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Google Sheets or Excel – which team are you on?

June 1, 2022

Things that should be on your radar this month

1. Even with the world facing rising economic uncertainty, economists say that Australia's new government won’t be doing anything drastic, but here are a few proposed policy changes that we reckon will interest small business owners.

2. Businesses are starting to feel the pinch of rising prices, with many expected to pass these increased costs on to consumers over the next three months.

3. Even if you’re not clued into the crypto zeitgeist you’ll want to check out this timeline of the rise and spectacular fall of stablecoin Terra.

4. A quick PSA: remember to factor the rise in employer Super contributions into your forecasts for the next financial year. It’s rising from 10% to 10.5% on July 1, and will keep increasing by .5% each year until 2025.

5. Aussie startup Airtasker has been able to acquire a company called Oneflare for nearly $10m after initially being blocked by the ACCC.

Tech to help streamline your business (design edition)

Signature Hound – If you’ve been looking to spice up your email signature, this app is a great way to do it.

Coolors – Looking for inspiration for new branding before you speak to a designer? Try this app – it’s the most fun way to experiment with colour palettes we’ve ever seen.

Figma – If your team is wireframing or prototyping a website, this app is a great tool for collaborating on designs. It's perfect for Canva pros that are looking to level up.

The highs and lows of small business life

+ Okay, so we knew people have strong opinions on Google Sheets vs Excel, but when we polled our audience on LinkedIn a couple of weeks ago, we didn’t realise how many great tips would be shared in the comments.

– An important plugin for our website had been giving us trouble, and we’ve had to spend some time finding and implementing an alternative. While we know that these behind-the-scenes tasks are important in the long run, they’ve been enough of a time drain to feel tedious. But, making progress and ticking things off the list is a great excuse for champagne on a Thursday.

Productivity hacks

For those business owners still doing your own bookkeeping, have you ever crunched the numbers and worked out how many hours you *actually* spend on it?

Let’s talk notifications – because while technology is great for productivity, it’s also… not so great. Here’s two quick tips to streamline your work:

🔔 If you’ve got work notifications coming out of your ears (think email, Google Suite, Slack, collaborative design tools, etc, etc), Acapela puts them all in one inbox.

🔔 Familiarise yourself with the Do Not Disturb settings of your devices – removing distractions for a few hours could do wonders for your ability to focus. Windows has a setting called Focus Assist while Apple’s focus setting allows you to filter out certain notifications.

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It’s been a massive news month, both at home and around the world. While it’s important to understand what’s going around you, remember that it’s ok to switch off every once in a while (^^ check out those Do Not Disturb tips above).

That's just our two pennies' worth.

- Liam and Amy, co-founders of Project Alfred

(changing the way people think about accounting)

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