I had a client once that literally used to do their books using an old school ledger book, with every transaction hand written with debits and credits…it made my head hurt. 

Now I’m not saying that long form math is too hard. I was the super dork taking all the math options in high school, and making special requests to take masters level stats courses in university.  I. Love. Math. But come on!?!?! Why take 5 hours to do something that can take you 1?

I am a huge proponent of technology. My ENTIRE business is based on using technology and systems to help businesses get their books on track. There are definitely accountants and bookkeepers that like to keep things “classic” using pen and paper, but that’s not me!

My tech stack evolves over the years, and so I wanted to give you an updated view of the software that I rely on for running my business.

BOOKS & FINANCES

If you’ve been around for a while, you know my go to-power couple when it comes to my books - and the books of all my clients - is QuickBooks Online and Dext.

DEXT is a receipt tracking system that is SUPER user friendly.  We basically just take pics of our receipts, or forward emails, to Dext, and the software uses AI to pull out all the important details, like date, supplier, totals and taxes.

Those docs then get sent to QUICKBOOKS ONLINE (QBO) and we finish the books from there. Now I know QBO has its own receipt system, and yes, you can totally use it, but its not as simple as what Dext offers.  In QBO when you add a receipt, you have to add all the details - categories, account that its paid from, notes, taxes, all of it. Dext, you take a pic and that’s it.  Anytime I’ve taken over a QBO account where they’ve been using the QBO receipts, the books are more often than not, a mess.  Trust me, it's worth the extra subscription!

The other system that I’ve started using to help with higher level analysis, forecasting, and KPI tracking, is FATHOM .  It is an insanely powerful visualization tool.  It helps to easily see what’s going on in your books and where you’re hitting or missing your goals.

COMMUNICATION

I will be the first to admit it; when I’m eye-balls deep in work “communicating” isn’t my top priority. Hunker down. Get it done, Worry about letting others know about it later.  It's a very “solo-preneur” mindset - aka behavior that is the norm for someone working on their own, not for someone with a team!

So since I’m not the best at it, I need tools that will help communication be much easier. Within our team, we use SLACK for all our chit chat, Q&A’s, and info sharing.  We’ve got specific “channels” for each client so we can keep things separate (and so I don’t get confused!!).  

My favorite thing about slack is that messages can be scheduled.  For someone like me who can sometimes only get work done in the evenings or weekends, I use this feature ALL THE TIME!!  My team often wonders how I’m so productive at 9am Monday morning (psst…I’m not).

We have also started using a new client portal called CLIENT HUB. We use this to communicate with our clients and share & store files.  The best part (for me) is that we also use it for managing and monitoring all the to-do’s for our clients and making sure we stay on top of everything.

MARKETING

Who knew that a numbers nerd needs a marketing suite!? Look at me go, right?  

My website (and this blog that your reading now!) is built on SQUARESPACE. I find that it's a super easy site builder that I've used for over 10 years. I’ve built my website on it, as well as websites for tons of others. I also use CONVERT KIT to build my email list and send out my weekly newsletter (sign up here if you want to join up!).  There’s a ton of email service providers (ESP) out there - Mailchimp, Flodesk, Active Campaign. They're all pretty similar so don’t stress about using any one specific one. If it’s intuitive to you, and fits your budget (there are some free versions for all of them too!), then go with it.

The other marketing tool I’ve used for MANY years is HONEYBOOK. It helps me work with people interested in our services, has pretty service packages that I can send out, agreements that we can sign, schedulers to book meetings and calls, and integrated emails to keep all our back and forth in one place.  

There’s others of course, but those are the biggies that I completely rely on. I love learning new tech so if you’ve got some fav’s you want to share, reach out!