Small Business Owners - UNOVA Coworking

August 18, 2023August 18, 2023

Scaling Your Market Research and Staying Ahead of the Curve

Keeping up with the ever-changing needs of your business can be a daunting task, especially in a rapidly evolving market. That’s why it’s important to have a strong market research strategy in place that allows you to stay ahead of the competition and anticipate customer needs before they arise. Here, UNOVA Coworking presents some tips for scaling your market research to ensure that you remain at the top of your game.

Know Your Audience

The first step in scaling your market research is to identify your target audience and market segments. This will help you better understand who your customer is and what their needs may be. Once you have identified these segments, you can then begin to create strategies for reaching them more effectively. Segmenting your customers will also allow you to customize marketing messages based on their characteristics and preferences.

Build a Research Framework

A robust framework for conducting market research is crucial to ensure that no essential steps are missed when making crucial decisions or launching new products or services. It must cater to various scenarios, including emerging trends, customer feedback surveys, and new product launches, ensuring that data can quickly be gathered on demand.

Implementing such a structure will not only save time and resources but will also furnish top-quality, reliable information that can serve as a solid foundation for making informed decisions.

Monitor Trends and the Competition

It’s important to research competitors within the same industry as well as relevant trends that could influence customer behavior or decisions. Studying competitors helps you gain insight into how others approach similar challenges or opportunities, which could inform or inspire ideas of your own. Understanding current trends also allows companies to anticipate changes before they occur, which gives them an edge over other competitors who may still be playing catch-up.

Focus on Qualitative and Quantitative Research

Making crucial decisions about product or service development, pricing models, marketing strategies, and customer service tactics demands having access to both qualitative and quantitative data. Relying on these two types of data ensures that decisions are not based on assumptions but on hard facts. It ultimately leads to a smarter, better-informed decision-making process, reducing the risks involved in making uncalculated decisions based on insufficient data.

For example, launching a product without adequate customer feedback can be a risky gamble that may result in adverse outcomes, but having well-structured qualitative and quantitative data at hand can mitigate such risks.

Tap Into Digital Tools

Digital tools such as online surveys provide an efficient way for gathering feedback from customers without having them fill out long paper surveys or come into a physical location, which can often lead people to drop out from answering survey questions halfway through.

Surveys can be sent directly via email or SMS message, which makes it easy for customers to respond quickly without having too much effort involved from their end. They also offer insights into consumer behavior based on responses given, which is helpful when trying to uncover potential consumer trends before they become mainstream.

You can even incentivize your surveys to get a wider sample. A gift card API is a quick solution that automatically distributes a small e-card once the survey has been completed.

Invest in a Customer Data Platform

Maximizing profitability while fulfilling customer needs requires the use of a customer data platform (CDP). By consolidating data from numerous sources, such as websites, applications, and social media channels, companies can gain extensive insights into consumer behavior, preferences, and trends. With access to detailed customer information, businesses can make informed decisions when developing new products or services.

Moreover, they can refine pricing models to ensure maximum profitability. These tools enable companies to deliver exceptional customer value while sustainably growing their businesses.

Invest in a Customer Data Platform

To remain competitive and proactively meet customer demands, businesses must implement an effective market research strategy. Utilizing digital tools and both qualitative and quantitative research methods empowers businesses with high-quality decision-making information while ensuring uninterrupted operations even during turbulent times of rapid change. Organizations that fail to prioritize this strategic investment risk chaos resulting from poor decisions that could impede success during times of transition. With a robust market research strategy, businesses can minimize disruption and smoothly navigate any obstacles that come their way, moving efficiently towards growth and greater market share.

UNOVA Coworking offers flexible workspaces that can give you the room you need to be productive. Check out our options and consider joining today!

Questions or comments? Have any additional tips or resources to share? Reply below or reach out to Courtney Rosenfeld.

March 15, 2023March 15, 2023

Simple Strategies to Make a Safety Net for Your Business

Part of running a small business is preparing for unexpected issues that might arise today or years down the road. No one can predict the future and accidents are inevitable, but having a safety net in place will help you stay afloat while protecting your financial interests.

