Best Crypto Apps For Android

Trading crypto is one of the most profitable investments in the financial market at this time. While trading crypto is seen as the next gold mine, there are some instruments that traders have adopted. One such is the usage of the perfect crypto app to carry out their trading activities. In this article, we will be looking at the best crypto apps for Androids.

Changelly

Like the web version of the exchange, the Changelly mobile app allows traders to monitor their assets in real-time. The app also provides users with a wide range of services that are available on the website. Asides from offering support to 200+ cryptos, the Bitcoin app for Android charges just 0.25% for exchanging from one crypto to another.

The user interface is easy to use, and new traders can get the hang of it in no time. The mobile app also has support on standby 24/7 to help with user’s complaints.

eToro

The eToro crypto trading app is one of the best across the world. With a user base spanning millions, this crypto app for Android allows traders to buy and sell digital assets. But the offer is limited: eToro supports only a tiny amount of digital assets such as Bitcoin, Ripple, and Ethereum.

Asides from its simple and user-friendly interface, the app charges low fees for transactions as opposed to most crypto apps. Traders are not mandated to pay any fees if they want to deposit or buy tokens. However, the platform charges traders $5 for withdrawals on the app, a downside, according to traders and analysts.

Binance

Founded in 2017, Binance is regarded as one of the biggest and best trading platforms worldwide. This is because it covers a vast number of tokens. In 2018, Binance was the biggest platform globally, with $1.3 billion in market capitalization.

Not only is the Binance app user-friendly, but it also offers its users tutorials on how to begin trading. One thing that sets it apart is that it provides users with a three-way method to deposit their tokens. Traders can use the Bank deposit, peer-to-peer, or credit/debit card options to buy their tokens.

Coinbase

Even though it is very popular, Coinbase offers traders less crypto to trade compared to Binance. Just like Binance, crypto newbies are treated to a tutorial to help them hit the ground running.

Despite its popularity, the app charges a fairly higher withdrawal fee than the three listed crypto apps for Android above. Its user interface is very intuitive and helps new traders get accustomed to the app quickly. In this first quarter of this year, the crypto app saw a revenue of $4.03 billion, with $2.36 billion being its profit. Presently, Coinbase boasts of a user base of over 50 million across the world.

The Bottom Line

Even though most traders prefer to trade digital assets on their computers, it is without a doubt that most traders want the ease of using their mobile phones. The comfort of mobile user experience can never be overemphasized. If a trader needs to make a swift decision regarding his assets, a Bitcoin app for Android will come in handy, allowing you to easily adjust the crypto strategy on the go.

Types of Surveying and International Comparisons

Introduction

Cross-national surveys refer to studies in which different countries are compared and therefore require the design, implementation, and organization of the study to be comparable. It is important that researchers make additional considerations when conducting cross-national surveys so as to account for the social and cultural settings of different participant groups. A translation agency can assist by providing valid text for cross cultural interpretation. By doing so, the internal validity of the study increases and any differences in cross-cultural comparisons that are found can be attributed to actual differences rather than methodological flaws.

Within this article, we will explore the ways in which researchers accommodate certain social and cultural settings when they design sampling schemes, construct surveys using survey software, and select modes of data collection. 

Sampling

When sampling in cross-national studies, it is important that researchers carefully select the data their sampling design will be based on. The following are three reliable sources of data that can be used:

Census Data

Census data is useful to use when the countries being compared in the study have census data that is reliable and easily available. Census data not only helps generate macro-level demographic statistics but also makes it possible to create a list of individuals within the population.

Resident Registers

This data source is a good option for countries where resident registration is compulsory. Resident registers will generally provide data that is more current and up-to-date when compared with census data that may become obsolete more quickly.

Voter Registers

In some countries, the percentage of registered voters within the voting age population is high enough to provide comprehensive population data for sampling. In such countries, voter registers can be used as a source to base the sampling design. It is crucial to note that in highly mobile societies, voter registers can become obsolete quickly, and for such societies, resident registers may be more suited.

Questionnaire Design

Designing a questionnaire for cross-national surveys is generally a tedious process as these designs must be modified to take into consideration the different circumstances in countries that differ in their political, economic, cultural, and social settings. This is especially crucial when conducting market research studies using market research software.

Terms and Concepts

One of the most complex problems to solve in order to achieve comparability across cross-national fieldwork are linguistic idiosyncrasies. Literal translations of questionnaires are likely to be counterproductive when trying to achieve equivalence within a survey. If the language employed cannot achieve equivalence, it will threaten the validity of the research.

Skilled researchers appoint both qualitative and quantitative methods to achieve equivalence of meaning and measurement in different languages. The systematic method of translation has two minimum requirements:

  • Detailed annotation of the source of the questionnaire
  • Iterative back-translation

Measurement and Response Categories

Beyond concepts and terms, other aspects of questionnaire design also require careful planning in international surveys. Measurements and response categories must be carefully decided after the pretesting of different numerical scales across different countries. Certain scales may seem unfamiliar or confusing to the people of one country while being completely familiar to those in another country.

Another issue associated with the point scaling system has to do with the cultural values and social norms that differ between societies. Cross-national variations can cause varying response patterns among countries, reinforcing the importance of thoughtful design, practice, and interpretation of cross-national surveys.

Modes of Data Collection using Surveys

There are many different modes of data collection that researchers can use including mail surveys, CATI surveys, internet surveys, and face-to-face surveys; each having its own strengths and limitations. the different factors researchers must consider while choosing a mode of data collection are as follows

● Questionnaire Length and Content

Internet surveys are generally effective for short and basic surveys. However, if the survey is too long or complex, respondents may choose to drop out. Therefore, in more long and complex surveys, other modes that have a moderator or interviewer present, such as telephone surveys or face-to-face interviews, are more appropriate.

● Country

 Certain modes work better in certain countries, For instance, in countries with large populations of illiterate residents, where telecommunications is tedious, face-to-face interviews are most appropriate.

● Costs

With technological advancements, the use of face-to-face surveys continues to decrease as other modes of surveying become easier to use and more affordable. Cost is usually a major factor that is considered when making a decision about which survey mode to employ.

21 Must-Have SaaS Tools For Businesses

SaaS services are an integral part of everyone’s daily life. We use SaaS much more often than we think. And the convenience, simplicity, cost-effectiveness, and other advantages of SaaS gain the trust of consumers without having to explain their complex structure and philosophy of the model. 

In this article, we decided to look into how SaaS companies can help businesses and share a list of SaaS solutions that are most popular with entrepreneurs.

According to market research, the SaaS market is projected to reach $716.52 billion by 2028.

What Is SaaS?

Software as a service, or SaaS, is one of the three main categories of cloud computing and is the most common among consumer-level products.

Gmail, Google Docs, and Microsoft Office 365 are SaaS, providing productivity applications over the Internet. With this platform, you can learn how to sign a Word document digitally, simplifying the process of handling official approvals and document workflows.

For businesses, there are SaaS tools for sales management, call management, customer feedback collection, customer relationship management, financial management, customer experience surveys, human resources management, subscription management and recurring billing, market research, staff interaction…

In fact, anything. SaaS applications are used by a range of IT professionals services and business users, as well as executives at various levels.

In 2020-2021, the need to distance put a strain on the social behavior of people, as well as the characteristics of business and production processes. Cloud technology, already growing rapidly in recent years, has received a tremendous push to develop and improve.

Pros and Cons of SaaS

Advantages

SaaS is very popular because it has many advantages. They include:

  • Updates. Software hosted on a server can be updated centrally, unlike the traditional model in which the software would need to be updated on each machine. In other words, SaaS can be easily maintained with the latest version of the software at all times;
  • Hardware. With the software running on the server, individual PCs don’t have to be updated to meet hardware requirements, and there are no issues with not meeting minimum requirements;
  • Costs. With a subscription model, acquisition costs are reduced for businesses. In addition, users can be added on an as-needed monthly basis so businesses can expand;
  • Rapid deployment. Because the software doesn’t need to be installed and configured on individual computers, it can be deployed much faster with SaaS;
  • Accessibility. The SaaS application requires only a browser and an Internet connection to access it, allowing users to log in from anywhere. In addition, user data is stored in the cloud and is not tied to an individual user’s PC, making it easy to collaborate with other users.

Disadvantages 

Despite the advantages of SaaS, there are also some disadvantages:

  • Data security. For sensitive data, in the healthcare or legal spheres, confidential information goes outside the company’s server, which raises issues of access control, privacy, and security;
  • Slow performance. Depending on the speed of your Internet connection and other necessary resources, a SaaS app may run slower than if the software runs locally;
  • Lack of integration. With SaaS, there are fewer opportunities to integrate the software with other programs (compared to the traditional software).

For many companies, the pros have outweighed the cons, and there is a trend toward running more software through SaaS with a cloud computing model.

Must-Have SaaS Tools For Businesses

Since it can be costly to manage your own tools for many tasks in your business, consider the top SaaS tools below.

EmailAnalytics

If your team uses email to communicate, then you need EmailAnalytics. The app visualizes your team’s email activity, showing you essential metrics like emails received, sent, and average email response time.

