Category: Operations

 Article Contributed by Aileen Galsim

Sometimes, increasing your business’s productivity is just a matter of using the right tools. No need for rocket science concepts, ideas, or anything of that sort. Just plain old tools.

With how business works online there are tons of softwares that you can use to increase your business’s productivity. Whether you’re looking for something to track your employees productivity, a software that you can use to collaborate your work, or even in simply organizing your tasks, there’s surely something you can use out there.

Now if you find that interesting, you’re in luck. I’ll be sharing with you a few tools that you can use to help you increase your business’s productivity. What I promise you is that if you’ll check out these tools and what they can do, you’ll be swept off of your feet!

But before I even start sharing, allow me to tell you that I am as interested to hear from you and what you have to say about the topic! If you have tools which you think does a swell job at helping in increasing your business’s productivity, I urge you to share them in the comments section below. I’d love to discuss the tools with you and what your experiences are with it so we can journey together at weeding out which one’s performing the poorest and ultimately end-up with the best one!

Here are some tools that you can use to increase your productivity:

• Replicon 

Replicon is an awesome time tracking and expense management tool! If you want to make sure that your employees are doing what they are supposed to do, then getting Replicon is what you need.

Here’s how you can benefit from it:

• Monitor your employees.

With this feature, you’ll be able to monitor the kind of performance your employee shows. You’ll then be able to give the necessary coaching for those who needs it.

• Manage your reimbursable expenses and your projects.

Through this feature, you can enforce your expenses policy (among other things) to make sure that you are working within your means. This will also help you accurately track your expenses to help you with your accounting.

• Tracking time for attendance and payroll. 

You’re able to view your employees attendance and manage their corresponding payroll.

Managing your payroll doesn’t have to be a near rocket science experience. Actually, with this feature, managing your payroll is a cinch!

• And so much more!

Replicon’s functions are definitely a must have for you!

 

• Evernote

Evernote is a good tool to use when storing, organizing and collecting information. It saves and synchronizes your data across all of your devices making it a useful tool when communicating and updating your team.

You can create photo libraries, categories your notes, you can even save web pages or just parts of it, etc.

While this tool has a free and a paid version, I’d like to emphasize that the free version is already a FANTABULOUS! But if in case you’d like to know more about the paid version (which is only for $5 per month), then here are some if its benefits:

• You can allow others to edit the notes you shared with them. This makes collaborating your work more seamless and flexible.
• You can store larger files, and bigger notes.
• You can store your notebooks offline if you’ll go with the paid Evernote. This makes it ideal for people on the go. Through this feature, you can still work on your tasks even if you don’t have any internet.
• You’ll be prioritized in our support. If you have any questions or tickets, you won’t have to stand in line and wait. Your inquiries will be sent in front of the queue.
• And so much more!

Have you ever used Google docs? Imagine that then multiply its effectiveness by 1000 times! It’s like Google docs on steroids!

 

• Skype Screen Sharing 

If there are things that you want to teach your employees real time, then using the Skype screen sharing is a remarkable way to do that.

They no longer have to go to your place simply to watch your training. You can do it on Skype, share your screen and voila!

The good thing is, Skype’s so user friendly and almost everyone has it. This makes Skype your ideal tool for increasing your business’s productivity.

While there are more tools out there, you’ve go to use these are my top picks so you might REALLY want to take a look at these! If you take the time to download and learn how these tools work, it will get you the increase of productivity that you are looking for.

It’s your turn! Remember to share your ideas in the comments section below! I can’t wait to see the nifty tools you’ll be suggesting!

About the Author

Aileen Galsim is a business blogger from http://www.comss.org . Comss is a software company with a difference – their products are designed by business people to be used by business people. They offer Construction Accounting Software, distribution, retail and project-driven businesses.

