Category: Tutorials and how to’s

Home / Category: Tutorials and how to’s

How to Effectively Manage Small Business Expenses

2019-03-14 | ALL, Tutorials and how to's | No Comments

Manage Small Business Expenses

If we try and analyze the reason behind failed small businesses expenses, very likely the factor that plays the biggest role as being ineffective is – expenses management.

Money is the most important part of any small business and in order to guarantee that your business survives long enough in the harsh and overly competitive market, is to make sure that your company usages available resources in an organized manner.

Small business owners must be aware of the different ways to allocate the available budgets so they can pay for different expenses. In the same manner, they must also figure out ways to cut  expenses where appropriate in order to increase the profit.

In this article we’ve decided to discuss the different ways in which small business owners can keep an eye on their expenses and categorize them.

1.   Keep Separate Accounts

One of the most important thing for small business owners to realize is that they have to keep their personal expenses separate from the expenses of the business. At first glance this sounds easy, but it is often a bit difficult to implement in practice.

The easiest way to do this? – Get two different bank accounts. Opening a separate account just for your business might seem to you like an extra expense on its own at first, but it will greatly help you in the long term.

A separate business account will also help you a lot with record keeping of the business. By keeping a separate business account, all of your business transactions will automatically be compiled at one place.

2.   Using Envoice to Manage Small Business Expenses

 

Keeping proper records and documentation for your small business expenses can save you a lot of trouble. No matter how small the expense, if it is related to your business, you must ask for a receipt and keep it in a separate file.

Also, if your business is related to the sale of any particular item, in that case you must issue invoices to your customers and keep a copy for your own record.

Envoice is a online invoicing software that can help you in generating customized invoices for your customer. The benefit of using our tool is that it automatically keeps a record of all the invoices that you issue to your clients.

If the revenue you generate is based solely on billable hours, Envoice has the option to attach documents to the issued invoice with the hours spent working. It has a robust invoicing feature that allows you to create custom invoices (add your business logo, for example), email them to your customers and accept online payments using PayPal, Stripe, Square etc. (see our full list of payment providers here).

Take Envoice for a test drive to check it out for yourself. You can use the tool for free during the first 15 days. After the trial ends, you will need to sign up for a paid subscription to continue using it. Plans start at $12 per month.

3.   Control Overhead Expenses

Controlling and monitoring overhead expenses is another very important step that many business owners fail to acknowledge on time. Overhead expenses can greatly reduce the efficiency of your small business model by overburdening it.

Small business owners often have a limited budget and they need to be sure that they are utilizing it in an effective way. Having a fancy office or aesthetically pleasing environment is something we all want,  but very often increases the overhead expenses and that won’t generate any revenue.

By using energy efficient devices and utilizing all the space available to you, you can significantly reduce your business expenses. Co-working space is also a nice concept for small businesses which can help in reducing these costs.

4.   Choose Organic and Low-Cost Marketing Techniques

When budgets are low, marketing might be the first of your expenses you look to cut.

We know that traditional advertising methods are costly and hard to measure. But, small businesses have never had greater access to cost-effective, trackable marketing tools.

Marketing is essential for any business to survive and thrive, but choosing the correct tailored marketing strategy is a must when you have a limited budget. One of the best marketing techniques for small businesses is email marketing.

Email marketing is the tried and true digital marketing channel with an average return of $38 for every $1 spent. Click To Tweet

Another saying worth mentioning is that even the best marketing in the world can’t save a bad product.

Meaning, your product should be able to advertise itself. The only way you can achieve this is by making it remarkably good in its initial phase, and subsequently in any other phases with constant improvements. This way your customers will end up recommending it to their friends and colleagues.

5. Use Prepaid Credit Cards to Organize Deductible Business Expenses

Prepaid credit cards are a very useful way to stay on top of business expenses. If you have a number of employees that incur travel and other business-related expenses, issuing them a prepaid credit card so they can pay for those expenses, would be a smart move.

