Critical Tools for Business Owners to Efficiently Manage Your Business | Advice From an Online Operations Analyst

Tools I Recommend to Make Digital Life Easier (Part 1)

I often get asked, “Are there tools you recommend to make digital life easier?”  As an Online Operational Analyst who focuses on efficiencies in operations, business processes, and systems, I come across all sorts of tools and applications that are meant to help make your professional life easier.  Some are fantastic!  Others, well, not so much.  These tools can be divided into two broad categories:

1. Critical tools that help business owners to efficiently manage their business, and

2. Critical tools that help business owners and managers effectively manage their Team and their interactions with clients.

This blog, Critical Tools for Business Owners To Efficiently Manage Your Business, is the first of a two-part series. These are just some of the digital tools I use every day in my business and also to help my clients run their businesses more efficiently.  They are tried, tested, and highly rated by me.

Standard Operating Procedures (Writing Business Procedures)

Tango

My favorite application, by far, is Tango. I have a new service offering for my business, Business Processes, and Systems Automation, and I used Tango to set it up.  It is a Chrome extension, so it is accessible to everyone.

Tango is a workflow facilitator that allows you to easily create step-by-step guides.  It allows you to document your actions with screenshots and written instructions.  It also allows you to edit and refine your workflow videos and share them with your teams, both internal and external, using your preferred communications channel.  It saves you time, it’s easy to use, and it saves you money by improving productivity.

Making Tutorial Videos

Loom

There are many others, but Loom is hands down my favorite tool for creating short tutorial videos. Loom is a Chrome extension that allows you to record your screen and use your camera at the same time, so you can record a video while giving verbal instructions with audio and video.  It automatically saves them to the cloud and instantly provides a link for sharing.  Other features include limiting access to videos to only authorized people, downloading to your cameras and 6 rolls, and managing your video library across your devices.

You can record and send a Loom to share information instead of holding meetings, saving time and money, and improving productivity. Loom also has a free plan that allows videos up to 5 minutes in length and storage of up to 25 videos, making it sufficient for many businesses.

Time Trackers

The first thing I’m going to address is the importance of Time Trackers for any business, whether you’re a solopreneur, a small business, or a massive corporation. Time tracking helps your business in so many ways:

• Improved productivity

• Improved billing accuracy

• Improved cost estimates

• Reporting transparency

• Payroll reporting efficiency and employee time tracking

• Improved project budgeting

• Business intelligence and analytics

Toggl Track

Toggl Track is one of the OG time trackers.  It is a Chrome extension and it integrates with 100+ apps.  It has four main functions.

1. Time Tracking, featuring:

   1. One-click timers

   2. Background tracking

   3. Calendar integration, allowing you to set a schedule for yourself and/or your team

   4. Auto tracking based on the software you’re currently using

2. Reporting:

   1. Autogenerates summary, detailed, and weekly reports

   2. Saves reports

   3. Schedule reporting emails

   4. Can set up time rounding intervals

3. Project & Revenue Tracking based on timesheet tracking

   1. Set up alerts based on estimates

   2. Get productivity and profitability insights

   3. Compare Billable Hours vs Fixed Rates to ensure accuracy of estimates

4. Team Scheduling & Management

   1. Team Dashboard to monitor and manage workload

   2. Set required fields in reporting documents for first-time accuracy

   3. Time Audits to ensure tasks are assigned and are completed as expected

Toggl Tracker also has two other integrated products, Toggl Plan, for scheduling, workflow and collaboration, and Toggl Hire, which helps refine the hiring process right from the start, by using a skills-based model rather than the transitional CV collection model.

Clockify

Clockify is a great tracker for a business model that uses a team approach. Users can generate their individual reports which will calculate their payroll for a given time period. This is useful because it limits who the business owner has to provide Admin access to, ensuring privacy is maintained. Functions include:

1. Time Management:

   1. Track productivity

   2. Track attendance

   3. Track billable hours

2. Reporting:

   1. Activity

   2. Rates

   3. Progress

   4. Location (for employees who frequently work offsite at clients’)

3. Management:

   1. Scheduling

   2. Time off

   3. Approvals

   4. Invoicing

   5. Expenses

When it comes to running your business, access to knowledge and tools that help make your life easier is essential. Especially if they’re easy to learn how to use, if you’re interested in learning more about any of these specific applications but are pressed for time, I would love the opportunity to schedule a coffee date to share more information about them.

I also offer 1-hour, one-on-one tutorials on any of these products, if you’re interested in becoming quickly proficient. Usually $129, I am currently offering a special price of $99 per session. Just mention this blog article when you reach out to contact me at info@abovealladmin.ca.

Have any of these recommendations piqued your interest? Do you want to learn more about any one in particular?  I hope you all will have something useful to take away with you from this blog post, and I’m looking forward to sharing Part 2, focussed on critical tools that help business managers effectively manage their Team and their interactions with clients, soon.