I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve had a conversation with a business owner who has wanted me to help them set up their systems, whether that’s:

• Creating an automated system to deliver their free report
• Having a system in place so that attendees can register for their teleclasses
• Creating a system so that customers can purchase products and/or programs via their website

All of these business owners have ONE thing in common – they want the system to make it all work, but they’re not prepared to INVEST in the right system.

I usually tell them that if they want to do all of the above (and more) they need an all-in-one ecommerce system, such as 1ShoppingCart** or Infusionsoft**, which can do all of the above, plus so much more!

The response I usually get to this advice is, “I can’t afford it”, or “I don’t want to make that kind of investment”.  But what they are really saying is, “I’m not serious about my business so I don’t want to pay for that kind of system.”

Here’s the thing… when you don’t have the right system in place

• You make it difficult for clients to do business with you
• You make it difficult for you to run your business
• You lose revenues

So today I want to share with you my top five reasons why having an all-in-one ecommerce system is CRUCIAL to your business success:

1.  Your Client Database Is All Together In One Place.  If you’ve ever tried to fudge together two different systems to make everything work (the voice of experience is talking to you here!), then you know exactly the kind of hassle you’re setting yourself up for. You have some clients in one database, other clients in the other database, and even clients in both databases.  This makes sending out broadcasts, emails, and other materials messy.  Some clients may get them once, some twice, and some not at all!

2.  Easily Upgrade To Paid Programs And Products. When you’re ready to start introducing paid programs and products into your business it’s easy to do.  You already have the infrastructure in place, so it’s just a case of adding in the shopping cart elements, and you’re ready to start accepting payments.

3. Tracking Your Business Is Easy.  One area that business owners ignore is their numbers.  They very rarely look at their broadcast rates, open rates, sources of new subscribers, or any other important data that will tell them how their business is doing, which will help them plan effectively for future revenues.  When you’re using an all-in-one ecommerce system, all the critical business planning data is right there at your fingertips, so you always know how your business is performing. And you can make adjustments accordingly.

4. Create Your Own Personal Sales Army.  Once your business has grown to a certain level, you’ll be ready to add an Affiliate Program to it. An affiliate program is basically your own personal sales army of affiliates who recommend your products and programs to their networks.  This is a great way to automate sales and widen your networking reach, without you having to do any additional work … your affiliates do the work for you.  And when you are using an all-in-one ecommerce system, adding this piece to your business is really simple.  The affiliate program is part of the all-in-one ecommerce system, so it’s right there waiting for you to use it.

5. Automate and Streamline.  My favorite part about all of this is when you’re running your entire business through just the ONE system, you can very easily automate and streamline a large part of your business activities, from upselling to products and programs, to marketing.  What could be more hassle-free than that!

Having an all-in-one ecommerce system in place is at the heart of running a thriving and profitable online business.  If you are serious about building your online business, don’t even consider any other option.  Make the decision now to invest in the right system that will grow as your business grows.

In many businesses, small startups in particular, success or failure hinges not on the product or service, but on the financial management side.

There’s a chicken-and-egg element to it: a good product is worthless without proper financial management, and proper financial management won’t create a good product.

While many entrepreneurs have sufficient skill, knowledge, and experience to monitor financial performance, they frequently enough on their plates just keeping up with the product side of things.

The opportunity cost of spending time on the books instead of quality control or productivity is too high, and small firms may not have enough financial work to hire a full-time employee for the job.  A working mom with hopes of making it home for the first T-ball at-bat will be eager to be freed from this chore.

That leaves many CEO’s and upper level management searching for a way to outsource this work to an experienced, trustworthy provider who can produce meaningful, accurate data for analysis and planning.

Farming out this critical work to 3rd party systems like Goldleaf Financial Solutions frees you up to commit fully to providing top quality services and goods, instead of slogging your way through hours and hours of spread sheets, reports, and charts.

So what are some considerations you should make?  This is not an exhaustive list, but it will get you started.

