Business owners are always looking for ways to simplify and streamline their operations. With built-in functionality like documents, sheets (spreadsheets), slides, forms, drawings, and maps, Google Drive’s usefulness to your business is only limited by your own imagination. And, if the built-in functionalities aren’t enough, there’s an ever-growing array of add-ons and templates that you can use for specific tasks and operations. Here are just
7 ways to use google drive
in your business:
1. Project management –
If you’d like to simplify your project management efforts, there are countless PM templates available online that you can copy and use. And, if a template doesn’t quite do what you’d like it to do, you can customize it to suit your own needs. Of course, you can also create your own project management spreadsheets.
2. Payroll –
This is one of the more basic tasks you can perform using Google Sheets. Of course, if you’d rather not create your own payroll sheets, there are templates available online.
3. Change orders –
If you’re working on a building project, there will be change orders. By using an add-on like
Letter Feed Workflows
, you can make changes to work order documents or sheets and get client approval in real-time.
4. Invoices –
You can create custom invoices using Google Docs, Sheets, or Forms. How simple or detailed they are is completely up to you. You can send invoices digitally using the Google Drive share feature.
5. Project journal –
This is where it gets fun as you actively engage your client in the progress of their project. Using a smartphone or other device, you can take photos depicting daily job progress. You can also enter text using the keypad or a voice-to-text app. You can also share the journal document with your client with permission to edit. This is a great way to keep the client positively engaged, and get ongoing informal approval through their feedback. When the job is finished, you can share the completed journal in PDF format as a keepsake. If you’ve done a good job for them, they’ll happily show the journal off to their friends and associates.
6. Marketing materials –
With the ability to integrate photos, charts, drawings and other imagery, Google Docs is a great tool for creating marketing materials. Then you can either have them printed out in bulk for mailing, or link to them on social media or other digital outlets.
7. Mail-merge –
Of course, suite of business tools would be complete without mail-merge capability. There are a half-dozen or so-mail merge add-ons for Google Docs.
The 7 ideas we’ve covered here for using Google Drive is really just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. As you begin to use it yourself, you’ll come up with more creative ideas on how to use it for your business. Meanwhile, we invite you to visit our blog often for more business tips and ideas. To learn how we can help grow your trade business, contact us
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