Best Tools For Remote Working

Best Tools for Remote Working

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Remote working and hiring remote staff have become pretty common these days for small & mid-sized accounting firms. Prime reasons causing this shift are cloud based SaaS solutions, which are pretty common for the accountants all across the world. However, a number of users have also posted unlikely negative reviews about them. f followed closely, they are mostly about their higher prices, and sometimes about slow load times.

Even though, working remotely isn’t all laptop-on-a-beach-in-Hawaii scene from a movie set, it requires certain tools and software applications necessary to set sail! There’s ensuring scheduling and organizing availabilities, schedules, Wi-Fi strength, time-zones, and much more. The best practices for remote team management requires simplifying the process for managing remote staff, to keep them productive and growing professionally. Lastly, how do operations managers know if their remote staff is actually working and not wasting time? Here, we enumerate a list of tools of the trade and best practices followed in the remote staffing industry today.

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BEST PROJECT MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE A Project Management System helps solve problems of virtual teams for organizing documents and tasks, and making it easier for remote staff teams in collaborating and completing tasks. Following is a list comprising the most widely used and preferred PMS software tools:

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BEST PROJECT MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE

Basecamp

ProofHub

Roadmap App

The leading platform for Project Management, Basecamp is one of the initial web-based PMS, which successfully catered to a lot of businesses across various types of industries. Moreover, Basecamp provides monitoring the time an employee checks off an item on their to-do list, as well as the time they add something new to the existing list. Project Manager can monitor employees spending required time on tasks accurately. An Easy-to-Use- interface and navigability make it the number one choice amongst the plethora of options out there!

In ProofHub, remote staff can have seamless interactions with fellow teammates and clients. ProofHub sports plenty of features including online proofing, discussions, share feedback via Chat, and even Remote Project Management from a unified location and User Interface. Being an all-in-one remote project management software, ProofHub is a must-have for teams that require greater level of management proficiency.

Roadmap is one all-in-one remote project management software, which relies more on lucid and fluid navigation across all its features and functions. This makes it a good choice for those wanting a simpler User Interface with all the necessary features and functions of a project management software. It also provides tracking time for your in-house team, too!

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BEST PROJECT MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE Todoist is for you if you require all the core features including tasks, subtasks, lets you create projects, add notes and upload files, set reminders, flags and a productivity chart. The to-do list app of choice, Todoist, manages to be simple enough to use, yet boasting a plethora of customizable options.

Todo List

Last but not the least, the most known name in online services industry — Google — has many various functions that lessen the workload for project managers. Google Spreadsheets can be used for tracking part-time as well as remote workers, highlighting their hours and what work they've completed.

Google Forms and Spreadsheets

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BEST REMOTE ACCESS SOFTWARE Remote Access software applications are designed for use when the user cannot be physically present where the computer is installed. In case of remote working staff, such applications are necessary when there is need for data confidentiality and security, wherein the data cannot be shared for processing outside the premises of the business organization. With such tools, the data remains securely intact within the firm, and a remote employee can easily work on the computer terminal from any remote location, quickly and easily!

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BEST REMOTE ACCESS SOFTWARE

Real VNC

RealVNC has been around for years serving IT professionals in-house of IT-driven businesses. Its basic version works exclusively over your local LAN only, facilitating IT support technicians in trouble-shooting any software problems much faster and with precision, saving time and efforts inside a remote staffing company. An advanced version provides connecting over the Internet, for users located outside of office premises, much commonly, in a different state, or even offshore!

Quite similar to RealVNC, TeamViewer grants remote access to your computer terminal, or allows you to take control of someone else’s computer from anywhere in the world over the Internet, after their permission. This facilitates remote staff from processing and completing work on a client’s computer easily, effectively when data cannot be shared into your office premises. Additionally, IT support technicians can quickly fix any issues from their work area without wasting time

TeamViewer

walking down to your cubicle, and then fixing it. It features additional layers of security, such as Two-factor Authentication, Whitelist of allowed users, Blacklist of restricted users, and Screen lock after a preset period of inactivity.

AnyDesk

AnyDesk is a very lightweight remote connection application, mainly preferred because of its speed. The host of the main computer terminal, and the guest user accessing it must share the ID of the PC on which AnyDesk is installed. It provides users various extra features such as taking desktop screenshots, has easy to remember identification numbers, and allows chat communication. It’s perfect for anyone wanting a lightweight, portable option, and maximum speed during remote access sessions.

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BEST BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE SOFTWARE Business intelligence software helps retrieve, analyze, transform, and report data collected online or offline (which is converted into a digital format) specifically for business intelligence. This reported data indicates the viability of your product or services, which helps in making plans to maximize revenues and reduce costs.

