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Find Out How To Improve Your Online Customer Service With Podium

Find Out How To Improve Your Online Customer Service With Podium

Have you ever received random sales messages at odd hours of the day? Or maybe you have experienced trying to reach customer service but have been kept on hold for hours instead. The transition from physical stores to online mediums during the global pandemic has taken away the human touch essential to many small businesses. Unfortunately, the endless loops of automated recordings and dialling options are now commonly associated with the stigma of a cheap customer experience.

Typically, when you enter a retail shop, you are greeted by friendly staff and attentive employees that are willing to assist you with all the questions you might have. With the vast number of consumers now turning to online shopping/services, the plight small businesses face is how to create the same level of in-person experience when customers visit a website. You may be wondering – is it even possible to create a tailored online experience for customers? Well, yes, we have come across a cloud-based software that provides businesses with a centralised platform to increase employee productivity and customer satisfaction.  

Introducing Podium

Podium is a platform that helps businesses provide customers with the same quality in-store experience, only virtually. Their goal is to make it simple as possible for businesses to re-engage with customers at various stages along their purchasing journey. Podium offers a range of tools that help boost a company’s reviews, feedback, campaigns, payments, and team communication. By engaging with past and potential customers, businesses can increase conversion rates and customer engagement. If your business is looking to enhance its online reputation and promote website engagement by offering integrated messaging services with clients and prospects during the buy and fulfilment process, Podium is for you!

Understandably, it can be tricky for growing small businesses to juggle managing order fulfilment, financing, customer service, inventory, and marketing simultaneously; thus, the Podium Teamchat feature has a number of collaboration tools that make employee communication and involvement easier than ever before. Moreover, the Podium app also makes it simple to collaborate over long distances or on the go.

Podium for Small Businesses

Ashley Furniture, a merchant specialising in home-store goods, required a central messaging system to manage all inquiries across their social media platforms. The Podium Inbox helped them manage conversations in a streamlined manner whilst still providing tailored responses for each customer query. Hence, their customers have received extra value from their services since using Podium as they are able to receive an immediate response from a company expert who can solve their problem right away. Ashley Furniture also utilised Podium’s review invite tools which led to a 2% growth from 10% to 12% increase in foot traffic. Podium can assist in presenting your business as a more personable company with connected customer service that will not only get your great business reviews but will also enhance your company goodwill in the long term.

Want to know more?

We are experts in finding the right cloud-based software solutions for Australian businesses. If you’re not sure that Podium is the right match for your businesses, don’t hesitate to contact Businesses Continuum for a free consultation.

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Which Project Management Platform is Right For You?

Which Project Management Platform is Right For You?

With over 400 online project management tools in the market, professional service providers are spoilt for choice. We speak with businesses every day wanting to switch to a new project management tool. Some come to us with a solution in mind, while others want some help in selecting the best solution for their immediate and future needs.  

We know it is not only a daunting task but also a large time investment to navigate trials and software vendors all wanting your attention.

So, to help shortcut the system evaluation process, we’ve put together our perspective on 8 project management tools that we feel address the spectrum of most businesses’ needs today.

Discover more about each of the solutions at a glance below, then click through to our report for each platform.

 

Xero Projects

FeaturesProsCons
⇒Designed for small teams (ideal for less than 5 people)✓Easily draw database from Xero✗
✗
✗		Minimal customisation
Simplistic reporting
Unable to integrate quotes
⇒Xero integration✓Simple set up & usability
⇒$10 per month (with a Xero subscription)✓Great invoicing flexibility

Want to know more? [Read our blog review on Xero Projects]

Harvest & Forecast

FeaturesProsCons
⇒Suits those with a simple quoting process✓
✓
✓		Flexibility in time capture
Easy to track project progress
View projects at a glance		✗Limited pipeline management functionality
⇒
⇒		$12 per person per month
Great option for those who prioritise time tracking		✗No link between estimate and project
✗Limited project management functionality beyond tracking time and expenses

Want to know more? [Read our blog review on Harvest & Forecast]

Streamtime

FeaturesProsCons
⇒
⇒
⇒		Designed for creatives
Xero integration
$0-40 per month 		✓
✓
✓		Track time via a ‘to-do’ list
Simple timesheet usability
Great invoicing flexibility		✗Very fixed dashboard personas offer limited detail
✗An adjustment for those used to traditional timesheeting
✗No quick way to invoice for repetitive jobs

Want to know more? [Read our blog review on Streamtime]

ActiveCollab

FeaturesProsCons
⇒
⇒
⇒		Simple, user-friendly interface
Client collaboration
Good for businesses with non-complex projects that require little to no customisation in regards to estimating, invoicing and CRM		✓