In other words, taking steps now to prepare for the unexpected can help ensure your business thrives amid adversity. UNOVA Coworking looks at some practical ways to create the perfect safety net for your small business:

Getting a Home Warranty

If you run your business from home, purchasing a home warranty is an easy way to protect yourself against unexpected repairs and replacements. A home warranty covers all major systems and appliances in the home, so if anything breaks down or needs replacing, you won’t have to worry about paying out-of-pocket.

Plus, since most warranties come with 24/7 customer service, you can rest assured that any issue will be taken care of quickly and easily. Give this a view if you need a good place to start comparing providers!

Establishing an LLC

Another way to protect yourself as a small business owner is to form an LLC (limited liability company). This type of business entity can protect your personal assets from being used to pay debts incurred by your business. If something happens and your business has to declare bankruptcy or face other legal issues, you won’t be held personally liable.

An LLC also protects you from potential lawsuits that can arise due to products sold or services provided by your company. Research the LLC rules in your state, and consider going through a formation service to save time and stress.

Keeping Digital Records

It’s also crucial to keep digital records of all transactions related to your business as well as any contracts or agreements you have with clients or vendors. Using PDF splitter tools can make your life easier when dealing with multiple documents at once.

Such a tool can help you keep all your documents organized and accessible if you need them for any legal disputes down the line. Splitting large files into smaller chunks makes them simpler to manage and store without taking up too much space on your computers or other devices.

Saving an Emergency Fund

No business owner likes thinking about worst-case scenarios, but you must plan ahead and create a plan for unexpected problems. Set aside money in savings each month to cover various costs associated with emergencies, such as sudden machinery or equipment replacements, major house repairs, medical incidents, etc. Aim to put aside enough money each month so it adds up quickly over time; don’t rely on credit cards!

Managing Your Cash Flow

One of the most important steps for creating a safety net for your small business is to manage your cash flow correctly and efficiently. Keeping track of income from sales and expenses associated with running operations allows you to minimize surprises context time — or worse yet if there’s an emergency situation where you need to access extra funds quickly. Set up automated reminders each month so that nothing falls through the cracks when it’s time to pay your bills!

Using a Coworking Space

Working in a shared office or coworking space can provide many benefits to the modern professional. From access to cost-effective facilities and resources to being around like-minded individuals, you can yield numerous advantages when renting a coworking space (whether occasionally or daily).

Working at home can quickly become isolating and lonely, but working at a coworking office can make it easy to get out and collaborate with new people, discover different work styles, and keep up with industry trends. Connect with UNOVA Coworking today to learn about our available spaces!

Wrapping Up

The last thing you want is for your small business to get caught off guard when unexpected situations arise. Establishing an LLC, maintaining digital records, building your savings, honing in your cash flow, and following the other tips above will get you off to a strong start. Remember that taking simple steps today can pay dividends down the line!

Would you like to read more helpful content or learn about our coworking spaces? Visit UNOVAcoworking.com today!

August 31, 2022August 31, 2022

Interdepartmental Communication: Challenges and Strategies to Overcome Them

There are many different reasons why departments within an organization don’t hold a back-and-forth dialogue: logistics, a competitive environment, and apathy toward the company’s overall health are all issues. Thankfully, there are strategies you can implement today, including business process management and document sharing, which will help your staff maintain an open-door policy.

UNOVA Coworking shares a quick post on ways to combat interdepartmental communication challenges.

Why departments aren’t collaborating

Businesses are often made up of many different departments. These might include customer service, IT, HR, and product development. All of these must work together like cogs in a machine to ensure that your business runs smoothly. A few reasons that departments don’t play together well include a lack of strong leadership and a competitive environment.

An ineffective department leader may not be transparent with their staff and will likely mismanage employees and resources. Similarly, employees and managers working in a toxic competitive work environment may be less inclined to work together. The Applicant One Source blog explains that, while workplace competition is inevitable, competition should never be your employees’ sole driver.

Tips to get the conversation going

All businesses are unique, and, therefore, not all collaboration strategies will work for you. But a few things that can help universally include ensuring that your employees share a space together, at least occasionally, and automating processes that free up time for your human workforce.

Sharing a space is especially important when you have a remote team. Consider renting a coworking space once or twice each week for those that live within an hour of the UNOVA Coworking location. Sometimes, being able to make a human connection to an avatar is all it takes to encourage more back-and-forth dialogue. You can also utilize DPA + BPM for maximum efficiency when it’s time to streamline time-consuming operational tasks. Digital process automation (DPA) is essentially a digitized form of business process management (BPM) that helps you collaborate faster and monitor and act quicker and easier.