There are a countless of benefits of using prepaid credit cards, such as:

–setting spending limits by person, expense category, merchant and time period;

–turning a card on or off at any time;

–being able to set alerts based on currency amount, type of expense, merchant etc.

By using prepaid credit cards access detailed spend reports that can be filtered by person, merchant or amount.

Prepaid debit cards are one amazing alternative to traditional bank accounts. A lot of them offer the same features as a checking account: online bill pay, mobile check deposit and direct deposit – without the overdraft fees.

The Balance website made a summary of the 7 best prepaid debit cards of 2019 analyzing their core features and perks (some even have sub-accounts with their own prepaid cards).

6. Utilize Business Credit Cards to Organize Deductible Business Expenses

Business credit cards are another potential way to streamline your business expenses.

In the same fashion as prepaid cards, you can have access to detailed reports that can be filtered by merchant, items purchased and credit card holder. You can even earn cash back on just about every purchase that you make.

Just some of the benefits of using business credit cards:

–setting up alerts for a specific dollar amount or type of purchase made

–detailed statements for each card available online to review at any time

–you can connect your credit card account to an invoicing software like Envoice, and get pay issued invoices fast and easy.

If you want to choose the best business credit card for your needs, a detailed list for 2019 has recently been published on The PoitsGuy.

7. Protect Your Business

Each small business requires its own level of protection, but you may want to consider getting an insurance or establishing an LLC or an S-Corp. Having an LLC or S-Corp allows you to separate your brand identity and finances from your personal finances.

Let say, if you ever had to undergo any legal issues, your personal property and assets would not be liable. So, make sure to renew any important certifications or licenses you need to remain compliant by adding it to your calendar.

Protecting your business is the best thing you can do for yourself to ensure any financial issues in the future may get affected by it and it doesn’t pour into your personal assets.

Read More
By Darka Panovska

How to Write Effective Email Marketing Campaign – Best Practices

2018-03-30 | Tutorials and how to's | No Comments

What happens when you send an email to your clients as part of your email marketing campaign? What is their next action when they see your email? Do they just delete it without opening it? Do you know your click-through rates (CTR)? What about your click-to-open rates (CTOR)?

Surely, you never start an email marketing campaign with an intention to fail, but it happens more often than not. One thing you have to focus on is to cleverly write your marketing emails copy so that you make your clients want to open your emails and interest them in what you have to offer and say to them.  

The best tactics in lead generation is to attract readers’ curiosity by taking care of their time and, at the same time, offer them something insightful and informative.

Sad reality is, most people will definitely and immediately delete your marketing emails. Question is – why would people delete your emails without even opening them? Let’s focus on some of the most important things that make for great CTORs percentage and, ultimately, potential leads converted into customers.

Subject line

The first thing that a client sees when they receive an email is the subject of the email. Nailing the subject line should steal your client’s attention. It must be interesting and intriguing and awaken recipient’s interest in wanting to open the email.

There are several things we need to take into account when writing a good and catchy subject line:

–Use actionable language. This does not always mean that you should rely on verbs, although using verbs in the subject of your email is always helpful. For example, you can use  action verbs such as: buy, get, download, take, etc., so the reader knows what they can do or expect in the email.

On the other hand, using actionable language without relying on the verbs gives you more space for word play, which makes it clear to the reader what they can do with the information in the email, should they decide to open it.

–Use personalized subject line. You should do this whenever possible. If your email list is more segmented, you will be more able to personalize the subject and provide more relevant content to that email recipient.

-Align the subject line with your whole email. The readers should get what they are promised in the subject. This is a very responsible thing to do and, if this is not the case, than your click-through rates will drastically fall and so will your email open rates.

BuzzFeed is a great example. They always have amazing subject lines and preview text. Their subject lines are short ant effective and fit perfectly with the rest of their content.

 

 

Another very important element in your email marketing campaign is your subscriber list. Make sure your subscriber list is continuously increasing. Putting a sign-up feature on your website can significantly help you with this. Your home page or blog page should contain a subscription form but try to separate it from the main content.