✓

✓		Flexible permissions to allow client access to project details
Assign custom rates to each client
Detailed task lists		✗
✗

✗		CRM capabilities lack depth
Limited flexibility and no templating
No invoicing templates for duplicate jobs

Want to know more? [Read our blog review on ActiveCollab]

Zoho Projects

 

FeaturesProsCons
⇒Variety of modules allows for a customisable all-in-one solution✓

✓

✓

Nice facility to track support issues for clients and projects
Caters to a variety of working styles
Detailed task lists		✗

✗
✗		Diversity of functionality can feel overwhelming
Lacking in financial visibility
Comprehensive yet more costly than other solutions
⇒
⇒		Client portal for collaboration
Suits big teams requiring more complex communication

Want to know more? [Read our blog review on Zoho Projects]

WorkflowMax

FeaturesProsCons
⇒Aimed at small-medium businesses✓
✓

✓		Good level of customisation
Ability to input data in a number of ways
Flexible and comprehensive report builder		✗Limited staff scheduling functionality
⇒Affordable price (by user bands)✗
✗		Some integration limitations
Some rigidness and lack of flexibility for modern working styles
⇒Lead management add-on additional $15 per month

Want to know more? [Read our blog review on WorkflowMax]

Scoro

 

FeaturesProsCons
⇒
⇒

⇒

 

End-to-end solution
Extensive functionality and modules that cater for a wide range of professional and creative agencies
$34-97 per month 		✓
✓

✓

Excellent dashboard view
Streamlined quote and pipeline module
Excels with resource planning		✗Configuration of templates is quite difficult to master, some HTML experience is necessary
✗Complexity of the solution can result in some confusion when first implementing Scoro
  

Want to know more? [Read our blog review on Scoro]

Accelo

 

FeaturesProsCons
⇒

⇒

⇒

 

Accommodates a range of businesses and industries
Accessible by both Collaborators (access for free) and Professionals
US$39-79 per month		✓Great for tracking the work and progress of a client throughout its lifecycle✗

✗		Sales module somewhat difficult to navigate
Extensive capabilities often hindered by the complexity of the system
✓

✓		Project module is impressive though complex
Great depth of information that can be stored, filtered, viewed

Want to know more? [Read our blog review on Accelo]

If you have any questions, or want to know more about any of the solutions we’ve investigated, get in touch! We’d be happy to walk through your business needs and help you find the perfect project management solution.

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Is WorkflowMax Project Management Software Right For You?

Is WorkflowMax Project Management Software Right For You?

WorkflowMax is an end to end project management software, aimed at small to medium businesses. With an affordable price point, WorkflowMax aims to have a broad range of features that appeals to a variety of businesses. With the addition of its Lead Management add on, WorkflowMax acts as the one stop shop for the entire professional services process, and as a Xero company, its integration to the accounting software helps you manage your business’ finances.

Streamlined workflow + lead manager

As the name suggests, WorkflowMax’s key strength is in the process flow of work from an opportunity, all the way to a fully invoiced job. Lead Manager, for an additional $15 per month to the subscription, works in tandem with the client database to act as a basic sales pipeline manager. Tracking prospect clients, leads, building quotes, and assigning BD related tasks to staff members is available within the software with an ease of use.

A strength of WorkflowMax is its level of customisation, and this is best highlighted through its capacity to create custom fields across multiple modules, including clients and jobs. You can also customize templates for quotes, purchase orders, invoices and job forms using Word.

Jobs themselves are built on the foundations of tasks (for time tracking) and costs (expense tracking). As you build out tasks and costs within a job, so too does the financial budgets and visibility of a job grow. Jobs also facilitate management of to-do items, milestones and key dates, as well as assigning specific tasks to staff members for scheduling.

Limited scheduling

It is worth noting however, that the scheduling of staff members time within WorkflowMax is limited. While there is a scheduling module, it’s flexibility and usability are lacking. Scheduling relies exclusively on managers assigning start and end dates to tasks and if scheduling over multiple days, task times can only be broken up by equal proportions. If this is a necessity for your business, consider an integration with a third-party scheduling tool such as Better Scheduling or Plan Right.

A commonality throughout WorkflowMax is the tendency to be able to enter data in multiple ways, and time sheeting is no exception. Time can be added via the time tracker (either from browser or in app), as a manual entry from within the job, or even added in bulk through the weekly timesheet view. The Premium Plan for WorkflowMax also allows for ad hoc time to be added without a task, adding to the flexibility in how you enter your timesheets.

Flexible invoicing

Similarly, invoicing flexibility is a notable strength of WorkflowMax, made better still by recent enhancements to its Xero integration. Invoices can be billed directly off time and costs (while still maintaining the ability to write up or down individual entries) or you can choose to bill a self-determined total or percentage of the quote.

