For some reason, in this digital era, we still spend too much time managing too many things manually instead of stepping out and automating the workflow. We came up with 7 digital workflow tools that will help you manage your projects, papers, finances and meetings.
WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF A DIGITAL WORKFLOW?
- Do you worry it will be too time-consuming to learn to use these tools and teach your co-workers?
- Or, do you worry you will have to monitor them in case they make a mistake, resulting in a doubling up of your workload?
In reality, digitalising your workflow will free up your time and give you a unique chance to concentrate on other very important aspects of your company such as customer service, sales and growth. It will also remove the human element and the risk of making a mistake, as everything will be carried out by these services. Less time spent on correcting mistakes — more time spent on real work.
Together with reducing time spent on processing documents, you will also reduce costs meaning that your company will have 20-30% more time to spend on R&D.
Sounds tempting, right?
SO, WHAT ARE THE BEST DIGITAL WORKFLOW TOOLS OUT THERE?
- Free up more staff for perfecting your customer service by automatically adding every email sent to your website to your CRM. Services like HubSpot automatically add all leads to its CRM system filling in phone numbers, emails, messages and sources without you having to transfer manually.
- Once you have agreed on a deal, you can use an automated document gathering service like PlanetVerify that will send the list of required documents to your clients. You can set times for reminders to be sent and PlanetVerify can also verify any IDs for you. How much time do you think you could save by letting a workflow tool like PlanetVerify chase your clients for you?
- While managing documents might be easy, managing projects and several teams would be a compliacted task: you have to juggle developers, QAs, designers and clients at the same time.Through task managers and automation software such as Wrike, Mavenlink or Proofhub, these processes become easier.
- Everyone who has ever dealt with invoices knows what a pain in the back is it to issue invoices and keep them organised. Services like Waveapps automate this process to help you sleep better. Your finance team will thank you for using it.
- Coming back from a work trip with a fear of spending days and nights processing expenses? Use tools like Expensein, Zoho or Expensify which automate and streamline the expense process.
- If you are used to managing all tasks in your email, Airmail client will help you set tasks, alerts and create calendar events.
- Organising a meeting may be a complicated process; securing attendees’ availability, fixing a date and time in their diaries, setting an agenda, etc. One of the best scheduling tools is Doodle. It offers a wide selection of online solutions that radically simplify the process of scheduling appointments, ranging from the group event “poll” that doesn’t require registration to the professional appearance with own branding. It is painless; you create a poll, add emails, click send and receive answers.
Sure, you will have to spend some time learning how to use them and implementing this system into your business and personal life, but isn’t it better to spend 1 hour now to save 5-8 hours of your time weekly?
Let us know what tools you are using!
