TIME: HOW TO CHOSE APPS TO GIVE YOU MORE AND MAKE MORE MONEY
Apps can benefit your business in many ways, including helping you gain valuable insights, and automating time-consuming tasks, so you have more time to spend on growing your business – or just doing more of the things you love.
Have you ever wondered why it feels like time seems to speed up?
It’s a good question. You see when we are a child a year could be perhaps one tenth of our lives if we are ten years old. But, if we are 50 years old then that same measurement of time is now much smaller. It is one fiftieth. I hope you are getting the point.
So how can we reclaim more time?
Here are 5 steps that will make this experience a pleasure rather than a chore.
1. Identify your business needs
- Are you trying to solve an existing pain point? Or perhaps you want help to grow.
- Are there manual tasks that you actively avoid, or tasks that take a lot of time?
- If you have a team, ask them for their feedback on any business processes that they think could be improved.
2. Decide what you want an app to help you with
- Identify the key problem you want an app to solve, or any specific benefits or features you’re looking for. For example, if you want an app to help manage expenses, you might want the ability to extract data from a photo of a receipt and automatically create expense items.
- Consider how an app could enable others in your business, and whether you need multiple users. Some apps limit the number of users, or more users may cost extra.
- Get clear on your ‘must-haves’ and separate them from your ‘nice-to-haves’ to make it easier when comparing different apps.
3. Browse the App Store or Google Play Store
The App Store
You can also browse by:
- Industry: Some apps are designed to address broad business needs, and others are tailor-made for specific industries. Search by your industry to find apps designed for businesses like yours. Some of the most commonly viewed industries are accounting, construction and trades, hospitality, manufacturing, professional services and retail.
- Functions: Search through key functional categories that reflect the daily tasks you manage. Some of the top visited functions include invoicing and jobs, bills and expenses, time tracking, reporting and inventory management.
- Aim to identify a few apps that fulfil your ‘must-haves’ list for comparison.
4. Compare apps
Once you’ve identified a couple of apps that could meet your needs, it’s worth doing some research to narrow down your shortlist.
- Make a comparison checklist: These are things that matter to you, like price, user numbers, functional requirements, support channels.
- Compare their features and benefits
- Read the app user reviews
5. Give it a try
- Head to the App Store or Google Play Store
- Find the app you want to try, and click ‘Get this app’ from the listing page
- Follow the prompts to allow the app to enable a free trial (often for 30 days)
- Test the app
- Run through a few business scenarios
Things to remember when choosing an app
An app is an investment – don’t just think in terms of price – apps will also pay for themselves in time saved, reduced mental load, and higher productivity for you and your employees. The lowest cost won’t always provide the most value in the long term.
Talk to your accountant – some apps offer a deeper level of integration with accounting software than others, so it may be worth talking to your accountant about how best to set it up to meet any specific business or compliance requirements.
You’ve identified the right app, now what?
Leverage the app’s support resources – apps typically have resources and support teams to help get you set up and ensure you can get the most out of their solutions. They are the experts in their app and want you to have the best customer experience possible.
Train your team – get your team trained on how to use the app right from the start, so they can see the benefit to themselves as well as the business. This will make for a smoother transition.