The need to manage a family business remotely has increased significantly with the pressure from Covid and travel limitations. Thankfully, technology has also moved significantly in recent years to allow employees to work properly in remote settings and these are some of the apps that our own business uses and that of clients.
Workflow Max
The Workflow Max cloud project management software gives family business leaders insight into a teams individual job management including quoting, scheduling time tracking and reporting.
CyberArk
With identity theft and hackers becoming part of life CyberArk is important for identity control and privileged access.
Westcourt uses CyberArk for each team member as the protection of client data is critical in the services we provide. CyberArk facilitates our login process for each team member and helps deter outside criminals attacking our system.
Hubdoc
As teams incur costs remotely the need to manage all financial documents in one place automatically grows. Hobdocs allows teams to photograph invoices or scan them to an email address that automatically imports and codes the invoices to accounting programs like Xero, QuickBooks and BankLink.
Zoom
The ability to easily connect and see team members with one click access has made the concept of remote working and distance significantly more bearable. From internal meetings, webinars and recorded client presentations Zoom has made the ability to connect from a distance significantly better.
Westcourt uses Zoom in their regular team meetings that incorporate both the Melbourne and Perth office so everybody can look at the other team members face to face.
Slack
The internal social media channel has saved our email system from a gradual death. The ability for team members to post questions, email each other and socialize over different slack channels has enabled our email system to focus only on client related communications.
Zapier
The prevalence across different software platforms has created havoc with some functions as there is an ongoing need to manually post between different software programs that do not yet communicate properly. The ability to use Zapier has saved time on repetitive tasks and switching between apps.
An example of how Westcourt uses Zapier is to post professional development course offerings from a number of sources to a designated slack channel for all professionals to see.
Calendly
The appointment making process across 5 different team members should not take 20 emails. Westcourt is currently trialing Calendly to help service teams co-ordinate meetings so that the location, delivery method and process for team is clear.
Practice Ignition
PI eliminates the need to send customers detailed contracts and proposals by email. The ability for teams to send a single proposal with ability to approve and pay the proposal, followed up with a detailed contract, has eliminated the repetitive follow up process to clients as to their desired intentions.
Westcourt uses PI to send quotes, follow up reminders and present to clients the detailed terms of engagement.
Futrli
The ability to forecast your business performance, link to staff KPI’s, cashflow needs, predicted sales, predicted liability and bank reporting is the foundation of Futrli. The ability to integrate and forecast a balance sheet, cashflow and profit statement gives Westcourt an insight into our forward business and how staff need to act to get our long term goals.
Chaser
The Chaser app automates chasing and streamlining the accounts receivable process by giving customers a dedicated payment portal, automatic reconciliation in the general ledger software and personalized individual reminder statements of outstanding payments.
Westcourt uses Chaser as the primary debtor reminder system and automates the process of emailing statements and follow up queries.
MailChimp
Mailchimp integrates within our Xero ecosystem and provides a regularly flow of information to our clients depending on their needs and requests.
Westcourt primarily uses MailChimp for our newsletters and event reminders like our webinars and social events.
What is important is that cloud technology is enabling staff to achieve a lot from a range of locations. Our commitment to technology and systems has allowed our teams to continue working in difficult situations with a negligible impact on promises and commitments we have made to our clients and families in business.
What apps do you use? We are always open to try new things so drop us a comment and we will have a look?
