Top Five Tools

There are so many apps and tools on the market now that can make our lives easier and make jobs quicker to do, but there are also many more that can be over complicated and actually make a job that should be pretty simple far more difficult!

Over the years I have used lots of different programmes from the more standard Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Publisher to CRMs, tools to create newsletters and flyers and different accounting software, so I thought I would note down the top five I like to use and why.

1. Xero – www.xero.com – Although I have used more traditional programmes such as Sage for bookkeeping, I love Xero as it makes things so easy. I manage membership subscriptions for associations, and it has a great batch invoicing tool that saves hours of time as one invoice can be created for each grade of member, rather than one for each individual member. You can also link the software to your bank account which makes reconciliations a dream!
2. Canva – www.canva.com – I now use the pro version because I liked some of the additional features, but the free version is more than adequate to get you started. You can use Canva to design just about anything from newsletters to flyers to social media posts, and you can either upload your own images or use something from their extensive library.
3. Mailchimp – www.mailchimp.com – Having gone through their training and just qualified as Mailchimp Certified, I can confirm that this so much more than just a newsletter tool! Another tool that has a great free version, it can integrate with dozens of other apps such as Facebook, Twitter, Stripe, Canva and Eventbrite and the CRM reporting can really help target your marketing.
4. Survey Monkey – www.surveymonkey.co.uk – I have used this for years now and always loved it. Again, there is a really good free version which allows you to create surveys with a wide range of question formats and their reporting tools allow you to gather meaningful results from participants.
5. Meet Edgar – www.meetedgar.com – I haven’t been using this long, but it has revolutionised the way I use social media! You can divide your posts into different groups such as ‘tips’ or ‘blogs’ and schedule them across all your platforms at once. It automatically re-sizes your images to match the platform and you can see how they will look before they go live.   Meet Edgar also suggests variations for you so you can create numerous posts from one piece of content. I like the tool so much I have become an Affiliate and the link above gives you a month’s free trial!