This enables sales and customer service teams to track and improve response time. In fact, EmailAnalytics customers respond 42.5% faster than non-EmailAnalytics customers, on average. That leads to a 16% increase in sales and 100% happier customers (who doesn’t like faster responses, right?).

EmailAnalytics features:

  • Daily/weekly/monthly email reports
  • Data benchmarks
  • Fast & easy team onboarding

Cost: 14-day free trial, then starting at $5/user per month.

Quickbooks

This is one of the most popular services for automating accounting. Entrepreneurs choose it because it works with popular CRM systems, tracks profits and losses, prints receipts, counts taxes, and collects balance sheets. Suitable for small companies who need an accounting system that meets their needs.

QuickBooks Online offers the most efficient, comprehensive, and useful tools. In addition, its flexibility and extensibility often surpass most Quickbooks alternatives.

Cost: by subscription from $12.95 per month. (30-day trial period)

LeadsBridge

LeadsBridge is an iPaaS solution that enables companies to enhance their omnichannel strategy by orchestrating their business data.

LeadsBridge fulfills your integration needs, focusing on bridging gaps between advertising platforms and sales funnels, and delivering tailor-made integrations made upon your business needs.

The LeadsBridge platform is suited for companies that want to streamline their advertising activities by integrating the marketing technology stack with Facebook & Instagram Ads, Google Ads, and LinkedIn Ads.

With more than +370 out-of-the-box integrations available at the moment, you can easily connect your chosen software with your advertising platform, seamlessly synchronizing data for your marketing workflows.

LeadsBridge main features include:

  • Lead Sync
  • Audience Targeting
  • Online to Offline Tracking
  • Platform to Platform
  • eCommerce Synchronization
  • Tailor-Made integration

LeadBridge offers a free trial for all four paid plans when billed monthly or annually. Paid plans start at just  $29 with the self-service platform that offers up to 1.5k leads/mo.

RecurPost

RecurPost is a social media scheduler you can use to upload fresh content, which will be published instantly.

As a social media planner, they provide all the resources you require to keep your social media accounts active, whether you choose to use applications when on the go, our Chrome plugin while you browse, or regular schedules.

Features:

  • Bulk scheduling
  • White label reports
  • Content marketing
  • Royalty free images

Cost: RecurPost offers a 14-day free trial and their least expensive package runs around $12.50 a month.

EngageBay

EngageBay is a HubSpot alternative for startups, solopreneurs and small businesses. Since some of the popular marketing automation and CRM solutions can get really expensive for small firms, EngageBay was launched in 2017 as a one-stop alternative to get marketing, sales, and customer support tasks streamlined and automated.

About 30,000 business owners have tried EngageBay and the reviews are often great.  The platform comes in handy when you need email templates, a landing page builder, canned or automated responses, a free integrated Live Chat widget for all your website pages, and real-time visual sales reports.

EngageBay features:

  • Automation workflows with custom nodes
  • Email & Landing page builder with templates
  • Facebooks ads, social suite for customer tracking
  • Video marketing
  • Customer Support tickets and groups

Cost: Free plan lasts forever; paid plans start at $7.79/month.

Sked Social

Sked Social is an Instagram-first social media scheduler, giving you tools that get you the most out of Instagram, and faster.

It’s perfect for brands that are visually-led, and it can be used anywhere from simple ‘set and forget’ bulk posting to full social attribution tracking, lead generation, content creation, and UGC (user-generated content) sourcing.

Sked Social’s features include:

  • Drag ‘n’ drop visual planner to perfect your grid
  • Queue for set and forget posts that will go live at your best time to post
  • Hashtag and creator search to instantly find trends and UGC
  • Built in customizable link in bio tool, so your links are always on brand
  • Workflows and collaboration for agencies and freelancers that make it easy to work across teams and with clients
  • In-built canva and image editing so you create and post without leaving your dashboard
  • 7+ other social media channels to cross-post to

Planly

Planly is an innovative social media scheduling tool that simplifies the process of planning and publishing content across various social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok, Twitter, Pinterest, and YouTube. Designed for businesses of all sizes, Planly allows you to manage and schedule your social media posts from a single dashboard. 

Features:

  • Powerful team collaboration features
  • Comprehensive social media analytics
  • Exceptional customer support
  • AI-powered content creation
  • HD video upload

Pricing:

  • 14-Day Free Trial
  • Individual: $15/month
  • Team: $40/month
  • Agency: $80/month

InVideo

InVideo is a video-making platform that has 1.5 million users from 190 countries. It provides the convenience of online video editors directly to your browser. It’s perfect for making video advertising, promo videos, and social media videos, among other things. 4000+ designs, quality stock media, text boxes, and more are included with InVideo. The absence of an InVideo watermark on the free plan is a great way to start.

Features of InVideo Editor include:

  • 4,000+ customized pre-made templates including the social media calendar
  • 8M+ iStock and 1M+ Shutterstock Photos
  • Easily convert articles to Video
  • Easily cut, crop, crop, composite, and brand your work.
  • Text-to-speech for accent free voiceovers
  • Live chat support and online community

Available for: Windows, Mac, and iPad (on popular desktop-based browsers)

Hubspot

HubSpot is a solution for automating marketing and sales tasks. It is a service that covers all the areas of Internet marketing, and it is a universal solution in this area.

The service includes tools for blogging, social media, SEO, email marketing automation, 8 Best Free Digital Marketing Tools for Businesses in 2021content management, and landing pages. So instead of hiring an SEO consultant or content marketer to do everything for you, you can use this tool and it will be of great help. Hubspot can also help you conduct surveys but you can opt for an omnichannel survey software instead.

HubSpot offers the company to work in several directions simultaneously: attracting attention, converting leads into sales, and generating reports.

HubSpot features:

  • Integrated CRM system;
  • Form and landing page designer;
  • Detailed reporting;
  • Tracking of leads;
  • Collaborative work.
  • SMS automation via integration

Cost: free, premium version is required when connecting with the site. Many people find Huspot’s free offering is too limited so it may be worthwhile to check Hubspot Alternatives to find lower priced options.

Antavo Loyalty Management Platform

Antavo is an API-centric, no-code loyalty technology provider that creates complete, enterprise-grade loyalty programs for brands, merchants, and shopping malls to nurture brand love and impact customer behavior. Antavo supercharges omnichannel and eCommerce organizations’ marketing strategies with a scalable and holistic loyalty logic that offers a next-level shopping experience with best-in-class in-store capabilities.

Antavo is a ‘pure-play’ loyalty service provider that has been recognized by Gartner and Forrester for its strong emphasis on a comprehensive, but complex loyalty system. The firm is a great innovator, not just generating new features for its software but also producing new products for the retail space.

Antavo features a simple and smooth integration with corporate solutions thanks to the API layer. Its system provides a robust set of tools for managing all aspects of a sophisticated loyalty program in a consistent manner. Customers may design their own program, manage membership categories, provide rewards, use gamification and non-transactional components, and ultimately boost customer lifetime value.

Service now

The popularity of the ServiceNow platform is gaining momentum every year. It is like a snow avalanche: good applications and new technologies raise the interest of users and spur developers to make their product even better.

This is a service that supports all key ITSM (Information Technology Service Management) processes. Importantly, the architecture of the solution is designed for high loads, so it works without interruptions.

Cost: by subscription (there is a trial period).

SelfCAD

SelfCAD is an easy to use 3D modeling software for beginners and professionals. Though it’s main target is freelance designers, professionals and hobbyists, it’s also a great tool for businesses for creating advertising 3D materials and realistic renders much easily without even having to hire  professionals to do it for them. There is also the interactive tutorial feature that businesses can use to bring their new employees onboard much quickly and easily.

Costy: by Subscription (there is a trial period)

Stripe

Stripe is an international system for secure Internet payments with plastic cards, in other words, a good counterpart to PayPal. Although it took some time for Stripe to catch up to PayPal, it now has millions of customers. Stripe meets international security standards, with PCI Level 1 certification, which is the highest level of certification in the payments industry. A convenient service is gaining popularity among giants as well (SAP, Kickstarter, Facebook, UNICEF, and others).

Features:

  • Subscription features are simple;
  • Reports are clear and transparent;
  • Fixed price;
  • Advanced reporting features to help you track your sales.

Cost: 2.9% + USD $0.3 per transaction.

Shopify

A Canadian platform that allows you to create your own online stores.

Since its launch, the platform has quickly grown from a small player to one of the leading eCommerce solutions next to BigCommerce, Volusion, Magento, or WooCommerce.

It’s easy to work with, requires no knowledge of code, so suitable for private entrepreneurs as well.

Cost: by subscription, from USD $29 per month. There is a trial period of 14 days.

Zoho

A set of useful office tools: free online document editors, a set of integrated business applications, a user administration, data analytics, and a data backup system. It is the choice of those who need everything at once.

Cost: free trial period of 15 days (then custom).

Many people are familiar with this corporate messenger.