Strategies for better reporting

In addition to offering a shared workspace, you should also give your employees tools, such as Google Docs, Trello, and Redbooth, that allow them to work on projects together and that use visual cues to communicate where each piece of the process is. This, combined with a document management system, allows your staff to share documents anywhere in the world in real time. Even if you must use Word, Excel, or PowerPoint to create documents, you should have no trouble finding a program that allows you to convert these into more reliable PDFs.

An important point to remember here is that being able to create and share reports and other information is crucial if you plan to take on investors later down the road. Accion Opportunity Fund notes that the people with the money want to see the numbers; having everyone on the same page will ensure these are correct.

The value of communication

Ultimately, when you encourage communication throughout your organization, you’ll be more efficient and productive. Encourage your management team to be an example by showcasing their collaborative efforts and encouraging their own subordinates to do the same. It can also help to remind everyone that nobody wins by refusing or failing to communicate across departments. Your employees’ ability to communicate with everyone at all levels is essential to your business’s success. Whether you utilize business process management to automate tasks so that your people have the time resources they need to communicate or simply open a co-working space for real-life face time, the steps you take now to improve communication are just part of building a healthy and long-lasting business.

Questions or comments? Have any additional tips or resources to share? Reply below or reach out to Courtney Rosenfeld.

July 27, 2022July 27, 2022

Manage Your Business’s Cash Flow in 4 Simple Steps

Keeping the cash flow steady at your business can be a long and frustrating process, even when sales are good. This is because there are several factors that go into your finances, and some get overlooked in the course of daily operations, such as the state of your inventory management. By making some small changes to the way your business handles certain tasks, you could make meaningful progress when it comes to your cash flow. Here are a few tips from UNOVA Coworking to help you get started.

Incorporate

If you haven’t already incorporated your business, consider doing so for the many advantages your business will see. There are several different corporation types and they all have various advantages. For instance, forming an S corporation allows you to take taxes out of your paycheck rather than paying them in one lump sum at the end of the year, and it also allows for a deduction for your payroll, which means your tax responsibilities will be lowered. There is also a C corporation option, which allows for a much stronger form of protection for your company and its shareholders. Read up on the benefits of incorporating to figure out which option is best for your business, and get some help with filing the corporation paperwork.

Invest in Helpful Software

Whether you choose to incorporate or not, you’ll need the best and most updated software in order to make sure your payroll and accounting records are on track. These days there are several options available according to your business’s specific needs, and while it’s still a good idea to utilize the services of a professional accountant at tax time, there are programs that can help you keep track of your expenses and income throughout the year so you won’t face any nasty surprises. You can choose between software that incorporates both accounting and invoicing tools or look for specific programs that focus on one or the other.

Create a Loyalty Program

While keeping track of your cash flow is essential, it’s also crucial to look for ways to bring more money in. You might partner with a local business so both of you can benefit from the exposure, or create a loyalty program to encourage repeat customers. Businesses make much more profit from loyal customers than they do from new ones, so this is a great way to boost your income without spending a lot of money in the process.

Working with other small businesses can get your brand more exposure, so make sure that you have a simple, but high quality, logo that captures your company’s product and spirit. If you don’t yet have a logo, look for programs online. There are even some free options that allow you to customize templates or create your own from scratch. It’s logo design made easy, and your business will reap the benefits.

Make It Easier for Customers to Pay

Once you can keep your customers coming back, it’s a good idea to make paying invoices as easy as possible for them so you don’t have to waste valuable time and money tracking down payments. Consider digitizing invoices, offering a small discount for early payments, creating multiple pay options, discounting subscriptions, and/or offering email or text reminders to ensure they know when billing dates are. The easier it is for your customers to keep track of their bills and due dates, the faster you’ll get your money, allowing your business to keep cash flowing freely.

Maintaining a healthy cash flow for your company will ensure that you aren’t scrambling to find resources during slower times of the year, and it will help to reduce the stress that comes with running a business. By getting organized and utilizing a few different tools, you can keep communication open with vendors and customers to make sure your finances are in great shape.

