… wanted to reimagine the relationship between entrepreneurship and philanthropy. And we want to help people. We want to do our best to remove stigma from mental health, which is at epidemic levels here and abroad. Mental health doesn’t care how much you do or do not have in your bank account, what your native tongue is, where you’re from. It plays no favorites. It impacts everybody. depending on which study you look at, one in four or one in five people in this country have some form of mental illness. How can we remove stigma from that? Suicide rates have gone up 30 % in the past 20 years Number one killer teens used to be car accidents all by leukemia now number one is handguns and number two is death by suicide often one and two are Connected so we want to remove stigma. We partnered with NAMI the National Alliance on mental illness we have a QR code on every product we make toll-free number there’s free professional help and Call somebody, you know Call somebody you haven’t spoken to in a long time. Just tell them you’re thinking about it. Text them. Tell them I said to give them a call. You can call me if you want. My cell is 917-392-1000. If you need help, there’s 988. NAMI helped create 988, which is the 911 for mental health. And we gave NAMI a piece of the company. So NAMI’s on our cap table. This isn’t a performative thing. you know, let’s do a thing with mental health. No, this is a serious thing that we’re involved with as humans. And we want to try to remove stigma. So that’s the important thing. Supply chain. Got it. Making sure our balance sheet is tight as a drum. Got it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. NetSuite for all of that. I mean that sincerely. You know, we’re in the happy business as much as the coffee business. So give some a try. The coffee’s epic. I promise. You know, two to five acre small grower farms, 40 % of them are run by women. pretty amazing and they represent less than half of 1 % of all available commercial coffee growers. So really picky about the coffee. Coffee is amazing, chefs kiss stuff. But do something kind for somebody, say hello to somebody and that’s it. That’s what I got. Be in the happy business. Leland McFarland All right, well thank you for coming on and sharing happy and also all about NAMI and mental health. Craig Dubitsky Thanks for having me. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Thanks. Good to meet you. Leland McFarland Thanks. Bye. Craig’s story is a reminder that growth is exciting—but it can also expose every weak link in your operations. From packaging constraints and shifting supply chain realities to the constant need for accurate reporting and clean data, scaling isn’t just about selling more—it’s about staying in control as complexity multiplies. What stood out most was Craig’s focus on visibility: not just seeing the numbers, but using better tools (and increasingly AI-driven insights) to spot what’s working faster, react sooner, and make decisions with confidence instead of guesswork. Just as important, Craig makes it clear that happy is building more than a coffee brand. The company’s partnership with NAMI and its push to normalize mental health conversations reflect a bigger goal: connecting entrepreneurship with real-world impact in a way that isn’t performative, but embedded into the business itself. To learn more about happy or to find where to buy it, visit happyproducts.com or look for happy in major retailers and online marketplaces mentioned in the interview. This article, "Interview with Craig Dubitsky – Founder and CEO of happy" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

Organic search clicks are shrinking across major verticals — and it’s not just because of Google’s AI Overviews. Classic organic click share fell sharply across headphones, jeans, greeting cards, and online games queries in the U.S., new Similarweb data comparing January 2025 to January 2026 shows. The biggest winner: text ads. Why we care. You aren’t just competing with AI Overviews. You’re competing with Google’s aggressive expansion of paid search real estate. Across every vertical analyzed, text ads gained more click share than any other measurable surface. In product categories, paid listings now capture roughly one-third of all clicks. As a result, several brands that are losing organic visibility are increasing their paid investment. By the numbers. Across four verticals, text ads showed the most consistent, measurable click-share gains. Classic organic lost 11 to 23 percentage points of click share year over year. Text ads gained 7 to 13 percentage points in every case. Paid click share doubled in major product categories. AI Overviews SERP presence rose ~10 to ~30 percentage points, depending on the vertical. Classic organic is down everywhere. Year-over-year classic organic click share declined across all four verticals. Headphones saw the steepest drop. Even online games — historically organic-heavy — lost double digits. In two verticals (headphones, jeans), total clicks also fell. Headphones: Down from 73% to 50% Jeans: Down from 73% to 56% Greeting cards: Down from 88% to 75% Online games: Down from 95% to 84% Text ads are the biggest winner. Text ads gained share in every vertical; no other surface showed this level of consistent growth: Headphones: Up from 3% to 16% Online games: Up from 3% to 13% Jeans: Up from 7% to 16% Greeting cards: Up from 9% to 16% In product categories, PLAs compounded the shift: Headphones: Up from 16% to 36% Jeans: Up from 18% to 34% Greeting cards: Up from 10% to 19% AI Overviews surged unevenly. The presence of Google AI Overviews expanded sharply, but varied by vertical: Headphones: 2.28% → 32.76% Online games: 0.38% → 29.80% Greeting cards: 0.94% → 21.97% Jeans: 2.28% → 12.06% Zero-click searches are high — and mostly stable. Except for online games, zero-click rates didn’t change dramatically: Headphones: 63% (flat) Jeans: Down from 65% to 61% Online games: Up from 43% to 50% Greeting cards: Up from 51% to 53% Brands losing organic traffic are buying it back. In headphones: Amazon increased paid clicks 35% while losing organic volume. Walmart nearly 6x’d paid clicks. Bose boosted paid 49%. In jeans: Gap grew paid clicks 137% to become the top paid player. True Religion entered the paid top tier without top-10 organic presence. In online games: CrazyGames quadrupled paid clicks while organic declined. Arkadium entered paid after losing 68% of organic clicks. The result? We’re seeing a self-reinforcing cycle, according to the study’s author, Aleyda Solis: Organic share declines. Competition intensifies. More brands increase paid budgets. Paid surfaces capture more clicks. About the data. This analysis used Similarweb data to examine SERP composition and click distribution for the top 5,000 U.S. queries in headphones, jeans, and online games, and the top 956 queries in greeting cards and ecards. It compares January 2025 to January 2026, tracking how clicks shifted across classic organic results, organic SERP features, text ads, PLAs, zero-click searches, and AI Overviews. The study. Search Isn’t Just Turning to AI, it’s being Re-Monetized: Text Ads Are Taking a Bigger Share of Google SERP Clicks (Data) View the full article