An excellent example for this is Digital Fire’s home page where the sign-in box hovers over the page and follows you as you scroll. It is not annoying and it simply explains the value of subscribing to their email list.

 

Personalized language

Going deeper into the structure of the used language, write emails in the second person. By writing this way, use pronouns such as you, your and yours which put emphasis on the reader, not yourself i.e. your brand. Personalizing your approach makes your audience feel at home.

If you take a look at the email from Zappos below, you will notice that you and your appear 12 times. On the other hand, words like we, our and we’re appear only 5 times. 

 

 

This way, the focus is kept on the customer and helps you stay value-oriented.

When you write your marketing campaign email, talk about the benefits, not the features. You must get your client acquainted with the value of your email. Therefore, explain the benefit of what you are offering, not the features.

Simplicity

Keep it brief and simple. Do not try to include your entire story in your email. Not everyone reads all the words contained in an email copy. Include only the important points.

Uber’s emails are an example of simplicity. Their subscribers are informed on promotions and deals with emails like the one below. The initial description is brief with a clear call-to-action, and it is perfect for people who are quickly browsing the email.

 

 

Structure and cartoons

Include bullet points so the readers can identify the important points. Also, including pictures and cartoons to illustrate your message is another good idea.

Thanks to a pair of whimsical cartoons and an emoticon, Dropbox made its “come back to us!” email cute and funny. The email was short and emphasized the message reminding the reader that the brand still exists.

 

Politeness in email marketing campaign

Being polite never gets out of fashion. Your marketing emails should not only inform, they should also make the readers feel good and want open your next email. Having a solid relationship with your readers will very likely guarantee further cooperation and success with your email marketing campaign.

In the example below, Death to Stock sent an email to the clients in order to apologize for a certain email they had sent before where they promoted a product that was sold out very quickly, it could not be shipped internationally and many of the customers had bad experience.

 

 

You can see that they are using a pleasant and concise language, apologize for the mistake, accept the responsibility, say that they have learned from the mistake and that they will try not to repeat it again.

Composed in this way, their email is optimized for the large number of recipients. Notice the one-sentence paragraphs and bold text. This makes the reader follow the text more easily. The phrase “Give us a wavvveeee” adds personality and humanizes the brand.

Call-to-action (CTA)

We all are aware that more clicks potentially mean more customers. When compiling your email, always try to include interesting links and calls-to-action. You can do that by including buttons with text will give your readers more chances to interact (e.g., Visit us!, Download now! Find out more!, Book now!, etc.)

Here’s an example from an Airbnb’s event promotion email as part of an email marketing campaign:

 

Optimization & Testing

If your goal is to have as many clicks as possible, then you should make your emails mobile friendly. Optimize your emails for viewing on mobile phones and tablets.

Now that you have finished writing your email marketing campaign, don’t send emails immediately without making sure it’s working properly. Always double-check your messages and see if they look the way you want them to look before you send them. There are several tools where you can test your emails, such as: Outlook.com and Litmus. The second is a tool that provides more robust testing and screenshots of your email in various email tools.

 

 

Do not risk sending your emails without double checking the content. You may look unprofessional.

Unsubscribe made easy

Of course some subscribers will want to unsubscribe from your email list. Make the unsubscribe option an easy one. Otherwise, if the subscriber can’t remove their name from your email list easily, there is a chance they will flag your emails as spam which means problems for you in the future.

HireVue has an automated unsubscribe email subject that states “Saying goodbye is never easy to do… So, we thought we’d give you a chance to rethink things”. It is an excellent guilt-free message with funny images and a great call-to-action button. The design is brilliant.

 

Conclusion

Considering all that has been said above, writing an effective email marketing campaign is not a simple process. It is a combination of good planning and analyzing data. There are many aspects that need to be taken into account, if you want to have a successful campaign.

Remember to put the focus on the clients and build the entire email body on that. Be present, but don’t overwhelm your clients. The best way to learn is by trial, error and repeating. Eventually your efforts will be awarded with more clients coming your way.  

