3 Low Cost and Free Digital Tools I Use to Manage by Business as a Remote Attorney
My law firm is a very small firm that operates remotely. I use independent contractors to a limited degree but largely serve as the attorney, administrative assistant, marketer, and bookkeeper for the firm.
The nature of my firm makes having inexpensive, easy to access, and effective tools essential. These are three of my favorites that meet those criteria:
Freshbooks. I use Freshbooks for real time tracking, invoicing, maintaining client contact information, receiving payments, tracking expenses, and running financial statements. I’ve been using it since late 2015 and am obsessed.
I like having money and data to analyze but I really hate the billing process and entering keying in financial data. So, historically, I procrastinated on these things – waiting until tons of expenses had accrued to key them and organize them, sending invoices long after the work has been performed, and other similarly silly acts of putting things off. Freshbooks changed that.
What used to be spread across multiple apps and programs is now consolidated in one place. I track my time in Freshbooks using a timer as I go so when I need to prepare an invoice, I can just add all unbilled time, review, and send. The system sends the e-mail for me with a payment option that makes it easy for the client to click and pay. It also tracks payment deadlines so I never have to go back and look through lists of invoices to see what is overdue. Freshbooks also pulls my business account information in so I can easily mark and categorize expenses. There’s an app so I can take photos of receipts while on the go…
I could go on and on but I’ll leave it at this: If I had to cut costs it would be one the last things I would cut. It saves me a lot of time and money in a lot of different ways. Pricing runs from $15 – $50 per month depending on your needs. Want to try it or learn more? Just click below to try it for free. (Be forewarned: I got hooked in it through a free trialJ)
Trello. Trello is another god-send. And it is FREE with low fees for certain add-ons. (I think the cool kids call that “freemium”). Trello is a digital board based project management tool that allows you to create boards which hold lists of tasks that are easily move-able between lists and other boards. It is cloud-based so you can access it anywhere, including through its phone app (though I like it better on a big screen.) It’s based on the Kanban project management system but can be used in a host of creative ways as Trello’s periodic e-mails point out.
The best think I’ve done with Trello lately was link it to my Google Calendar so I only have to put deadlines in Trello and they appear on my calendar. I also use it for non-legal side projects like the ever growing list of blogs I want to write on here!
Another popular freemium cloud based software for project management is Asana. I’ve tried Asana but found that I tended to over complicate my tasks and spend too much time inputting tasks. I also like the visual nature of Trello. If I had a bigger team or my tasks required more subdividing, I think Asana might be the way to go. But everyone has different styles so it’s probably worth checking out both.
Acorns. I’ve bootstrapped my business meaning I have no investors. The money that runs my business is the money that the business generates and as with all businesses, this amount can fluctuate. Bootstrapping and not having any spousal income to fall back on has made saving difficult.
It never feels like I have a large amount of cash lying around that I can throw to a savings or investment account but I’ve gotten better at saving over the years and continue to improve. Acorns has helped.
Acorns rounds your card transactions up to the next dollar amount, withdraws it from your account and adds it to your Acorns investment account. The Acorns account is invested according to a risk profile you select. You can gain free money for your account for shopping at certain retailers through the Acorns app. It’s basically free money for purchases you were already going to make. The tricky part is remembering to go to the Acorns app to make the purchase.
I love Acorns because I don’t notice the small withdraws. Once the money is gone into the Acorns account, I figure out how to live without it. It’s surprising how much small sums add up! I also love that it invests the funds rather than just placing them in a savings account where the interest is so low that you are effectively losing money year-over-year.
Click here to start with $5 in your Acorns account.
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