Welcome back to our blog! In today’s blog post, we are going to do something a little different. We are going to list the top seven best team chat apps for Android. The ability to work from any device and any location is the new trendsetter in the work industry. This leads to efficiency and increased productivity. With that being said it is essential to have a team chat app that can work across computers, smartphones, tablets, and any other smart device out there. Here are our top seven team chat apps for Android: 

  1. AirSend
  2. Flock
  3. Slack
  4. WhatsApp
  5. Hangouts
  6. Telegram
  7. Teamwork Chat

Without further ado let’s dive into the seven best team chat apps for Android. 

AirSend

It is our blog post after all. And it would be weird if we didn’t believe AirSend was the ideal team chat app for all platforms. AirSend is an all-in-one do-it-all team chat platform that carries built-in file integration, built-in task management, and a built-in “about” section. AirSend also carries a clean and sleek UI design to enable easier usability. 

Further, unlike most other team chats, we have all your channels located in one place! No more signing in and singing out of extra accounts. Now you can easily switch between conversations with just a click of a button. Finally, at the top of a channel is your built-in tools bar for easy access and visibility to take care of all your business needs. Assign and complete tasks, copy and move files, edit your wiki, and manage your close-knit groups! The downside to AirSend is that we currently lack audio and video calls.

AirSend Android homepage view

Summation: AirSend is an easy, simple-to-use app that lets you have a seamless conversation with minimum context switching. With built-in tools and minimized integrations, users can now get work done all with a click of a button. 

Flock

Flock android app channel view

Created back in 2014, Flock is designed to make communication and collaboration effortless. Flock’s android app carries

  • In-app video conferencing
  • Google integration
  • Notes
  • Mailing list to all flock channels and team members
  • Bots- which are created as separate channels
  • Flock Assistant

And many more. We would be here all day if we listed all the features Flock has to offer. Flock’s users ID’s are also tied to a unique URL made for each user. A downside to the app is that unlike with AirSend, Flock doesn’t have a place for task descriptions. This can be a bit difficult if team members have multiple tasks and no context to go off of. Further, all features listed above are located on the top right corner of the screen, and from there takes you to another area of the app. As a new user, I found it a little confusing to maneuver through, as I wasn’t sure where each feature was taking me, and how to exactly get back to the channel I had made.

Image of Flock

There is also the choice to make a private and/or public channel, however, there are no given directions on which channel is public and which channel is private. Additionally, while looking at your tasks for one channel, you also have the option to look at tasks for your other channels, which as a design choice, can seem overwhelming. Finally, Flock allows you to create multiple teams with either the same email account you signed up with or a new account. 

Summation: Flock is a neat team chat tool that carries a bunch of features. However, with poor UI/UX design the app is hard to work with. Having a difficult app also makes it hard to communicate with others. Especially when communicating through different teams.

Slack

In Slack’s android app, the maneuverability is not that complex compared to the website. On the left side-bar panel, you have your threads, channels, and direct messages. However, as the same on their website, the app requires one sign-in per workspace. Each time you try to create or join a workspace from the app, Slack sends an email verification. This can be a bit frustrating when trying to talk with other clients and/or teams.

Sidebar channel view in Slack

Further, more often than not the signal-to-noise communication is extremely low. What this means is that your channel is continuously blowing up with what is most likely not important information. Finally, with the Slack app for android, there are no read receipts. 

Summation: Slack is a great team chat tool if you only have one team. They offer channel organization and integrations which makes the app a little difficult to get through, but it is much easier compared to the website.

WhatsApp

WhatsApp android app

Mainly used for casual conversation, this end-to-end encryption app is known to be a solution for team communication. Similar to Telegram, the premise is to have conversations. However, unlike Telegram, WhatsApp has more to offer. The app offers

  • Backup from Google drive
  • Can make phone calls
  • Can take pictures and record audio from the app
  • End-to-end encryption
  • Can do audio and video calls
  • Can set wallpapers
  • Export chat
  • Manage notifications
  • 24-hour stories

One of the major downsides to WhatsApp is that all media and pictures shared in the channels are automatically downloaded to the native galleries. As a personal user, it is difficult to try and stop this feature, and it becomes increasingly annoying. Finally, there is no task-management, which can be increasingly hard when you have multiple tasks. 

Summation: You should use WhatsApp if you do not mind seeing other people’s pictures and media in your galleries, like having conversations, video, and audio calls in a minimal design, and are able to keep track of tasks through another medium. 

Hangouts

Hangouts

Since Hangouts is a google app, it requires google sign-in. The neat thing about the Hangouts app is that you can seamlessly switch between email accounts. Similar when accessing your Gmail through your android. There are also features of a video call and status updates. However, the UI is lacking, and there doesn’t appear to be any direct access to GSuite from the app. This can most likely throw a wrench in someone’s productivity.

Summation: Hangouts chat is a great app if you carry the majority of your business through GSuite and Gmail. However, there is no direct access from the app to GSuite, so getting work done via google docs, sheets, etc, will require another device.

Telegram

Telegram

Telegram is the same premise as WhatsApp, but with fewer features that help get work done. The app also allows you to have private and public chats. In public chats, you can have up to 200,000 members and assign admins with different rights. They also have a similar UI design to WhatsApp. Finally, with all the features they mention on their website, it didn’t seem apparent through the app. However, compared to WhatsApp, the app seems to run smoother when hosting large groups. 

Summation: Telegram is a useful tool if you have a medium-size company. The app is also a good choice if you are looking for an alternative to WhatsApp.  The app does not carry a built-in task manager or a smooth way to share files.

Teamwork Chat

Teamwork Chat android view

Aside from AirSend, Teamwork Chat is the next best app for UI design. The app features SSO and Gmail Sign in. However, you first need to make an account online before even signing into the app. Teamwork Chat is more of a project-management website. That being said, on the website, team communication is not as important as project management. Though the UI is impressive on their website, the mobile UI, thankfully, is not as overwhelming. The app features: 

  • Chat channels
  • Direct conversation
  • File sharing
  • Integrations with Teamwork Projects

Through first time usage, it seems that the app is mainly for chats and nothing else. If there are project management tools built into the app, it wasn’t apparent. That being said being able to work from Teamwork Chat, may not be a viable option

Summation: You should use the app if you already have an account with them and carry the majority of your work online. The app is also useful if you just need an app to chat with your team. 

Results

There are many team chat apps out there for Android. However, we feel that AirSend is the best option. Three reasons why: 

  • Built-in task management- makes work getting done easier
  • Move, copy, and share files with built-in file storage- no more downloading files to your phone
  • Built-in Wiki- have everyone in your team stay up-to-date with upcoming projects, meetings, and more.

We use AirSend as our digital workspace for our marketing team. Even though AirSend is our product, we sincerely believe that AirSend can help your team too. Give us a try and let us know what you think!

