CPA Practice Advisor - 13

APPS WE LOVE
the type of audience I'm writing for, punctuation,
style and word selection." And he also suggests
we try Text Soap, which provides, "all sorts of
automated ways to clean up text," including
removing extra spaces and tabs, converting
to uppercase, or lowercase, resetting smart or
straight quotes, and on and on - there are lots
of tools here for setting rules and then applying
them to create your finished product.
Blake Oliver, director of marketing at Jirav,
suggests that, "Good lighting is essential in any
home office. I use the Phillips Hue app paired
with eponymous light bulbs to easily change
the brightness and color of the light in my home
office to match my mood, whether I want to
concentrate or relax, or something in between.
You can even pair the app with Alexa to control
it all by voice command."
Dawn Brolin, CPA, CFE. CEO of Powerful
Accounting, said, "For communications I would
definitely say Slack. Not that it is the only app
for this purpose but just having an app like that
allows you to communicate with your team
without having to email or call. It saves us a lot
of time and allows us to communicate without
disruption."
Richard Roppa-Roberts, owner of Quasar
Cowboy, uses SnagIt from Techsmith. "Multifunction screen snipper. Easy to use, easy to share,
annotate and save to a whole suite of other
productivity apps."
Chris Frederiksen, CPA, co-founder of
Frederiksen-Crawford CPAs, has these tips for
using the Zoom app:
* Lighting - sit facing a window so that you
maximize the natural light hitting your face. If it's
not enough light, put a supplemental light behind
your laptop. Use your camera to take selfies in
different locations.
* Camera - make sure your camera is above your eye
level. This makes you sit straight and minimizes
the wrinkles.
* Background - needs to be super t idy and
simple. Have a place in the house which nobody
messes with. Otherwise use one of the virtual
backgrounds available.
* Pet Sounds - If you are presenting and someone's
dog is barking, hit Alt+M to instantly mute
everyone except yourself.
Arianna Campbell, director at Boomer
Consulting, suggests Houzz, "A helpful app for
getting inspiration for design and decorations.
They have such a wide variety of ideas and great

photos! I also of course love Amazon. That is my
go to spot after getting great ideas from Houzz."
Geni Whitehouse, countess of communication at Brotemarkle, Davis & Co, said, "TSheets
is my favorite for keeping track of time on my
phone. It is convenient and makes my entire billing process so much easier thanks to integration
with QBO."
Caleb Jenkins, EA, CQP, RLJ Financial Services, Inc., told us, "I just purchased a house
last month and moved in last month so this is
a fitting app request for me right now.... I used
the app Modsy to layout my home and home
office and then started designing from there. It
was helpful to transform an empty room into
something that was workable with my design
likes. I still have some work to finish setting up
the home office but this was helpful to get over
the initial mental block."
Randy Johnston, executive vice president and
owner at K2 Enterprises, recommends Microsoft
Teams, "because of the file integrations and communications capabilities."

Some others we would like to add to the list
include these:
* Doodle for setting up meetings
* White Noise Lite for blocking out household noises
when you're trying to concentrate
* Remente if you're looking for a personal business
coach
* Seven for home workouts
* Skitch for brainstorming team sessions
* TechSmith Capture for recording yourself and
your computer in order to make video training
sessions
* TomatoTimer will remind you to take quick breaks
between work tasks
* RescueTime will help you keep track of how much
time you spend (or waste) on various computer
tasks including email, spreadsheets, software
programs, games, etc. It will even let you limit the
time you spend on certain programs.
If you work with people in different time
zones, World Time Buddy might be your new
best friend - schedule meetings by verifying the
timezone of your workmates. ■

SEPTEMBER 2020 ■

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