If it’s simple to use, solves a problem and leads to greater financial prosperity, solowealth is all for it! If you’re a business owner, whether self-employed, an agency or a freelance consultant, you need to focus on the following simple formula for success: Maximize Sales + Minimize Expenses = Optimal Growth. In other words, you must easily be able to answer the questions:
- Why do your customers “need” your product or service [the benefits]?
- Do you have a cost-effective method to deliver it [efficiency]?
- If so, how do you get the word out [marketing]?
Considering the effort it takes to actually apply this formula, the last thing you need is to stress over the technical aspects of your business, which only get in the way your productivity. A major obstacle which can interfere with your priorities to grow your business, is the boring but mandatory task of accounting and bookkeeping. Fortunately, there is a widely popular solution to manage this task so that you can instead focus on the day-to-day operations of your business.
FreshBooks is a modern cloud accounting solution that offers multiple benefits backed by an award-winning support team. If you’re not currently using it, you need to consider adding it as part of your business arsenal. Sure there’s a wide array of accounting and bookkeeping solutions to choose from, so why FreshBooks? One of the main features that makes it stand out is the simple, user-friendly functionality that eliminates the intimidation factor.
Invoicing clients for a job well done becomes a cinch with professional and personalized email invoices that can be created in a flash. Gone are the days of waiting for checks or standing in line at the bank. Instead, have your clients pay you with online credit card payments. For clients who need further encouragement to pay their bills or for those clients who thought your services were free [friend-of-a-friend discount], you can set friendly automated reminders or late fees. If a language barrier suddenly becomes a reason to avoid paying you, feel free to change the language and even the currency of your invoice. Having said that, to avoid this issue altogether, you can request a deposit based on a percentage of your fee or a flat rate. Or as an emergency option of last resort, you can easily apply a discount to your fee.
If you have a hobby as a receipt collector, then you understand how important it is to collect receipts to track your business expenses and spending. What if you lost your receipts or forgot to file them? FreshBooks allows you to take a picture of your receipts [please avoid selfies], categorize and log them in the cloud readily organized for tax time. Or, perhaps you have members of your team or hired contractors who consistently misinterpret the project spend allowance as a “Black Card” budget. FreshBooks makes it easy to keep tabs on their spending spree.
Do you bill your clients by the hour? Handling different projects for different clients assigned to multiple members of your team, can be a daunting task to track time using paper timesheets. FreshBooks provides you with a clear breakdown of your day using a timer with an easy to follow record of how your project time was spent, ready to be presented on an invoice. Just be sure to leave out the social media time. In addition to tracking time, all collaborations including file sharing amongst the team and project conversations can be stored in one place for greater efficiency.
Finally, summary reports that will have your accountant floating on cloud 9, universal accessibility to your business from your desktop, phone or tablet and award-winning customer support from people you can actually talk to, all contribute to make FreshBooks an effective tool to solve a complex problem for optimal growth.
FreshBooks Infographic: A Look at Entrepreneurial Women
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