Electronic Funds Movement

Everybody pays everything electronically.  We know that these days.  Debit cards, electronic payments, and other types of computerized funds transfers dominate the movement of cash–if you can still call it cash–in today’s financial transactions.  A worthwhile firm should offer efficient ways for your business to move money from customers and to vendors and employees.

Security, Security, and Security

Secure data storage, management, and handling is to today’s business what the strongbox was to the stagecoach.  All the slick operating platforms and voluminous data in the world won’t bring back money that is hacked or misdirected, and they will show you no mercy on behalf of shortchanged vendors or underpaid employees.  The systems they use must have fail-safe protections against both theft and error.

 Broad-Based Services

If you just want someone to keep up with inflows and outflows, then throw you the occasional report, you’d get a freshly minted CPA and put her to work.  Utilizing a larger firm that is involved in dozens of areas of financial management gives you the benefit of their insight and their awareness of what’s ahead.  Which brings us to…

Adaptability and Responsiveness

Software and systems for financial transactions are changing constantly.  Anyone who is attempting to maintain their own systems, while still juggling the other work of a company, finds that staying in the latest edition of everything is a job in and of itself.  Even ordering a coffee is a computerized event now.  Successful businesses must seek out and utilize firms with a history of staying up to the minute on technology.

The physical office is a reflection of our attitudes about our business.  If we spend as much effort keeping our finances organized as our office environment, we’ll be in great shape.  Because of the complexity and ever-changing technology in modern financial  management, we’re better served to delegate to a professional for these tasks and dedicate ourselves to the widgets that make them possible.

Article contributed by Jenna Smith

If you don’t already know, I am a big fan of spreadsheets! They have so many more uses than just calculating figures. They are also a great tool to help you manage your time effectively.

As a busy soloprofessional you are not only working for your clients, but you have to work ON your business too. Effective time management is crucial for developing and growing your business, as well as income generating activities.

Below are my top 3 tips for effective time management using spreadsheets.

1. Create a Work Schedule

When I started to get busier I realised I needed a system that would allow me to anticipate or schedule in client’s work. I designed a really simple spreadsheet with the weeks along the top and the client’s down the side. I encourage my clients to book work with me in advance so that I can put this in my schedule. For regular clients I can book in so many hours for them each week, and because my spreadsheet totals the number of hours booked each week I can see what my commitments are and what I have left.

I find that it’s really working, not only because my clients can get ‘booked in’, but when I get an enquiry for new work I can look at my schedule to see if I can meet their deadline.

This system works well for me!

If you find yourself having time management issues with your clients, then give my system a go!

2. To Do List

How do you manage your day-to-day tasks? Do you have a notebook for your To Do lists and cross out each one as you go along? Or do you have little yellow post-its stuck all over the place? Is this really the best way of managing your daily tasks?

Spreadsheets are a great way for you to organise your To Do list. Set up headings in the first row and add your tasks below. You can then sort your list by any column that you choose, making it an interactive To Do list. And best of all, your list is contained in one place.

Create a shortcut to your To Do list and place it on your desktop so that you can access it easily, or just keep it open and minimise your screen each time you’re not using it.

Make your To Do list even more interactive by filtering out those tasks that have already been completed. How? Use the AutoFilter built into Excel!

3. Plan Projects and Activities

How do you keep a track of what needs to be done and when?

The answer’s simple — set up a spreadsheet!

Spreadsheets also accept date formats and this makes them a great tool for tracking projects or planning activities. You can easily use AutoFill to create a date timeline too. Use the column headings for your dates, and the rows for your activities.

Use the cell where the date meets the activity to enter notes, To Do, or anything else relating to your project or activity. Once an activity is complete you can use the strikeout feature to cross it off!

As you work along the timeline, you can hide the columns with past dates, showing only those columns for current and future dates. And if you want to be really creative, use different colours for the cells to represent different activities, i.e. blue cells = to be done; red cells = overdue etc.

Follow these 3 time management tips, and you will soon be using more time more wisely!