While Sunny Side Creative may have launched in 2024, its founders have had the opportunity to test out myriad tools for project management, customer relationship management, operations, etc. for much longer than that. It’s because of our experience working in-house, at other agencies, and with larger institutions that we’ve narrowed down our day-to-day tools to the ones we have. If you’re just getting started, why not pick our brains for our tried and trusted tools for small businesses?
CRM
There are dozens of CRMs out there that claim to work well for small businesses. But only one has stood up to nearly every test we’ve thrown at it. And that’s Moxie. In addition to allowing us to store client information, we use it for proposals, invoicing, pipeline management, booking forms, meeting scheduling, and more.
Yes, there is a learning curve in terms of getting it set up. But the support system is incredibly robust, and we especially love the feedback mechanism. We’ve submitted multiple suggestions to make our user experience better, many of which have been implemented!
When product creators genuinely listen to their product users to enhance the product, you know it’s going to be a good investment.
Project management
Hoo boy can we say we’ve tried a bunch! Asana, Clickup, Microsoft Planner, Smartsheet, Monday, Basecamp, Miro….that’s just off the top of our heads.
For simple tasks or basic client portals, you can use Moxie! (They really weren’t kidding with their claim of being the all-in-one business management software.) But if you need something more complex, such as project dependencies, then it’s best to look elsewhere. We’ve landed on Teamwork as the perfect solution for our agency’s needs. It’s a repository for project communications, files, and to-do lists and allows us to see at-a-glance what’s coming up today, tomorrow, later this week, and beyond. Time tracking is built in, along with the ability to build in time budgets. This has been a powerful tool for us when it comes to determining pricing and ensuring that we are on the right track for pricing our work competitively, yet fairly.
We also appreciate the responsiveness of the customer service team. When we’ve had glitches with our use, they’ve looked into it immediately and kept us informed of ongoing progress. And that goes a really long way to getting our trust!
Bookkeeping
For simple bookkeeping, like a basic profit and loss statement, expense tracking, etc. — Moxie can do it all! Again! But if your needs are more complex, then we are all about that Freshbooks life. Freshbooks can even serve as a mini-CRM, handling estimates, proposals, invoicing, bookkeeping, timetracking, and more with ease.
We find Freshbooks much more intuitive than Quickbooks, Wave, Xero, and all the other accounting software out there. The dashboards are customizable, and bookkeeping is almost fun, dare we say it! Their pricing is tiered to match where you are in your business — something that was very appreciated when we were first starting out.
Workspace
Okay friends. This is where lots of people tend to diverge: Microsoft? Or Google?
When it comes to functionality, Google feels so much more intuitive and seamless. We use it for emails, meetings, calendaring, documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and so much more. Fun fact: you can use it as a meeting scheduler, e-signing tool, form builder, and more. And from an accessibility standpoint, Google Meet had their caption game going long before Zoom and other virtual meeting platforms did.
There are many other tech tools that we use in our daily work — Canva, Adobe, Slack, Dropbox, Buffer, etc. But for entrepreneurs just getting started or solopreneurs who need to get stuff done and fast, this is the short list of tools we would recommend.
Want to pick our brains more about these topics? We’re here for you! Want a referral code for extended trials or discounts on some of these products? We’ve got you too. (Though some referral codes do come with a bonus for us, FYI!)
What’s in your tech stack?
