The ideal solution is to outsource tasks outside the expertise of the business owner. Unfortunately for some, a lack of cash flow prevents them from making use of an expert.
Fortunately, it is not all doom and gloom. Due to the advent of cloud technology in recent years there are a lot of inexpensive tools out there (many of them free) that make many business processes a lot easier and less time consuming. It seems like there is an app out there these days for everything imaginable.
Here are a few tools that can make running your business a lot easier:
Xero
Xero is accounting software that runs in the cloud. For a low monthly fee from $25 per month a business can access their financial data at anytime from anywhere from any device. The main time saving feature (amongst many) is automatic bank feeds where your bank transactions are automatically uploaded from your bank into Xero and matched against existing transactions already processed in Xero. This saves hours of work when doing bank reconciliations.
Receipt Bank
Receipt Bank manages all of your invoices and receipts enabling you to have a paperless office for a low monthly fee from $20 per month. Receipts can be uploaded into the program from your computer, be emailed, posted by snail mail or by using the app on your mobile to take a photo. Receipt Bank is also synced with cloud accounting packages that enables the receipts to be automatically sent through to the accounting system and turns them into a transaction.
Evernote
Evernote helps you to organise your notes and ideas. Gone are the days of having yellow post it notes all over the place. It enables you to take notes, track tasks and saves it all in one place online. There is even the ability to take and store photos and audio recordings. The program can be accessed on all of your devices and everything syncs automatically between your computer and phone. There is no charge to access the basic version of Evernote.
Dropbox
Dropbox enables you to save all of your files securely in the cloud. Files can be saved on your computer and accessed on all of your devices including your phone and tablet. Collaboration with colleagues is simple with the ability to edit a document in a shared file without having to email it back and forth. Every update is automatically saved and syncs to all devices. Files can be shared with people who do not have a Dropbox account. A personal account on Dropbox is free of charge and a business account starts at $17 per user per month.
The tools listed here are just the tip of the iceberg of what is available. There are literally thousands of tools out there to make you work better and more efficiently that don’t break the bank.
What timesaving tools do you use in your business? What tasks in your business do you hate doing and wish there was a quick and easier way to do it?
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