Oct 26
1

Six reasons to use Time-Tracking Software (A Tale of Two Time-trackers)

By | Productivity, Small Business, Time Tracking, Timesheets | No Comments

As a small business owner, a freelancer or team member in a company, your time is often billable, accountable and valuable. You sell your services based on a fixed price or blocks of time. Time is thus your most critical asset, but how much of it is wasted in admin work or on projects and activities that are less profitable than others?

Meet James, a lawyer with license to practice in three different countries, which means he travels frequently and bills in different currencies. His dad was also a lawyer – back in the era when there were dinosaurs, and secretaries using voice recorders to note the beginning and end of client engagements… James, being Next Gen, uses Excel spreadsheets to track his hours, copying details across to an invoice when it’s time to bill. But he is often out and about, and forgets to track many engagements.

Meet Nicola. She heads up a web design firm and has a team of designers that work on projects for a diverse set of clients. She uses email for collaborating with her team members and Microsoft Word template for timesheet entries. She is considering upgrading to an online system that addresses the demands of her growing business.

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Sep 17
4

Productivity – New Rules of the Game

By | Productivity | No Comments

We all know that the world of work is becoming increasingly complex and competitive. Every other day a depressing new study tells us that modern work structures and processes are failing us. That we are overworked but unproductive, saturated with information, disengaged, watch too many cat videos at work, blah blah…

But why would we watch those enticing cats rather than getting work done? Are we as workers bored, tired, frustrated or simply slothful?

Productivity is the holy grail of businesses and organisations, but we seem to be seeking it in the wrong places. What makes employees more productive? Is it a finely defined process and command structure? Stringent accountability mechanisms or robust performance indicators? A lot of modern businesses focus on these key areas. But as Yves Morieux of BCG recently points out in an illuminating talk, the new frontier of productivity is cooperation – how you interact, collaborate and combine efforts with your team to go for the collective win for your business.

So it’s worthwhile to ask yourself how well you cooperate with others in pursuit of your work goals. Are your organisation’s reward and accountability mechanisms actually getting in the way of achieving your overall mission? Do you have the tools available to foster internal and external communication? Are you and your team focusing your energies on the right outlets that would enable productivity?

Avaza team recommends the following rules to enhance the productivity of your business: Read More

Sep 08
2

5 ways technology can save your next meeting

By | Productivity | No Comments

We all have been there – the pointless, unproductive meetings that hamper your workday instead of getting things done. CEOs around the world reportedly spend one-third of their time in meetings, and workers often cite meetings as the biggest time-waster at work, costing $37 Billion to the US economy alone.

Ideally, meetings should enable better work results by bringing people together to share ideas, exchange viewpoints and drive outcomes towards common goals. But disorganisation and lack of focus can quickly lead to a session where a lot is said but not much progress is made towards desired outcome.

Managers that value productivity can benefit greatly from the new generation of productivity tools out there that enable easy online collaboration for teams. If you use one for project management, you will have all your team added as collaborators in one easy place where you can assign tasks, view status updates, share documents and discuss issues.

So before your next mind-numbing meeting, remember that technology can… Read More

Jul 29
1

Avaza introduces Globalized Number & Currency support

By | Invoices, Timesheets | No Comments

We’re excited to announce support for globalized number formats in Avaza, and improved multi-currency support.

From today, users will see and enter numbers in the formats they expect in their native country, based on the language & locale selected in their browser.

e.g. langauge- locale,  number format:
de-DE:  1.254,36 (German users in Germany)
fr-Fr:     1 254,36 (French users in France)
en-US:  1,254.36 (English users in United States)

You can easily adjust the locale you see through your browser’s own settings screen. Read More

Jul 19
1

Avaza adds Stripe Payment support

By | Invoices | No Comments
We’re excited to announce support for Stripe among Avaza’s invoice payment providers.
Stripe is one of the world’s most popular payment gateways, and allows you to receive credit card payments without a merchant account.

You can now quickly link your existing Stripe account, or create a new Stripe account on the fly, and start receiving credit card payments from customers in 135+ currencies. Read More