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BEST BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE SOFTWARE Zoho Reports, business intelligence software, helps achieve new insights on your business information. It allows effortlessly creating and sharing powerful, ad hoc reports almost instantly for someone with no IT background at all! You can import Data from applications and databases from even behind firewalls.

ZOHO Reporter

Bitrix24

Board

Bitrix24 is complete business management and business intelligence software that's completely free! With over 35 free tools, like CRM, tasks, document management, project management, time management, business process automation, invoicing, collaboration, absence management, email marketing, virtual PBX, shared calendars, company directory, HRMS and much more, Bitrix24 is a singlehanded solution for catering to majority of business analysis functions. It is available in cloud and as offline software application for installation on your personal server. It takes less than 30 seconds for setup and use!

The BOARD Decision-Making Platform helps organizations make better, more-informed business decisions by unifying Business Intelligence, Enterprise Performance Management, Planning and Advanced Analytics into a single solution. BOARD enables conducting analysis, simulation, and planning activities with ease through a drag-and-drop, self-service, toolkit environment by centralizing data sources from across the business functions.

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BEST BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE SOFTWARE SAP Analytics Cloud is the All-in-One cloud platform solution for Business Intelligence, Planning and Predictive Analytics — some of the key functions affecting and directing the course of a business and its growth charts.

SAP Analytics Cloud Another Business Intelligence software a preferred choice among the top brass of mid- and large- sized companies, SAS Business Intelligence helps to prepare data, easily discover insights, and share it in a self-service, governed manner across your organization effortlessly, with attention to prime functions of business intelligence.

SAS Business Intelligence

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BUSINESS TIME MANAGEMENT TOOL Concerning time management, working with remote staff particularly is an uphill challenge. For accurately tracking time spent on tasks, for accurately calculating man-hours on a task or single project, project managers need a precision time tracking / management tool. Remote time management tools are crucial for increased productivity and accurate revenue computation.

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BEST TIME MANAGEMENT TOOL TimeDoctor, unanimously, seems to be the best tool in the market for tracking time for remote staff. Moreover, it has the option for screen capture, specifying and filling in required work hours, and everything else you could think of, in a time tracking software.

Time Doctor Accurately track each hour for improving your team’s productivity. Teamwork lets you invoice all tracked time and expenses to the minute. It allows creating custom time reports of time logged in, based on projects. You can even export your report and time log entries as Excel, CSV, or PDF file formats for further analyses and report generation.

Teamwork

Hub Staff

Hub staff is aimed at increasing the productivity, along with making your time work for you, instead of the usual other way around! It provides for tracking where employees are spending more of their time, and what tasks they are working on at any given time. One of its foremost flashy features includes online timesheets, employee scheduling, screen recording, employee monitoring, payroll software, GPS tracking, online invoicing, and project budgeting, among many more!

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BEST TEAM COLLABRATION TOOL Of all forms of communication, audio-visual medium surpasses every other form when 2 or more people have to interact with each other. This holds truer when you are working with remote staff situated away from your city, or even offshore. Minimizing communication issues, which are bound to occur when the teams are not together in a room, is necessary to increase productivity, and lessen the incidental errors occurring in daily operations.

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BEST TEAM COLLABRATION TOOL Zoom, a group calling software, offers amazing video call quality with crisp audio during online meetings. Quite easy to use, most affordable and straightforward pricing, Zoom provides recording any call with a full-length video. In Remote Meetings & Video Chat, Zoom allows sharing your screen with remote staff teams for interactive discussions. Further-

Time Doctor

more, Zoom provides holding video webinar, meetings, Zoom room, business IM, and voice sharing. It also supports the highest the number of people who can be in a meeting at once amongst all available solutions.

Much similar to Zoom, GoToMeeting app is a popular go-to software for quite reliable online meetings. It makes Screen sharing easy, with excellent call quality!

GoToMeeting

Appear.in makes holding video calls or multi-user video collaboration as easy as pie. Remote staffing team simply create a room link, share this link through email or chat, and you’re set! No registration or downloading unnecessary software, since it is accessed through your web browser, making it accessible even from mobile devices.

Appear.in

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BEST TEAM COLLABRATION TOOL

Slack

A messaging remote work app, Slack helps communicating across teammates, allows sharing ideas and comments in real time! Dedicated Slack channels can be used for instant messaging and collaboration. Slack is also available and accessible using apps on iOS and Android mobile devices. Additionally, Slack lets you launch a Google Hangout right from within a pre-defined Channel!

Google Hangouts, the default tool of choice for video meetings, since the day it was launched. Google Hangouts enlivens conversations with free group video calls, with up to 15 people assembling together on a video call, along with sharing their screens or files with all participants instantly! Moreover, Slack even lets you launch a Hangouts right from within a dedicated Slack channel!

