All posts in Small Business

What is a Purchase Order Template? 5 Free Templates to Get Started

purchase order template

You’re here because you’re looking for a purchase order template to make your life easier.

Well, here are 5 different templates in different formats which you could use:

If that’s all you need, pick the one in the format you prefer and have a great day.

However, if you didn’t already have a purchase order before you came to this article, then you probably didn’t and still don’t have a system for your purchase orders.

The system is more important than the template.

In this Process Street article, I’ll do a really quick explainer of your options for systemizing your purchase order and tying it into the rest of your accounting activity.

Systemizing it will save you time and effort in future. So it’s in your interest to check out some of the options.

We’ll cover:

  • What is a purchase order?
  • What is a purchase order workflow?
  • 5 free purchase order templates
  • Top workflow ideas for purchase orders
  • More accounting workflows to make life easier

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How to Create and Organize The Perfect Process Library (Free Templates)

process libraryProcesses are all the rage right now, and we’re very pleased to be leading the charge in making processes agile and actionable for organizations of all shapes and sizes.

We’ve written countless pieces about creating a process, writing standard operating procedures, or building business systems.

But sometimes we’re guilty of assuming that having a process automatically makes something organized. It doesn’t.

If you’re a solopreneur or working in a startup, managing processes is fairly easy. You have a limited number and you can easily scroll through to find the one you need when you need it.

But what about large organizations? Companies where people on different teams are in different countries? Businesses where different departments speak and operate in different languages?

How can we manage processes on such a large scale, and what does that tell us about managing processes for small businesses looking to scale?

This is where a process library comes in.

In this Process Street article, we’ll look at:

Or, if you’ve just come for the templates, grab them below:

Let’s get started!

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The Harvard Churn Management Algorithm to Boost Profits 115%

churn managementIt’s an accepted reality of business that customers come and go.

This is why we’re always on the lookout for new customers – we know we can’t just rely on the existing ones to keep things ticking over.

Yet, we don’t have to accept this fact lying down. And many don’t!

This article is about fighting back against those customers abandoning ship; about stemming the tide of the churn.

In this Process Street article, we’ll look at:

  • What is churn management?
  • What are the different types of churn?
  • How the telecom industry pioneered churn management
  • The 4 best practices across telecom’s big players
  • The 3 critical steps to implementing best practices
  • The Harvard trick to boosting profits by 115%

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How to Sell Your Small-Time Internet Business

sell your internet business

“FACEBOOK ACQUIRES INSTAGRAM”

“TWITTER ACQUIRES VINE”

“GOOGLE ACQUIRES WAZE”

The biggest acquisitions of the hottest startups are hugely public. But because the most newsworthy acquisitions are the biggest, we’re led to believe those are the only kinds of acquisitions that happen. That’s simply not the case.

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The 9 Best Organizational Tools to Bring Order to Chaos

Organizational Tools

Documented processes don’t just save you time, money, and give a consistent method for your team to follow. They make everything you do more reliable and efficient, even increasing project success rate by 70%.

Unfortunately, getting started is the hardest part. Whether you don’t feel like you have time to set up your management system or just don’t know what to use for your needs, it’s difficult to get over the initial learning curve.

That’s why I’m going to outline the 9 organizational tools you can use to get started right now.

From their pros and cons and best use guidelines to general tips on what to do with your organizational tools, this post will cover:

  • Process Street
  • Office 365 (Microsoft Word and Excel)
  • Trello
  • Airtable
  • Google Suite (Google Docs, Google Sheets, and Google Drive)
  • Zapier
  • …and 4 process management techniques to get you started

It’s time to learn what organizational tools you need to manage your processes, and how to use them.

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How Does a Franchise Work? Uncover The Secret Sauce of an American Franchise Giant

how does a franchise work headerThe franchise model of doing business is a decidedly American affair.

The concept marries the power and scale efficiencies of large corporate bodies with the entrepreneurialism and hard work of mom-and-pop small business.

According to the United States International Trade Association:

there are over 780,000 franchise businesses that directly employ over 8.8 million people and account for over $890 billion in direct economic output.

The franchise model is one of the powerhouses of the US economy and features countless household names – McDonald’s being one of its truly global successes.

In this Process Street article, we’ll look at:

  • What a franchise is, and the costs associated with starting one
  • What the 2016 film The Founder tells us about the origin story of McDonald’s
  • The role the Founding Fathers played in the history of franchises
  • What systems McDonald’s used to propel their franchised successes

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Free Small Business Software: 34 Powerful Tools to Try

The average business’ software spend has been on the rise for years now, with small and medium businesses spending a higher percentage of revenue on software than enterprises.

The average midsized company spends $13,100 per employee on IT. With some smart alternatives (and not relying on the same vendors as always), companies can cut this cost massively. In fact, in a 2017 post about the minimum viable software stack for a 10 person startup, I calculated an option that cost just $260/user/year.

That post touched on just some of the free tools small businesses need, but here I aim to cover the topic much more widely, and look at:

  • Office suites
  • Workflow tools
  • Internal email tools
  • Project management tools
  • Marketing automation tools
  • Team communication tools
  • Accounting software
  • Payroll tools
  • Cloud storage
  • CRMs
  • Database management tools
  • Software development tools

Let’s go!
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What is a Business Process Consultant? (And How To Find a Good One)

business process consultant

What do you do if you don’t have the time or know-how to document and improve your processes?

You hire a business process consultant of course!

While we’ve talked endlessly in the past about why processes are important and how to manage your own, hiring a business process consultant lets you reap all the benefits without having to spend an age assessing your organization and talking to every last employee involved.

So, if you want to organize your processes and bring efficiency to your business but don’t have time to do it yourself, read on!

process consultant hired
(Source)

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Inside the Recruitment Processes of 3 Tech Giants (and How to Improve Yours!)

recruitment process google facebook spacex headerOne of the key strengths of top companies is the employees inside them.

Who they hire and how they hire them helps determine employee attainment, employee satisfaction, employee accountability, and employee turnover.

Small changes to recruiting processes can have a surprisingly large impact on the day to day life of a company. According to the Glassdoor Economic Research (2015) report, a 10% harder interview process is associated with a 2.6% higher employee satisfaction later on.

Loads of our clients use Process Street for managing their recruitment processes and we know all too well how important it is to get that process right.

That’s why we’re going to explore how 3 top tech giants manage their recruitment and see what gold standard techniques we can pass on to you. We’ll explore:

  • The three stage process Google use to make new hires
  • How Facebook hire Builders not just regular folk
  • What SpaceX do to hire the best of the best

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Xero vs QuickBooks vs FreshBooks: The Best Accounting Software (with Monty Python)

xero vs quickbooks vs freshbooks best accounting software - header

Accounting is a time-consuming, complex, frustrating, and criminally boring part of running a business.

It’s precisely this kind of tedium which inspired Monty Python to riff on the profession several times, with accountants getting so frustrated that they do everything from becoming pirates (sailing the wide accountancy in a moving building) to try to switch to lion taming.

xero vs quickbooks vs freshbooks best accounting software - python gif

However, accounting and bookkeeping is also a vital part of running a business if you want to abide by the law and track your finances. No matter how tedious it might seem it’s vital to know what money is coming in, where it’s being spent, and whether you’re earning a net profit come the end of the financial year.
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