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7 Must Have Tools to Manage Teams during Remote Work

Remote teams have unique needs. Depending on your industry, team size, locations, and company structure, your remote setup might look vastly different when compared to another team. However, there are a few basic tools that every remote team needs regardless of what they’re doing or how the team is structured.

Here are the 7 types of tools that every manager needs to keep up with their remote team:

1) Collaboration Tools (Slack, Teams, etc.)

The first priority for most remote teams is getting information around the group quickly. You need a tool that allows you to centralise assignments, communication, and other activities related to your workflow. A good collaboration tool acts like a virtual office space.

A virtual office isn’t all about work. The purpose is to keep people connected. What you’re doing is creating space for your team to check in, chat, interact, and pass information in a central location.

Slack is one of the most commonly used collaboration tools, followed by Microsoft Teams. Lesser known tools like Flowdock or Dapulse also offer a similar setup. The most important parts of any collaboration tool are ease of use, ability to organise, and accessibility to all team members. As long as the tool fits your team in those three areas, the specific tool doesn’t matter.

2) Project Management Tools (Trello, Asana, Basecamp, etc.)

The next step down from a collaboration tool is a project management tool. While some people lump project management tools in with collaboration tools, they have very different functions. The main point of a project management tool is to make it possible for remote workers to follow the flow of work in real-time. These tools allow individuals and teams to track the progress of a project any time.

Another major benefit of project management is the freedom for each team member to work in their own time. They know the deadline, process, and expectations. With this information, they can plan their schedules to align their individual preferences and needs with your team needs. Caitlin Reddington, junior editor for All Things Hair, says this about scheduling: “Sticking to a consistent schedule and routine has helped me stay productive while working from home. I’ve also enjoyed taking advantage of my extra free time.”

Trello is a great example of this. For each team you manage, you can have a central Trello board outlining projects in a broad view as well as smaller boards to provide a detailed look at everything that’s happening. Good project management tools are a visual aid to help everyone grasp the size of a project, the progress, and their individual responsibilities. These tools create and maintain a work process everyone can follow.

Besides Trello, there are also tools like Asana, Basecamp, or ProofHub.

3) Shared Notetaking Tools (Notion, OneNote, Evernote, etc.)

Remote teams need a central place to pin information. Consider a notetaking tool to be the equivalent of a whiteboard, a sticky note, an information database, and a bulletin board combined. These tools often integrate well with popular collaboration apps, or they may come as a built-in feature (Teams has OneNote built in, for example).

Notion is one of the most versatile notetaking tools. It has the flexibility to allow everyone to customise their notes into the most useful form with both public and private note boards. For a remote team, Notion is one of the better options. Other tools include Evernote, OneNote, Google Keep, or Apple Note.

4) Password Management Tools (LastPass, 1Password, etc.)

Any team that works remotely is going to have a lot of credentials to keep track of for company accounts and individual accounts on different apps, tools, websites, and services. For security purposes, it’s wise to set up a process for every team member to make it easy to create and share credentials safely.

Password management tools make security a lot easier. You can generate unique passwords for every account to avoid password reuse, share passwords with relevant team members seamlessly (often without them seeing the actual password), and keep track of every account in a secure location. If someone stops working for your team, you can simply revoke their access to account information.

LastPass, Dashlane, and 1Password are examples of password management tools. If you already use a VPN service or other online security service, check first to see if they offer a password management platform as well.

5) Automation Tools (Bluesheets, Integromat, etc.)

A quick and easy way to improve your operations, while giving time back to your team, is automation. Almost any repetitive task can be automated, and the biggest culprit is often finance. Just think about how many times you forward an email to accounts, or download an invoice, only to upload it again.

With Bluesheets’ bookkeeping automation for accounts and expense management, your team can do away with tedious financial processes. The real time processing speeds up turnaround times, and the machine-learning system guarantees data accuracy. So you can remove processing headaches and eliminate errors in one swoop.

For other menial tasks like email automation and document management, Integromat is a lesser known product that can piece your systems together. With the right automation tools, you can dramatically improve efficiency in remote work.

6) Communication Tools (Skype, Zoom, etc.)

Good communication is essential for remote teams. Set a specific communication protocol and make a certain tool your standard tool for passing information along. While tools like Slack might work well in collaborative communication, there’s no built-in video or voice calling features. Teams has this built-in as part of their platform.

If your existing tools don’t offer communication options, or if those options aren’t sufficient for your needs, get one of the many free or inexpensive communication apps. Skype, Zoom, and GoToMeeting are some of the top video, audio, chat, and screen sharing tools.

7) Practical Tools

Every team is different. Depending on the nature of your work, you may want to consider a few other practical tools to help you and your team work more efficiently. Here are a few examples of practical tools that might be must-haves for your team:

Document Signing

Printing, signing, and scanning a document isn’t efficient. You can’t count on everyone having a printer and scanner readily available. Instead, find a useful tool that allows you to do digital signing. Examples include DocuSign, HelloSign, RightSignature, and Adobe Sign.

