Susan Moran
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susan.moran
ParticipantVita, I love the idea of just putting all of the invoice emails into a separate email folder.
I find that if I go to put the actual invoice onto my desktop, I end up doing the renaming
then, rather than just putting it into the folder and renaming later. It is definitely more efficient
to just move the email, and then save the invoices later. This would be a great task for a
virtual assistant, and at my level of business, it could most likely be done once a month.susan.moran
ParticipantI couldn’t agree more!!
susan.moran
ParticipantHi Gressa,
I have been trying to find a good system for this also. Currently, when I receive an invoice via email, I drop a pdf of it into a folder on my laptop named 2022 vendor invoices. I use a naming convention for each pdf :date, vendor, amount, client. This way if I ever have to find an invoice, I can search and find it easily. Sometimes I just drop the invoices into a folder within my invoices folder called invoices to be labeled. This way I can have someone else (VA or assistant) go through and label them later. I think the tough part of this, is that the invoices come into email along with the other billion emails we get. One thought would be to use a separate email for vendor emails but I have not done this.
The other benefit of doing this is that you have all of your receipts in one place for tax purposes. I use my QuickBooks reports to prepare my taxes, not the actual invoices, but if you are ever audited, you will have them all together already. I plan on printing a report from QuickBooks in January listing all of the invoices for the year, and having someone go through and make sure that I have documentation for them. This is a good job for a VA or assistant.
susan.moran
ParticipantAgreed! It is so helpful to recognize that we all struggle with the same things. Seeing your graphic of the growth path of you business, and hearing you talk about how you struggled with deciding exactly how much you wanted to grow your business has been really helpful. I think that we tend to think that businesses grow organically with no struggles. When in actuality, there has to be planning and conscious decision making. It is great food for thought and has me really thinking about how I would like to grow my business. All of the systems that we are learning about are helping me to realize that I will be able to handle more business much more effectively once I have the systems in place. This will really help with planning my growth. Thanks to you Vita, and to everyone in the group for sharing.
susan.moran
ParticipantOne of the reasons that this works for me is that I don’t have control over the work order format. For you, or anyone who has their
own workroom, it may work easier to do it in the opposite direction.susan.moran
ParticipantYes, since I need to eventually put all of that information into the work order anyway, I figure why not start there.
I was doing the estimate first in QuickBooks, and then transferring that information to a spreadsheet to make an estimate for my client. I have never been happy with the look of the estimates from QB, so I have never sent them to clients from QB. I was then moving that to word, and saving as a PDF to send to the client.
Now I will complete the work order in Excel, which will give me my labor and lining costs. That information will flow to another tab where I will add in all of the other costs (fabric, trim, installation etc.), and most importantly, markup, to come up with my total price to the client. This will then flow to the estimate tab which will be what I convert to a pdf to send to the client.
One thing I realized in working through these is that I should have my markup calculations on a separate tab from the estimate form that goes to the client. That way there is less chance that I will accidentally print those numbers to the pdf that goes to the client. (Print Selection vs print active sheets). This should all be caught when proofing the estimate (which I just realized needs to be added as a step, but I want to make it as foolproof as possible.
Sue
Self Confessed Excel geeksusan.moran
ParticipantI will be hiring out my taxes next year also. It takes entirely too much of my time.
susan.moran
ParticipantDitto to what Agata said!
I have gotten deposits for three jobs this week. I jumped into AirTable, and I am setting up the jobs. It won’t be perfect right off the bat, but at least I have gotten started. I will refine as I go. I began by listing all of the tasks in an Excel spreadsheet. I would like to put them in a flowchart, but haven’t done that yet. This makes me feel so hopeful hat I will get a hold of my processes and not allow things to slip through the cracks.
Looking forward to class tomorrow!
susan.moran
ParticipantI completely agree about clarity on the steps. I do all of them but they are not laud our in a process. And soft treatment quotes also take me entirely too long.
susan.moran
ParticipantWhat a great first class! I have so much to think about.
I think that my biggest takeaway was that I don’t need to be at installations. This has made me recognize that I can’t possibly continue to grow if I continue to do “all the things”. So, it isn’t just attending installations that is holding me back, it is doing so many other things that I can’t continue to do if I want to grow. I was listening to Vita’s podcast with LuAnn on Prerequisites for Success (Episode 76 of Window Treatments for Profit), and the “$31 an hour” activity really resonated with me. I have 5 proposals to finish today, and 3 blinds to be installed. I’m very sure that I can make a lot more money doing 5 proposals than I can by attending an installation of 3 blinds. My husband/installer can certainly handle installing 3 inside mount faux wood blinds without my assistance!!
It is not that I didn’t already know this, it is just getting the confirmation that neither LuAnn or Vita have anyone other than the installers attending the installation that really hit home. It also points out that I have to be much more specific with my work orders and installation instructions to make this possible.
It’s time to get serious about implementing these ideas.
Sooooooo many things to think about! My mind is racing, and I am looking forward to journaling about my “Why”!
I can’t wait until next week!
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