Read More
By Darka Panovska

5 Tips for Working on an Airplane

2017-11-09 | Tutorials and how to's | No Comments

If you have to fly regularly you are probably wondering how you are going to have enough time to manage your schedule to properly run your business. You certainly cannot afford to waste valuable time and you have to find a way to be effective while traveling. But, have you ever tried working while on an airplane? There are so many distractions that make this task next to impossible.

Lucky for you, there are certain things you can do to be productive when working on an Airplane.

Here are 5 tips:

  1. Dress to impress

 

Think about function and comfort in the first place to get the most done. Wear the most comfortable clothes you can, no matter how long the flight is. If you need to come off the plane looking professional, bring clothes to change into. That way you can still maintain the look without suffering during the flight.

  1. Always Ask the Best

 

The best option for ensuring maximum comfort is asking for first class if your client is willing to pay for it. Since this is hardly the case, make the best of what you have by asking for a couple of things in coach.

See if you can get a seat in the middle section of the plane to avoid the most distractions, and request a window seat to ensure you don’t have to get up every time the passenger seating next to you want to use the restroom.

 

  1. Prepare your Trip

 

Make sure you have the right equipment for working in the air:

  • Laptop or tablet: You’ll be much more productive than with a smartphone
  • Noise-cancelling headphones: Use them to block out distractions or to listen to relaxing music while you work.
  • Pillow: Keep your head propped up comfortably to reduce neck strain while you do your work.
  • Portable charger: It is a good idea to always have it around. And, of course, always make sure to keep your laptop battery at full charge before the flight.

 

  1. Prepare for Air Travel

 

Although many flights offer Wi-Fi service, you can never be sure that you’ll have Internet access. Be prepared to work offline and ensure you have everything you need to complete your work. Create an agenda of activities you can do and try using a tool like Snagit to take screenshots of web resources.

  1. Turn Anxiety into a Challenge 

 

No matter how hard you try, there is always a chance that something unexpected will come up and make your working in the air impossible.

If the worst scenario happens, always have a joker in your hand. Bringing a learning resource is a great idea. For example, keep Ebooks on your Laptop.  You can sit back and enjoy some learning that will also positively impact your business.

 

You have to admit that staying effective while traveling is quite a challenge. However, if you have the right techniques and tools, anything is possible.

Read More
By Eva Piperevska

6 Most Important Pieces of Information Every Invoice Should Have

2017-11-09 | Guide, Invoicing, Tutorials and how to's | No Comments

When someone asks how to avoid legal trouble in their invoice, they are usually interested in only one thing: how to ensure they get paid for the work they provide.

If you are one of them, you are probably wondering if there is anything you can include in your invoice to make it more binding and make sure that you will get paid on time, because, after all, there is nothing worse than wasting valuable time chasing payments.  

The simple answer is that, there a few things that you can do to make the invoice more ‘enforceable’:

 

  1. The Correct Billing Contact

 

From the moment you start the project, make sure you request the contact details of the person who is responsible for paying you. Depending on the size of your client’s company they may have an accounting department that handles their billing.  It is much easier to deal with this individual directly, because this way you will be sure that the accounting received your invoice, and it might be easier to follow up on late payments with them directly.

 

  1. A Unique Identification Number in Each Invoice

 

Create some sort of numbering system for organizing and arranging your invoices. This could be a basic numbering framework that begins with 001 or it could be by date. This will enable you to keep your invoices organized for tax purposes. A good numbering system will also make things easier and a lot more professional, should you need to follow up with a client on a late invoice.

 

  1. Matching Invoice Terms and Contract Terms

 

When it comes to invoicing clients, you have to ensure that all the data information matches with the details written in your contract. For instance, if your contract says your terms are net 30, you can’t make a request to be paid upon receipt of your invoice. In case you’re not using a contract that includes payment terms, you’ll want to change that immediately.

