Office Management Tools
With Online and Remote Services
From accounting to merchant services to scheduling, good office management is needed to support great customer service. Choosing solutions that fit your business as well as offering online and remote services will make or break the success of the working part of your working vacation. Accounting Having a good accounting program is essential for any business. When going on working vacations it's especially nice to have a system with a wide range of online capabilities. We started using Quickbooks when they came out with version 1.0. Since that time we have used many versions including Quickbooks Pro and Quickbooks Enterprise Solutions. The selection of products has expanded so much that it is pretty easy to find one that will fit your business well. They also offer online services, payroll services and merchant services for accepting credit cards. All of these features can be very handy when traveling. Customer Payments Good office management is essential for managing receivables and cash flow. While some sales are paid by check or money order, there are plenty of other options. Most businesses will find that a combination of payment choices will help maximize their profits. Paypal offers a means of instant payment online. It is almost necessary to have a business account rather than a free one since so many people fund their account with a credit card. It is also a convenient way to accept credit card payments without getting an account set up with a merchant services provider and investing in equipment. While Paypal is very convenient and we use a lot, there are credit card processors with more competitive fees. We have very different business models in two different businesses and find Paypal is perfect for one, but traditional credit card processing is better for the other. Online merchant services such as Authorize.net allow processing credit card purchases online. This saves the cost of purchasing credit card equipment and it also allows us to process payments while we are traveling. It can be used anywhere there is a computer and internet connection. There are so many ways of handling credit card payments, it is really worth researching a little to see which solution works best for your business. For starters you may wish to look into Paypal, Quickbooks, your local bank, North American Bancard, Authorize.net and Appointment Quest. Schedule Management Office management also includes schedule management, often for several people. Keeping your appointment schedule online is very helpful when you travel. We like keeping both our schedule and our customer contact information readily available. This way if something unexpected comes up, we don't have to go to the office to contact customers and reschedule appointments. One of the smaller packages available from Appointment Quest is currently a good fit for our business. We have chosen to set it up so that customers can book their own appointments right from our website. We automatically get an email for each new appointment and the customer can get a reminder email as well. Appointment Quest can handle scheduling unlimited customers for multiple people in multiple locations. It can also be set up to accept credit card payments online. Bill Payment Paying bills is a necessary part of office management for any business. We have not actually been away more than a couple of weeks, so we usually pay all the bills before we leave and after we come back. For an extended trip, you may wish to consider online banking and bill payment services.
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