Despite being a Xero product, WorkflowMax’s integration with Xero is also not without limitations. While offering flexibility on how invoices ultimately appear in Xero, don’t expect client databases to be mirrored between the 2 systems unless you have put in the effort to configure the system in the way that best suits your needs. Ultimately, plan for WorkflowMax to be your single source for client information. Configuration of the system, and preparation of the client database, takes time to be successful.

Comprehensive reporting

The report builder in WorkflowMax is perhaps its best asset, as it provides a flexibility other software’s don’t. Almost every field, across every module can be extracted through the report builder. While you can’t access every field in a single report (there are multiple report types with different offerings), a simple CSV export allows you to conduct a deeper analysis of its data.

WorkflowMax’s greatest limitation is its rigidness and lack of flexibility for modern working styles. Its foundations as a traditional project management tool is well constructed, however there has been little development in areas that don’t fit directly into its intended workflow. While most prevalent in the scheduling limitations, the flexibility to customize dashboards, a complex purchase order process and restrictive tracking of tasks and WIP all hinder its status as an easy to use tool; without adequate training and a detailed setup, you may find it difficult to succeed using WorkflowMax.

When it’s preferred use suits your business, WorkflowMax is an effective project management tool focusing on providing you extensive financial visibility. Be prepared to put in some time setting up WorkflowMax. As a system that works best when you follow its rules, taking the time to learn them is worth the effort.

Have questions?

We’d be happy to answer them or take you through features of WorkflowMax in more detail. Or, if you’re wondering if another solution might be better for you, we’ve also done the hard yards for you and taken a look at other project management platforms, including: Xero Projects, Harvest & Forecast, Streamtime, ActiveCollab, Zoho Projects, Scoro and Accelo.

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Is Scoro Project Management Software Right For You?

Is Scoro Project Management Software Right For You?

Scoro is a comprehensive tool that boasts an impressive end-to-end experience for its users. Founded in 2013, Scoro is one of the faster growing project management solutions in the market. It is winning its customer base through regular improvements to its sites. Scoro aims to ‘bring structure to your work’ and tie in all your business functions into one single solution – an aim that they have been quite successful in achieving.

A one-stop-shop

Scoro allows for businesses to manage their entire workflow in one place. Built upon the framework of ‘sell it, work it, bill it’, Scoro’s strength lies in its extensive functionality and modules that cater for a wide range of professional and creative agencies. Scoro houses businesses development, project management and financial functions – all with their own set of customizable fields and purposes – ensuring all areas of your business is accounted for and optimized. The process of optimization only continues after implementation, with software enhancements being continually added and an active support line that averages an hour and a half response time.

A single page view is mastered by Scoro. The PM tool offers a new meaning to accessibility – whether you are looking at clients, projects, quotes to invoices, Scoro shows all relevant information in a single page where you can easily filter or view information as you please. Insightful and comprehensive filtering is achievable through the in-depth details that Scoro allows you to store.

Quote and pipeline management

Business development is made easy through the quote and pipeline module in Scoro. If your business works on similar quotes and project scopes, standard quote templates can be created and easily applied. Products and services can even be predefined with specific user rates, quantities and descriptions making the process even easier. Client facing pdf templates can also be customised to show information as required by your business, however it is important to note the configuration of templates is quite difficult to master as it requires HTML experience – it is a fiddly process. After you have created the quote, you can simply click and drag quotes into different status columns in the pipeline. This provides an accurate and visual representation of potential and upcoming work.

Once the work has been won, simply turn the quote into a project with two clicks of your mouse. The quoted line items can even be converted into phases and tasks of the project, reducing the time taken to set up the project and the work that needs to be completed.

Resource planning

Resource planning, an area where many project management tools lack, Scoro excels. Project managers are able to assign tasks to team members by a drag and drop system. The planner view allows the manager to view their team members existing tasks, available time and upcoming calendar events – their teams capacity.

Scoro’s time capture functionality is one of the best in the market. Time is tracked against tasks assigned to projects or clients and is differentiated between billable and non-billable. Users have the option to add time via the task, a time tracker or even a timesheet module where all the user’s active tasks are displayed in one matrix. Both managers and users can visualize the time entered through easy to read graphs. At a glance, managers will be able to identify areas of the business where significant amounts of time is being put towards and if team members are working to capacity.

Billing made easy

After you ‘sell it’ and ‘work it’, the part of the business that keeps you afloat is to ‘bill it’ – and Scoro makes this easy for you. If you are billing at a fixed rate, you can simply use the data on the quote to invoice a client within a few clicks. Or, if your business bills on time and materials, work reports can be created and converted into invoices with all the relevant information. These easy yet comprehensive methods, if set up correctly, can save you significant amounts of time.

