Running a smooth operation is key to every business. How well you pull that off can come down to the office management, IT systems and software tools you use, so it makes sense to keep on top of the latest and greatest. Here are our Top 8 Office Tools to make your worklife easy breezy.
Trello is the project management tool of choice for professional plate spinners, providing an overview of your projects, a forum to share and collaborate ideas and all the functionality you need to be ridiculously well-organised.
For anyone who starts to itch at the thought of spreadsheets, Trello offers an incredibly visual way to manage project workload, making it somehow feel less like a chore and more like a cool, shared project.
You can:
- Create boards to organise tasks, update and share with co-workers
- Customise workflows, assign roles, follow progress and leave comments
- Add checklists and ‘To Dos’
- Attach documents and share photos and videos and
- Work offline and let boards sync automatically when you reconnect
There’s lots more, but you get the idea. They operate a freemium pricing model too, which means it’s forever free to use, with options to upgrade to ‘Gold’ status for extra functionality.
LIFEHACKER described it as ‘An awesome project management tool that makes collaboration easy and, dare I say, even fun.’
The British Government, Google, Pixar and Kickstarter are just some of the big names using the tool and Forbes, TechCrunch, Wired and the Wall Street Journal have all given Trello glowing reviews.
With more than 10 million users worldwide and growing, Trello is hot and happening.
As the name suggests, this gem centres on ‘smartsheets’. They look similar to your classic Microsoft Excel spreadsheets you would find in Office 365 or Google Apps, but come loaded with time-saving functionality, allowing you to expand and collapse rows to add detail to individual tasks, facts and figures.
It’s used to delegate duties, track projects, manage calendars, share documents and flag deadlines, milestones and priorities.
You can attach files to specific rows or fields too, putting important information at a user’s fingertips, so everything related to the project is available in one, well-organised document.
It’s good on the collaboration front too, because you can share the full sheet, or pull out specific rows with attachments for updates, if you’re working on something with sensitive information, for example.
It’s a spreadsheet lover’s dream essentially - centralising information, streamlining communication and saving time all over the shop.
This tool helps businesses:
- Organise customer information
- Maintain a complete and accurate view of the customer base
- Create relevant, timely and targeted campaigns
- Deliver better customer service and
- Generate sales
CRM is one of those acronyms businesses toss around. Everyone knows they should be doing it, but without the right data management tools, customer relationship management can be haphazard at best and disastrous at worst.
With this bad boy, you can stop depending on fragmented customer information and take control to plan and execute campaigns with robust data that informs your sales and customer propositions.
It supports all your business relationships too, so customers, leads, partners, vendors - anyone who’s anyone in your organisation basically - will feel the benefit.
This one might sound a bit left field, but if you’ve ever been given the last minute job of catering for the big wigs who arrived unannounced, you’ll want a food delivery service on speed dial.
As with most services, the more notice you have, the more choice you have over delivery times, but their food tends to be worth the wait.
The majority of deliveries are free and the minimum spend is slightly higher at £60, but there are lots of new customer deals like, £15 off your first online shop, £20 off your second, £10 off your third etc… so it pays to stick with them if you’re feeding the masses regularly.
As for customer service, Waitrose is the only supermarket to be given five stars for its online delivery service in the Which? Supermarket survey.
Five stars, tasty as, and no mangled hands from dragging the bags back to the office. What’s not to love? Waitrose gets a thumbs up from us (and theguardian).
Xero is online accounting software that promises to: ‘Give small businesses and their accountants everything they need to run their business beautifully.’
Quite the promise, and they live up to it too, offering a great collection of videos with tutorials, customer stories, advice for small businesses and lots of other things SMEs eat up.
It’s popular with bookkeepers and financial advisers because it offers unlimited support and it’s tight on security.
This list of features and tools is pretty impressive and includes:
- Invoicing
- Inventory
- Multi-currency reconciliation
- Expenses
- Bill paying
- Purchase orders
It links to hundreds of third-party apps and can be used across all devices, so you can use it just as easily when you’re on the go.
Xero was named the World’s Most Innovative Growth Company in 2014 and 2015 and Forbes, Macworld and accountingtoday are all fans. They offer free trials, so if you’re struggling with the number stuff, it costs nothing to give it a go.
G Suite is all about collaboration and making it easier to work together with the use of video conferencing and shared screens. With their help, teams located anywhere on the globe can review documents, spreadsheets and presentations together, making changes and decisions on the spot - extra helpful if you outsource your IT support and need everybody within your team and working on your behalf singing from the same hymn sheet.
The system allows several people to work on documents at the same time and every change is saved automatically - big wins for businesses that live or die on turnaround times and meeting deadlines.
They offer centralised data, reduced storage and easy access as everything is stored in the cloud, thus limiting the need for email attachments and ensuring the latest versions are always available.
They also offer a 14-day free trial so you can dabble before you buy.
Tripit is ideal for office managers who take care of business travel bookings. Like some of the other tools they offer a basic package completely free and a pretty reasonable US$49 per year (about £40) for the premium level service.
The freebie service is all about being organised, saving travel plans and documents in one place, syncing plans to calendars, sharing plans with others, updating and editing plans and giving users access to everything via mobile or tablet with the use of a free app.
The upgraded service is about optimising your plans and staying in control, should things change. You’ll get everything included in the free package, as well as real-time flight information, alerts for better seats, reward point tracking, money saving VIP benefits and support finding alternate flights and arranging refunds.
It’s a little like having your PA with you as you travel (minus the awkward chit chat), giving you all the support you need to get you from A to B, as smoothly as possible.
The HubSpot Social Media tools give you total control over your social channels. You can track and interact with customers, prospects and leads, and if you’re not a social savant already, it will help you learn the ropes on how to publish and promote content that drives audience engagement.
It’s a no-brainer for businesses that want to harness the power of social to drive sales, marketing and service initiatives, and it comes with endless tips on how to get started and do more with existing social media accounts. Know-it-all or novice - it offers something for everyone.
All of these tools can make your life as a business owner easier, but if you need help discovering what tools are best for you and how you can make your IT investments grow your business or agency, get in touch with us here at pebble.it and download our eBook on The Role Of IT In Your Growing Agency.