Having a dedicated office space is nice, but it can be expensive. A more budget-friendly option is a coworking space, like UNOVA Coworking. Not only do we offer a quality workspace with many office essentials included, but you will also get the benefit of networking from your office. Visit us online to learn more about how you can save money by using our coworking space for your business!

Questions or comments? Have any additional tips or resources to share? Reply below or reach out to Julie Morris.

June 30, 2022June 30, 2022

Developing the New Teen Entrepreneur

It is never too early to start as a teen entrepreneur. The earlier you start your journey, the more opportunity you can get to make mistakes and grow with them.

There are some excellent lessons to be learned by running your own business, including understanding what your passions are and where you want to go in life. You can also save money for college or start saving up for an apartment or car because most of your personal expenses will be covered by parental support at home.

It’s a foregone conclusion that most, if not all, teen entrepreneurs will not have an office to call their own. But shared office space is certainly achievable. If you’re near the southern tier in WNY, consider the opportunity to work in Springville’s first and only shared office space to get work done, UNOVA Coworking. We offer unmatched flexibility in memberships and amenities, and offer a unique network of individual entrepreneurs, small business owners, and at-home workers with experience and availability to answer questions along the way.

Considerations Before You Begin

1. Be specific about what you want to do. Whether it’s monetizing your VLOG, beginning a pet sitting service, or retailing things you’ve crafted online, try not to be too broad. Having a narrower focus at first will keep you from spending too much to launch your business. Look at some popular ideas for budding teen entrepreneurship and see if any interest you.

2. Do the research and prepare for it. Write a business plan. It’s not only great preparation for the future but will help you understand all the steps you’ll need to take.

3. Find a mentor who has experience in the field you want to start a business. T ry asking teachers and your parents if they know anyone, or try LinkedIn.

4. Study and learn everything about your business idea, so that you know all the ins and outs before actually starting it up on your own.

The Business Side of Business

Teenagers are born digital natives, the first generation to grow up with the internet. They know how to create and build online products, take advantage of opportunities that are available online, and market themselves on sites like TikTok and Instagram. YouTube is another excellent platform for young entrepreneurs to spread their brand awareness and create huge followings. Snapchat users watch 12 times as many videos as Facebook and YouTube viewers, so marketing there can be a good way to reach your audience.

Developing a brand and creating a logo that’s impactful and eye-catching is important for any business and is not out of the reach of young entrepreneurs thanks to the abundance of free online apps.

Keeping track of your money is easy with online apps too. Take advantage of software for invoicing clients. I t can help you keep accurate books and get paid faster. Look for software that allows customers to pay online through the invoice, gives you alerts the moment customers view and pay invoices, and offers scheduled invoices for recurring payments.

Entrepreneurship Opens Doors

Being a teen entrepreneur can be an attractive asset for any college application because it shows responsibility and drive. With the average American student applying to 9.5 colleges, it is becoming increasingly difficult to stand out. College admissions officers are looking for well-rounded applicants with a variety of interests, which could range from playing on the soccer team to starting a new business.

Teen entrepreneurs are the new trend. They have the drive and willingness to experiment with new ideas, develop products, and test their assumptions. If starting your own business is a dream, there is no better time than now to start living it.

Questions or comments? Have any additional tips or resources to share? Reply below or reach out to Jason Kenner.

June 9, 2022June 8, 2022

How to Overcome Failure and Succeed at Your Startup

Starting a new business can be a daunting task. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the fear of failure and give up before starting. UNOVA Coworking explains that the right mindset and planning can help you overcome these fears and be successful at your startup.

Begin With a Business Plan

Creating a business plan is one of the best ways to prepare for success, notes the U.S. Small Business Administration. Having a clear sense of your long- and short-term objectives is essential for planning. This document can assist you in defining your goals, strategies, and tactics for achieving them.

It can also help you stay organized and focused, essential when starting a new business. The plan should include a section about using technology to automate customer payments as a vital part of your vision.

An online payment system offers many benefits, including security, convenience, and assurance for your customers. A great option is Helcim, an online payment system with low fees.

Connect With a Mentor

Grand Canyon University points out that one of the best ways to overcome fear is to connect with someone successful in the industry you’re looking to enter. A mentor can provide invaluable insights and advice and help you avoid common pitfalls.