 

  1. Specific Details Requested by Your Client

 

It is always better to ask your clients upfront if they have specific requirements for what information must be incorporated on an invoice. For example, some companies might require that your invoice includes your Tax ID Number, others may ask for a detailed rundown of the services you’re billing for. Few of them may indicate that invoices should be sent electronically or via snail mail.  Keep in mind that not having the right information on your invoice might delay the payment.

 

  1. Date and Terms of Payment

 

Every invoice should include the date of issue and articulate the terms of payment. The exact terms you use are up to you and your client, but here are a few suggestions:

  • Pay attention to the language you use for payment terms. Studies have shown that this has a great impact on the likelihood and time to get paid. Something like the following is optimal language: “Thank you – we really appreciate your business! Please send payment within 21 days of receiving this invoice.”
  • Be clear and specific. Clients may not know what the term “Net30” implies, so writing “within 30 days” or even include the specific due date might be easier for everyone to understand.
  • Avoid using “Due upon receipt” whenever possible. You might think this language will help you get paid faster, but not specifying an actual deadline can result in delayed payment since some clients may interpret it as “pay whenever you can.”

 

  1. Billable Services Specifics

 

Each invoice line should indicate the exact services that are being billed. Try to be as clear and thorough as possible. If the client is being charged a flat rate for services, use your judgment to determine the level of details needed to specify what they’ve received. If you are billing by the hour, make sure to specify the hourly rate, the number of hours billed and what they’ve received for that time.

 

Final Advice: Always Discuss Payment Terms Up Front

A proactive approach is always the ideal way to ensure your invoices will be paid on time. Talk about payment terms in early conversations with clients. A simple question like “My other clients pay me within 21 days of completing the project. Will that work for you?” might do the trick. If you notice any red flags in their reaction, trust your gut and move on.  

Read More
By Eva Piperevska

5 tips to grow your travel business with online marketing

2017-10-26 | ALL, Guide, Tutorials and how to's | No Comments

5 tips to grow your travel business with online marketing

The internet over the past few years has become an important marketing channel that funnels most of the bookings and sales in this industry. It affects how travel agencies reach their customers, how they promote their tours, and even how they do their bookings.

With that stated – online marketing can be a single marketing tool for tour providers and travel agencies to get started or grow their business.

But in order to grow a successful business, they will need to understand how online marketing works, where can they find their customers and how to optimise to get the most out of it.

Here are several tips you can take into consideration if you plan to promote your travel business using online marketing tools:

Tell a story (Blog)

When you want to promote a travel destination you must be good at digital storytelling. Telling a story in your social media campaigns with quality content is inevitable. To do that use pictures, videos and real-life stories in the description of your travel destination to catch reader’s attention. Know your audience and be creative. Share them on social networks.

Engage Customers through Social Media

Social media is the part of the online marketing that can bring the most value for tour operators and travel agencies. Tough it’s important to know how to use each network and on which of them you can find your targeted audience.

Also, you need to share and post daily, become likable, but don’t go all promotional all the time. Instead, have fun. Publish beautiful pictures, create conversations, answer questions. Join the industry groups on LinkedIn and Facebook to find partnerships and share experiences.

Integrate Direct Booking on your Website

Direct booking from your website can shorten your customers time and increase your conversion rate. Having a multi-function Book Now button on your website allows more control over your small tour business. Once you start driving traffic to one place you can easily have control on the booking process and have a view on the customer experiences in one place.

Use the information from Popular Travel Marketplaces

Tripadvisor, Trustpilot, or Touristlink, promote tours through customer reviews. That is the best option for free promotion with organic traffic. Those reviews are seen from people all over the world. And people trust them. So use this channel to increase the traffic to your website and along with that your bookings.

Be Mobile

Did you know that 87% of internet users have a smartphone? Is your website mobile friendly? A lot of customers today read posts, emails, and website content through their mobile devices. So when you start publishing your content online –   check how it appears on your smartphone or tablet screen. You also need to know if your page has fast load time, big pictures, easy navigation, search and selection, and clear call to actions. There are a lot of tools you can use to make your website more friendly – from Mobile Friendly test to free WordPress plugins perfect for mobile optimization.