Dashboard at-a-glance

Scoro’s dashboard view is one of the best in the market. Not only has Scoro built the dashboards to be visually appealing, the widgets and graphs provide all users the ability to view critical information as soon as the enter their site. Gone are the endless clicks and exports of important data, Scoro gives you the ability to configure and display key metrics that are important to you.

Scoro provides a complete experience for its users. The customizability and functionality of Scoro, combined with the countless possible integrations, allows for businesses of all trades to manage their projects from start to end. Scoro provides the opportunity for businesses consolidate their operations into a single software, however the complexity of the solution can result in some confusion when first implementing Scoro.

Have questions?

We’d be happy to answer them or take you through features of Scoro in more detail. Or, if you’re wondering if another solution might be better for you, we’ve also done the hard yards for you and taken a look at other project management platforms, including: Xero Projects, Harvest & Forecast, Streamtime, ActiveCollab, Zoho Projects, WorkflowMax and Accelo.

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Accelo Project Management Software: Discover More

Accelo Project Management Software: Discover More

Accelo is built upon four key components: sales, projects, retainers and service. ServOps is Accelo’s premium system that combines all four modules into one system “to manage all of your client service operations – quote to cash”.  The solution aims to accommodate for all types of businesses and industries through the systems complexity and extensivity – a task it has achieved. For the purpose of this post, I will be focusing on the complete solution: ServOps.

Offer client access

In Accelo, two types of users exist – Collaborators and Professionals. Collaborators can use the system for free and add information to the platform. Professionals have the added crucial ability to record time, manage client accounts and opportunities and have their workloads scheduled and forecasted. This is an impressive feature that allows organisations to give all employees access to the platform for minimal cost.

Accelo excels in tracking the work and progress of a client throughout its lifecycle. ‘Progressions’ tracks client development through customisable stages. Accelo enhances this process by introducing a feature called ‘Triggers’. Triggers can automate the manual steps of updating information or adding tasks by setting rules and actions.

Comprehensive yet complex

The sales module within Accelo, although comprehensive, is quite difficult to navigate through. Users are met with a confusing layout because there are many different options and tabs for the user to click into to update and view information. The extensive capabilities that Accelo has on offer are only hindered by the complexity of the system.

Quoting in Accelo gets the job done. Estimates are created in an easy to read table format, and if with enough detail, can be converted into project tasks with a single click of your mouse. Quotes are split into service items and materials, allowing for clients to easily differentiate between T&M. Creating quote templates is straightforward and easy to follow with all available merge fields viewable on a sidebar. However, customisation of the design of published quotes is limited to a few basic options. Invoicing is very similar in its capabilities.

Impressive project management

One of the most impressive modules within Accelo is Projects. Although complex to set up, when used correctly, project managers are rewarded with colourful gantt charts, critical insights and a project view that provides all the information you need. Tasks can be created, with subtasks, budgets and dependencies to follow – all to allow for effective planning and scheduling. After the tasks have been created, managers can then go to the scheduling module where they can drag and drop tasks according to their team’s capacity.

The task board within Accelo is similar to Trello, except with additional capabilities. Users have the option to see tasks according to deadlines, status or unassigned and filter as required.  

Integrated service support systems

Using Accelo, businesses can integrate their servicing or support systems through the ticketing module. Tickets can be automatically sent to Accelo, allowing for managers to assign them as tasks to team members. Time and activities can then be added to this ticket. This is a feature that many project management systems in the market do not have on offer and should be strongly considered if your business requires this.

The retainer module in Accelo makes managing contracts easier for your business as it adds an extra layer to projects and tasks. Timesheets, tasks and notifications can all be automated to reduce time each period updating the same details.

Rudimentary reporting

Accelo’s dashboard and reports modules lack customisability. End users are provided with a set list of dashboards which they can then change the information they view through filtering. The reporting module also lacks depth; however, it is important to note that most information required can be easily viewed in the relevant sections of the site.

Overall, Accelo delivers on its promise to provide an end-to-end solution for businesses from many different industries. The level of detail and depth of information that can be stored, filtered, viewed and then analysed is nothing short of impressive. However, where Accelo excels in functionality, users are left with a platform that can often be confusing and hard to navigate through. Accelo requires significant configuration and time for training, and even then users may struggle to use the software to its full potential.

Have questions?

We’d be happy to answer them or take you through features of Accelo in more detail. Or, if you’re wondering if another solution might be better for you, we’ve also done the hard yards for you and taken a look at other project management platforms, including: Xero Projects, Harvest & Forecast, Streamtime, ActiveCollab, Zoho Projects, WorkflowMax and Scoro.