AirSend is a versatile digital workspace to share files, send messages, and complete tasks. See how AirSend can help you.

Image of AirSend discover page

Discord or AirSend? Which platform do you choose to make or join the ideal community? We are here to tell you. In this blog post, we are gonna give you a break down of what we think communities need, and which platform is best suited for these needs. Our breakdown method is going to cover five essentials that make a community great.

  1. Connectivity
  2. Community Size
  3. UI Design
  4. UX
  5. Capabilities/Features

Before we dive in, we do want to say, we love Discord. Aside from it being free, Discord offers quite a bit for team chats and community building. We also believe AirSend has the potential to one day reach the repertoire of Discord. To see how Discord fares as a team chat, click here. With all that being said, both platforms are going to be judged and analyzed solely on these five essentials and nothing more. Without further ado, let’s dive into the community battlefield: Discord vs. AirSend. 

Deep Connection

The attribute of a strong community is to have deeper connections among conversations. When it comes to Discord and AirSend, one needs to ask which platform would be best for building connections with members? Which platform can you gain and receive the most connections with? 

Discord is known for its already preexisting groups. Due to the high amount of existing groups on Discord, some users may not find the platform a viable choice for creating communities. Especially, if there is already a community out there. Most of Discord’s communities also have well over 500 members. Due to the high volume of members, some who are looking to connect with others may find Discord a bit difficult to use.

Alternatively, AirSend’s latest feature of public channels allows for deep connections to be made. Discord is a great product for joining communities. However, by choosing Discord, you may also have to sacrifice some attributes, such as building genuine connections with others.

Finally, in terms of deep connections, we feel that we must also mention invite links. The question is, which platform is easiest to invite members?? The answer is both! Both Discord and AirSend communities have instant invite links. Next on our agenda is community size.

Community

As previously mentioned, Discord is known for having large communities. Part of the reason Discord has large communities is because the platform is originally marketed towards gamers. There are a ton of gamers out there, so it would make sense that Discord’s communities are naturally large. We will mention later why building small communities with Discord is a bit hard. For now, let’s continue talking about community size.

AirSend is a great platform for small and medium-sized communities. However, whenever it comes to community size, you have to ask yourself how genuine do you want your connections to be? Both platforms offer the ideal connection and community size. But remember, the larger the community, the harder it will be to maintain a real connection. This is often because of the signal-to-noise ratio which decreases as the community size increases. What this means is that users will often feel like they are being spammed with messages.

UI Design

Ask yourself this question, what platform do you envision your fellow members using the most? Which platform will be the most aesthetically pleasing? The comparison is simple. With Discord, you have a similar design to Slack. The view looks busy with a bunch of colors, messages, channels, gifs, memes; Basically, everything you could imagine in a text chat, all visually appear on the screen at the same time.

AirSend At Home Cooking Channel
AirSend’s UI

Lastly, the way Discord is laid out, each room requires a channel made. For instance, you make a server, and in that server is a channel for announcements, a channel for rules, a channel for what the community interest is, a channel for sources, etc. This is nice if you really like well-organized channels, but this also takes time away connecting with others because you will be continuously switching from channel-to-channel.

Discord Warframe
Discord’s UI

Alternatively, AirSend has a clean UI design which makes the usability extremely easy to use. Both platforms are visually appealing in their own way. It is all a matter of choosing which design suits your community more.

UX- Usability

Now, even though both platforms have their respective aesthetic look, when it comes to choosing the right tool to host your community, usability needs to be accounted for. Discord is one of those platforms where if you aren’t tech-savvy, you won’t be using the platform to its maximum potential.

Further, Discord is one of those tools that require time spent to learn the product, such as integrating bots, using mark-up and markdown language, HTML, permissions for members and moderators, and many more. There is an overwhelming amount of features to Discord that can appear intimidating. Especially if users aren’t tech-savvy.

AirSend’s usability is much easier in comparison. Though we do not currently have all the customization that Discord has, we do like to think we have easier usability. With clear instructions to guide you in making your private and/or public channel, you do not have to spend time researching and learning how to use the product.

Further, unlike discord, we offer built-in file storage, task management, and a built-in “about-section” all in one area. This eliminates the use of extra channels and makes communication flow easier. With task-management you and your members can remind each other of meetings, assign tasks to complete (like finishing a book for a book club), and best of all, with our task management, everyone stays in the loop. 

Capabilities/Features

We have finally reached the end of our blog post. So far, we have covered the four essentials of running a community. Those are, 

  1. Connectivity
  2. Community
  3. UI Design
  4. UX

Our last topic of discussion is the capabilities and features of the tools. Boiled down each tool offers extensive features and capabilities. Arguably, Discord may have more to offer in terms of features, such as integrations, bots, custom emojis, moderators, and many more.

However, with AirSend, we believe that while having a lot of features is great for a community, connecting should be the priority. With the poor signal-to-noise ratio happening in Discord, users will have a hard time building discussion, relationships, and interests.

Last but not least, when it really comes down to choosing the platform for your community, make sure it is a platform you and your members enjoy using and can build memories upon.  

AirSend is a versatile digital workspace that helps communities to share files, send messages, and complete tasks. See how AirSend can help you.

Welcome back to our podcasts series! It’s been a while since we last made one of these, and with all the hubbub going around, we felt that it might be time to make another post on the latest podcast. Today’s theme is going to be productivity. Without further ado, let’s dive into the best three productivity podcasts of 2020.

Gary Vaynerchuck– GaryVee Audio Experience

With a rise in companies moving to remote work, it is only natural that we would feel unproductive. When we are at home, we don’t usually want to do things related to work. BUT, with Gary Vaynerchuck, vlogger, investor, and CEO, we are bound to feel some sort of inspiration to be productive.

The GaryVee Audio Experience is a podcast about getting work done through inspiration,  keynote speeches on marketing and business, interviews, fireside chats, and thoughts from Gary Vaynerchuck himself. The majority of his episodes are over an hour-long, but it is worth the listen to when working or even relaxing. In this blog post, we are going to focus on one of our favorite episodes to give you a feel of what the podcast is like. 

You Need to Focus on The Process

In essence, this 16-minute episode talks about how we need to block out the outside noise and focus on the process. Do not judge yourself. Make decisions, correlate it to your calendar, do not overthink, and make the right call at that moment, and just move.

Though the majority of his episodes are business and marketing-driven, his episodes can apply to anyone. Anyone looking to move forward, to be inspired, to make a change, and essentially to hustle. 

On to the next podcast.

Focus on This

At the title indicates, this podcast is designed to help you get focused and stay focus. Focus on This is the perfect podcast designed to help you stay productive. Hosts, Courtney Baker and Blake Stratton provide weekly 30-minute productivity tips, guidance, and more.