The purpose of the service is to optimize team communication and facilitate interaction between departments. Slack is suitable for companies from different spheres: creative agencies, development teams, education, financial services, production, sales, and other areas. Thanks to Slack integration with many programs and services, it allows a company to create a full-fledged working environment.

Integrated with Google Drive, Office 365, and other useful business platforms.

Cost: from USD $6.67 per month.

Friday

Looking to work asynchronously and buid a better culture at work? Friday helps you make the office optional. Add daily standups, weekly check-ins, and one-on-ones in a regular way without having another meeting. You can now embrac flexible work without the fatigue of more video calls. It’s a perfect complement to Slack. You can also add the Friday planner and be productive as an individual employee, too.

Integrates with Zoom, Slack, Google Calendar, Microsoft Outlook, Trello, Asana, and more.

Cost: Free to $9 per month/person

Mailchimp

Mailchimp is a marketing optimization platform, but its most useful function for businesses is free email newsletters and their further analytics. Everything a marketer needs, from recipient segmentation and click maps to spam checking.

Cost: free (a basic package), other packages from USD $9.99 per month.

Intercom

A successful service for communicating with customers (Intercom collaborates with Slack, so you won’t lose anyone). Targeted and delayed messages, A/B tests, integration with Hubspot, Shopify, and others.

Cost: after a trial period (14 days) from USD $49 per month.

Docusign

One of the most popular services for creating electronic signatures. With just a few clicks, you can sign and submit any document for signature directly from Gmail and Chrome. No need to print, fax, scan, or send documents via express mail.

Docusign is trusted by millions of people in 188 countries. It’s used in virtually every field, including finance, law, recruiting, sales, real estate, healthcare, etc.

Cost: From USD $10 per user.

Zoom

The COVID-19 forced many organizations to move to a remote-first model. Companies quickly realized that a video-conferencing platform was no longer a nice-to-have, but a need-to-have.

From standard conference calls, to virtual lunch and learns, and even hosting virtual holiday parties, Zoom has proven to be the best-in-class video conferencing software for organizations operating in a remote-first or hybrid model.

Cost: Free then starting at $14.99 USD per month per license.

UserGuiding

UserGuiding is an all-in-one user training and onboarding tool for web products and websites. Without any coding, you can create a wide range of interactive UX elements such as product tours, tooltips, checklists, resource centers and more.

You can group users with custom segmentation and analyze the performance of your user onboarding material with in-depth analytics.

And not just for new users too, with UserGuiding’s newest extension UG Now, you can create interactive tutorials for your employees on all your tech stack.

Cost: after a trial period (14 days) from USD $99 per month.

WiseStamp Signature Manager

If your business has an email output in the tens or more daily, then you should be using WiseStamp. This email signature management software lets businesses of any size create a great looking business email signature and assign it to any number of employees with just a few clicks.

Email signature management will allow your business to control your branding in all your email campaign communication. You can choose to create unique signatures by job post or department.  Another useful feature is the possibility to assign editing privileges to team leaders. This lets them run email signature marketing campaigns that target the specific goals of their department (such as recrutement link for HR, and Demo signup link for Sales).

WiseStamp is integrated with cloud based information processing tool providers like Microsoft Office 365 and Google Workspace.

WiseStamp features:

  • Email signature generator
  • Office 365 signature management
  • G Suite  signature management
  • User directory integration
  • Signature segmentation
  • Email signature click tracking

Cost: 14-day free trial, then $2/user per month.

Flatlogic Generator

The future is in low code. Cloud-based web applications just like any web service tool can be built without wasting time with custom code or extra syntax, but with the help of Flatlogic generator. Web app generator gives you the real toolkit to create your fullstack apps.

How it works: you define the appropriate model of your software creating a skeleton with the right stack, front-end and back-end, and an appropriate database. Flatlogic handles deployment and hosting for you. There is no need to download and install the final result, because everything is available online.

Cost: From USD $19 per project.

Timely

Timely is an automated time-tracking tool that also lets you track projects, monitor budgets, and view team performance all in one software. With Timely, you can examine past costs, tasks and turnarounds to set competitive rates and improve future project profitability and efficiency. Timely prioritizes privacy in its functionality, giving each team member their own private work timeline so they can control what information is displayed publicly. And with automatic time-tracking and timesheet app, your team can focus less on daily admin tasks — and more on the work itself.

Cost: Starts at $8 per user per month when billed annually.

Conclusion

In these times of information overload, choosing effective channels of communication with job candidates, working on resumes, growing teams of remote employees, partners, or even potential clients is a key to improving team productivity and overall project success.

We hope these SaaS solutions will be useful to your business and justify their popularity.

What Makes No-Code Software Development Tools a Better Option?

As far as the creation of software applications is concerned, there is a new movement. This movement is triggered by the invention and spread of a new kind of software application creation tool.

With easy-to-use no-code software development tools such as this platform, coming up with a website, mobile app, and other digital operating systems has never been so easy. This among other reasons is why people are gradually beginning to make the most of it.

But in addition to this, other things seem to make the use of these software creation tools a better choice. We will shed more light on this here and advise that you keep reading.

Why No-Code Software Development Tools Should be Considered

There are various schools of thought as regards the use of these easy-to-use software development tools. Some consider it far less than what traditionally designed software creation techniques can offer.

On the other hand, the school of thought on the other end of the continuum believes that No-code software development tools bring a lot to the table. This is as long as the right option is engaged among the various options available. Well, we share the same opinion with the latter and these are some of the reasons:

You Can do More in Less Time

Traditionally creating a new software application is not a small task. Even the simplest functioning website, mobile app, online portal, or any other digital operating system requires a lot of work at creation.

Aside from a tiring amount of coding that goes into the creation, designing of the back-end and other things are involved. Well, you have a lifesaver in no-code software development tools.

This is because you do not have to do all the IT rituals associated with traditionally creating a software application. You only need to make use of the ideal template and things take shape from thereon.

For those eager to hear how fast no-code software development tools can help out, you should know that you can create something functional in a matter of minutes.

Frequent Upgrades

The school of thought that believes these tools are not up to the task mostly holds on to the fact that upgrades might be a problem. Well, this is far from the truth. This is considering how many of the service providers that offer these tools are great in this regard.

Although there are some below-par service providers, to be frank, this is not a general problem. This is why identifying and working with the right option is of utmost importance. You will have no problem in this regard if you can make sure of this.

A Wide Range of Amazing Options

People that undermine no-code software development tools fail to realize or admit that there are many amazing options to consider. This is in the form of templates that can be converted to your desired software application in the long run.

This is not what you get when you traditionally develop a software application or have someone do so for you. You would have to think long and hard about what should be integrated into the general design. On the other hand, you already have so many amazing options and only need to make choices with no-code software development tools.

You Save More Money

We stressed above that traditionally designing a software application is time-consuming. What could take you days traditionally designing a software application, can take a few minutes with these easy-to-use tools.

As a result, you would discover that it is money saving. But this is not the only side to it as hiring a developer to traditionally design a software application can be expensive. So, you might have to make good use of this option when the need arises.

Conclusion

Software developers are still very much useful. This is because there are some complex software application creation tasks that they cannot handle for now. But this is only for the time being as service providers that make these tools available are getting better by the day.

Should you need to have especially a simple software application up and running, we suggest that you make good use of No-code software development tools. This is considering the several benefits they have to offer as discussed here and even more.

Trends and Tools for Call Center Automation

While the pandemic impacted call center operations, their services are vital to keeping businesses going. The technological advances in machine learning, artificial intelligence, and robotic processes automation help continue customer care. In addition, call center automation is increasing at a more rapid pace. Thus, companies must ensure that they implement best practices for a smooth-flowing operation. 

Shifting from a traditional to an automated business process is challenging. There should be a balance between your customer service automation approach and humans. Tools are meant to facilitate workflows and help humans improve their productivity and efficiency. However, you cannot remove the human factor in call center operations because customer service (CX) deals with humans. 

Implementing Intelligent Automation

The most important best practice in call center automation is to balance the core service goals and the key performance indicators (KPIs) with automation. The primary goals are to improve operational efficiency and the experiences of customers continually. In addition, the company must know when to deploy AI-powered virtual assistants and employ human interaction with your live agents to achieve these goals. 

Smart Dialing System

Today, a very effective tool for contact centers is a cloud predictive dialer, an automated, cloud-based automated dialer that determines when an agent will soon be available. According to the performance of the agents, a predictive dialer detects when an agent is about to end a call and puts the next call through. Thus, the system places many phone calls, drops unanswered calls, and immediately routes the call to the agent ready to take the call. The result is improved efficiency and performance for the center’s agents.  

Automated Interactions

The term refers to any CX tool that lets a customer talk to a program instead of a human. This is a better option than a customer being put on hold and forced to listen to annoying music, which frustrates customers. You can reduce their frustration and potentially gain more customers by using automated software with advanced voice recognition technology to enhance customer experience

Workflow Automation

A myriad of mundane and simple yet repetitive tasks take time to complete. You can maximize the time agents spend on their actual functions with automation software that can quickly organize customers’ accounts and other paperwork and make it easy to do follow-up tasks such as call logging, emails, and invoicing. Often a workflow automation program is AI-powered, which helps reduce errors.

