It is the most widely used tool by businesses of all sizes! Excel turns 33 years old in 2018. While we understand why it is successful, we would also like to point out why migrating to the cloud might the best solution for removals, relocation and storage companies.
It’s been over thirty years since Microsoft launched Excel. Excel is a spreadsheet software that allows compilation of data for further analysis and decision making. It was launched in the same year ‘Back to the Future’ was out. Even though we still don’t have flying cars, we have cloud-based solutions that might be a better idea than using Excel.
The problem with spreadsheet is….
We understand why Excel works so well as it has a bunch of formulas, layout options, charts, etc. In the end, regardless of the company size, it seems that everything is exported into a spreadsheet. It happens because it’s easier to analyse data and decisions can be made. But it also has its downsides: it’s not dynamic and info is can be easily lost. Also, it doesn’t keep history or an audit trail and there is that annoying annual licence fee.
Cloud-based solutions, on the other hand, allow information to be easily accessed by all those who have have access to it. It also keeps a history on all changes, info is saved automatically every few seconds and normally there are no fixed contracts or annual fees for licences of use. Zapala Go, for example, turned 3 years old and we are a complete cloud-based solution for removals, relocation and storage companies accomplishing great things as years go by.
If you are a removals, relocation or storage company, chances are you use spreadsheets. A lot of them, actually. One spreadsheet to control quotes sent and another one with quotes approved. Another one that works as some sort of a diary highlighting all jobs and tasks for each day/week/month. Maybe we should also add a fourth one controlling invoices sent/paid.
The problem in having several spreadsheets? Not everyone has access to it. If someone has changed something you don’t know what has changed, when or by who. If you close without saving info gets lost and if last minute changes occur there is a high chance you won’t update it in the heat of the moment.
The solution cloud-based systems offer
Zapala Go offers a cloud-based solution for removals, relocation and storage companies as we’ve mentioned previously. If you were to consider us as a solution instead of Excel, here’s how your process would work and how you would eliminate possible problems in communication:
- Your quote form linked to Zapala Go would show all leads in the system;
- A history of all interactions with that lead would be kept;
- You would send emails to your customers straight from Zapala Go and all interaction would continue to be registered in the history of that job;
- You would assign staff and fleet to get that job done and it would automatically appear in our Scheduler screen where you can see all tasks for a day, week or month;
- If anything has changed along the way, you can go in there and edit it. Changes will be saved and automatically registered in history along with the time and user responsible for them;
- You have full control on your company and all its users and you decide who has access to what;
- You don’t have to pay any annual fees for licensing. Actually it will only cost you $5/day/user;
- You would integrate Zapala Go with you Accounting software and keep control of all invoices created and payment status in our platform.
Sounds great, huh? Trust us…it is! What are you waiting for to give it a try?
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