Useful Info. Archives - Page 3 of 15

How to accept online payments

Jul 9, 2021 | Useful Info.

Do you send invoices to your clients but don’t offer any other way of payment apart from EFT? If you want to accept Debit / Credit Card payments then Stripe is the way to go. I personally looked at so many different platforms for this however the fees were always so high then I found Stripe. At 1.75% per transaction + 30c for domestic cards it is definitely the cheaper option and quite fast too.

If you use Quickbooks Online you can use a third party app called Shuttle that allows you to integrate Quickbooks and Stripe. After the initial set up, when you send invoices to your clients they can pay via the link in the notes section of your invoice. It will direct them to a payment page where they enter the invoice number + the amount they wish to pay and in Quickbooks it will allocate that payment for you without you having to do anything. A few days later you will receive the payment into your nominated bank account.

This is definitely worth a look especially if you are a small business trying to keep costs down. For more information take a look at www.stripe.com/au

How to accept payment for an Event

Jul 9, 2021 | Useful Info.

Are you running an online event or maybe a face to face group event and you need to manage bookings and payment. There are so many options out there however one simple and cheaper option is using TryBooking.

TryBooking allows you to create events, set limits for each event, specify payments for instance are you running a group session and hiring out equipment or will the participant bring their own. It allows you to keep a record of the attendees and if for some reason you need to switch someone between sessions you can do so easily. When setting up your event you can do these in advance and set the release date in the future.

As mentioned TryBooking is one of the cheaper options at 2.5% for the processing fee and 50c per ticket these costs can be forwarded onto the purchaser.

So if you are looking for a cost effective solution to organise bookings and accept payment then take a look at TryBooking.

How to send out automatic reminders from Google Calendar

Dec 13, 2020 | Useful Info.

Do you rely on Google Calendar for everything? Google Calendar is one of those most used programs because it is user friendly and integrates with most progrrams and apps. Sometimes it can be so time consuming to send out appointment reminders and sometimes you just forget.

I have just found the best program to automate my system, Zapier. With Zapier you can set up a zap for your Google Appointments to be sent automatic reminders, choose from minutes before, hours, days, weeks and let Zapier do the work for you.

With the free version you are allowed 5 free zaps and up to 100 tasks per month. Tasks are defined as every time a zap occurs.

So if you are not wanting to spend money on an extra subscription then why not use Google Calendar and Zapier together and streamline your process.

Looking for an alternative to Mailchimp?

Dec 11, 2020 | Administration, Useful Info.

Did you or do you use Mailchimp? Looking for a free alternative for your email campaigns?

Well I have the solution for you. Not only is Agile CRM a CRM but you can also use it to create email campaigns like you would normally in Mailchimp. Mailchimp used to offer with its free version the ability to segregant your lists so if you only wanted to send an email mailout to say your clients you could but now you can’t unless you upgrade to a paid version.

Add your contacts to the CRM, apply tags to separate your list, create your email template, set your automation triggers and away you go! BUT their email templates don’t stop there you can use it for everyday use to with your GMail account. Create a template with all the bells and whistles, add the Agile CRM extension to Google Chrome and you can import and use your templates in your GMail account without having to send your emails from Agile CRM.

With the free version of Agile CRM you get 500 free branded emails per month to use so if you don’t intend to send out heaps of emails then this is quite sufficient for a small business.

I’m not affliated with Agile however after testing many CRMs I have found this program by far the best CRM on the market.

Want more information about Agile CRM, read our previous article.

Agile CRM perfect for Small Businesses

Jul 11, 2020 | Useful Info.

If you are anything like me you are pretty specific about what you want when it comes to a CRM. I spent a lot of time researching and trialling different CRM’s. Ideally as I’m a small business I was looking for a cheap or free version, I tried many like Hubspot for instance but then I stumbled across Agile CRM and what a find it was.

Agile CRM offers a free version and with that free version you actually get quite a lot.

What you get;

free for up to 10 users
50,000 contact & companies
custom data fields
lead scoring
unlimited deals, tasks and documents
appointment scheduling
custom deal milestones
email tracking
2 way email integration
custom deal tracks
2 way telephony

In my experience the deals, email tracking and 2 way email integration are what I use the most. It just means if I send an email from my gsuite account it will also show up against the client in the CRM which makes it easy to track emails back and forth.

The deal tracking is great as you can see what your estimated sales are and it allows you to maintain a sales funnel, you can use this as a Kaban board view.

Agile CRM is a much needed addition to my list of programs that I use in my business.