The episode we will be focusing on is episode 30: 5 tips for staying focused while working from home. 

Episode 30: 5 Tips for Staying Focused While Working from Home

In this episode, the hosts discuss why daily rituals are important, which components of your rituals can stay the same, ideas for how to replace workouts and family activities when your schedule is thrown off, the one practice everyone needs to maintain to help avoid distractions, and suggestions for finding the “focus spot” in your home. 

Some key advice that they mention is to one, double-down on rituals. Your morning and evening rituals can stay the same, however, learn how to shift from workday rituals to work-at-home ritual. In other words, figure out your workday startup, and transition it to working from home.

Secondly, lean on your big three. Your top three tasks that you will take on for the day. To be an overachiever, you should also list your weekly big three. The daily big three and weekly big three are the backbones of focus.

Finally, find your focus spot in the house. Where in your house can you get into the zone and work without distraction? We mention some ways on how to create the perfect focus spot, here.

Beyond the To-Do List

Beyond the To-Do List is a podcast series dedicated to providing tips and strategies for maximizing productivity in all areas of your life. Host Erik Fisher interviews people who are implementing productivity techniques in their own careers and personal lives. This podcast is a great listen to because not only does it feature successes, but it also features failures and the lessons learned from them. The episode we will be focusing on is Daniel Clark on Using Music for Better Focus, Relaxation, Sleep, and Meditation

Daniel Clark on Using Music for Better Focus, Relaxation, Sleep, and Meditation

In summation, Daniel Clark, CEO of Brain.fm, encourages focus, productivity, relaxing, etc, through an AI-driven music program.  The whole goal is to get you to feel focus, relaxed, etc. through music. The result is bringing out the best version of yourself.

Summation

There are plenty of podcasts out there that are great for productivity, and while we did not mention them this time, we do plan on making more productivity podcasts posts. We know we have barely scratched the surface of productivity podcasts. Stay tuned for another post on the next best three podcasts of 2020.

AirSend is a versatile digital workspace to share files, send messages, and complete tasks. See how AirSend can help you.

Here are some of the apps, tools and services we use to run our remote working marketing team.
Here are some of the apps, tools and services we use to run our remote working marketing team.

Our in-house marketing team members come from four different countries (USA, Canada, India and Hungary). We use external freelance writers for some of our content creation efforts. We also work with an Austin based PR agency (Treble PR) for our public relation campaigns. As a team we are responsible for marketing the following products: FileCloud (#1 Enterprise File Sharing) and AirSend (Simple Communication Platform for Clients and Teams). 

Here are some of the apps, tools and services we use to run our marketing team. We use a mix of self-hosted tool and SaaS products. Some of them are well-known, and some of them you may or may not have heard of. We’re sharing this list because we think it might help marketing or other small teams like us.

Because the list is pretty long, I’ve divided the apps, tools and services into seven categories: communication, knowledge sharing, file management, content creation, content delivery, marketing analytics, and all others. Here they are:

Communication

Source: unDraw

Gmail – Email

Gmail is self-explanatory. It’s the gold standard for email, with good spam protection and cool features like smart compose.

The good: we’re not paying anything for G-suite because we were early adopters and are still getting it for free.

The bad: the only downside to Gmail the team can think of is that, while the iOS app is good, it lacks some functionalities available in a web browser like templates.

Zoom – Video Conferencing, Webinars, and Company-wide Calls

For webinars and company-wide calls, we use Zoom. We also use it for market research interviews and our other video conferencing needs with both free and paid accounts.

The good: it’s great that the free version of Zoom lets you have up to 40 minute calls, which is more than enough for most meetings.

The bad: Zoom isn’t good for one-on-one calls, the Mac client glitches sometimes, and we don’t like that the app starts when you click on a meeting link in your browser when it would be more convenient just to have the call in the browser. The recent security issues are also a concern.

AirSend – Team Chat

For team messaging, we use AirSend. It’s better for us compared to Slack because of the read receipts, Office 365 integration, and email to channel capabilities. We can also easily create different channels to work with external teams like our PR firm and freelance writers.

The good: the clean, clutter-free UI is great, and the built-in task management tools, file management system, and share notes help us bring everything into one place in terms of collaboration.

The bad: AirSend doesn’t have as many integrations as Slack currently.

Olark – Live Chat Software

Olark is what we use to provide and run the live chat windows on our product websites.

The good: it’s easy to use once integrated, and they offer good support.

The bad: it can get expensive if you have multiple websites.

Email Marketing

Sendy – Email Sending and Tracking

We use Sendy to send and track a portion of our larger email campaigns. It has a simple UI and is pretty reliable.

The good: Sendy is reliable and cheap (around 10 times less expensive than MailChimp.

The bad: in order to design professional-looking emails, you need to know html.

MailChimp – Email Sending and Tracking

The rest of our email campaigns are done through MailChimp. The platform is easy-to-use, with drag-and-drop capabilities to create beautiful emails without needing to know any coding.

The good: reliable and easy to use.

The bad: it can get pretty expensive. We pay $300+ for it every month.

MixMax – Email Tracking

We use MixMax to send and track small email campaigns we send from our Gmail accounts.

The good: MixMax lets you create contact lists and email sequences for those contact lists. It then tracks your open, replied, and bounce rates.

The bad: the free version of MixMax doesn’t do any of that. You need to use the paid version to get the sequences and the numbers.

Knowledge Sharing

Source: unDraw

Trello – Task Management

Though our teams are currently using Trello, we are transitioning our task management to AirSend to be more streamlined. Nonetheless, Trello is a wonderful task manager. The UI is smooth and the UX is satisfying.

The good: users can create unlimited cards, apply labels, use checklists, write descriptions, and add integrations. Trello is also known for its aesthetic backgrounds.

The bad: you have to scroll through everything until you find what you’re looking for, which is an issue when you have a long list.

BookStack – Internal Wiki

We use BookStack for internal company documentation and host it ourselves. Other Wiki tools like Confluence can become very expensive as the number of users increase. That’s why we moved from Confluence to AirSend as our company grew from four people to over fifty people.

The good: it’s cheap and effective.

The bad: haven’t found any downsides yet.

Discourse – Team and Individual Reports

For weekly team and individual activity reports, we use another self-hosted tool called Discourse. It basically allows us to self-host a private, online forum. We’ve also used it to collect entries and entry votes for our company Olympics where we made themed GIFs to win prizes.

The good: it’s effective and fun to use.

The bad: you have to be at least a little tech savvy to set it up and start using it.

File Management

Source: unDraw

FileCloud – File Sharing and Repository

We use FileCloud as our secure file repository. It’s a very powerful file management tool that has a drive client and sync capabilities. This is where we keep our invoices, resumes, receipts, tax records, etc. We also keep our marketing images, interview recordings, research PowerPoints, and other team materials here.