Guidance for Agents

This call center automation tool allows agents to get a customer’s information as soon as they call in. During the call, the program’s multifunctional user interface lets the agent look up the details of the customer’s account, history of payments, purchases, and other relevant information that can assist the agent in helping the customer. In addition, there is automation software that can create call scripts to help respond to customers’ requests, which can lead to positive reviews.

Post-Call Analytics

Today, most businesses use analytics to improve their services, understand customer behaviors, and provide vital information for the company. For example, use automated call center software that will store transcripts and record other essential individual call information.

Summary

Automation is part of today’s modern businesses. Automation is vital, but it will be more effective if you can balance automation and better performance from your employees with empowering tools and best practices. 

What Are the Best Android Applications for Editing Photos?

Snapping photos is something we all do regularly using our smartphones. Every single smartphone out there processes images differently as well as produces photos that may not appeal to everyone. For instance, some smartphones may capture photos with higher saturation levels, while others may capture warmer tones as compared to what the scene really looked like. This is where editing the photos you take comes in very much in handy.

Irrespective of if you have the best flagship smartphone that money can buy, or a more affordable phone, editing photos in the way you like them is very important. Specifically, if you plan on posting your photos on social media platforms, as it’s vital to give them a good look in order to make them attractive. To do so, you’ll need a good photo editor and we’re here to help you with just that. Here are some of the best photo editor apps for Android to help you make your photos look the way that you want them to.

Adobe Apps

Price: Free / Up to around $52.99 per month

Adobe has released a tonne of editing tools over the last number of years. Included in the package are some of the best photo editor apps which are available. Some of the choices include the following:

  • Adobe Photoshop Express,
  • Adobe Photoshop Mix, as well as
  • Adobe Lightroom.

Each one of these apps has a variety of features to assist you to do things. You’ll have the ability to do simple stuff such as removing red-eye to editing RAW files that have been taken by your smartphone or DSLR camera.

In particular, Adobe Lightroom gets updated rather frequently with new features. The only possible caveat is that some of the apps need an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription in order to utilize all of the features. Those who use Adobe CC already should definitely just get these since they’re included with a CC subscription anyway.

Snapseed

Price: Free

The Snapseed is available on iOS and Android and is best for advanced photo editing on a mobile device.

Google’s Snapseed packs a punch, surpassing desktop photo editors with its massive range of features as well as an intuitive interface. Just as you’d expect, this free photo editing app comes with a wide range of pre-set filters. However, as opposed to most apps you are able to edit these filters and even create your own from scratch so you can play on Android as much as you like.

Snapseed has all of the classic tools, such as cropping, straightening, frames, text and vignettes. And the sharpening element does the job without making the image appear grainy. Then, things become interesting.

Snapseed has precision masking, which gives you the ability to edit the depth of field – photographers frequently do this to make the background blurry and bring the foreground even more into focus. In addition, there’s a “Selective Adjust” tool. This allows you select a particular area of your photo and adjust the saturation, contrast as well as brightness of that single point. What’s more, the photo editor app saves your edit history, so you are able to amend your previous edits at any point.

VSCO

VSCO is basically like a social media app however just for photos. It’s almost like Pinterest in the sense that users are able to post their photographs for other VSCO users to look at and appreciate.

Apart from being a network to share your images, VSCO has an in-built photo editor which works well for basic edits in terms of lighting as well as colours, just like Lightroom. You are able to modify the brightness, contrast, saturation in addition to hue levels of an image together with sharpening it or adding some grain.

5 Reasons to Build Your Own PC

For some buying a ready-made computer is an easy route, but have you considered building your computer from scratch? Many people are doing it today, and it comes with a lot of perks. You can customize your PC just as you like it and have it running in no time. 

Here are five reasons why we think building your PC is a smart choice.

1. It is Cost Efficient

If you are building from scratch, you will be spending less than what you would when getting a pre-built system. You can choose what parts you want to be included and work with your budget. Sometimes, it will cost less than 300 bucks to build a regular-use computer.

With this type of computer, you can do basic things like streaming videos, browsing the web, and sending emails.  For a gaming PC, you can also spend as little as between $300-$400 for an entry-level type. If you want a good 1080p display, you will be spending a little over $600, but it can still be cheaper than a pre-built system.

2. Access to Easier Upgrades

When building your own PC, it’s ideal for you to know all the parts in a PC and their functions. And with that knowledge, you can also easily upgrade your PC if you build it yourself. You know how the parts were installed and how to replace them. 

However, for a pre-built system, it’s likely that you’ll take much longer to get upgrade components, and you will need to pay more to have someone do the upgrade. The cost of upgrading a custom-built PC is cheaper.

3. You Have the Option to Get High-Quality Parts

Most people trust branded logos to deliver quality, but they don’t know that the pre-built systems do not always come with the highest quality parts. Oftentimes, PC manufacturers will use low-quality components like hard drives, power supplies, RAM, and other materials to build their computers. The reason they will use cheaper parts is so they can maximize profits. If you build your PC, you can choose to use only high-quality components for it, such as solid state drives from Boost Hardware.

4. You Can Customize Your PC

Building your PC gives you complete control over the design. You can select parts based on your preference and what you need your PC for. If you want a PC with high graphics for streaming videos or playing games, it will be your choice. You don’t need to buy a new computer; you can always change the components and swap parts from your existing PC. 

When you build your PC, you can decide to make custom decisions when choosing parts like memory controller, power supply, motherboard, monitor, graphics cards, and other components.

5. You Can Choose Your Operating System

You also have a choice to switch to a suitable operating system. Pre-built systems come with a specific operating system, and most times, it isn’t always the best one. Getting a pre-built system leaves you in the same boat with the everyday glitch issues, broken files, and other common complaints people make using that product.  

When you build your PC, you don’t have any limitations or restrictions when it comes to operating systems. You can’t be coerced into running a Windows 10. You can choose the operating system you feel most comfortable with and even try entirely new software.

6 Tips for Successful Delivery Route Planning: How to Plan and Optimize Deliveries

When your business operations involve delivering products to customers, you need to ensure the delivery process runs as smoothly and efficiently as possible. That begins with planning. 

Here are six helpful tips to help you plan and optimize your deliveries.

1. Use a Route Planning App

 If your company is still using manual planning tools like pen and paper or spreadsheets, you need to get with the times. A manual approach is time-consuming, can cause errors, and makes it difficult to scale operations.

On the other hand, using advanced routing software alleviates such problems and comes with plenty of benefits. When a route planning app is used to plan and run all of your deliveries, you can find the best routes, predict traffic problems in real-time, keep up with the latest weather conditions, and much more.

`Check out these best delivery route planner apps to find the best one for your company. You won’t regret it.

2. Consider More Than Just the Time it Takes to Drive a Route

While it’s much easier to create smooth delivery route plans when you use a dedicated app, you still need to think about all those things that contribute to the delivery service running to its optimum performance. 

ittle things could be overlooked. For instance, you need to account for different variables that affect delivery times, not just focus on how long journey times are. Drivers must be given sufficient time to unload items, enter buildings, complete paperwork, and so on

 Service time must be included in your delivery time calculations to make sure the delivery times are realistic and everything runs smoothly.

3. Choose Strategic Transshipment Points

Having transshipment points is essential for most delivery services. You can enhance the efficiency of your operations if those transshipment points are planned well. Consider the locations of the points carefully to find out which locations are impractical and which provide the optimal opportunities.

4. Consider Small Details to Optimize Your Delivery Route Plan

You need to find optimal delivery routes if you want your deliveries to run on time and error-free, but that goes beyond simply finding the shortest routes. You need to know how long routes take at different times of day, as a route could take a lot longer during rush hour.

You also need to look at whether there are ways of cutting down route times further or if you can meet delivery windows consistently. By considering each detail, you can create the most successful delivery route plan.

5. Choose the Delivery Options That Work Best for Your Company

While you certainly have the opportunity of growing your business and creating loyal and happy customers by offering a wide variety of delivery options, such as same day, next day, and morning or afternoon options, providing all of those options isn’t always a good idea.

Determine which delivery options you should provide for customers by examining your infrastructure and working out which options make the most financial and practical sense. Make cost optimization your priority and you will soon be able to discern whether providing more delivery options is worth it.

6. Collect and Analyze Data to Improve Your Delivery Service

You should continually monitor your delivery operations to identify any issues and look for ways for improvement. It’s easy to do that when you use delivery route software because you have all of the information at your fingertips.

Make sure you collect and analyze data so you can learn and make any changes to alleviate problems. For example, if there’s always a delay at the start of one route, you can quickly figure out what is causing that delay and take steps to solve it.

The 6 Best Accounting Apps to Keep Your Finances in Check

Conducting business off your cell phone is becoming standard practice these days. It’s a fast-paced world, and there are always ways to save time.

With accounting apps, you’re no longer bound to the office to manage our books. You can record expenses and revenue on the device you carry everywhere you go – your cell phone. 