According to a New York Times report, Meta plans to add facial recognition technology to its Ray-Ban and Oakley smart glasses. The feature, called “Name Tag” within Meta, would allow users to identify people and get information about them through Meta's AI. The feature could be rolling out as early as this year. Adding the feature is not a done deal, however. According to an internal document cited by The Times, the company is weighing the “safety and privacy risks" of introducing facial recognition as well as discussing how to navigate the response to a no-doubt controversial feature. A document quoted by The Times suggests Meta is deliberately timing a potential rollout to minimize scrutiny. “We will launch during a dynamic political environment where many civil society groups that we would expect to attack us would have their resources focused on other concerns,” the document from Meta’s Reality Labs reads. Meta's long history with facial recognitionThis would not be the first time Meta dabbled in facial recognition. Meta debated adding facial recognition to the first generation of its Ray-Ban smart glasses in 2021, but decided against it due to privacy concerns. And Facebook, Meta's social media platform, identified and tagged people as early as 2010, but the company pulled the feature in 2021, citing "many concerns about the place of facial recognition technology in society.” Concerns also include the risk of doxxing. The ACLU characterized facial recognition used by law enforcement as a "systematic invasion of privacy," though personal use of the technology raises different issues. Facial recognition glasses could enable instant doxxing, linking anyone's face to publicly available information, including social media profiles, addresses, and phone numbers. Meta says it isn't planning to release a universal facial recognition tool. The company is considering glasses that identify only people a user knows based on their connection on a Meta platform, or only identify people who have a public account on a Meta site like Instagram. "While we frequently hear about the interest in this type of feature—and some products already exist in the market—we’re still thinking through options and will take a thoughtful approach if and before we roll anything out," Meta said in a statement. The upside of smart glasses with facial recognition technologyPrivacy concerns aside, the technology has genuinely beneficial applications, particularly to people with vision problems. According to The Times' report, Meta originally planned to introduce Name Tag to attendees of a conference for the blind before releasing it to the public, highlighting a group that could potentially benefit from facial recognition technology, though that plan was scrapped for unknown reasons. Mike Buckley, CEO of Be My Eyes, an accessibility technology company that works closely with Meta, said he has been in discussions with Meta about facial recognition glasses for more than a year. “It is so important and powerful for this group of humans,” Buckley told The Times. View the full article

Google's Jeff Dean explains why latency and cost make Flash Google's production tier for AI search, and why models are built to retrieve, not memorize. The post Why Google Runs AI Mode On Flash, Explained By Google’s Chief Scientist appeared first on Search Engine Journal. View the full article

Three AI companies—OpenAI, Google, and Perplexity—are on the verge of receiving approval to sell their technology, hosted on their own cloud systems, directly to the government, a person familiar with the matter tells Fast Company. That authorization will be on a “low impact” and pilot level, the person said, but constitutes a major step toward independence. That independence could help those companies avoid some of the complications created by ongoing partnerships between AI firms and longtime government tech contractors. As large language models have gone mainstream, AI companies have often relied on tech firms that have already passed arduous government security reviews—including Microsoft, Palantir, and Amazon Web Services—to host their chatbots for federal users. In the early days, these partnerships made it easier for AI labs to quickly get their tech in front of government officials, but also meant ceding at least some control over when and how their AI was made available. The downside of that kind of dependence is now playing out in the brewing feud between Anthropic and the Pentagon, which appears to have been fueled, in part, by its partnership with Palantir. The Defense Department is threatening to cancel a $200 million contract after Anthropic requested limits on the use of its AI for certain applications, including autonomous weapons and mass surveillance. Anthropic’s Claude model was made available to military officials with the help of Palantir’s systems and was even used in the U.S. operation to capture former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, according to reports. According to Semafor, tensions mounted after an Anthropic official asked a Palantir executive how Claude had been used in the operation, prompting concern inside the Pentagon about the company’s willingness to support military applications. This is all to say that not relying on a company like Palantir makes selling to the government far less complicated. In pursuit of that independence, OpenAI, Perplexity, and Google applied for, and received, expedited review of their cloud systems last year under a federal security initiative called FedRAMP 20x. Now, Fast Company can report, they’re almost certain to be approved. These approvals are separate from any decision by a specific federal agency to purchase their products, but they show the companies have taken concrete steps to engage the government on their own terms. Anthropic, by contrast, has leaned heavily on partners like Palantir to help sell its technology to government customers. The company does not appear to have participated in FedRAMP 20x, though it’s not clear why. Still, the question of independence is one Anthropic has publicly acknowledged. “We would also like to be able to directly provide services to governments and not necessarily go through a partner at all times,” Michael Sellito, the company’s head of global affairs, told FedScoop in 2024. Neither Palantir nor Anthropic responded to Fast Company’s request for comment. View the full article

Loans will continue to be originated and closed in the name of Firstrust Bank but the MortgageCountry will oversee lending end-to-end and provide its leadership. View the full article