The good: FileCloud makes it very easy to upload, organize, and share files.

The bad: no downsides to report.

Content Creation

Source: unDraw

Microsoft Office and G-Suite – Document Creation and Editing

The team uses both Microsoft Office and G-Suite to create and edit documents.

Some pros: easy to use, lots of capabilities, standard which makes collaboration streamlined. 

Some cons: with Microsoft Office in particular, you’ll need a paid account to easily look at and edit documents, which can get expensive.

Native Mac – Screenshots and Video Recording

Team members with Macs use command + shift + 5 on their Macs to record their screens and take screenshots for product explainer videos, GIFs, and product images.

The good: it’s easy and quick to use, and comes with your Mac. Also, videos come in MOV format, which can be directly edited in iMovie.

The bad: if you don’t have a Mac, you can’t do this.

iMovie (Mac) – Video Editing

To make product explainer videos and other videos for our websites and Youtube channels, team members with Macs use iMovie.

The good: it’s a very simple app that comes with your Mac and takes very little time to figure out.

The bad: it’s lacking in features compared to products like Adobe Premiere, but it has enough capabilities to quickly make simple videos.

OBS Studio (Windows) – Video Recording

To record videos, team members with Windows use OBS Studio. It’s a video/screen recorder with better video quality and speed than other apps we’ve tried. After recording, all files are sent to a designated folder of your choosing, and other built-in tools, like streaming, studio-mode, fades, audio mixer, and scene transitions make it a streamlined and powerful tool.

The good: like DaVinci Resolve, the UX is easy to learn.

The bad: recordings are MKV files, which do not work with DaVinci. The solution is to use a video converter.

DaVinci Resolve – Video Editing (Windows)

Team members with Windows OS use DaVinci Resolve to make product explainer videos and other videos. It’s an easy-to-use tool for beginner video editors. Though it looks complicated at first, the UX is actually really simple.

The good: those who are brand new into video editing find it simple to learn how to use, you can organize projects into folders, and it’s free.

The bad: the product has shut down on several occasions in the middle of use. So definitely save your work every 5-10 minutes.

Snagit (Windows) – Screenshots and GIFs 

Team members with Windows also sometimes use Snagit to take screenshots and make GIFs.

The good: it’s a simple, free screen capture software that makes things easy for quick projects that require minimal editing.

The bad: it’s not as smooth to use as the native Mac screenshot tool.

Voice Recorder – Video Audio and Interviews

To record voiceovers for videos and record market research interviews, we use the voice recorder app that comes with our computers. It’s convenient and pretty self-explanatory.

Balsamiq – Low Fidelity Design

Whether it’s putting together basic designs for the UI of a product or creating concepts for our website, Balsamiq has been great.

The good: it allows us to create and share ideas quickly with its drag and drop graphics.

The bad: you can’t make more detailed mock-ups. Balsamiq is best for fast brainstorming and coming up with general layouts.

Sketch – Design Mock-ups

To create more detailed design mock-ups, we use Sketch.

The good: unlike Balsamiq, you can create very life-like designs that look exactly as you imagine the UI or website will appear once it is built.

The bad: because it is a more specialized product, not everyone you work with will have it and be able to open and view Sketch files. But it is easy to export Sketch files as PDFs, so this is not a big deal.

Canva – Social Media Images

Canva makes it easy to find images and patterns and make visual content. Though there are paid and free versions, we recommend you use the paid version for your business. We use Canva to make our social media images and blog banners.

The good: you can create your own brand kit, upload photos, and create customized content without the skills needed to use tools like Adobe Illustrator.

The bad: more money out of your pocket. But worth it.

unDraw – Illustrations

For illustrations for our blog posts (like the ones you see in this post), we use unDraw. It’s a free library of illustrations that you can download and use in your projects.

The good: we like it because you can customize the color and because it helps create consistent visuals in your blog free of charge.

The bad: we have gotten feedback from a designer with a more keen eye that it’s obvious the images are stock pictures.

Content Delivery

Source: unDraw

Self-Hosted WordPress – Content Management

To manage and post to our blog, we use self-hosted WordPress. WordPress has become a gold standard for blogging, and it’s obvious why.

The good: it’s easy to use and has integrations with tools like Yoast SEO to make creating and publishing blog posts simple and fast.

The bad: no downsides so far.

Buffer – Social Media Marketing

We use Buffer to manage and schedule social media posts. The paid account allows you to manage more than one social media account, which is helpful for us.

The good: the design is simple, which makes it easy to use, and re-sharing posts is much simpler with Buffer than without.

The bad: sometimes the website can crash, causing you to lose your posts. There is also a limit on file size when posting media, and there is some lagging on the website when scheduling posts. Also, it costs extra to analyze posts.

HootSuite – Social Media Marketing

We also use HootSuite to manage and schedule social media posts. Hootsuite is more expensive and can appear more complicated to use, but it has more features than Buffer, such as automatic scheduling at peek times. On a basic level, they do the same things though.

The good: cheaper than Hootsuite and effective.

The bad: lacking in certain features.

Marketing Analytics

Source: unDraw

Google Analytics – Website Analytics

Google Analytics is a data analysis tool by Google which records all user actions on the website. We use this tool to check our website traffic, specific page traffic, blog traffic, some specific user actions, like registration form submissions etc. Basically, this tool shows a dashboard view to many such user actions happening on our websites. we can create custom reports, check users coming from various sources and generate many marketing insights to manage our marketing activities.

The good: Google analytics is probably the best and closest tool to data analysis for any website and all other tools integrate with GA to get more data.

The bad: there are no cons for this tool.

SEMrush – SEO Research

This tool is another data analysis and research tool which has a few more data points compared to google analytics. We can create some projects to check specific pages, keywords and track our SEO rankings. SEMrush is also very good with research, so you can find keywords, new topics which are trending on specific keywords and much more. One more area we use this tool for is competitors analysis.

The good: we can track competitor rankings, competitor topics, backlinks, compare pages, keyword rankings and much more.

The bad: there aren’t many cons, but you may have to buy extra packages for a lot of useful reports even thought you’re already paying a lot. Feature wise, their keyword research tool could be a little better, but it’s decent enough.

Answer the Public – SEO Shortcut

Answer the Public is a SEO shortcut that has saved us a lot of time. It puts together autocomplete data from search engines and gives you every relevant phrase and question people are searching for around your keywords.

The good: it’s a quick and easy way to come up with blog post titles.

The bad: the free version only lets you do three searches per day.

Inspectlet

To see how potential customers are experiencing our website and find ways to improve, we use Inspectlet. The tool records videos of every person visiting your website so you can see how long they stay on each page, where they scroll, and what they click and look at.

