Internet and Business Online

Cutting your software budget

I want to help you save Cash and I am not going to ask you for a penny in return.

Every year I save thousands of euros by not spending any money on software. This whole exercise began when I was looking at Sage Software as I needed one system to manage the key functions in my business. It is now possible to perform most of the key business tasks using the software that costs nothing. Only the Lord knows why this stuff isn’t evryday knowledge for most business folks. In fact I would be suprised if many experienced business owners know what I am about to share with you.

I just follow these three steps to get the free tools.

* Take 10 mins everyday and carefully search for each category of tool you need.
* Go get yourself a free copy of Evernote (it’s free, just serach Google).
* Just spend about ten minutes every day trying out your findings.

You should expect it to take about a month to get a list that will give you everything you need for today and the future. To help you get a head start here are some of the tools I have found and use on a regular basis.

To make this even easier for you I have listed each tool (on the right) with an equivalent (on the left) you will definitely have to part money for and may well have heard for or even purchased.

Here we go:

Just type the name of the free product to the search engines

One system to manage customers and accounting

salesorder.com pricing: free Sage Software – really expensive and only does Accounting

Creating and writing Documents

Google Docs pricing: $0 Microsoft Office pricing – at least $100

Or

OpenOffice (www.openoffice.org)

Sharing ideas online

Bubbl.us pricing: $0 Mindjet pricing – at least $200

Making videos

Jing pricing: $0 Camtasia Studio pricing – at least $300

Teleseminars

DimDim pricing: $0 AdobeConnect pricing – at least $200/month

My thanks to the Sage Software incident for the inspiration!motivation to write this up and help you out.

Come back soon as I will be adding more insights here…

Internet and Business Online sage accounting software, sage software, small business accounting software

Accounting is for accountants and what’s frustrating is they want it to stay this way, so it’s not really suprising that people similar to me who own a small business and cannot and don’t want to afford an accountant uncovered the shortcut I want to give to you here. People in small enterprises tend to prefer doing more significant tasks such as getting, understanding and keeping customers as opposed to doing their bookkeeping. All companies have to pay special attention to their bookkeeping if they want to avoid problems.

When I initially started out my bookkeeper suggested or should I say insisted that I used a small business accounting software package made by a company called Sage Software. Without even looking at software I simply went ahead and bought the lowest cost version I could find. On reflection I am lucky I didn’t burn too much cash on this as this package is possibly the most badly designed and most complex system I have ever had to deal with. To be straight with you whenever I find the word accounting next to the word software I am instantly reminded of the first piece of advice I must share with you and that is most small business accounting software makes the assumption you have a good working knowledge of bookkeeping.

Like me I know this just isn’t the case for most small business people and this drove me to put aside time that I couldn’t spare to search for a solution to make my life simpler. The great news is I found a really good answer, it’s an online system called salesorder.com.

Arguably the best application I have discovered, salesorder.com works on the web and is really well designed and of course lets me do my job anywhere I can connect to the web. Better still and the third piece of guidance I want to share with you is that the team who work at salesorder.com are not just very knowledgeable of their application but they know a tremendous amount about the problems of running a small enterprise and have taught me the accounting I need to know.

Internet and Business Online sage accounting software, sage software, small business accounting software

You may have heard of SAP software. It’s a software application used by the majority of medium sized and major corporations all over the world. The objective of the platform is to connect the whole enterprise together and enable hundreds and often thousands of staff members to record, share and recall knowledge about the physical and financial processes of the company. Significant businesses are lead by intelligent individuals who appreciate the strategic value of this type of software, such as how it can give them an appreciation of why difficulties are occurring inside their firm or where there might be opportunity for improvements.

This type of software application is commonly known as ERP. It is very complex, very expensive and can take months and often years to implement. An implementation of ERP software is a significant investment but this doesn’t prevent major firms investing in these systems.

Until this year software like this was not feasible or affordable for small enterprises. As a result tiny firms have not been aware of the substantial benefits that ERP systems can deliver. Small firms have been misled by aggressive software suppliers such as Sage Software and Intuit that small business accounting software is what they need. These systems most often have no capacity to permit their users to connect the whole company or undertake fundamental tasks such as customer relationship management.

The rise of Web based CRM software from companies like Salesforce.com is a good example of the small business accounting software businesses misleading or misunderstanding the small business community.

It is for this reason that small business ERP organisations in the same category as Salesorder.com have begun to make great progress in the market. They sell on demand software containing all of the specific features a small firm requires at very low cost. What is even more interesting is these packages are simple to use and can be installed in a short amount of time.

Now ERP platforms are no longer the privilege of large organisations.

Internet and Business Online sage accounting software, sage software, small business accounting software

My experience is accounting is really unnecessarily complex but after wrestling with my bookkeeping problems for a while I uncovered a really useful shortcut that I wanted to share with you. Most people I know in new businesses want to devote their time to acquiring customers and making sales instead of doing bookkeeping. All organisations have to pay special attention to their bookkeeping if they want to avoid problems.

When I first started out my bookkeeper advised or should I say insisted that I used a small business accounting software package developed by an outfit called Sage Software. I immediately went out and bought the package without even contemplating if it would suit my needs. This was definitely one of the biggest mistakes I made as the system turned out to be really difficult to comprehend and use. OK my first piece of wisdom is that whenever you see the words accounting software go carefully as it probably means the designer isassuming you understand a substantial amount about accounting.

Just like me small company people know about their craft and the product or service they sell and not accounting but in my situation I was driven to devote time to finding something that would work for me. It was really worth doing this as I found a more functional solution than I could ever of dreamed of named salesorder.com.

This is definitively the easiest software I have ever used and what’s more it is internet based and therefore I can access it from anywhere I want to work. Better still and the third piece of wisdom I want to tell you is that the team who work at salesorder.com are not just very knowledgeable of their system but they know a great deal about the challenges of managing a small enterprise and have taught me the bookkeeping I need to know.

Internet and Business Online sage accounting software, sage software, small business accounting software