These six different accounting softwares make it easier than ever to keep your finances in check. Combining simplicity and functionality, these apps are designed for busy entrepreneurs on the go.

Quickbooks Accounting

QuickBooks is one of the most popular online accounting systems. Their long list of apps cover all bases when it comes to financial tracking. From managing employee payroll to invoicing, QuickBooks has an app for everything.

QuickBooks gives you a real-time cash flow analysis that you can pass on to your accountant to make financial statements and taxation a breeze. Keep all your invoices, quotes, expenses and revenue in one place and record as you go.

Price: Free for the basic version. In-app upgrades start at $9.99 per month.

Download on iOS or Android.

Refrens Accounting:

Refrens is a versatile invoicing and payment collection platform specifically designed for freelancers, small businesses, and agencies. With Refrens, you can create invoices, manage projects, and track expenses—all from a single app. Additionally, it offers options for payment collection and project tracking, ensuring seamless accounting management on the go. Its simplicity and effective tools make it a top choice for entrepreneurs who want to keep their finances in order without hassle.

Price: Free for the basic version. Premium plans start at $2 per month.
Download on iOS or Android.

Xero Mobile Accounting

Xero is a multi-award-winning accounting software for small to medium businesses. With the highest user rating among accounting apps, Xero took out the top spot as the best overall accounting software in 2021.

Xero Mobile Accounting is an app with extensive capabilities, enabling you to send quotes and invoices, reconcile bank accounts, acquire receivables faster, monitor expenses and stay on top of your bills. Xero is the leading choice of software for accountants, with a certification program providing exclusive access to extra perks for proficient accountants.

Price: Free for the basic version. In-app upgrades start at $29.99.

Download on iOS or Android.

FreshBooks Accounting

FreshBooks thought of everything when they developed their mobile accounting app. Taking the hard work out of accounting practices, FreshBooks Accounting covers all the essential tasks such as invoicing, expense tracking and bill payments in one easy-to-use app.

One of the most impressive features of the FreshBooks Accounting app is the mileage tracker that records your distance as you drive. The mileage tracker categorizes your business trips and displays your potential tax deduction from accrued mileage. Gone are the days of logbooks and receipts; FreshBooks mileage tracker reduces business admin and improves recordkeeping accuracy.   

Price: Free for the basic version. In-app upgrades start at $14.99 per month.

Download on iOS or Android.

Zoho Books Accounting

For simple and efficient accounting on the go, you can’t go past ZoHo Books Accounting. With less time spent shuffling papers and punching calculators, you’ll have more time to spend on your business.

Send invoices, record expenses, and categorize bill payments from your phone, iPad, or Apple watch. ZoHo also lets you invite your accountant to analyze your numbers without having to meet you in person. No matter what currency you’re working with or how many users need access, ZoHo meets the needs of anyone looking to improve their accounting processes.

Price: Free for the basic version. In-app upgrades start at $8.99 per month.

Download on iOS or Android.

Book Keeper Accounting

Book Keeper Accounting is an ideal accounting app for small to medium-sized businesses. Users love the simple interface that supports all their accounting needs, including taxation, GST and VAT.

As a complete accounting package, Book Keeper helps you accurately maintain all financial processes, including sending quotes, creating invoices, recording expenses, viewing reports and much more. Book Keeper removes the manual work from business accounting, so entrepreneurs have more time to focus on growing their business.

Price: Free on a 14-day trial, after which you can make a one-time purchase of $200 to unlock Book Keeper’s unlimited features. 

Download on iOS or Android.

Sage Accounting

Sage Accounting was developed to take the strain off busy entrepreneurs. With a focus on small businesses, Sage Accounting takes care of everything from automating transactions to handling taxes.

Small business owners are some of the hardest working people who often spend very little time at the desk. This mobile accounting app helps to prevent a slip in productivity while on the go. Sage Accounting supports unlimited users, allowing business owners to delegate responsibilities such as sending quotes, creating invoices, managing inventory and preparing financial statements.

Price: Free on a 30-day trial, after which monthly subscriptions start at $17.49.

Download on iOS or Android.

Our lives are already busy enough without having to factor in the time for manual accounting. Do away with old, time-consuming processes and download an accounting app that improves accuracy and efficiency. Accounting apps are the way forward for business owners who want to optimize the time spent on running their business.

The Fastest Ways To Increase Your Truck Company’s Productivity

Improving the performance of your truck business can directly influence your operating costs and revenue. 

The demands in the truck sector will continue to grow in the future as people get used to the gratification of ordering and receiving a package at flash speed. You work in a competitive market with Amazon shipping around 5 billion items annually, only through its Prime program. Amazon is the most popular retail platform because it offers same-day, one-day, and two-day shipping options. But Amazon isn’t the only one to provide these benefits. Thanks to the advancements in the trucking sector, you can also achieve these numbers. Boosting your company’s efficiency can bring you higher profit and cut down on running costs. 

Here are the fastest ways to improve your truck company’s productivity. 

Recruit Skilled Drivers

Studies show that 8% of long-haul drivers are female, and you should take advantage of this opportunity to attract diversified workers, especially since long-haul driving is dealing with a shortage of drivers. You should also consider recruiting young people and military veterans if they have the needed skills to perform at their job. This approach is implemented by expedited freight shipping companies like MigWay. Lately, the authorities have been considering changing regulations and lowering the legal age for interstate commercial drivers. 

Properly Maintain Your Vehicles

Having all vehicles checked regularly and their tires, filters, and other essential parts inspected will increase the lifespan of your trucks and prevent costly repairs. Ensure that your fleet is completely road-worthy before they leave your headquarters on a trip. Improperly maintained vehicles are unsafe, lack fuel efficiency, and can become a danger on the roads. 

Get Insurance

Insurance protects you from financial loss and prevents unwanted or uncertain losses caused by accidents. Truck insurance companies have ranging sizes in insurance packages from small to large fleets and can offer customized quotes for your needs.

You probably have general liability insurance, but to ensure that your business is safeguarded from any risk, you should also get bobtail insurance because it covers instances when a truck without a load or trailer engages in an accident. Ask your insurance provider what the bobtail insurance cost is, and make sure to add it to your coverage.    

Minimize Idling

Train your drivers to switch off the truck’s engine when it’s running for no reason. Obviously, it would be impractical to switch it on and off when they’re in a traffic jam, but they should stop it when they stop in a parking lot. 

Use Truck Scales

Truck scales allow you to weigh the cargo when you unload and eliminate multiple steps that slow down the overall process. Your drivers lose time when the scales are located away from the loading docks, and they have to speed up on their drive to stick to the schedule. But if the truck includes a well-maintained scale that offers accurate results, they’ll no longer deal with this issue. 

Use a Fleet-Tracking Tool

A great problem truck companies experience is keeping track of their shipments and drivers. If you install a GPS system on your trucks, you can make the process easier because it allows you to monitor operations. The measure also enables you to improve customer service as your clients can also track where their cargo is. 

Best Way to Add Your Business Line to Your Smartphone

Small company owners and entrepreneurs all over the world are discovering the advantages of adding a business line to their mobile phone or smartphone, thanks to the expanding availability of voice over internet protocol (VOIP) technology via smartphone apps and even landline phones. Not only do you get a lot of amazing calling features, but you also bring a level of professionalism to your business that your personal number can’t match. Furthermore, business calling mobile apps allow you to do business from anywhere, freeing you from the limitations of a desk phone.

Steps to Add Your Business Phone Number to Your Cell Phone

Here are some simple pointers to help you get started:

1. Download the Mobile App

Go to Apple’s iOS/iPhone app store or Google Play for Android to download the LinkedPhone app.

2. Verify Your Mobile Phone Number

Enter your cell phone number. The system will authenticate your phone.

3. Port Your Business Line

If you already have a business line, you can port it to the new service easily and quickly. Or you can  choose a convenient local or toll-free business number, or both. Numbers are available from across every area code in the U.S. and Canada

4. Choose Your Pricing Plan

LinkedPhone offers a number of price options, allowing you to select the degree of service that best suits your needs. If you are an entrepreneur, you can choose from a single line. A large corporation may need a large number of lines.

5. Choose Options for Greeting and Voicemail

Set up welcome greeting, hours and voicemail responses. LinkedPhone has a virtual receptionist that allows you to set call menu options. You can use these options to play helpful information such as hours and location, send customers to voicemail or a live receptionist, and route callers to specific people.

6. Optional: Add Team Members or Additional Business Phone Lines

Add as many team members as you want up to the plan’s limit, with each person getting their own extension. When someone calls, your team members will all have the same company number, which will ring on whatever phones you want, or all phones at the same time.

Wired devices, such as landlines or business VoIP phones, can also be added. After the setup is complete, you may immediately begin utilizing your business phone number.

How Does a Cell Phone-Based Virtual Business Line Work?

A ‘virtual phone number’ is what your new company number is called. The way we operate is changing as a result of modern technology. Virtual phone numbers resemble standard phone numbers in appearance and function, but they offer additional value and benefits. Desk phones, home phones, cell phones, laptops, tablets, and desktop computers are all compatible. It’s so simple and convenient that it nearly looks magical.

