If you own a small business, you know
how hard it is to manage all the aspects on your own. Invoicing?
Taxes? Client details? Scheduling? I was close to making my
husband come up with some kind of custom software to help me with it
all.
Then my fabulous friend, photographer
Caitlin Domanico, told me about StudioCloud. At first I wrote it off
for a couple months as a photographer based software. But one day I
really couldn't take the lack of organization I was dealing with and
took a second look.
StudioCloud is being advertised as
business management software for photographers, videographers,
designers, physical and massage therapists and more. And best of
all, the basic functionality is FREE! I had nothing to lose and
jumped right in.
I admit I didn't quite understand all
the options of the software. Ok, I still don't. But beyond what I
really need, I just haven't had the time to look into it. The parts
I am using though are outstanding. The client section let's you
input a number for that person or business, their business name (if
applicable), the client or contact's name, address, phone number,
emails, notes, referral information and more. There's also a section
to put prospective clients before they've made the commitment to you.
My favorite part of this program is the
invoicing section. Invoices used to take me 30 minutes or more by
editing a PDF and now they take a few minutes. You can make a
products price list or services price list that you can search and
then drag and drop into new invoices. You can also determine what is
taxed and what isn't, edit the sales tax setting for your specific
state and so much more. Once sales start finalizing, you can view
and print reports on your income.
My second favorite part of StudioCloud?
The sales tax table that shows me what I owe the state from my
sales. I can sort it any way I want but the easiest is by quarter.
This also saves me a ton of time and I don't have to sit for hours on
end grabbing the numbers from my invoices and adding everything up
for when I file. So very easy.
There are of course add-ons for the
service with the most popular one being CloudBoost. This is meant
for one user to be able to sync their data in the cloud and access it
from any other computer or internet enabled device. If you have an
Android, iPhone, Blackberry, or mobile internet browser, you can
access the data there too! This add-on is $30/month.
I can't do the whole thing justice just
by talking about it so I encourage any small business owners who
don't yet have a wonderfully convenient system in place for managing
their business, to give StudioCloud a try. With the cost being free, it's a no brainer.