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Zoho Projects Project Management Software: Discover More

Zoho Projects: Discover More

Zoho Projects offers users a variety of modules to manage workflow and to-dos within a project. The module variety is their primary selling point as it tries to be an all-in-one solution. While some unique modules can be beneficial to the business they are designed for, a lack of focus can leave a new user feeling overwhelmed.

Client access portal

Zoho projects offers a client portal, in which clients can access a project to review its progress, and communicate with your team within the software. While not applicable for all businesses, the ability to customize the access clients have within a project (specific tasks and milestones can be hidden from invited clients) makes this prospect of client integration attractive to a wider range of businesses.

Customization such as this is an essential part of Zoho projects, due to the range of features they offer. You have the option to turn off modules for the entire software, as well as pick and choose which modules are available within a specific project. This is essential as some modules serve a specific purpose that is applicable to only a few business models.

Log project issues

One such module is the issues function. Issues are separate to tasks; however, a logged issue can be linked to a task. Issues allow you to keep track of what has gone wrong with a project and can be logged by an integrated client. While particularly useful for project success reporting, particularly if your work involves a user testing period, it is a module that many businesses won’t require at all. Zoho Projects offers forums, chats, custom pages & activity log modules. All these modules facilitate communication between team members. However, trying to utilize all of these for your business could be overwhelming.

Zoho projects most effective feature is its task management. You can build a task for a project from almost any screen, apply them to milestones and create sub-tasks and date ranges. Staff can create customized task views (however cannot save them for future use), and project dashboards can provide visibility on how tasks are progressing according to their time estimations.

Interdependency within tasks

A highly requested feature from our clients is the ability to create interdependencies within tasks. If you require the completion of tasks in an order, you can specify this with a task-based Gantt chart. As with many Zoho Projects features this can be highly beneficial, but only if it suits your business’s workflow.

It can cater a variety of working styles, there are notable limitations within modules. This is most prevalent within the calendar module. The calendar module shows tasks & calendar events. Tasks are present based on their start and end dates. There is poor flexibility if wanting to break up a task’s allotted time into specific days within the task date range. If a task is due in 7 days, it will appear as a calendar item for all seven days.

Calendar events can be created with invites sent to other staff and clients who have access to the portal. However, they cannot be linked to existing project tasks. Therefore, if you want to track time for a calendar event, it must be added as a timesheet to a separate task.

Reporting & invoicing

Finally, Zoho’s projects financial visibility is lacking in comparison to other project management solutions. The dashboard doesn’t show accrued WIP, expenses are manually inputted to a project, and you need access to Zoho CRM & Zoho Invoicing for budgeting and billing respectively. Invoicing is flexible, with bills being built based on rate or a fixed value, but it is not a seamless process as they can’t be created directly from the quote. You don’t get the visibility of forecasted income that is available in other solutions.

If flexibility and variety of workflow management options is important to you, then Zoho projects should be considered due to its range of modules, client integration functionality, and various methods of team communication. However, a successful implementation of Zoho projects requires careful consideration of what features are useful to you, and integration with additional financial functions such as Zoho CRM & invoicing.

Have questions?

We’d be happy to answer them or take you through features of Zoho Projects in more detail. Or, if you’re wondering if another solution might be better for you, we’ve also done the hard yards for you and taken a look at other project management platforms, including: Xero Projects, Harvest & Forecast, Streamtime, ActiveCollab, WorkflowMax, Scoro and Accelo.

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Discover More About ActiveCollab Project Management Software

Discover More About ActiveCollab Project Management Software

ActiveCollab, as the name suggests, is a tool that spotlights on active collaboration. Serving over 50,000 teams since its founding in 2007, ActiveCollab offers an easy-to-use and simple interface that facilitates team transparency and impressively, client collaboration.

Collaborate with clients

ActiveCollab has the ability to build on client involvement and visibility without sacrificing security or confidentiality. By simply setting up correct permissions and inviting a client into a project, the client will be able to view the project details and leave comments, create discussions and notes, and easily add files for team members to access. The Client+ add on, essentially an additional setting, further builds client collaboration by allowing the client to even create, assign and be assigned tasks within the project. This kind of interactive and transparent feature is uncommon amongst many of the project management tools in the market, and as such is a major selling point if this is something your business is striving for.

Basic CRM functionality

Whilst ActiveCollab promotes significant client interaction, its CRM capabilities lack depth and detail. The CRM is very limited as only basic information can be stored for each company. ActiveCollab highlights its ability to assign custom rates for each client, however this is a feature many other tools have on offer.