Look for someone who has started a business in your industry. A mentor can provide you with first-hand experience and knowledge about what to expect. You can also find mentors through online forums, social media, or your local chamber of commerce.

Keep Your Goals Achievable

One of the best ways to overcome fear is to set achievable goals. This small step can help you stay motivated and positive as you progress. When your goals are attainable, you can celebrate each milestone along the way.

Don’t Skip Marketing Your New Business

When you start a new company, marketing is vital, and you don’t have to hire an advertising agency. You can handle several parts of branding and advertising yourself. For example, it’s simple to create an ad for social media with this Facebook ads maker. You can include your logo, graphics, fonts and color combos to customize your offering and let the nearly 3 billion users of the platform know who you are and what products or services you offer.

Take Care of the Legal Requirements First

One of the most important and often most daunting aspects of starting a business is taking care of the legal requirements. These can include registering your company name and getting licenses and permits.

Many online services can help you take care of the legal requirements. For example, LegalZoom can help you register your business name and create your business structure. Flexibility, limited liability, tax benefits, and less paperwork are just a few advantages of having an LLC as your legal business entity.

Change Your Attitude About Failure

Failure is one of the biggest fears people have about starting a business. But you can change your attitude about failure and use it to your advantage.

Thomas Edison, the inventor of the light bulb, is an excellent example of someone who used failure to his advantage. Edison failed many times before creating the light bulb, but he didn’t let those failures stop him. He used them to learn and improve his invention.

Success Is Obtainable With the Right Steps

Fear of failure can prevent you from starting a business, but you can overcome it with the right mindset and planning.

UNOVA Coworking believes in fostering community to help spur the growth of small businesses and organizations in and around Western New York and the southern tier. Reach out for more info today!

Questions or comments? Have any additional tips or resources to share? Reply below or reach out to Marissa Perez.

May 25, 2022May 25, 2022

Wellness and Working From Home: Tips for Cultivating a Healthy Remote Work Life

From the 10-second commute to the endless snacks and pet snuggles, remote work certainly has its perks. However, making sure your home is a great place to work takes effort. Courtesy of UNOVA Coworking, here are some things you can do to improve your professional productivity and personal wellness as you work remotely.

Set a Schedule

Remote work often translates to more flexibility in your day, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t still value in keeping a schedule. Take breaks throughout the day, and have a hard stop at the end of your workday, so you don’t risk burnout or overworking. If feasible, get in the habit of temporarily removing any work-related apps from your cellphone during your off times to help foster a healthy balance between your work and personal life.

Additionally, look for ways to structure your day to optimize your time and effort. For example, it’s proven that taking on larger, more difficult tasks earlier in the day is best for productivity. You can even do a mock commute, which may involve a short walk, bike ride, or drive around the block or to your local coffee shop to help you enter “work mode” and get ready for the day.

Keep It Clean

When your home doubles as your workplace, keep your space as comfortable as possible, so you can focus on your job. If you feel negative energy creeping up in your space, try to declutter or reorganize your surroundings to create a more positive atmosphere. Spend a few minutes at the end of each day cleaning up your desk and work area. Invest in storage organizational furniture to keep nonessential items out of sight while you work to prevent distractions. If you need some extra help keeping your home clean, consider bringing in a professional housekeeper on a regular basis.

Eat Healthily and Stay Active

Working from home likely means you’ve got more time to cook healthy dishes instead of relying on quick microwave meals at the office. Develop a meal plan for each week, and always have healthy snacks on hand. Stay hydrated, and consider getting a water bottle with time markers to encourage you to maintain proper liquid intake throughout the day.

Be intentional about dedicating time each day to moving your body, as sitting for extended periods of time can be harmful to your health. Consider upgrading your regular desk to a standing desk to help improve your blood circulation and physical posture. An under-desk treadmill can also ensure you stay active while you work.

Staying Well While Staying Home

The rise of remote work has led to many opportunities to spend more time at home. As you optimize your remote work arrangement, keep your health and wellness top of mind. For more information on remote work, including how you can benefit from a coworking space in Springville, New York, visit UNOVA Coworking.

Questions or comments? Have any additional tips or resources to share? Reply below or reach out to Julie Morris.

February 10, 2022February 9, 2022

6 Invoicing Practices for Faster Payments

An efficient invoicing system gets you paid faster and keeps you on customers’ good side (and vice versa). Bad billing practices, on the other hand, cause revenue leakage, slow cash flow, and hurt customer satisfaction.