The good: it’s a very useful analytics tool to help you make a better, more effective website experience.

The bad: haven’t seen any downsides yet.

All Others

Source: unDraw

KeePassX – Password management

As a team grows, a necessary tool is something to contain and share information like product social media account log-ins and email address log-ins. To keep our shared account usernames and passwords safe and in one place, we use KeePassX.

The good: it’s straightforward and secure.

The bad: none so far.

Google Forms – Surveys

We create market research and product feedback surveys using Google Forms. It’s free and easy to make and send surveys this way.

The good: we like the integration with Google Sheets, which takes all of the survey responses and puts it into a Google Sheet that is automatically updated each time there is a new response.

The bad: it’s hard to make it look as fancy and nice as Survey Monkey surveys.

YouTrack – Product Tickets

Last but not least, we use YouTrack to create, track, and complete product tickets. This is self-hosted to save us money.

The good: this is an easy way for the marketing team to share information with the development team about bugs or other feedback from customers. You can also create wishlists in YouTrack.

The bad: none so far.

Calendly – Scheduling

For scheduling product demos, we use Calendly.

The good: you can embed Calendly forms into your website or send a link, and all scheduled calls show up in your calendar so that you don’t miss anything.

The bad: none so far.

What apps do you use?

As you can see, we use quite a few different apps, tools and services to run our marketing team. We hope that sharing this list and talking about our likes and dislikes of each one can help you find the right mix of apps for your needs.

Happy working!

The AirSend and FileCloud Marketing Team

All of the information you need to create the best virtual home tours for your clients.
All of the information you need to create the best virtual home tours for your clients.

As technology and global events continue to transform the world we live in, it’s important that we as real estate agents don’t fall behind. Virtual home tour technology has been around for a while, but many still overlook it when building our real estate business. Instead, we repeat the same mistakes over and over again when trying to attract home buyers which costs us time, money, and clients.

We all want to avoid the pain of coming to the end of a listing contract without having sold the home. To do so, we need to gain a better understanding of virtual tours and how to implement them in their selling process. A good virtual tour, or real estate video tour, can be an important part of the home buying experience that saves the agent time and makes both the seller and buyer very happy.

The rest of this article will give you all of the information you need to create the best virtual home tours for your clients.

What is a virtual tour?

Source: unDraw

One of the problems in our industry is that everyone has a different definition for “virtual tour,” and few virtual home tours actually address the needs of the buyer market. Some people call video walkthroughs virtual tours, others provide navigable 3D models, and yet others say that photo slide shows are virtual tours.

While there is no right or wrong answer to the question, the important thing is that your virtual tour sees the home from buyers’ eyes, displays the home well, and highlights the key features that potential buyers are looking for.

Here are some additional qualities of an effective virtual tour:

  • The tour uses real footage of the house and is not a digital recreation.
  • You can easily access the tour using a web browser or phone.
  • The technical aspects of the tour are good quality, such as fast load speed and high image resolution.
  • The tour complements the home’s best aspects and backs up your other marketing materials.
  • The tour gives buyers the feeling of going to the home in person.

How to create a good virtual tour experience

Now that we know the basic characteristics of a good virtual home tour, it’s time to talk about how you can make one for your clients. Whether you choose to use 3D home tour technology, a video camera, or your phone to create the tour, follow the steps below for the best results.

Step 1: Stage the home

Source: unDraw

Buyers are looking for a place they can imagine living in and displaying an empty house does not help their imagination. Most people need furniture and décor to provide a sense of familiarity and scale. The key is to strike a good balance. Too much clutter and staging can steal attention away from the actual home. Too little can make the space seem impersonal. If interior design is not your strongest skill, consider hiring a professional stager to help. This step can make or break your virtual home tour.

Step 2: Have good lighting

Anyone who’s taken a selfie knows that lighting makes a difference. Just like various lighting can make your nose look cute or huge, lighting in a house effects buyers’ impressions. Always avoid dim or moody lighting and make sure that lighting is consistent everywhere in the house. Also try to choose the best time of day to take your videos and photos depending on the direction that the home faces. By putting together ample daylight with well-placed artificial lighting, you will be able to best capture each space in the home.

Step 3: See from the eyes of the buyer

Source: unDraw

Since the best virtual tours mimic the experience of a real, in-person house tour, think from the perspective of the buyer. What would a buyer want to look at? Where would they go? Every view you choose to pause at should be a natural place where someone would stop in a room. Quick tip: people tend to linger at windows with interesting views and landings that overlook other parts of the house. Make sure your virtual tour feels like an authentic experience.

Step 4: Highlight the best and special parts of the home

Just like any other marketing collateral, you want to highlight the best aspects of the home in your virtual tour. Even though some parts of a home don’t seem important, they can show off the unique personality of the space. Part of this is remembering to show the outdoor areas of a home. Start the virtual tour with a street view so that buyers know what it’s like to walk up to the house from their car. Also include any patios, gardens, or other outdoor living spaces.

Step 5: Make it a whole package

Source: unDraw

Consistency is important when it comes to the marketing materials. Make sure your photos, brochures, and floorplans match the image of the home that you have conveyed in your virtual tour. When everything works together, your buyer will feel like they have visited the home even before they step through the front door. If there are inconsistencies, you will lose their trust and, most likely, their business.

Step 6: Choose the right delivery system

Once you have put together a complete marketing package with your virtual tour, 2D photos, brochures, and floor plans, it is time to choose the right way to send this package to potential buyers. AirSend lets you share and organize large files and send messages to people with ease. The ability to drag and drop large files from a built-in file management system and send them all in one place makes sharing virtual tours and other materials fast and cost effective with AirSend. Other delivery system options include email, which can be clunky and hard to keep track of, and only placing the materials on your website, which is less personal.

Ready to make good virtual tours?

Source: unDraw

Just because potential buyers may not be able to visit homes in person doesn’t mean they can’t still do a home tour. Technology exists to solve our problems, and virtual tours can do a lot for real estate agents like us during these unusual times. Now that you have all of the information you need to create the best virtual home tours for your clients, it’s time to get moving. Good luck!

AirSend is a versatile digital workspace for real estate professionals to share files, send messages, and complete tasks. See how AirSend can help you as your business grows here.

File sharing/organization is one of the biggest requirements in a business communication tool. Nowadays, platforms, like Slack, offer integrations of personal file storage. But is this a secure option? Not a lot of people are open to the idea of connecting their personal file storage to a platform they use to work. AirSend has an alternative.

With AirSend, users can effectively share and secure files with our built-in file storage. There are multiple ways to create, share, and organize your files/folders. For example, with our newly designed wiki (notebook), the ideal knowledge storage, users can create and store multiple files and folders to come back to later.

Image of AirSend wiki

Another way to store and organize files is through the files tab located on the right-side panel.