Similarly, estimating/quoting is easy and simple in ActiveCollab. The interface is logically laid out, and you can send out an estimate within a few clicks of your mouse. However, the absence of any significant flexibility or structure and formatting is a major shortfall. Templates with crucial information and aesthetics cannot be created and all line items are free form text – you are unable to choose from a consistent and specified list of products and services.

Streamlined workflow

Once an estimate has been accepted, it can be quickly converted into a project. Projects can only be assigned one category and a few labels, hence limiting project filtering and reporting. However, where ActiveCollab lacks in project categorization, it makes up for this with effective detailed task lists, tasks and subtasks. ActiveCollab excels in keeping everyone in the loop, hosting a dedicated Activity tab for each project where all members can see the happenings for the project – when tasks are created, completed and more. Comments and files can easily be added to provide feedback and ask questions.

Tasks can be assigned to people, and subscribers can even be added on to either supervise or be kept up to date with the task progress. The focus on collaboration is aided by task dependencies that help create a gant chart that illustrates the project schedule. Although providing a representation of upcoming tasks, ActiveCollab does not provide an avenue for project managers to use this information and easily and effectively resource plan.

For the end users, your team members, time sheeting is an easy task. Time can be logged via the user specific task page, the project or within the task itself. The process is easy to follow, with a simple click and select of the project, task, time and description. ActiveCollab offers a clean interface that is not confusing for your team members.

Basic invoicing & reporting

ActiveCollab’s invoicing module gets the job done, however if you are looking for well designed, formatted and customized templates, you should look somewhere else. The invoice functionality is limited with only basic grouping and detailing available within the invoice. Also, in-depth reporting and customizable dashboards are another aspect where ActiveCollab needs major improvement.

Overall, ActiveCollab is a great PM tool for businesses with non-complex projects that require little to no customisation in regards to estimating, invoicing and CRM. The interface is simple and intuitive and offers a great experience for the end users. Team members and clients are kept up to date with all the latest information reducing the number of ‘catch-up’ meetings required. Where customisation, increased functionality and powerful reporting is required, look to other tools to use for your business. At its very competitive price point of $8 a user per month, ActiveCollab maintains basic processes and functions, and this flows through to basic CRM capabilities, estimating and invoicing.

Have questions?

We’d be happy to answer them or take you through features of ActiveCollab in more detail. Or, if you’re wondering if another solution might be better for you, we’ve also done the hard yards for you and taken a look at other project management platforms, including: Xero Projects, Harvest & Forecast, Streamtime, Zoho Projects, WorkflowMax, Scoro and Accelo.

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Discover More About Streamtime Project Management Software

Discover More About Streamtime Project Management Software

Streamtime strives to embody project management software for creatives. This goal is reflected not only in its modern aesthetics, but in its functionality. Streamtime strays away from traditional PM software traits in favor of a process that reflects the working styles of its clientele.

If you are willing to adjust your practices, and let go of your traditional reporting techniques, then Streamtime can be a powerful tool that staff enjoy using.

Track to-dos, not timesheets

Streamtime’s most unique feature is its approach to timesheets; namely that there are none. Replacing timesheets is the intuitive ‘To Do’ board, the completion of which automatically logs time for you. Managers, or staff, can drag and drop tasks to organize their own daily lists of to-dos, yet get a visual representation of how long that expected work is going to take. To do’s can relate directly to project items (the source of invoices, quotes and WIP) or they can be created ad hoc. The time for one of these on the spot created to-do items is recognized within the project as ‘Extra Hours Tracked’ so you can easily gauge where your staff may have done some out of scope work.

Clear on capacity

Filling out a timesheet is as simple as dragging an item from ‘To-Do’ to ‘Done’. If the time taken isn’t the time planned, you can stretch the item in your chart as needed. The To-Do board is Streamtime’s selling point and you can see why. It clearly visualizes capacity of staff, makes time sheeting easy, and has the flexibility to work off quoted time or track all the small tasks needed to be done on a day to day basis. It could use a more complex integration with the jobs (the creation of sub items from the to-do list would be welcome), and it could cause a culture shock for a team used to traditional timesheets, but it is unique and useable.

For managers, Streamtime has a schedule feature, in which you can review to-do items across all staff or jobs. Flexibility in the drag and drop functionality and accessibility to create to-do’s on the spot with instructions that feed into a staff members individual to-do list, make this module a powerful tool for a manager that is conscious of how much work their staff have at any given time.

Quoting and invoicing

Quoting and Invoicing through Streamtime is job focused and based around Items. Items can be free typed, and you have the flexibility to choose whether an item is budgeted in total, or from the sum of the rates and hours of staff assigned to it. You can duplicate a quote, and its line items but due to the free-form nature of the system a lack of quote, job or invoice templates could become frustrating for businesses that operate with set pricing structures that vary little between projects.