Google Hangouts

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CLOUD STORAGE & COLLABORATION With remote workplace in place, Cloud storage forms the basic foundation of managing storage space, and sharing and accessing all necessary files with all persons involved in a particular project. Remote Cloud Storage & Collaboration becomes necessary as any and all Documents and Multimedia files, which are too large to be sent by email, need some central storage as a conveniently accessible location.

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CLOUD STORAGE & COLLABORATION

Google Drive

Dropbox

Google Drive, a cloud storage service, keeps all your files in one secure and centralized repository. All remote staff can store and share documents, spreadsheets, presentation slides, text files, compressed files, you name it! Moreover, you can also save your weekly reporting metrics on to it, and share for further analyses and reporting. Unbeatably, Google Drive also lets you sync all such files across various devices, including PC, Mac, iOS and Android. All you need is a Google account for signing in; and it is free!

Shared Cloud storage cannot go without mentioning Dropbox as an alternative. The best thing is, along with being easily accessible across a host of platforms such as PC, Mac, iOS and Android, there are hundreds of other applications, services, platforms, etc. which rely on file sharing directly from within. All these have dedicated Dropbox integration for uploading to and downloading from their server instantly! Moreover, their recent app, Paper, lets you collaborate in real time, much similar to Google Docs!

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BEST TIME CONVERTER TOOL Working with remote staff teams requires easier way for communicating and collaborating while working across different time zones. Few apps for time zone reference, discussed herein…

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BEST TIME CONVERTER TOOL World Time Buddy is as a time converter for scattered teams. A convenient world clock and an online meeting scheduler, its lucid design facilitates comparing multiple time zones, plan conference calls, and web meetings for business.

World Time Buddy Quite a similar service, Timezone.io helps global remote employees spread across different time zones keep a record of what time remote workers are around the world, which helps them organize and manage their work, as well as personal life.

Timezone.in

Every Time Zone is a visual utility for simply recognizing and coordinating time slots across oceans and continents in a simplified bar-chart type graphical view. Select a time, and you will be displayed what everyone else’s day or night time is right now.

Every Time zone

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PASSWORD & PRIVACY When it comes to privacy, even the highest protocols enforced are not enough. Yet, we need some solution that works with the most secure protocols and adhere to international security standards.

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PASSWORDS & PRIVACY 1Password is basically a password saving & password creation app. It automatically saves all login IDs & passwords that you fill in web forms, or even password protected applications using a single master password for accessing them all. Whenever and wherever necessary, it will auto login into those sites for you. What garners it the most preferred app is, it allows sharing such necessary login details

1Password

with teammates who would require using common login credentials frequently. Additionally, you can create separate sets of login for different users, and limit access to login info for selective apps.

Quite similar to 1Password, Meldium too, is a Single Sign On and password management software for accounts shared between groups of individuals. Log in to Meldium, and get access to all your apps from a central location — no more logging in using a separate username and password for each site.

Meldium

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MISCELLANEOUS There are various other software that maybe necessary for a smooth operating remote staff team, especially when you have them working on odd hours and maybe odd days, viz. Saturdays or Sundays. Additionally, when remote staff is all-time working through the Internet, it is imperative to have restricted access, given the necessity: To scale and measure productivity, Limit the time wasted on unproductive internet surfing and social media activities, Conserve costs of bandwidth and infrastructure, Eliminate all threats emerging from the Internet, Prevent leakage of critical, private, client information (accidentally, or intentionally) to prying eyes

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MISCELLANEOUS Focus is one such app that aims to cover all the aspects mentioned above. Of various site-blocking apps out there, Focus doesn’t simply work for browsers; it can completely cut you off from apps like Twitter, Skype, or Mail too! Moreover, it allows remotely blocking access through a global hotkey, that you can press anytime, anywhere, and the service is turned on instantly. You can even set such rules to be

Focus

activated during pre-scheduled hours, for e.g. every day between 7 and 8 AM.

Working straight 8 to 10 hours can result in a burnout, staring at a screen for so long with minimal or no physical movement. To counter such evils of digital workplace, Time Out reminds on a customizable, preset interval to take a break away from your workstation terminal. Say, a 10-minute break, every 50 or 80 minutes.

Time Out

For any given business organization, virtual teams or remote staffing are pretty lucrative options considering the various benefits in terms of time and money. However, working remotely increases productivity, reduces stress, and is more cost-effective than working from an office if all necessary provisions and measures are implemented from Day One. It is quite be possible there may be other alternatives to the types of applications listed out here. Nevertheless, prima facie, these are the set of applications that any Remote Staffing business should begin with to have maximum productivity, reduce inefficiencies, and lower the cost of infrastructural investments, along with having satisfied and stress-free employees working years for you!