AirSend Files tab view

And then, of course, you have your central file storage. All files, documents, and folders from all your channels can be found in the central file storage (image below).

Image of AirSend central file storage

The Best Ways to Share Files with Clients Using AirSend

Ultimately, there are many ways to share and organize your files with AirSend. We offer drag and drop functionality, Office 365 integration, Notebook, and best of all premium built-in file storage. You can now organize your folders and files the way you want.

Imagine, having various ways to collaborate, and organize files all from one space. Say goodbye to the extra tabs and extra accounts. And say hello to productivity. Don’t believe us? See what others are saying about us here.

AirSend is a versatile digital workspace to organize files, send messages, and complete tasks. See how AirSend can help you.

Recently, there has been an emphasis on alternatives to Microsoft Teams for team communication. The reason is that team chats, like Microsoft Teams, often forget that simplicity is the key to productivity. 

Microsoft Teams major selling point is that it works with Office 365. It only makes sense that if you rely on most of your work through Office 365, that you would also use Microsoft Teams. Microsoft Teams UI design is similar to Slack, so those transitioning will find it easy-to-use. Though Microsoft Teams carries the team’s chats, meetings, files, and other apps in one place, some users find it difficult to use. Finally, Microsoft Teams daunting prices are questionable to the product’s worth. Does having to pay more money than what you are receiving worth it? You might not realize this, but there are many great Microsoft Teams competitors you could be using right now.

We realized that Microsoft Teams is not for everyone. We realized that there is a market for team chats that are more affordable, simple, easy-to-use, and versatile. That is why we made AirSend and why we think it’s a great Microsoft Teams alternative.

AirSend is a perfect team chat app that not only allows you to have seamless conversations, but also to share/organize files, track your tasks, and keep notes. 

AirSend logo

Though we like to think we are the best, we also take the time to acknowledge our competitors who also deliver. Here is a list of our seven best alternatives to Microsoft Teams

  1. AirSend
  2. Discord
  3. Slack
  4. Riot.im
  5. Hangouts
  6. Wire
  7. MatterMost

In this blog post, we will discuss specific features and functions, pricing tiers, and the pros and cons of each platform. Without further ado, let’s dive into the seven best alternatives to Microsoft

AirSend as a Microsoft Teams Alternative

AirSend sign up page

It would be weird if we didn’t believe our product was the number one alternative to Microsoft Teams. AirSend is the prime product dedicated to seamless conversation and collaboration. AirSend features ideal collaboration tools, such as task-management, premium built-in file storage, video/audio calling, and personalized notebooks made for each channel. 

Most importantly, AirSend’s productivity train is continuously chugging, which means that we are constantly delivering new updates and features. New updates and features mean new ways for efficient communication and collaboration. 

Pricing

If you sign up before May 15th, you can get AirSend Pro free for one year! In the picture below are the features that come with AirSend Pro.

To see what each plan’s specific features and functions are, click here to view our pricing page. 

Pros to AirSend

As said before, AirSend’s biggest positives are seamless conversation and built-in collaboration tools. But, AirSend doesn’t stop there. The biggest alternative to Microsoft Teams, aside from our clean and simplistic design, is that we offer Office 365 integration. This means, that you can still rely on Office 365 to get your work done, but now with easier and faster communication. This makes AirSend a fabulous Microsoft Teams alternative. To learn more about this, read our blog post

Finally, we offer more storage and sufficiently better pricing. 

Cons to AirSend

AirSend is still in its beta stages. Because AirSend is still in development, there will be consistent updates and added features to the product.

Discord

Discord Philosophize This channel

Discord is a great alternative to Microsoft Teams. While the product is originally meant for gamers, they offer a lot of features for a free communication tool, such as an all-in-one voice and audio chat. They also offer channel organization, only placed in a more complex UI design. 

Pricing

Another benefit is that the product is free.

There is also a Discord Nitro in which you get more customizations than you would with the free version.

Customizations can range from animated emojis, and creating a unique tag for your profile. Annually, Discord Nitro is $99.99. Monthly it is $9.99.

Finally, there is Discord Nitro Classic, which has everything the Nitro plan has, except for a Server Boost. Annually it is $49.99, and monthly it is $4.99. 

Image of Discord Nitro

Pros to Discord

Unlike Microsoft Teams, Discord has amazing channel organization. Additionally, like AirSend, Discord offers a built-in community. While having seamless communication, you can also be a part of the community you love. 

Cons to Discord

As said before, the product is originally meant for gamers. That being said, the product lacks task management. They also do not have a clean and simple design. Because of this, some users can find Discord a bit overwhelming to use. 

Slack

Slack logo

Slack is known as the king of integrations. That being said, Slack’s main functionality is to get work done through third-party integrations. 

Pricing

Here is an image of Slack’s current pricing. Some key things to note is that with the free plan, there is a limit to integrations and search history. 

Slack pricing page

Pros to Slack

Slack is originally known as a communication tool. The product also offers channel organization, threads, private and public channels, and built-in voice and audio calls. Slack is also a communication tool many people have heard of and use, which makes Slack one of the top Microsoft Teams competitors.  

Cons to Slack

The biggest con to Slack is its overwhelming UI design and multiple tabs. Slack also requires you to create an account for each team you join. This can become troublesome when trying to manage your day-to-day tasks.

Finally, in order to get work done, Slack users mostly rely on third-party integrations, which also requires separate accounts. If you are looking for a team chat tool that has built-in features to help with workflow productivity and minimizes account sign-ups, Slack may not be ideal. 

Riot.im

Riot.im channel view

The selling point for Riot.im is that they are an open-source, interoperable collaboration app. Don’t panic! There is nothing complicated about this. As a matter of fact,  this just means that Riot.im has the capability to build bridges with users who use other team chat apps. They are currently running on Web, iOS, and Android. 

Pricing

Riot.im is currently free, with future plans to have paid, hosted accounts.

Pros to Riot.im

The major pro is that Riot.im can connect to other chat teams, such as Slack, Gitter.im, IRC, Twitter, and SMS. The other positive is that Riot.im gives you the option to host your own open-source servers.

Cons to Riot.im

Riot.im lacks other tools needed to make a successful team chat software. While the feature of building bridges to other team chat software is certainly a game-changer, Riot.im lacks the ability to have integrated task management and built-in notes. Though it is much easier to use compared to Microsoft Teams, Teams offers more features to get work done. 

Hangouts Chat

Hangouts Chat channel view

Hangouts Chat is the same concept as Microsoft Teams, except it is owned by Google. The perk and perhaps the biggest selling point is the G Suite integrations. 

Pricing

Because Hangouts Chat and Meet are integrated with GSuite, you have to pay for the GSuite Plans.

The basic plan is $6 monthly, per user, with the main limitation of 30 GB to your Google Drive.