Preparing quote, invoice and purchase order documents can be a mixed bag depending on your preferences. Everything in these documents can be freely edited, added to or re-ordered. This flexibility can be refreshing compared to traditional project management solutions, requires caution as it is all too easy to mistakenly change a price or remove a line item. Visually, the documents have templates that are only semi-customizable. Their presentation is worthy of any creative agency, but should you currently have highly customized documents, you won’t be able to re-create them fully in Streamtime.

Reporting options

Reporting is another example where Streamtime strays from the norm. Reporting comes in 3 main forms; inside the project, the dashboard & customizable list views.

From within the project you are given a graph of a projects process based on the actual vs allocated time. Paired with the graph is key metrics around budgets, invoiced and quote totals.

There are four dashboard options, likened to personality traits that filter that organize key information for that day. The information shown here is limited, and there is no customisation outside the 4 choices. The 4 choices are based on: in-depth analysis, top level information, staff capacity and budget vs actual. Unless one of the options is perfect for you, you won’t find much value in the dashboards.

Customisable lists

The real value is in the customisable lists. You can make lists of jobs, time, expenses, quotes & invoices. For each list, you can add in filters, and customize columns based on a generous range of data. Lists can then be saved as a favorite and exported to CSV. If time and care is taken to build an arsenal of favourite lists, Streamtime will provide the visibility you need to run your business.

Streamtime is a powerful project management software that bases its uniqueness on visualization and flexibility. Highly structured businesses with set project structures and processes will likely find there is too much freedom, and therefore room for error, with Streamtime’s approach. However, for smaller creative agencies where flexibility is essential, Streamtime would be a welcome solution.

Have questions?

We’d be happy to answer them or take you through features of Streamtime in more detail. Or, if you’re wondering if another solution might be better for you, we’ve also done the hard yards for you and taken a look at other project management platforms, including: Xero Projects, Harvest & Forecast, ActiveCollab, Zoho Projects, WorkflowMax, Scoro and Accelo.

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Discover More About Harvest & Forecast Project Management Software

Discover More About Harvest & Forecast Project Management Software

Harvest is a project management tool whose foundations lie in time capture. Today, I am covering Harvest & Forecast, its scheduling add on, together. Harvest’s biggest strength is its flexibility of time capture. After all, the application started as an exclusively time capture tool in 2006. Since then, they have expanded their horizons to cover most aspects of project management and, to a lesser extent, CRM.

Not our first choice for pipeline management

The most notable limitation of harvest is its business development functionality. In Harvest you build Estimates, which once accepted, can be turned into an invoice. What the Estimate module doesn’t provide however, is any form of lead pipeline visualization to provide you key information about incoming work. You can see the full list of leads and filter by client, but if pipeline management is important to you, Harvest will underwhelm.

Additionally, there is a disconnect between an estimate, and the project. You can’t turn an estimate into a project, only directly into an invoice. If you put the effort into building an estimate to list out service line items for time to be tracked, you will need to duplicate that effort to create the project if the estimate is accepted. If your quoting process is simple and the client only cares about the total value of services, you should be safe, but this disconnect between estimates and projects is something to consider.

Straightforward progress tracking

However, once you have built your projects, Harvest lets you maintain their progress against budgets with ease. The projects view lets you see at a glance how your work is tracking against budget with a colored project bar that stands out in the interface.

Within the project’s main view, you get a unique bar chart tracking the progression of the budget month by month, and another tracking your teams logged time week by week. You also get the key metrics tracked by Harvest (time, remaining budget, internal project cost and amounts to invoice).

As Harvest is built on the foundation of tracking time and expenses, you won’t find much additional project management functionality such as milestone tracking or to-do management. You can build tasks, but these are where time gets logged, so think twice before creating a task for every to-do item within a project.

Flexibility with invoicing and rates

Harvest does give you some invoicing flexibility, which can be determined at a project’s creation. You can opt for a time and materials project, with or without a set budget. A useful feature is the flexibility around rates.  You have the option to work off your staff charge out rates, a custom rate for the project, or even a specific rate for each task within that project. This allows for a flexibility of WIP management that caters to the requirements of a variety of clients.

The core strength of Harvest is undoubtedly in its time capture functionality. Time is tracked against tasks, billable or non-billable, that are created within a project. When using Harvest, you are given multiple avenues to add time. You can start a timer, add time to tasks within the project, or compile time against a daily or weekly graph. You can opt to have time approved, send reminders for approval, and as a manager you can easily visualize the time entered by your team.