Let’s look at some of the most important benefits of employing a virtual business phone system:

Caller ID

Use the app to talk and text using your existing cell phone’s business caller ID while keeping your personal number confidential.

Call Screening

The different app interface clearly identifies which incoming calls are business calls, as well as business text messages, separating personal and professional communications.

Add Staff and Business Partners

Share a single business phone number that rings on your business partner’s phones.  Add all your team members. Calls should be routed to one or more coworkers, and each person should be reached at their own private extension. Internal communications can also be streamlined via peer-to-peer messaging.

Business and Customer Contacts

Create client profiles or import contact information from existing records, then share contacts with your entire team for increased efficiency. The business phone number app separates your professional and personal relationships.

Organize your conversations and to-do lists

Notes in the app Keep track of notes and chat logs for each of your customers. Help your company keep track of chats, to-dos, and reminders with real-time updates across all of your employees’ devices.

Options for a Virtual Receptionist and Call Menu

A basic setup includes business fundamentals such as setting business hours for taking calls and providing callers with company greetings. You may also set up professional call menu options that do things automatically when a keypad button is pressed. For example, a caller could dial 1 to get store hours, 2 to get customer service, 3 to get billing questions, 4 to get voicemail, 5 to get the corporate directory, and so on. Add a feature that allows users to directly dial specified extensions.

Routing of Calls

Incoming business calls should be directed to the appropriate person or team. Business calls are routed to mobile phones, office VOIP phones, or other landlines by virtual receptionists, often known as auto attendants. Call menu options that route calls to certain team members are simple to set up.

Transcription of Voicemail

Listen to your voicemail or read an AI-generated automatic voicemail transcription. Between you and a consumer, text messages, MMS messages with pictures or video, and voice messages display as single chronological streams for a realistic conversation flow. Separating professional and personal voicemail and messages is simple with the business phone number app.

Adapting to the Hybrid Platform

It’s simple to switch to a new platform if you already have a business line service provider. Local and toll-free numbers are accessible across all area codes in the United States and Canada, making it simple to port your current business number or choose a new one. There are a lot of wonderful apps and services for adding this functionality to your phone, and most of them will allow you to use your landline, VOIP phone, and even your laptop on the same platform with the same number!

When you connect a business line to your cell phone, you’ll get all of the fantastic features that traditional business phone service providers offer. Text messaging, auto attendants, call menu options, extensions for colleagues and team members, voicemail, and more will be included in your premium business package. Most services also include unlimited minutes and text messages as part of their pricing packages.

Small business owners and their employees can use virtual calling apps to talk and text with consumers from a business phone number, providing a professional and polished call experience. It’s never been easier to add a second business phone number to your phone.

Virtual Business Phone Numbers Can Be Used Anywhere

Modern workers can work from anywhere by adding a business line to their cell phone. Virtual local and toll-free company numbers work flawlessly across office phones, landlines, cell phones, and laptops using the same mobile app and web platform. While on the road, call and text clients, then return to your office phone or computer later. Small firms, start-ups, entrepreneurs, and remote teams can now access professional-grade capabilities that were previously only available to major corporations. These characteristics include:

  • Migrate your business phone number.
  • Use a new Local or toll-free phone number
  • Every plan includes unlimited calling and text messaging.
  • Use your personal phone first, then use your business caller ID to talk and text.
  • Business voicemail recordings with AI-generated transcripts
  • Customers and service providers will have a professional calling experience.
  • Assign extensions to coworkers and share a single company phone number.
  • When you are on the phone with someone else, you can join the call queue.
  • Keep track of conversations with shared notes and contacts.

Simple to Set Up for Your Business

LinkedPhone caters exclusively to small businesses, and setup takes only a few minutes. You can either choose a business phone number or migrate your current number. The mobile app gives your personal phone a dedicated business line. That means you can chat and text with your company phone number rather than your personal phone number, keeping your personal information private, and switching to other apps for personal conversations as needed. When you sign in on the web, you may also talk and text on the same platform from your PC or laptop.

This technology has the potential to save your company thousands of dollars on costly corporate phone plans. You won’t have to deal with your phone company or purchase any costly equipment. Your company number works with any desk phone, home phone, laptop, and even your personal cell phone, unlike typical business phone systems offered by large telecom corporations. The app provider handles all back-end hardware and software so you can concentrate on what matters most: building your business.


How To Better Manage And Keep Track Of Your Employees’ Payroll Checks

Managing your employee’s payroll checks is a complicated task that should always be carried out with accuracy. You either perform the job using an outsource, a manual system, or an online software service because making errors time and again is a severe threat to small businesses since the employees have the right to report such errors and get compensation. Yet, in the process, the company has to suffer from higher penalties. Even though the claims made by the employees are false, the company can still suffer a significant loss if they fail to keep track of the employees’ payroll checks or manage their records. Therefore, to perform your job efficiently, you need to keep track of the employees’ payroll checks by preserving their working hours, performance level, and salary checks issued in the form of milestones or paystubs. It is a document that businesses usually keep as evidence to hold all the information of the cashed payroll checks. So, here are a few steps to manage and keep records of your employees’ payroll checks.

1. Get Employee Management Software

Growing your business will always require improving your technological tools; today’s world has completely transformed into digital industries. No matter who you ask for advice, they will always recommend using software to manage your employees in the best possible way. Several apps help HR managers manage all employees’ hiring, financing, and other related jobs; businesses often use apps like Connecteam, Remote, Workday, etc., to manage everything.

2. Preserve Employee Payroll Records

All businesses must prove their legal documents, financial deposits, and transactions to be able to get their license. In order to keep an accurate record of the employees’ payroll checks, getting the recording job done correctly should be the highest priority for business owners. Whether they use a paystub creator, an app, a manual sheet, an excel sheet, or an outsource, the medium they choose should always be accurate, time-efficient, and convenient for their business. As a result, companies will be able to prove accounts histories and be able to manage their employees’ payroll systems efficiently and transparently.

3. Apply Diverse Ways to Manage the Payroll System

When managing your employees’ work performance and payroll, you cannot rely on a single strategy to manage your working system.

Diverse techniques should be applied like organizing payroll management by making a strict schedule, following federal and state rules, using different software, websites, and apps to track the working hours, work performance and productivity, etc. You can apply new ways from the following payroll management options:

  • Issue policies to outline the criteria of the payment.
  • Choose a standard system for recording payroll checks.
  • Track the time consumed by the employees by using GPS tracker, software, apps, etc.
  • Follow the federal and state laws.
  • Use outsourcing for managing the payroll methods.
  • Use diverse software to manage and track employee performance.

If you want to manage your employees’ work performance, payroll checks, records, and other financial information, you need to apply several methods to cross-check that your work is done accurately. Besides, staying alert is your topmost priority since you can neither risk your business’s image in the market nor your company’s employees’ professionalism.

A Small Business Owner’s Guide to the Pros and Cons of Serverless Architectures

For a small business owner, the overhead costs of maintaining in-house servers are hair-raising. Not only do you have to pay for the servers themselves, but any servers need employees to support them, driving up your labor budget. 

That’s why serverless architecture is an absolute boon for small business owners. The servers still exist in “serverless” architecture, but you’ll never have to deal with them. In the serverless model, you essentially pay to rent space on someone else’s server, and they take care of the backend maintenance for you. 

Like any other architecture, serverless has its advantages as well as disadvantages. If you’re on the fence about outsourcing your hardware, here’s the small business owner’s guide to the pros and cons of serverless architecture. 

Pros of serverless architecture

Without a doubt, serverless represents a significant edge for your IT needs. Besides numerous benefits for application development, serverless can also positively impact your workflow by cutting downtime spent on the backend. 

If you’re already chomping at the bit to sever your servers, Akka Serverless from Lightbend is an excellent way to capitalize on the benefits of serverless architectures. 

Here are some notable advantages of serverless architecture:

Reduced costs 

One of serverless architecture’s most significant claims to fame is its low cost. 

Business owners only pay for the data they actually use, eliminating the costs associated with bulky, unscalable in-house servers. You can scale up as your data needs increase or cut expenses as they decrease. Either way, you’re never stuck holding the bandwidth bag for space you don’t even need. 

Enhanced scalability

The serverless architecture model allows automatic scaling of any business application. 

For example, if app usage increases or the user base expands suddenly, the app will scale automatically. Users’ location doesn’t matter as serverless providers are almost everywhere to ensure no delays in the app performance.

Fewer worries

First, a business owner doesn’t have to pay for any maintenance costs. That’s because the business isn’t managing any backend infrastructure. The cloud provider takes charge of all maintenance problems.

Secondly, security is not a concern. The service provider takes care of potential hacks, patches, and updates.

Allows for more focus on user experience

Your users aren’t interested in the backend infrastructure. Users care about your app’s features, so why shouldn’t you do the same?