The next plan is Business, which is $12 monthly, per user and an unlimited Google Drive Space.

Finally, there is the Enterprise plan, which is $25 monthly, per user.

Pros to Hangouts Chat

Hangouts Chat is a good alternative to Microsoft Teams in that they offer better pricing. Essentially if you want a team chat app that is integrated with the tools you work with, like G Suite, and for a significantly better price, Hangouts Chat is the choice. 

Cons to Hangouts Chat

One of the common issues seen with Hangouts Chat is that several users fear that Google will shut down integrations that are often used.

Finally, Hangouts Chat does not support built-in audio and video calls. Rather, you must have a separate app, Hangouts Meet. If you are looking for a team chat tool that carries built-in audio and video call, Microsoft Teams would be the better choice. 

Wire

Wire chat

Wire is a modern-day collaboration tool that meets advanced security and user experience.

Pricing

Wire carries three price plans: Wire Pro: 4 Euro, Wire Enterprise: 8 Euro, and Wire Enterprise Technology. To see their features, click here.

Pros to Wire

Wire carries all things needed for collaboration. They carry personal and group chats, conference calls, screen and file sharing, availability status, mentions, and message reactions. Best of all, Wire has a guest room feature, in which you can talk with clients or even conduct job interviews.

Cons to Wire

One of the downsides to Wire is that they do not carry built-in task management. They also lack project management tools. Having a lack of these tools may make it hard for teams to collaborate and get work done. 

MatterMost

MatterMost main channel view

MatterMost is a wonderful communication tool to have that is specifically designed for having a  private cloud and an opened-sourced channel. And it’s a great option if you’re looking for an open source alternative to Microsoft Teams.

Like Microsoft Teams, MatterMost targets large enterprises. However, unlike Microsoft Teams, MatterMost implements self-hosting capabilities. With self-hosting capabilities, users can have greater control over privacy and security. 

Pricing

Luckily, before fully committing to MatterMost, there is a 30-day free trial. With the E10 edition (basic) and a minimum of 10 users, the price is $39 per user. Annually making it $390.

There is also an E20 edition, which is an advanced enterprise edition that roughly charges $8.50 monthly.

Because the E20 edition is made for larger corporations, you must get a quote from MatterMost before continuing to pay. To see what each plan offers, click here.

Pros to MatterMost

Though MatterMost is priced on the higher end, MatterMost offers premium control over privacy and security. They also offer over 600 integrations 

Additionally, you can run the messaging platform behind your organization’s firewall.

The way we see it, MatterMost is great if your organization is large enough to have or require self-hosted team messaging.

Cons to MatterMost

With MatterMost’s almost overwhelming design, the UX becomes difficult to maneuver. After researching some alternatives MatterMost had to these cons, we believe that aside from AirSend’s built-in wiki capability, Microsoft Teams would be the better choice.

Result

As said before Microsoft Teams is good to use if you rely on Office 365 for your daily needs. But, there are other team chat apps that offer 365 integration, without the Teams. Still get work done relying on Office 365, but get work done efficiently with a better-designed communication app. 

We use AirSend as our digital workspace for our marketing team. Even though AirSend is our product, we sincerely believe that AirSend can help your team too. Give us a try and let us know what you think!

AirSend is a versatile digital workspace to share files, send messages, and complete tasks. See how AirSend can help you.

Often times, Accountants need a reliable communication platform. They also need a platform in which they can effectively get work done, such as task management, notes, and most of all, top-notch file organization. It can be pretty difficult to have various platforms to manage all your work. That is why we made AirSend.

AirSend is designed to help get the work done all from one place. We offer seamless conversation through a clean and clear easy-to-follow design. Further, we offer built-in task management, built-in file storage, and a ready-made note section. One of our latest features, which is extremely helpful to those who have clients, is our Microsoft integration.

With our latest integration, you can now manage all your tax statements, bookkeeping records, forms, and more all with a click of a button. Having this integration eases the extra time of downloading and uploading the same files- only edited.

Another neat feature to have when creating your client portals are channel templates. Essentially, copy the channel template, which carries all your standardized forms for new clients, into your newly created channel. No more digging through files to finding the right forms.

We also carry a powerful search system in which you can find everything with ease. A huge stress reliever. Finally, the coolest feature of them all is our new feature, public channels. For more information on how to make a communication client portal with AirSend, we have attached a video.

The best part of all, we aren’t stopping with what we currently have. We are continuously unleashing new updates to help with maximum productivity.

AirSend helps accountants and professionals create a versatile digital workspace to share files, send messages, and complete tasks. See how AirSend can help you.

A quick tutorial on how to create a basic accounting channel template and how to use that template when bringing on a new client.
A quick tutorial on how to create a basic accounting channel template and how to use that template when bringing on a new client.

Onboarding a new accounting client involves a good amount of paperwork and organization.

With AirSend, the ability to create a channel template and duplicate that template means that you don’t have to go through the trouble of making, naming, and organizing a new set of file folders each time you have a new client. After creating the initial template, you will be able to digitally onboard clients with a few clicks of your cursor.

Here’s a quick tutorial on how to create a basic accounting channel template and how to use that template when bringing on a new client.

Step 1: Create A Channel

The first step is to create a new channel. You can call it your “Template Channel,” “New Client Template,” or even “Client Last Name, Client First Name (Template Channel).” Whatever makes it clear that this is not a channel you are using to interact with clients but a channel template you will use to onboard new clients.

Step 2: Edit Your Wiki

The next step is to edit the Wiki section of your channel. You can note down important information and even write a brief welcome message if you intend for your clients to have AirSend accounts. Remember that this is optional since clients can send and receive messages and files using their email, too.

Step 3: Add Your Folders

The third step is to add the folders that you typically use for each client. These will vary depending on your specialty and personal preference.

Some general ones include “Compliance Documents” — which will contain blank copies of your accounting contract, GDPR statement and where you will put the signed copies of those documents that your client provides, as well as their proof of identity. “Welcome Documents” — which has your welcome letter and a blank copy of your financial questionnaire in it. And “Financial Documents” for tax records, bank statements, cash flow statements, balance sheets, investment portfolios, and any additional financial documentation.

Step 4: Use Your Template Channel to Onboard New Clients with Ease

Once your template is complete, you can use it whenever you onboard a new client. Just duplicate the channel, rename it to your client name, and easily send and receive messages and files!

As you can see, creating and using accounting channel templates in AirSend is easy and can make your onboarding process much faster and simpler.

AirSend is a versatile digital workspace for accountants to share files, send messages, and complete tasks. See how AirSend can help you as your business grows here.

Bookkeeping is the recording of financial transactions and is part of the process of accounting in business. Bookkeepers are responsible for recording and classifying accounting transactions of a business.

