Our aim has been to build Flo to act as a complete business software package for companies. The main elements of Flo are described below. You can also find out about Flo’s principles or discover more in the Videos & Wiki section.

• Helping the staff and company plan ahead
• The Company’s Electronic Operations Manual
• Documents and Emails
• Things to be done (Jobs)
• Companies and Contacts

The importance of planning individually and together as a company can be an essential element of improving the overall effectiveness of the company. There are a number of elements within Flo to support this.

A screen dedicated to helping each member of staff plan their day. Ensuring the important tasks are not overlooked in every area of the business.

Providing management information to the business owner and management team. From here a snapshot of what the company or team’s main priorities are and allow them to manage effectively.

For some businesses, accurately recording time is an essential process to ensure billing is correct.

Flo has 2 levels of time-sheeting; it has a ‘state of the art’ solution which automatically tracks what a member of staff has worked on their computer. This information can help a member of staff accurately record their timesheets.

Our timesheet solution has been designed to be very quick and simple to use. Coupled with the automated timesheets reduces the administration burden on your staff whilst increasing the accuracy.

Flo supports companies who would like to apply the principle of Kaizen to their business. Encouraging every member of staff to proactively recommend improvements can result in better working practices which can improve the level of service, and save the company money!

Staff morale can also benefit as they feel more empowered.

The Kaizen principle is embedded into Flo. This means as any staff member carries out a job, it is very easy for them to propose a change in how that work could be done better. That suggestion is channelled to the appropriate manager or Director who can easily review them and apply the change if they agree that the suggestion is a good one.

Seconds count in today’s modern business world. Flo is designed to save you time and when this is applied across a company it can result in significant time and therefore cost savings. For example Flo uses keyboard shortcuts extensively, as studies have shown that in some circumstances using the keyboard is quicker than a mouse.

Flo gives a company very simple, yet if required sophisticated tools, to ensure you can always find the information you need quickly and efficiently. Searching for a telephone number for a company or contact takes a few seconds. The same is true of emails and documents. This is achieved with a very simple and consistent user interface throughout Flo.

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Guidance can also be given on how a job is to be carried out. In Flo, these are called ‘Checklists’. A checklist is a document – we recommend no more than one page - which summarises the things a person needs to consider to complete a specific job. A very simple example; the company could maintain a checklist on how the company makes credit control calls. When a new member of staff joins to carry out this job, they have this information when they are asked to carry out this job.

Collectively the job templates and checklists make up The Company’s Electronic Operations Manual.

A simple example, a member of the sales staff visits a potential new customer, they make a note of the address and travel directions on how to get to the site. This may only take 10 minutes to do, but usually this information is not shared with the rest of the company. Flo encourages this information to be shared – by selecting the ‘site visit’ job, Flo prompts the user to complete a document about how to get to that site. The detail that member of staff puts into that document will be up to them – but since they need to find their way, there’s a good chance they will do a good job. Next time any member of staff needs to go to that site, rather than an empty document, the user will be presented with the document put together by the sales staff. Each member of staff can add further information, for example, time to site, parking restrictions. This is a very simple example of how knowledge sharing can be applied to every area of the business. How to answer the phone, a check list of the questions to ask for a support call, a check list for a sales call and much more.

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At the hub of Flo is a sophisticated document management system. In today’s business, companies revolve around information, most of which is electronic. Although we are very proud of our document management system and think it can easily compete against the expensive stand-alone document management systems that are out there, you won’t hear us say too much more about it. Why? Because we don’t think a document management system is anything to get excited about! So what if you can search 1000’s of documents and emails in seconds? Flo is a business tool not something the IT department wants to get because it uses great technology – although we have had a number of IT department’s get excited over Flo!

The aim within Flo is to always ensure a member of staff has the necessary information immediately available or very easily searchable to complete whatever task they have. Our integrated document management solution allows us to do this. Flo helps to centralise your company.

90% of business communication today is conducted through email. This is a high figure when you think that email is treated as personal and staff are normally left to manage email on their own accord. With Flo, the business management can take control of email, including when and how it is received.

Flo follows good principles to ensure e-mails are automatically filed against the company and individual contact. They can easily be associated to a particular task too. Simplifying and centralizing the storage of all emails ensures all information is available to everyone that needs it.

Flo also follows excellent time management principles to ensure the time spent on reading and answering emails is minimized by your teams, saving the user and the company time.

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In Flo everything a company needs to do is called a ‘Job’. For example,

• The sales process for getting a new customer
• The delivery of a particular product or service
• The finding of information required when someone answers the phone in the office
• Creating a new document template for monthly meetings

This very simple approach is what we think makes Flo so easy for staff to be comfortable with and at the same time allows companies to define as complicated processes they need for their specific needs. Flo can be tailored to work the way your company wants and needs it to work.

Flo encourages work to be split into the relevant work area. In Flo, these are called ‘Departments’. For example, the finance department, the sales and marketing department, operations department, administration and human resources.

If the company decides a particular process needs to be documented, the company can create a Job template – or select one of the standard templates supplied within Flo. This allows a company to provide the guidelines on how this particular job should be carried out and the likely steps that it will need to go through to complete it.

In some cases, a simple reminder is all that is required for someone to complete that job. In other cases more detailed instructions are needed. Flo provides the structure the company has complete flexibility and control on how they use it.

Pareto takes centre stage in how Flo manages working on a job. Flo simplifies workflow by providing guidelines to members of staff which they will usually take in most cases to complete a job. But they are not constrained, so if they decide additional steps which are not defined as part of the job template they are free to add these accordingly. This approach creates a simple, easy to use system that is also a very flexible solution. On the rare occasions further steps are needed a member of staff can apply them.

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Every company has a list of companies and contacts which they work with. Creating a single place to store information ensures everyone in the company knows where to look and maintain this essential information. Your customers, your leads, your suppliers, and the companies you collaborate with. Flo places no restrictions on the different groups a company can define.

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Contact us today to find out how Kaizen Flo can make your business more efficient, whilst keeping you in control. Or learn more About Us – Small Business Software. Kaizen Flo is a great business software package - discover more about the benefits of Flo so it can be your Complete Business Software Solution, Kaizen Flo – Unifying Your Company.