Now that you don’t need to worry about server maintenance, you can channel your time and effort towards enhancing customer-facing elements. Look for ways to make the user experience in your app even better and more engaging.

Cons of serverless architecture

Sadly, despite the many benefits serverless architecture brings, it has some disadvantages. Some of the downfalls of going serverless include:

Vendor lock-in

Unfortunately, handing over your server management also means handing over your data. This arrangement can make negotiating with your serverless provider challenging. 

Why? The resources at your disposal are limited. In case of system downtime, undesirable upgrades, and so on, there’s very little you can do to influence what your third-party providers are doing.

Additionally, serverless infrastructure vendors make it difficult for businesses wanting to switch to another vendor. 

Another risk of this vendor-operated environment is that the vendor may change the terms of service and pricing or even stop offering the services altogether. If your business can’t absorb that hit, it could be detrimental. 

Read any contracts thoroughly to ensure that your vendor won’t be taking your data hostage if you ever decide to switch. 

Time limitations

Serverless is not suitable for long-term tasks that require constant runtime. It may end up costing way more than what you would typically pay for reserved computing timing. 

Serverless is ideal for short-term processes such as email. But tasks such as large video file uploading may require you to call additional functions.

Complex

Learning how serverless works is a daunting task. Compared to other architectures, it has small integration units. Hence, one needs more time to organize the functions to align with your data.

Versioning and deployment only add to the confusion.  

Any business owner considering switching to serverless must be ready to face the rabbit hole undertaking of splitting their monolithic application into several microservices.

Wrap up

Serverless architecture might just be the extra piece your business missed. However, the efficacy of serverless strategy will depend on each business’s individual needs. If you’re on the fence, consult a few serverless providers and get different quotes. 

7 Reasons Why You Should Avoid Plagiarism in the Articles for SEO

Many bloggers and writers think that it’s very easy to write an article to run a blog and to earn a handsome amount every month by copying ideas and thoughts of other high authority websites. These types of bloggers and writers copy the content and by replacing few words think that they will win the game.

This is not the right approach to write the articles. If you are running a blog just to earn money by placing bulk plagiarized content, then you should not adopt this method to earn money. People on the internet will realize sooner or later that your website content is not worth their time and you will lose your integrity.

If you are trying to become over smart without giving enough effort and research, then remember that google crawlers are smarter than you, and plagiarized content will not be helpful for the long term.

By the end of this article, we will learn about plagiarism, how it can affect SEO and how you can avoid it.

What is Plagiarism?

Plagiarism means when you use someone’s work without citing the proper source, then it would be considered plagiarism.

It is the best practice to check plagiarism in your work and make it unique before getting live on the search engine. For this task, you should get an online plagiarism checker that can work properly to check for plagiarism in your content along with the source. So that the similarity could be checked.

However, if you are citing the proper source, and some writers credit the real owner by providing a link to that source. This is not considered plagiarism even if you are using the content of other writers. When you pretend someone’s, work is your work, then it is plagiarism.

Reasons Why You Should Not Use Plagiarized Content:

Whenever we are visiting any social media platform, we come across a lot of content. The content creators put their effort and their creativity to bring genuine content in front of the audience. In the same way, the writers, bloggers, and website owners are content creators as they amuse the audience with the written content.

The words when written in certain symmetry and style can impact the audience deeply. But all writers are not content creators as some people do a terrible job by copying the content of other writers and bloggers by replacing few words in the content.

The content uplifts by the audience due to the uniqueness and adding value to the life of other people. If you are only interested in making money from your blog by uploading cheap and plagiarized content, then the audience will never come back to your blog or website.

The plagiarized content has many consequences in terms of google ranking, SEO, and other reasons that we will discuss later.

1. Plagiarized Content Does Not Rank on Google

The bloggers who start a new blog generally need to upload bulk content on the internet so that website crawlers can recognize the content of the website. The bloggers who want to become an overnight millionaire by writing few pieces uploads plagiarized content.

When you use the content of other writers and do not cite them properly, then you are at loss. Google has advanced a lot in recent years. The advanced crawlers do not only check the keywords they also check the does not and engagement ratio of the audience on your blogs.

By optimizing sell these parameters you can rank your content on your website on google. Google knows who published the content first and which website has unique content and the websites that are using copied content. Google values authenticity and ranks the top pages by analyzing all these parameters.

This is one of the main reasons you should not use plagiarized content as it has no value, you are fooling yourself and your audience without putting in the real hard work and dedication.

2. You Can be Penalized by Google

If you are constantly uploading creepy and fluffy content or using spinning tools on your website, there are chances that Google will notice your heinous action and can take strict action against your blog by penalizing your website or blog or charging a fine.

Google updates its crawlers and bots to recognize the copied and plagiarized content. If two websites have the same content, then the website that has uploaded the content first will rank on google. Google will ignore the content of other websites and will put the content of that website on the blacklist.

Any complaint or report of plagiarism received to google about your content, then Google can take strict action and your website will be penalized. Using plagiarized content can cause you more loss than benefits.

3. Losing Your Followers

The followers and audience of your website follow you for the content you are putting on your website. You build a connection with your audience by communicating with your words. Your audience and followers start trusting you when you write something that can bring positive value in their life or you resonate with them by your content.

But what if you are uploading copied content? Will your audience trust you? Will they come to your website again? No, they will stop following your website and will follow the genuine and creditable websites. You will lose your followers by uploading fluffy content on your website.

Every website owner is constantly working hard to bring down their competitors and to increase their organic reach, and their monthly revenue from the blog.

You are expressing yourself with your words in the form of different blog posts and articles, therefore to persuade your audience, bring original and creative content on your website and you will see that surprisingly the audience will fall in love with your content.

4. Losing Your Credibility and Trustworthiness

No matter how hard you are taking care of SEO, keyword optimization, and designing a lucrative website, you cannot win the hearts of your audience by putting in fake content.

 When you upload content on your website consistently, the followers build an emotional connection. When they will come to know that you are stealing the content of other writers and running after making money, it will impact your audience adversely.

They will start believing that you are fake and do not have enough guts to run a blog. It is even more difficult to optimize your blog and increase the audience after falling.

5. Search Engines Will Bring You Down

If the content of your website does not have any engagement on the blogs and the stay time of the visors is less than 30 seconds, the google and search engines will bri9ng your website down. Audience and followers can recognize the fluffy and spin content, they will stop following you, poor engagement ratio and lesser number of shares and comments on your website give hints to google that your content is not worth following and people do not like to see your content in the future.

Only those pages rank on the top pages of google which have excellent readability, good engagement ratio, unique content, good SEO optimization, naturally integrated keywords in the article.

6. You Will Not Get Any Referrals for Backlinks

The bloggers and other websites need referrals and backlinks for their articles to gain recognition.  If you are using substandard content on google no one will trust you and will not collaborate with you in the future.

If you are not getting any high-quality backlinks for your website or blog, it will sign to Google that your website is not credible and trustworthy as it doesn’t bring any value to the life of the audience will decrease the engagement and organic reach of your content.

7. People Do Not Like Deceivers

Google does not value plagiarism. If you are representing someone’s work as your own work then morally and ethically it is considered wrong.

No one likes thieves, by stealing the content of other writers you are deceiving your audience and the real owner who should take the credit.

It affects your personality and reputation in front of people online.

Wrapping Up

These are the reasons why you should not use plagiarized content, if you are not a good writer do not fool the people online with fake and plagiarized content. It is recommended to check the article in the plagiarism checker to avoid partial and accidental plagiarism in the articles. Some of the best plagiarism checking tools are prepostseo.com plagiarism checker, Check-plagiarism.com plagiarism checker, Editpad.org  plagiarism checker. These tools have advanced features and sho the percentage of plagiarized and unique content. They also cite the source from where the content is taken. You can also download a report of plagiarism.

Before uploading your content anywhere online, check your articles in these plagiarism checkers.

Many bloggers and writers think that it’s very easy to write an article to run a blog and to earn a handsome amount every month by copying ideas and thoughts of other high authority websites. These types of bloggers and writers copy the content and by replacing few words think that they will win the game.

This is not the right approach to write the articles. If you are running a blog just to earn money by placing bulk plagiarized content, then you should not adopt this method to earn money. People on the internet will realize sooner or later that your website content is not worth their time and you will lose your integrity.

If you are trying to become over smart without giving enough effort and research, then remember that google crawlers are smarter than you, and plagiarized content will not be helpful for the long term.

By the end of this article, we will learn about plagiarism, how it can affect SEO and how you can avoid it.

Fleet Management: 4 Key Tactics To Improve Efficiency

Fleet Management is an important aspect of any business. With the introduction of autonomous and electric vehicles, fleet management will only become more complicated in the years to come. There are many things a company can do to improve efficiency with their fleet. The following article discusses four key tactics that can improve efficiency in the fleet management process. 

1. Monitor Fleet Performance & Utilization with GPS Tracking

GPS tracking is an effective way to monitor performance and utilization. A GPS tracking system allows you to get real-time information on your vehicles, including driver behavior.