Bookkeeping is important in business accounting because it allows you to see where your business is spending money, where your revenue is coming from, and most importantly, which tax deductions you will be able to claim.

In this blog post, we are going to provide a beginner’s guide to bookkeeping. We will start with the basics: understanding assets, liabilities, and equity, and plenty more. After that, we will provide you with what is called the accounting equation, which forms the foundation of your bookkeeping and ultimately your business.

Next, we will briefly cover the difference between single-entry and double-entry bookkeeping. Finally, we will suggest and summarize some tools to help you get started with bookkeeping. Let’s dive in.

The Basics

Understanding the basics to bookkeeping will help you step into the right direction of running your business. So, what exactly are the basics? Well, for beginners, there are assets, liabilities, and equity. These three components form your balance sheet. It’s okay if you do not know what this means. That’s why we are here. Let’s take a closer look at what assets, liabilities, and equity are.

  • Assets: are cash, products, or services that your company owns. The can be from inventory to accounts receivables. 
  • Liabilities: are things that your company owes. So this could be, what you owe to suppliers (accounts payable, loans, mortgages, etc. 
  • Equity is the ownership a business owner and investor has in the business.

These three components are what form the accounting equation and what will become important for you in understanding the basics of bookkeeping. Don’t worry, we will explain how this all works later in the blog post. For now, let’s continue with some other basics that are good to know. 

  • Accounts Receivable: in basic definition, accounts receivable is money owed to a company by its debtors. So, if your company sells products or services and doesn’t collect payment immediately, you have “receivables,” or money that is due from customers. 
  • Inventory: is the unsold product. It is essentially money sitting on a shelf, but inventory is one of the most crucial assets that must be accounted for. 
  • Fixed Assets: Fixed assets include any equipment, vehicles, land, or building that you own. These assets are usually large and highly valued.
  • Accounts Payable: is money that the company owes to suppliers, service providers, etc. These are usually the services/suppliers that help the business run.
  • Retained earnings: track any company profits that are reinvested in the business and are not paid out to the owners. This is crucial to track to see how your company is performing over a period of time. 

Okay, so now that we got the basics definitions out of the way, I am sure you are wondering what does all this even mean, or how does this apply to me? These terms are what balance the books. From assets to retained earnings, everything must be accounted for. Below is an image of what a simple balance sheet would look like, with the applied terms. 

image of a balance sheet

So, knowing what balances the books, the remaining question is, how? The answer: the accounting equation.

The Accounting Equation

The basic accounting formula: Assets= Liabilities + Shareholders’ Equity 

This equation must balance because everything the business owns (assets) has been purchased with some form of debt (liability) or shareholders’ capital (equity). So let’s give an example of how this looks like.

If a business has $20,000 in liabilities, $40,000 in assets, and $20,000 in shareholders’ equity the accounting formula would read:

Liabilities ($20,000) = Assets ($40,000) – Shareholders’ Equity ($20,000)

Shareholders’ Equity ($20,000) = Assets ($40,000) – Liabilities ($20,000)

Assets ($40,000)= Liabilities ($20,000) + Shareholders’ Equity ($20,000)

If you know any two of the three components of the accounting equation, you can calculate the third component. To know if your books have balanced, remember that you compare your liabilities and equity to assets. As seen by the third equation, it balances.

Let’s dive a little deeper and give a transaction demonstration. Understanding how a transaction works will help you better understand the accounting formula. Understanding the accounting formula will help you learn how to balance your books. 

How Transactions Work in Bookkeeping

So, when you start a new company, everything is zero. Remember your accounting formula: Assets = Liabilities + Shareholders. 

0 = 0 + 0

Now, let’s say as the owner you want to deposit some money. You, as the owner, deposit $1,000. To make this easier, we are going to go with the double-entry bookkeeping system.

So, remember, if an owner has put money into his/her business (investing), then this is called equity. Remember, also, that assets are products, services, and cash that the company owns. By investing $1,000 into the company (equity), the company simultaneously now has an asset of $1,000. So, lets put this into the accounting equation. 

Assets = Liabilities + Shareholders’ Equity. 

$1,000 = 0 + $1,000

To help your business run, you purchase a $700 laptop on your business credit account. This is seen as a liability (money that we owe) because the $700 is on a credit account. So, let’s head back to our equation. 

Assets = Liabilities + Shareholders’s Equity. 

$1,700 = $700 + $1,000

An asset or liability account is created for each type of asset. The asset account (and total assets) for office equipment was increased by $700 and the liability account for the company’s credit card was increased by $700.

Think of this as a checks and balance system. So, now that you have everything you need to balance your books, let’s talk about which forms of bookkeeping are right for you. 

Single-Entry vs. Double-Entry Bookkeeping

Bookkeeping is what makes your business survive. A business also survives on the person’s ability to establish good accounting practices. This is where deciding if single-entry or double-entry bookkeeping works best for you. Spoiler alert: everyone uses double-entry. But, what would we be if we didn’t at least mention single-entry bookkeeping?

  • Single-Entry Bookkeeping: 
    • Works if your business is super small
    • Similar to keeping a personal checkbook
    • One entry is made for each transaction
    • Does not track inventory, accounts payable, and accounts receivable
    • Does not work in developing a balance sheet
  • Double-Entry Bookkeeping:
    • Each account has two columns and each transaction is located in two accounts
    • Two entries made per transaction- debit and credit
    • Used for paying off a creditor
    • Keep track of asset and liability accounts
    • Accurately calculate profit and loss

An example of how double-entry bookkeeping works can be seen from “The BalanceSmall Business,”

“An example of a double-entry transaction would be if the company wants to pay off a creditor. The cash account would be reduced by the amount the company owes the creditor. That would be the debit. Then, the double-entry reduces the amount the business now owes to the creditor account as it has received the amount of the credit the business is extending. That is the credit.”

BalanceSmall Business, 2019

Ideally, double-entry bookkeeping is the better solution. You can track more and accurately calculate the profit and loss of your business. If your business is extremely small, then perhaps, single-entry bookkeeping may be the better option. Finally, let’s look at some tools that can help with your bookkeeping. 

Accounting Software

After studying the latest accounting software, we have come up with four tools that we believe may help with bookkeeping. Note, we are not accounting experts, and have made this list solely off of review, research, and case studies. We have not tried any of these tools ourselves. 

Quickbooks: is very popular for accounting software. Quickbooks focuses on helping small businesses simplify and do their books.

Xero: is a QuickBooks alternative. Xero manages invoices, bank reconciliations, and bookkeeping.

Sage: Accounting software, or bookkeeping software, automates, organizes, and integrates typical financial transactions, helping a business run more smoothly every day

Kashoo: Mobile and online accounting software for small business that provides a cloud-based system for invoicing, expense tracking & bookkeeping.