Modern Marketing Blog

Since becoming a leading HubSpot Partner last fall my business has grown by leaps and bounds. In fact, my business has become so successful that it has morphed into a multi-VA business out of necessity.

Finding myself the owner/operator of a multi-VA business has been both rewarding and time consuming. Fortunately my business has been able to gradually evolve into its new self slowly and I have been able to adapt along with it.

When I first realized I needed a project management program I searched the virtual assistant forums for guidance. I tried ClientSpot but it didn't have the functionalities I needed. Eventually I settled on Basecamp and have not been disappointed. I have been using it since December 2008 and it does almost everything I need it to do.

Over the past several months my 2 subcontractors and I have been keeping track of our time separately. Each week they would email me their hours and I would manually input their time and tasks into my own timesheet for submitting to my clients along with the invoice. As my business grew busier this scenario was becoming less time efficient. I needed a collaborative time keeping method and , ideally, something I could integrate with Basecamp.

Hello Freshbooks! This handy tool lets your subcontractors record their time into your Freshbooks account. They must register for their own account but it lets them integrate their time into your Freshbooks account AND invoice you directly from their own Freshbooks account. From my Freshbooks account I can see at a glance how much time my subcontractors are using so that we don't go over budget.

From Freshbooks I can also invoice my clients directly and include the whole team timesheet inside the invoice. This has eliminated the need for me to send one invoice and one timesheet. I can also keep track of all my expenses right inside Freshbooks. Freshbooks fully integrates with Basecamp and there are various time tracking addons available. 

My last hurdle to overcome in my project management streamlining was how to handle the multitude of emails I get from my clients. Copying and pasting my tasks from my email into Basecamp was a lesson in futility. I spent more time than I felt was necessary but there was no other way I could do it. Or was there?

Enter MailManagr ! A google search led me to MailManagr. I found my salvation! I couldn't believe my luck. This program fully integrates with Basecamp and it solved my email dilemma. With MailManagr I can forward my emails, with attachments, directly into Basecamp and assign them and drop them directly into a To-Do, Milestone, or Message. I don't even need to login to Basecamp to do this. 

I would love to have ONE project management suite that lets me do all of the above. If anyone knows of such a thing PLEASE share the name of it. Certainly I would prefer that over having 3 separate tools. However, until I find such a thing I am delighted with my current procedures. I have saved myself time and I don't need to remember to remind my subs to submit their timesheets to me every week. It's all good. :)