What sets good billing systems apart from the bad? Use these tips from UNOVA Coworking to set up an accounts receivable system that’s built for growth.

1. Start with a professional invoice

A standardized invoice template is an essential component of any billing system. Include your business logo, name, and address, and clearly state payment terms and due dates to eliminate confusion. Always itemize services and products provided and note the types of payment accepted.

2. Choose an invoicing platform

If you’re still using spreadsheets, upgrade to cloud-based invoicing software. Cloud-based apps are a boon for all types of business processes but especially finances. Many of the leading platforms like Xero, Zoho Books, FreshBooks, and Quickbooks Online start at $20 a month or less.

Instead of manually inputting data, cloud-based tools automatically populate invoices to streamline invoicing and reduce errors. Most include automated reminders so you can remind late-paying customers without any of the awkwardness. You’ll get paid faster and set a high standard with customers.

3. Establish your payment terms

Clear expectations eliminate payment confusion. Plainly state payment terms in contracts and invoices and include specific due dates.

How soon should customers pay? It depends. Net 30 used to be standard but shorter terms of Net 15 are becoming more common especially for new accounts. A frequent late-payer might call for cash-on-delivery, while reliable customers might receive more generous terms. Factor customer history and your cash flow needs when setting terms and consider late payment penalties and incentives to motivate on-time payments.

4. Enable recurring payments

Customers are more likely to pay on time when you make it easy. Online payments and ACH transfers eliminate the delays and hassle associated with mailing a check payment.

Recurring payments are the gold standard for efficiency because they ensure you get paid. Overdrafts are the biggest danger when subscription billing — no one appreciates a surprise fee! — but you can avoid overdrafts by verifying account balances using Plaid’s Balance API before initiating a transfer.

5. Monitor accounts receivable

Software takes a lot of the hassle out of invoicing, but it’s not totally hands-off. Keep an eye on accounts receivable and don’t be afraid to pick up the phone when a client isn’t responding to friendly reminders. Late payments can cause you to miss your own payment deadlines so it’s important to follow up.

Monitoring accounts receivable also draws attention to strengths and weaknesses in your billing system. Do you have a lot of risky customers or a high turnover ratio? You may need to tighten up collection policies to improve cash flow. Are your best customers regularly maxing out their credit limits? Raising the limit could encourage reliable customers to spend more.

6. Make sure it’s secure

Putting a customer’s financial data at risk can ruin a business relationship fast. Security remains a top priority any time you’re handling customer payment data. Verify that your payment service provider uses the latest security standards to prevent data breaches and protect customer data in the event it’s compromised. Use strong passwords throughout all business systems and follow cybersecurity best practices to secure devices and networks.

Getting paid on time is easier said than done. If you’re still relying on slow, manual processes to bill customers and accept payments, you’ll spend more time chasing payments than making money. Optimize your accounts receivable with tools and tactics designed for the 21^stcentury and start getting paid faster.

Questions or comments? Have any additional tips or resources to share? Reply below or reach out to Marcus Lansky.

December 17, 2021December 16, 2021

From Great Idea to Detailed Plan: Your Business Destiny Awaits

When an awesome idea hits, entrepreneurs are often ready to pounce, particularly when it is a unique business idea with a lot of potential. Sometimes the small details of management planning are lost along the way, but those tasks are important parts of the daily management of business. Fortunately, there are many tools and tricks to help business owners manage the minutiae of administrative tasks. Read on for UNOVA Coworking‘s tips to make your business destiny come true.

Getting Goods and Supplies

Placing orders for supplies and managing your inventory is a crucial aspect of running your business. If you are making drastic changes to the business and its goods or services, it may be necessary to identify alternative vendors specific to what you have in mind. Often specialty vendors can be found through trade magazines. Shop around to make sure you are accessing good prices and watch out for shipping costs, which can drastically impact your profit margins.

Inventory Assists

Maintaining inventory once your business is established can be a less-than-exciting task. Fortunately, business owners can use inventory programs to stay ahead of their supply needs. The best part of an inventory system is the automation that saves a ton of time and misery. There are many programs available at a range of prices, depending on the size of your business and how much automation you require.