Document/File Creation

Your team likely already has access to a basic office tools, but it’s worth setting up a standard process be deciding on which tools to use and giving your team access to them. Microsoft Office and Google G Suite are the two most common creation toolsets, with both including tools for word processing, spreadsheets, slides, and other types of file creation.

Filesharing

If your chosen collaboration tools don’t offer a central place to share files, get another tool to fill the gaps. Remote teams who share larger files with each other may have more need for these tools, especially if video files need to be shared. Microsoft Teams gives you access to SharePoint, but other independent tools include DropBox, Google Drive, or OneDrive. However, there are endless options for file sharing that might fit your needs more closely.

Designing

If you’re going to be doing any collaborative design, such as simple picture editing for blog posts or social media, a cloud-based design program may be useful. Something simple like Canva or Pixlr is usually sufficient, but tools like Design Wizard or Infogram give more tailored options.

Time Tracking

Sometimes remote teams lack accountability. For any situation where accountability could be an issue, or if billing is done on an hourly basis, time tracking tools are helpful. Some collaboration or project management tools have built-in time tracking features. Otherwise, look for tools such as Toggl, Time Doctor, HubStaff, or Harvest.

Conclusion

Tools enable your remote team to work efficiently without having to be together in the office. With the right set of tools, you’ll be able to get everything done just as well as you would if you shared a space together.

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8 reasons your business needs AP automation

Running a business can sometimes feel like there’s no time to pause, take a breath, and look for opportunities to improve. We’d like to introduce a quick and easy solution that also provides you with more room to breathe: automation.

In 2018, it cost an average business $5.83 to pay an invoice. While $5.83 may not seem like much, if you pull open that same spreadsheet you’re tracking your bills on and do some quick math, you’re probably spending more than you think.

The best way to cut down on this extra cost? Automate your accounts payable (AP). Aside from the cost of processing these bills, there are numerous reasons you should take advantage of AP automation.

1. Spend less time staring at invoices

Paying bills isn’t fun. Seeing the proper amount taken out of your account when your bill is paid may give you slightly temporary satisfaction but—more likely—you’re experiencing bill anxiety up until that point. Is it worth it?

World-class AP automation software will alert you when your bills are going to be paid so you don’t have to risk overdrafting on any of your accounts, or being hit with fees.

With your AP automated, gone are the days of cross-checking your bills from paper to spreadsheets, through your own process, and then finally through your bank. Take control of your invoice management with an automated workflow.

Quickly pull an audit or report to see what bills have been paid, which ones are pending, and what is still outstanding. Access your invoices to quickly track changes to your bills over time instead of digging through your email, your filing cabinet, or—let’s face it—in the pile of papers on the corner of your desk.

If you need a loan or investment, think how much simpler it will be to share digital versions of your bills—complete with matching transaction histories. You can do this without breaking a sweat when it’s automatically created as part of your workflow.

2. It’s more secure

Accounts payable technology includes encryption to protect customer and vendor information. Online data breaches make big splashy headlines but you’re much more secure with automated AP than you are when you track your bills in a spreadsheet and mail a check to your vendor’s unattended mailbox.

3. Sweet, sweet oversight

Putting everything into your automated AP ensures that you’re only looking at what matters on your bills, and so is the rest of your team. Creating a process gives you the option to look at the data on your bill history in usable reports, or even dig into the nitty-gritty of specific vendors and how they are charging you.

4. Hit those goals

Your business goals aren’t all financial, so the precious brain space that your AP is taking up might be hurting you more than you realise. As soon as you begin automating this area of your business, you’ll free up your time for more strategic activities. This forward-thinking mindset will serve you and your goals well in the long run.

5. Eliminate errors

Manual data entry across multiple spreadsheets, accounting files and payment records leaves you open to human error or worse, duplicate payments. Nix these both by automating your AP. Your accountant, who has to find the discrepancies and resolve them in your accounting system, will thank you later. As will your accounting bill.

‍6. Give your team—and the planet—a break

When your AP is automated you will save costs on printing paper bills, storing paper bills, and then shredding them. The tedious and manual data entry required for manual invoice processing leaves little time for your team to take on more interesting and challenging work. When you’re streamlining with automation, you and your team can take on things like cash flow optimization.

7. Improve your vendor relationships

Whether we like it or not, when you’re an ideal customer you’ll get better service. The fastest way to become an ideal customer? Process invoices for payment on time. Your vendor will likely take better care of you and should issues ever arise for you in the future you’ll get more attentive service. Automate your AP and be the customer that your suppliers love—this one is a win-win!

8. It’s just convenient

Automating your bills takes away the extra thought you have to put into the amount, due date, and vendor you need to pay. When these are automated you spend less time thinking about your bills and, in turn, spend less time stressed about bills.

With all of the other things you need to remember throughout the day, week, and month, by not automating your AP, you’re signing yourself up to the likelihood of forgetting to pay something on time. Remove yourself from the equation and make sure your bills are paid on time every time, no extra thought required. Some vendors also offer discounts for timely automatic payments: it doesn’t hurt to ask if yours do too.

Paying your bills can be hectic, but it doesn’t have to be. Ease the burden of remembering when to pay a bill and doing it manually, especially if you’re an active business owner who is on the run.