DIY Bookkeeping Club
Bookkeeper's Toolbox
Learn all about all the apps and tools Carpetbag Enterprises uses and loves!
(We may receive commissions for purchases made using the links below.)
Accounting Add-On Apps
If you do a ton of sales through Stripe or Paypal and want to be able to accurately log income and fees in your accounting software as it happens, then Synder Sync is the app for you.
Although their setup process and dashboards are a bit disorienting, their live and email support are quite good. And once you're set up properly, Synder's output is SOLID. It does exactly what you want and expect it to with very few hiccups.
The price has been rising year over year, which has us searching for more affordable options for our clients. So far, this is as good as it gets.
Qbox is a brilliant little desktop app that allows Quickbooks Desktop users to store and access their company file in the cloud.
The downside is that only one person at a time can open and use Quickbooks, but the $12/month pricetag cannot be beat!
Appointments
We bought a lifetime license to this app because it offered straightforward appointment settings and payment integration with Stripe at no additional cost.
It's a clean and simple app and we like it the more we use it.
There soooo many appointment scheduling tools out there and at this point they seem to all offer basically the same functionality. We've used Appointlet for many years because it has a decent free plan and easily integrates with easily gmail calendars.
Backup
If you're looking to backup your main storage system, Backblaze is an affordable option.
Their desktop app allows you to backup files on your computer and any attached storage devices (at no extra cost!). Plus you have easy and fast restore options available based on how much data you need to get back.
Banking
From the perspective of an owner-user, Relay makes it super-easy to take care of banking administration activities.
Signup is a breeze. Accounts & virtual cards are simple to set up & you can create more than 20 at no additional charge! It's also easy to set up access-restricted accounts for other team members and make funds transfers.
Their statements and transaction documentation need a little bit of improvement - the layouts are a bit disorienting for a financial professional. But, their banking connections to Quickbooks Online are nice and stable and their login process with two step authentication is nice and easy.
Also, their customer service is superb; you get the help you need promptly.
Checklists
Process Street is the app at the heart of Carpetbag Enterprises. We use its checklist system to train new employees, run & track routine back-end tasking, and perform our custom weekly bookkeeping routines for done-for-you clients. It is by far the most powerful checklist tool Nina has found to date.
You can build interactive checklists containing all the options you could ask for - images, imbedded videos, interactive dialogs, links, multiple choice, dropdown options, dates, attached files, dependencies...so much! I
That being said, this is an app with a steep learning curve and only businesses with very rigid, repeating processes will find this tool set useful.
Superlist is a newer checklist app from the makers of the long-retired-but-not-forgotten Wunderlist. Functionally, this app is offering pretty much the same features as the other leading checklist apps including recurring tasks, tagging, multiple lists, and task sharing.
What sets this app apart is the charming little bell tone that you hear every time to complete a task. That little celebration of each thing you get done is most satisfying!
Chrome Extensions
Because downloading reports can be an hourly occurrence for the team at Carpetbag Enterprises, we really don't want the status of our downloads taking up valuable screen real estate on our web browser.
Luckily, the Always Clear Downloads 2 app extension for Chrome automatically sweeps those pesky notifications away. It's a free tool, but so ridiculously helpful that we would gladly pay a dollar or two a month for the service.
Communication
Google Workspaces offers a lot of tools into it's $6/user price tag. Here are the features we like best:
- Gmail - It's ubiquitous for a reason.
- Google Sites - Google will host your domain for no additional cost if you're using Sites. Now, that's a great value!
- Chrome - Workspaces allows you to create a custom Chrome profile template and distribute it to everyone on the team. The profile template automatically installs our required Chrome extensions and gives us a centralized website bookmark system.
- Google Meet - Do we prefer Zoom? Yes. But we can't beat the cost of this included feature.
The administration pages for Google Workspaces can be daunting, but once you find what you're looking for, creating bookmark to help you find it next time does the trick nicely.
Domain Registration
Namecheap is our go-to domain registration service. Their prices are hard to beat and their help documentation is phenomenal for both a novice and for an experienced user of their products. We've never had to contact customer service because their documentation is that good!
Graphics
If you like Cb's graphics, then you'll love noun project. Their annual subscription provides royalty free rights to use any of the graphics in their huge catalog.
Search for any noun and you'll get a screen full of graphic representations of that thing or idea. The paid plans allow you to download icons using custom colors.
Another really helpful feature is the download history where you can review any and all icons that you've previously downloaded. If you're not a fan of stock photography, The Noun Project is worth checking out.
Newsletters
Zoho Campaigns offers the functionality of the bigger email marketing services, but at a substantially lower per email cost.
Their user interface is a little behind the times, but the services themselves are great, especially for the price. We like that you can buy credit packages instead of being forced immediately into a monthly plan.
If you're looking for some affordable support and encouragement for email marketing, look no further than Liz Wilcox's Email Marketing Membership!
Each week, Liz publishes a new email template to her member site. She includes a summary of what you should write about, two sample emails, a fill-in-the-blank version of the email and a video from her explaining why this particular email will be worth the effort of creating and sending to your list.
Online Storage
Carpetbag Enterprises is and will always remain agnostic when it comes to accounting software. We believe that the best option takes into account the needs of your bookkeeper AND the other needs of your business.
That being said, our current favorite is Quickbooks Online. QBO offers a really robust set of tools for double-entry bookkeeping that are easy and efficient for an accountant-user.
Plus, they are working to improve the user experience for the owner who may not be as comfortable with the idea of debits and credits. The cost of this toolset has been rising steadily for a couple of years, which is of concern. But so far, its value is still in line with its pricetag.
Payroll
For straightforward and affordable payroll, Gusto is a great option.
Their onboarding was smooth and running payroll twice a month for our team is a breeze. If it's your first time setting up any sort of payroll, plan a big, fat amount of time to complete the onboarding process. Gusto makes it as easy as it can be, but each state has its own unique set of rules and maze of bureaucracy to navigate and that's work only you can do.
They also have a simple integration with Quickbooks Online which is a helpful time-saver.
Reminders
SendRecurring is one of those apps that doesn't look pretty, but it does its single job very, very well. We use it to send automated monthly and annual email reminders to clients.
Plus, it's got a very generous free plan. If you just need to send the same message on a specific schedule, this is the tool for you.