Business owners may be able to delegate some tasks to trusted employees if there is a question about whether there are adequate funds for an inventory program. Inventory may be a good task to delegate initially. As business increases and you get your sea legs under you, it may feel like a better time to invest in a program for inventory. Sometimes there are tasks that business owners take on independently to save capital, and others are more vital to the functioning of the business, such as payroll. When it comes to payroll, using an established, automated system can spare you hours at a computer and a lot of frustration.

Payroll Simplicity

Most business owners do not relish endless hours crunching numbers for payroll. To avoid errors in manual calculations, automated platforms can be an ideal solution. When you use a timesheet calculator, it creates a more accurate account of your worker’s time, including breaks and overtime usage. Automated systems are also great for keeping track of the varying classifications of workers, which reduces the likelihood of human error.

Another factor to keep in mind regarding payroll is that if you have employees in other countries, you’ll need to find reliable methods for paying them. One option is to use a money transfer service like Remitly, which allows you to streamline safe and secure payments to people at guaranteed delivery dates in many countries, including Mexico and India.

Technology has offered business owners a wide range of time-saving tools that can change operations for the better. You can decide which ones meet your needs and whether they are worth the investment. As your business continues to grow, you may find that automated systems are a time and energy saving way to operate. Regardless of the systems you choose, consider ways to make your business sustainable and reduce your stress as an entrepreneur.

Questions or comments? Have any additional tips or resources to share? Reply below or reach out to Courtney Rosenfeld.

November 12, 2021November 11, 2021

11 Essential Apps for Business Owners to Have More Free Time

If you’re a small business owner, entrepreneur, or coach who’s working hard to get your passion project out into the world, but you also want more free time in your day-to-day life, then these apps are perfect for you. They’ll help you get organized and work efficiently so that all of your essential tasks don’t fall through the cracks. UNOVA Coworking offers a list of the top 11 apps that will help increase your productivity and give you back some precious free time!

1) Google Drive. It’s the perfect app for collaboration with colleagues, sharing documents, and storing company information. You can also create a document in seconds that will allow several people to work on it together in real-time.

2) Slack. This collaborative workspace allows individuals to work together with their business teams from wherever they are while retaining complete control over who has access to your conversations. It also offers integrations with other apps such as Dropbox so users can sync files across platforms without switching back and forth between different screens or programs.

3) Trello. Trello is a great way to manage projects. With its clean and straightforward interface, you can create boards for different tasks with cards representing the steps needed to complete those tasks.

4) Adobe Spark. When it comes to creating professional level designs for your social media or website, this app makes it easy to tap into your creativity. For example, you can use their banner generator to quickly craft a compelling design with fun graphics and fonts that give the impression it was made by a graphic designer.

4) Dropbox. This app allows users to store files in the cloud and access or share them from any device, anywhere. It offers integration with many other apps and desktop or laptop computers, making it a handy cloud app to have.

5) Zoom. This app is now a classic video conference and screen-sharing service that offers many of the same features as Skype or Facetime but has some great extras like recording meetings.

6) QuickBooks Enterprise. QuickBooks is distribution software for wholesale businesses that helps you keep track of inventory and optimize your wholesale distribution. It can automatically tally up purchases, record stock updates to ensure you have the correct information to fulfill our orders, avoid out of stock, and provide analytics on sales data for an easy view of how your company is doing financially. Integrations to leading e-commerce platforms are also a welcome feature.

7) QuickBooks. A flexible accounting app, QuickBooks allows you to manage expenses and invoices, track payments, and stay on top of all of your essential financial metrics and help curb your spending, among other things. It offers multiple integrations, as well as the ability to send reminders for overdue payments.

8) Scanner app. This app turns your phone into a document scanner, letting you quickly digitize paper documents. The ability to scan anywhere will make it easier to have your office on the go without needing to carry around endless bits of paper and post-its that inevitably end up getting lost.

9) Asana. This cloud-based work management app is excellent for people with many individual tasks or different projects to complete. It helps you keep track by providing reminders, and it also lets users share lists so that they can collaborate on projects together.

10) Evernote. Dividing up tasks among team members can save time for everyone. This app lets users share notes, lists, and files across devices to work together on projects efficiently.

Do you already use some of these, or do any of them sound like they could benefit your company? If so, give it a try to see if you can get a little help to free up your time.