Tools for Running an iOS Consulting Studio

Reflector

Have you ever tried to gather a group of people around your iPhone in a boardroom to demo a feature or a new app? It’s pretty much impossible, and it looks terribly unprofessional. Sometimes the iOS Simulator just doesn’t cut it either. Enter Reflector, which lets you mirror the screen of your device back to a Mac in order to showcase your demo or even record the screen. Problem solved! :]

Project Management

Instant messages, video chat and remote demos are great “live” tools, but you’ll also need some way communicate asynchronously. In addition to the old standby of email, project management tools let you archive and track comments, issues, tasks, etc.

Here are some more communication tools targeted to project management.

Basecamp

When designing and building any project, it’s essential to have a single place to track changes, feedback, and notes associated with your project. Basecamp offers these services in a package that’s not only useful, but client-friendly as well.

One caution I would offer about Basecamp is as projects grow beyond a certain size, project details can easily become lost in the cracks; sometimes, managing large-scale projects on Basecamp can become a full time job in and of itself.

Lighthouse App

As a solo developer, it’s easy to keep a whiteboard or a paper journal of outstanding bugs and yet-to-be-implemented features. However, this approach doesn’t scale very well when you work in teams. Lighthouse tracks project issues with very little extraneous noise and has just enough features to replace the whiteboard without being overly complicated.

If you’re looking for an iOS companion to Lighthouse App check out Resolve, which lets you manage tickets and receive push notifications right on your device.

GitHub Issues

Much like Lighthouse, GitHub Issues is a lightweight ticket tracking system built on top of Github. This makes it an ideal choice for companies who host code in GitHub. Choosing between Github and Lighthouse mostly comes down to personal preference.

There are a number of more complex bug tracking platforms available, such as Jira and Fogbugz. These platforms have many more features than Github Issues and Lighthouse — but those features come at a cost of extra complexity.

When choosing a ticketing system for your development shop, spend some time upfront and consider which platform best fits your team’s workflow, since switching tracking platforms down the road can be quite a lot of work.

Invoicing, Payroll & Accounting

Tracking cash flow is a crucial aspect of any business. Unfortunately, a lot of organizations overlook this and discover this fact after they encounter serious problems with their finances, at which point it is usually too late to recover gracefully. I’ve seen many companies fold because they thought they had more money than they actually did.

Keeping a careful eye on the financials of a company can alert you to potential problems months, or even years, before they have an impact on your business. Careful recordkeeping keeps you aware of the financial direction of the company and gives you a lot of data on which to base your business decisions.

To that end, here’s some of the accounting software that makes working with that dirty aspect of the business — money — just a little more bearable.

FreshBooks

FreshBooks is an online invoice and time tracking system. A basic FreshBooks account is free and it’s quite affordable to upgrade to more feature-rich accounts as your business dictates. FreshBooks can track your employees’ time, process invoicing for clients and track expenses and reciepts.

More advanced features let clients pay their invoices via credit cards or PayPal. If your organization requires a high level of integration with FreshBooks, you can take advantage of the powerful API to integrate FreshBooks into your existing or future internal systems. With highly customizable reports and both iOS and Android apps available, you’ll be able to keep tabs on your business accounting.

QuickBooks Online

Historically, QuickBooks on the Mac has been a second fiddle to its Windows cousin. However, QuickBooks Online is a full-featured Mac compatible alternative and lets you easily share information with business partners, accountants, advisors, and investors.

FreshBooks helps you keep track of employee cost and incoming client revenue, but QuickBooks can keep an eye on other expenses and costs associated with your business. When tax time rolls around, having solid records can save you a lot of money, not only in proper tax deductions but also expensive hourly accountant fees!

Client Relationship Management

Most freelancers who have been around for a while have at least one story of losing clients simply because they forgot to follow up on client leads! It’s incredibly easy to let potential leads slip through your fingers while you’re occupied with managing existing clients, products, employees, payroll and all the other minutiae associated with running a business.

Even though you might be crazy busy with your business now, you could certainly face a period of famine at some point down the road when work dries up. Without the momentum created today from following up with clients, it’s a lot harder to build a sales pipeline when the lean times are upon you.

Payroll and other monthly obligations can make it extremely hard to recover from a lack of active client work. A Customer Relationship Manager (CRM) tool will help you build and maintain your sales pipeline to avoid critical business errors like ths.

There are lot of CRM options out there, but a lot of them deal with selling products to customers and aren’t ideal for a service-based model like software development. Through trial and error — and a lot of mistakes! — I’ve narrowed down the list to three solutions that work best for mobile consulting shops.

Highrise

This CRM offering from 37Signals is a good choice for lead tracking. While Highrise lacks a number of advanced features such as percentage chance of closing, charting patterns, and forecasting, it does a good job with basic features like creating deals, tracking email correspondence and built-in shared to-do lists.