Digestible reporting

The reporting module provides further flexibility around time and associated Work In Progress, and can be viewed by client, project, task or staff. Like projects, key metrics are displayed in an easily digestible format to not only view time entries but see the impact of your staff’s time on your business.

Where does Forecast fit into Harvest? Forecast is an additional application that directly integrates with your Harvest projects and tasks. Essentially an integrated gant chant for your projects, Forecast lets you create project milestones (critically missing from the Harvest project module) and assign project tasks with a drag and drop interface.

You can view the gant chart from either a project or team perspective, and usefully both options can be exported to csv. The team view gives you some additional flexibility around capacity, viewing staff availability and designations for either a day or a week. Forecast lets you visualize capacity for the future and recognize tight deadlines across your full project list.

With the integration of Forecast, Harvest upgrades from a time tracking tool to a more flexible project management tool where you can schedule capacity and track project milestones. The disconnect between estimates & projects, and the lack of to-do list management does, however, keep it from succeeding as an all in one project management solution.

Have questions?

We’d be happy to answer them or take you through features of Harvest & Forecast in more detail. Or, if you’re wondering if another solution might be better for you, we’ve also done the hard yards for you and taken a look at other project management platforms, including: Xero Projects, Streamtime, ActiveCollab, Zoho Projects, WorkflowMax, Scoro and Accelo.

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Discover More About Xero Projects

Discover More About Xero Projects

Xero Projects is a relatively new competitor in the project management software market, that has been created with one thing in mind: Simplicity. It is an extension of the existing Xero accounting and payroll solution made for small teams.

Ideal for businesses of less than five people, Xero Projects is designed to facilitate project management with little complexity. Xero Projects lets you create a project, adding budgets, timesheets and invoices and view profitability within minutes.

As the name suggests, Xero Projects is a Xero Product, and is available with any Xero subscription for an additional $10 per user per month. A Xero subscription is essential for anyone looking to get started on Xero Projects. While restricting your options of accounting software, the Xero connection has efficiency gains regarding invoicing and expense management that is lacking in other solutions.

Simple & easy to get started

The simplicity of Xero Projects is most prevalent in its set up. In under thirty minutes, you will have explored all avenues of custom configuration, as the software limits you to working within its confines.  

A project takes only four fields to set up, and its integration with Xero means you already have your Xero client database to draw from. Once the Project is set up, you can add tasks with predetermined time budgets, log expenses or go straight into building a deposit invoice.

Once you have created a project, all that is left to do is add time & expenses. Adding time is simple. You can use the start/stop timer feature in the mobile app or add timesheet entries retrospectively from several screens within the app site.

Track expenses with ease

Tracking expenses is similarly straightforward. Xero Projects only tracks essential expense information. Therefore, expenses can be quickly added from within the project.  The Xero integration is again useful here, in that a Xero bill can be directly related to a project, preventing double handling of these expenses, ensuring timely data.

The invoicing module from Xero Projects is almost identical to Xero, except that it gives you 3 project billing methods that relate directly to the project; Deposit, Project Amount or Tasks and Expenses invoicing.

Flexible invoicing

This invoicing flexibility is one of the system’s biggest strengths, as it enforces the mantra of simplicity (just select an option and the invoice practically creates itself) while still letting you bill in the way that bests suits you. Again, the Xero integration ensures efficiency when invoicing, as the invoice created against a project is reflected in Xero in its entirety.

After you have billed your project, it is time to report – an area where Xero Projects relishes simplicity. Reporting in the software is restricted to key project profitability information, and a time overview. The former compares budget vs actual using key metrics, while the latter allows you to review each staff members logged time, to identify where projects or tasks are going over the estimated time.

There is minimal customisation of reports, but all the key information to identify a projects financial projects is readily available.

The downfall…

Where Xero Projects is most lacking, considering its intention as a financial tracking tool, is its inability to link to any quotes. While quote functionality exists in Xero, there is currently no integration with Xero Projects. This has been identified by the team at Xero Projects as an item on its roadmap for future development and would be a welcome addition to the construction of more accurate budgeting.

If you are only concerned with tracking the financial progress of a project through time and expenses and want a familiar invoicing process with a complete integration to Xero, then Xero Projects could be the software for you. While its limitations in quoting, customisation & reporting are prevalent, it has the essential functionality to ensure small business can in control of their projects.

Have questions?

We’d be happy to answer them or take you through features of Xero Projects in more detail. Or, if you’re wondering if another solution might be better for you, we’ve also done the hard yards for you and taken a look at other project management platforms, including: Harvest & Forecast, Streamtime, ActiveCollab, Zoho Projects, WorkflowMax, Scoro and Accelo.

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