Get It Together: 7 Quick Ways to Make Your Business More Organized

How to make your business more organized

Here are the seven most important areas to focus on:

1. Organizing product development

Keeping product development on track with the scheduled launch date is important because you rely on this disruptive product to change the marketplace and drive your sales. Everything and everyone must work toward this same end goal, so it’s vital to organize all aspects of the product development.

However, when your team works virtually and is outsourced around the world, staying organized can become a challenge. To keep this multistep, team-based initiative organized, use one or more software tools, such as:

• Jira: Jira is a development tracking software that helps your team to build a product, receive feedback to improve it, track progress and interact with all team members. Jira captures a significant amount of data, which can be used toward improving processes as well as determining future product development projects.
• Nifty: Nifty helps with project management, bringing your team and clients together for meetings, tasks and events. 
• Trello: Trello delights with its Kanban board, lists and cards for forming meetings and events, managing projects, organizing tasks and customizing workflows.

2. Organizing projects and teams

As part of a startup, your team may be virtual and scattered across a wide area, so there is a greater chance for misunderstanding and confusion about who is working on what and when each component is expected.

Since putting everyone in one room with a schedule may not work, the next best thing is to use a work management tool. Here are some of the top project management tools.

• Wrike: This online organization software provides numerous ways to track performance and deadlines on projects. It also sets controls to keep groups focused on a particular project and ensure they get the right information to the correct people.
• Monday.com: This task management tool helps you create a streamlined, automated workflow for your marketing campaign tasks so your team can plan and schedule content accordingly. You can learn more in our full review of Monday.com. 
• Asana: Asana is another popular app that helps team leaders manage their teams’ online projects and tasks online. It is free for individuals and small teams.

3. Organizing business strategy 

You want a succinct, targeted business strategy that addresses your target audience and speaks directly to them. To achieve this end, you need to know your audience before the messaging and content is created, and there are tools that can give you access to market and audience insights.

• Conductor: Conductor can help by providing advanced analytics that show you who is most likely to buy your product or service, as well as how to communicate with them to maximize efficiency and profit margins. The solution can also help you increase your effectiveness with search engines so you can instantly gain a greater presence to engage with those key prospects.
• UserVoice: UserVoice is a software solution that gives you customer feedback. Their built-in support desk also makes this tool your one-stop customer service dashboard. 
• MailChimp: MailChimp helps you manage your mailing lists and email marketing campaigns, which can be used to gather valuable customer feedback via polls and surveys.

4. Organizing inventory 

To keep overhead costs as low as possible, you need a tight rein on inventory. Doing so requires expert levels of organization. Use barcode technology to automate the process for greater accuracy and track everything you have. This means you can minimize internal theft, receive alerts when inventory is low and gain insights into exactly which products are in high demand.

When you’re on top of inventory, you can track how materials are being used for more effective ordering and cost management. The data you receive from inventory tracking software also helps you understand how sales and productivity among the staff impact the cost of inventory. That means you can make changes in other areas of the company to further increase efficiency.

• Zoho Inventory: Zoho Inventory is software that helps you keep track of your sales along with every unit in your inventory. 
• Notion: Another helpful platform is Notion, which stands out from competitors by helping you create one-to-one integrations and sync data between apps.

5. Organizing social media presence

While it helps your business to have an engaging presence on all the major social media platforms, the effort of maintaining your accounts can eat up all your time. That’s when you need a social media management tool that helps organize your social media campaigns, while leaving you time to interact with your audience on these platforms.

• Social Oomph: SocialOomph helps you streamline your social media tasks by taking the manual labor out of updating X (formerly Twitter), Facebook (including profiles, groups and pages), LinkedIn (including company pages, profiles and groups), RSS feeds, Plurk, App.net and blogs. You can schedule updates, get suggestions on people to follow, and gauge how your social media content and campaigns are doing in terms of engagement.
• Hootsuite: Hootsuite helps you schedule posts, manage your conversations and track your social performance all in one place.
• HubSpot Marketing Hub: HubSpot Marketing Hub is another option that helps you run inbound marketing campaigns, turn leads into customers, draft winning content and attract the right audience. 

6. Organizing information 

If you wear many hats while running a startup, your personal and professional lives often intersect and further complicate how well you can stay organized at work and at home. Luckily, there are tools that can help you keep your focus.

• OmniFocus: OmniFocus can create a structured task management system to guide your daily decisions and keep you from getting distracted by information overload. OmniFocus provides context to all the information that hits you on a daily basis, separating the most relevant from the pile so you can get more done at a faster rate without losing track of anything. The software gives you notifications about upcoming events and tasks, and provides updates on the goals and objectives you have set as they relate to various tasks. 
• nTask: nTask is a user-friendly and affordable project management solution with its single pane of glass software and third-party integration tools. 
• Gravity Flow: Gravity Flow is an option for web-based businesses with its “plugin to automate” and “customize your business” workflows.

7. Organizing cash flow

It might seem easy to organize cash flow as a startup since there might be very little in the beginning. But it’s easy to get caught up in the other aspects of your business that you forget to send an invoice or remind a customer about an overdue payment. That’s when it helps to have an online accounting and invoicing tool that gives you a dashboard view of your current invoices, including those upcoming and past due.

• FreshBooks: FreshBooks allows you to focus on core capabilities and still keep an eye on cash flow from any device. Our review of FreshBooks found that the online invoice tool sends invoices via email with convenient links to payment options like credit cards, e-checks and payment portals like PayPal. You can set automated reminders and acknowledgments to keep a steady stream of cash flow.
• QuickBooks: QuickBooks is one of the best accounting software options for small business owners, due to its introductory package and user-friendly inventory management tools. See our review of QuickBooks for more details.
• Wave: Wave is one of several QuickBooks alternatives which offers e-commerce checkout tools, Etsy integration, intuitive and streamlined user interface. (There’s also a free version.) 
• Zoho Books: Another alternative is Zoho Books, which has tax support and bank reconciliation tools, contact management, accounts payable and estimate tools that help you bill customers accurately.

Why keeping your business organized is key to your success

Enhances communication

When your company is organized, it is easier for managers, employees and departments to communicate with each other. Communication and project tools allow team members to update each other on their parts of the project, resolve problems and get input from managers and other relevant departments.

Improves productivity

In an organized company, every individual and team knows what its role and responsibilities are and can focus on doing those tasks. Clearly outlined tasks minimize confusion, redundancies and errors.

Accelerates onboarding

An organized workflow and organization tools enable new employees to quickly become effective in their roles. Although some training will still be needed, it allows them to almost seamlessly pick up from where their predecessors left off. The right workflows and tools ensure new hires can hop into projects and provide a framework for high-priority work.

Frees up the founder’s time

Digital organization allows founders to effectively delegate tasks without losing the overarching goals and strategy that they have established for their business. That way, the founder and executives can spend their time on strategy, product innovations and growth rather than the minutia of running the business.

Increases accountability

Employees with clear cut goals and organizational tools are more accountable, both to themselves and by others (e.g., their managers). If targets are not met or communication falters, it’s clear who is at fault and who must make up for the slack. Managers can concentrate on helping the employee reach their goal.

Enables growth

Organized companies can scale more easily than those whose processes are scattered and variable. Employees can be rapidly added and functions expanded to accelerate the company’s growth without any loss of focus.

Even after your startup is built out and you are generating revenue, these tools will grow with you and continue to keep your business organized. Many offer features you can add later to handle larger volumes and projects. This way, you never lose the efficiency that helped you from the start.

Jennifer Dublino and Peter Daisyme contributed to this article.