Design is the kind of profession that demands constant organization. Double booking clients, failure to invoice correctly, inability to track projects and a faulty system for sharing documents is just as potentially catastrophic for a novice designer as an old pro.
In this article custom business software development company professionals explain 5 most essential tools to keep your design business organized.
1. Dropbox
For any design business, keeping track of files across multiple designers can be a huge headache. Not to mention that backing up all of your design files can be hugely time consuming. You don’t have to worry about sharing files or backup anymore when you use Dropbox. This tool allows multiple users to save files to the cloud, which can be accessed from any computer.
Since your files are saved on the cloud, you no longer have to worry about losing your data. Dropbox also includes a desktop shortcut, which makes it feel like you’re simply saving your file in a folder on your desktop. Dropbox is also essential if multiple designers are working on the same project, because it allows everyone access, so you don’t have to email files back and forth anymore.
2. PayPal
You can’t have a design business if you can’t get paid. There are a variety of options for accommodating nearly any method of payment that your client prefers.
On the other hand, you may be a tech expert, but many of your clients could still be stuck back in the online-banking Stone Age. PayPal is an easy-to-use, reliable and secure method for making and receiving online payments.
The global ecommerce site doesn’t offer much in the way of finance-tracking bells and whistles. At the same time, if you have a client that likes PayPal, the nominal service fees may be worth it if signing up for a new online payment portal causes your client balk — or threaten to take their business elsewhere.
3. Xero
Most business owners know that tax time rolls around quarterly. Without proper planning and preparation, a new designer can find himself in a precarious financial bind every four months.
At one time there were just one or two acceptable accounting software suites for managing small businesses. Today, tech companies are focusing on this area of software and application development in an effort to reach the growing population of contract workers. Xero Accounting is a software suite that imports bank statements and tracks cash flow, helps streamline and manage your invoicing and payroll system, offers up-to-date bill payment and reporting. Their guide to invoicing is also extremely helpful for those just starting out in the business.
Selecting the right accounting suite will free up time you spend on bookkeeping and increase your billable hours.
4. Harvest
This awesome time tracking tool allows you to seamlessly bill time to various projects throughout the day. If your designers switch from client to client several times throughout the day, Harvest allows them to simply click on a different client when they switch projects, which keeps your billing very accurate.
Harvest also allows you to send invoices from the same application. It’s very easy to use, and there’s nothing to install. This tool can help you dissolve all of your pesky billing issues easily.
5. Trello
Trello is the organized, online version of a giant task board. It’s great if you have multiple designers working on the same project, and you need to divvy up and assign tasks.
Trello allows designers to assign tasks and archive them when they have been completed, which allows everyone to visually track project progress. You can create multiple boards for various projects, and invite individual members to each board, so people are only assigned to projects they are actively working on.
In Conclusion
Of course, these basic and great tools can be used in any industry to bring about desired results. But when owning a design business be sure you’ll have all processes organized and save you precious time that can be used for other important things.
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