Read More
By Eva Piperevska

Client view – let your clients access your issued invoices

2017-05-08 | Release, Tutorials and how to's | No Comments

view-all-invoices-client-view

With this release, we are pushing another great functionality per your request – The Client View.

As a result, your clients will be able to access all of the invoices issued to them.
So rather going back and forth with emails, we’ve enabled your clients to:

  • Filter invoices by Quarter (Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4);
  • Filter invoices by 1st and 2nd half of the year;
  • Filter invoices by the current year;
  • Filter invoice in custom date range;
  • List invoices based on status (Total, Paid, Unpaid, Overdue);
  • List of invoices and filtering based on number, Issued On, Due Date, Total and Status;

As a result of this new feature, your clients will be able to access the client view via any invoice issued to them by clicking on the “View All” button as shown in the image bellow.

Finally, if you have any questions or suggestions we are open for ideas. Get in touch with us via the in-app chat or via email reachout@envoice.in.

Read More
By Marjan Nikolovski

Find your most financially lucrative freelance services

2017-02-09 | ALL, Tutorials and how to's | No Comments

Find your most financially lucrative freelance services

As freelance professionals, we are best at a limited number of freelance services we are offering. As such we should focus on what we do best. And what is most financially lucrative for us.

The question to be asked is “How do we know what is most financially lucrative service we can offer?”. Speaking of it, we can easily answer this question. If we look at our financial details in the past years.

Selling logos has brought us more financials. That means we should put our focus creating logos instead of focusing on low-income jobs.

If you feel that you can contribute to our collections with your blog posts or some other blogs worth sharing. Feel free to reach out via our in-app messenger or on reachout@envoice.in.

Read More
By Marjan Nikolovski

How to handle customers who won’t pay

2017-02-09 | ALL, Tutorials and how to's | No Comments

How to handle customers who won’t pay

If you’ve ever found yourself in such situation with your customers. Don’t worry there are several things you can try to get paid.

  1. Offer your customers to pay their due in several payments;
  2. For the hard nuts – call them daily;
  3. Try to understand the reason behind that behavior;
  4. If you’ve signed a legal document, discuss with your lawyer;
  5. Ditch the client if the amount is insignificant – your health is your priority;

If you feel that you can contribute to our collections with your blog posts or some other blogs worth sharing. Feel free to reach out via our in-app messenger or on reachout@envoice.in.

Read More
By Marjan Nikolovski

How to increase your earnings from less paying customers

2017-02-09 | ALL, Tutorials and how to's | No Comments

How to increase your earnings from less paying customers

We all have had some less paying customers who just wanted a small portion of work to be done. A fix here and there.  Some color changes, small copy changes on the landing page.

Those gigs can have a hidden potential and we should try to get from them as much as possible.

First of all, we should schedule a meeting with our client. To understand his vision about whatever he is trying to build. After we have this meeting we will have a better understanding of our client’s business.

Furthermore, if you’ve been paid to do some small UI changes, you can offer your client service to assess his current user experience. And to improve over what he has at the moment.

Basically, the idea is to understand his business and offer your services to help your client out.

If you feel that you can contribute to our collections with your blog posts or some other blogs worth sharing, feel free to reach out via our in-app messenger or on reachout@envoice.in.

Read More
By Marjan Nikolovski

7 ways to thank and keep good relations with your top customers

2017-02-09 | ALL, Tutorials and how to's | No Comments

7 ways to thank your top customers

As successful freelancers, we have to maintain good relations with our top customers. This will help us to bring our relation to the next level and to improve our collaboration.

There are many ways to say thank you.

Write a thank you note;

  • Invite your customers over for a dinner;
  • Send them a gift – People do like books;
  • Praise them on your social media channels;
  • Send them a treat;
  • Give them a discount;
  • Send them a swag;

If you feel that you can contribute to our collections with your blog posts or some other blogs worth sharing, feel free to reach out via our in-app messenger or on reachout@envoice.in.

Read More
By Marjan Nikolovski