Vehicle data is also recorded by trucking GPS, including driver location and driving habits. This can be useful when reviewing vital data to improve efficiency, as well as in the event of any fleet insurance claims. It also helps you monitor how often your drivers are visiting locations that may be a safety hazard, which can help you identify any potential motor vehicle accidents. 

Managers can use this information to their advantage by analyzing data from the time of day and times of the year to understand what areas pose safety risks for drivers. Additionally, the GPS tracking system records vehicle data such as speed and braking to help monitor how efficiently your drivers are operating their vehicles. GPS tracking is also necessary when it comes to driver physical fitness. A GPS tracking system allows you to track pedometer steps throughout the workday, as well as monitor all maintenance records in order to ensure that all vehicles are being maintained at optimal performance levels.

2. Use Route Planning Software

Route planning software uses advanced algorithms to help organizations plan and arrange multi-stop delivery routes in the most effective way feasible. Routing and scheduling software, or route optimization software, is another name for it. UpperInc is vehicle routing and scheduling software.

It’s no surprise that software-assisted route planning are significantly more accurate than manually planned routes when all the relevant factors are included, as well as the amount of possible permutations. As a result, you’ll be able to consistently deliver things to clients when you say you would, resulting in happier customers. When you do it day after day for months or years, you acquire the loyalty and repeat business of those consumers.

3. Use The Latest In Telematics To Monitor Driver Behavior

GPS fleet management telematics technology can also be used to monitor driver behavior in real-time, including speeding and harsh braking. Managers can receive alerts whenever a driver violates safety regulations, as well as drivers that make frequent stops without letting the vehicle idle. Managers use this information to hold employees accountable for their actions in the workplace. Telematics technology is extremely useful when it comes to making sure all employees on your team are adhering to company policies. According to the experts at FleetOptix.com, a fleet dash cam system can provide you with real-time information that is one of the most important factors when it comes to improving efficiency. Management software used by businesses provides real-time data on drive times, speed limits, vehicles maintenance records, and potential hazards and safety concerns along routes. This allows you to have complete control over operations, as well as be involved in the day-to-day maintenance of vehicles. 

4. Monitor Fleet Maintenance Records

Fleet managers should be aware of any trends or patterns that may be impacting their fleet’s performance or causing vehicle damage. Management software can also help monitor maintenance records to ensure all vehicles are being properly maintained at optimal operating levels. Using this information, you can make adjustments as necessary to ensure your fleet is performing at its full potential. Managers can use the information from management software to make sure all vehicles are being properly maintained and adjust routes to manage safety concerns. Maintenance records can help shed light on any problem areas that may be affecting vehicle utilization or overall performance. The maintenance records can also help identify any problems with employees that may be causing problems in your fleet. Once you’ve identified the problem areas, you can take steps to improve efficiency. 

5. Use Your Fleet Operations Manual To Reduce Risk

It is extremely important for managers to continually track and update their operations manual with current regulations and best practices within the industry. Fleet management software uses GPS tracking data to monitor driver behavior at all times, including potential infractions such as speeding and harsh braking that violate company policies. Continually reviewing your operations manual can help you take the necessary steps to reduce risk and increase efficiency. Ensure that your manual is up-to-date with current regulations and best practices, as well as any pertinent safety information for driving in your area. Operations manual best practices include maintaining a fleet that is always at optimal working levels, as well as providing regular maintenance to ensure vehicles are running at their peak performance.

Fleet management is a key factor in keeping your business safe along the road. Managers should be aware of any trends or patterns that may be impacting their fleet’s performance or causing vehicle damage. Management software can also help monitor maintenance records in order to make sure all vehicles are being properly maintained at optimal operating levels. Using this information, you can make adjustments as necessary to ensure your fleet is performing at its full potential. 

Receipt Scanning is now Essential for Your Expense Management Software

All innovative companies, no matter the size or industry, depend on expense management software to carry out monotonous book-keeping tasks. However, despite developments in ML and Natural Language Processing, a substantial number fail to provide the necessary features such as invoice data extraction and accurate receipt scanning.

This is a huge disadvantage for these expense management software or accounting companies, as their customers are directly disadvantaged.

Businesses are constantly on the lookout for ways to increase speed, accuracy and automation. As receipt scanners provide this, with added benefits such as minimizing the risk of losing receipts, it is among the top features a customer searches for when selecting an expense management software solution

It is clear that excluding an automatic receipt data extraction feature is damaging to the success of this software company.

Does this resonate with you? Does your software also lack the ability to scan receipts and invoices correctly and reliably? If the answer is “yes,” then you’re in the right place. Fortunately, you can swiftly fix this issue by integrating a receipt OCR API within your software.

In this guide, you’ll also uncover six reasons why your expense management software must have a receipt scanning feature.

But first the basics…How does a receipt OCR API actually work?

The receipt OCR API lets your users upload an image of their receipt or invoice in your software.

Next, it scans through the image to identify data fields, such as the vendor name, price, and place where the receipt or invoice was issued.

Subsequently, the data extracted is transformed into a format that your expense management software will understand.

Reasons to integrate a receipt OCR API in your expense management software.

1. More Accurate receipt and invoice data extraction.

Unlike standard OCRs used to capture data from contracts, reports, and other files, a receipt OCR API is designed to extract information from low-quality prints, with high accuracy.

Receipt OCR APIs can also recognise specific data fields on invoices and receipts, irrespective of its format.

This is vital, as suppliers and vendors have different layouts for their receipts and invoices. Even when two stores are in the same city, their receipts can have completely diverse formats.

Furthermore, you can increase the accuracy of your receipt and invoice data extraction through adding a parameter in your receipt OCR’s to identify where the invoice or receipt were created.

Something worth knowing is that most receipt scanning and invoice data extraction APIs are polyglots.  The consequence of this is that they can instantly comprehend and translate what’s written on the receipt or invoice, even if it’s in a distinctive language or dialect.

2. Streamline your customers’ Accounting Processes.

One of the most time-consuming and tiresome tasks that employees encounter is filling in expense forms and submitting them to your accounting department.

Integrating a receipt OCR API within your expense management software naturally accelerates this process for your customers.

Your customers can now take a picture of the receipt or invoice and then upload this to your expense management software immediately.

This removes the hassle of saving all of the physical receipts and invoices they need. 

The receipt OCR API then obtains the crucial details needed to create an entry in an expense form. You can also customize your receipt OCR code to allow it to group the data collected into expense categories, further streamlining the process for your users.

3. Improve your clients’ Resource-use Efficiency and Business Decisions

Unfortunately, as human beings, human error is inevitable.

Even the smallest mistakes, such as uploading duplicate receipts and invoices, can cost businesses significant time and money to amend (conditional on the situation, of course).

With receipt OCR, you can easily solve this issue by customizing the code to incorporate parameters to flag and notify your clients of duplicate entries and invoices with dodgy data.

Your client’s accountant can then quickly acquire the flagged entries and review them before they’re finalized. This saves your client precious resources in time and money, thus improving their user experience with your software.

As expense tracking is one of the most crucial operations in any business, expense reports generated by your expense management software is critical in their decision-making activities These activities are also what certifies companies file the correct taxes and avoid getting penalized.

All these are dependent on one key ingredient: The accuracy of the data they entered in your expense management software.

If your expense management software isn’t equipped with a receipt OCR API, that’ll mean your clients must carry out data entry manually.

The issue with inaccurate or incomplete data in this case is the chain reaction that’ll ultimately result in your clients making poor business decisions.

4. Provide Financial Data Privacy and Security. 

Receipt OCR APIs don’t only decrease complications for your clients to update their expense reports. Another benefit exists in the realm of financial data security.

Supplementary parameters can be included within the receipt OCR API code to reinforce security measures when retrieving financial data. For example, generating a password protocol.

Including these security structures will guarantee that only authorized personnel can access their financial data. This is imperative for your clients.

5. The Power in Multiple Programming Languages.

Receipt OCR API developers are aware that companies develop expense management software and apps in an assortment of programming languages.

Companies like Taggun, for example, provide software developers like you their receipt OCR API code written in Node.js, C#, .NET, PHP, and Python.

You can therefore integrate the code into your expense management software, enabling you to rapidly launch this feature to your clients.

6. The Competitive Edge

Even some of the most popular accounting and expense management software available today don’t provide a receipt scanning and invoice data extraction feature.

In this question posed in Quora, we can also see that that those do struggle with the accuracy of the data they extract.

https://d7pdsiqo9rcig.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Receipt-OCR-Quora-1.png

Because of this, users must search for a third-party tool such as Zintego Receipt Maker to integrate into their current expense management software.

The Solution

A Receipt OCR API in your expense management software equips you with the means to meet what your clients wants and needs.

This provides you with a compelling and unique selling point to share with your potential clients and customers.

Additionally, clients will be convinced to switch to your software when you’re able to provide something novel, something that their current platform doesn’t.

The receipt OCR API is the game-changer to your expense management software. 

It provides your clients with the necessary functions to stimulate and accelerate growth.

You can start providing that to your customers today by choosing a receipt OCR API provider, embed the code in your expense management software program, customize it, and launch!