We recently had the pleasure of speaking with Amy McLaughry, Founder of Non-Profit Money Sense, a bookkeeping and tax preparation firm working exclusively with Nonprofit organizations. We discussed productivity, focus, and how Amy uses Pixie to save 5-10 hours per week. You can read or watch the conversation below.

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Hey Amy, tell us about yourself and Nonprofit Moneysense… 

I started this business because of my love for Nonprofit Organizations and my love for numbers. For the last 4.5 years, we’ve worked with the Nonprofit niche to help them meet the financial requirements needed to keep their donors, board, and the public in love with their organizations. 

Amazing! What problems were you facing that made you look at tools like Pixie?

When I was a solopreneur working with a few clients, it was ok for me to work out of my email inbox to get stuff done. But as my business grew, I would find myself getting stuck in my emails and found it hard to focus and know what to tackle first. My approach used to be that I’d open up my inbox first thing, scroll to the bottom and just work my way up. I always thought to myself, “if it’s in my inbox, I need to do it.” 

What I needed was something that would allow me to get emails out of my inbox and accessible for other members of my team to deal with. I didn’t want to give up access to my entire inbox, and just using a shared email inbox wasn’t enough. I needed to be able to assign emails to different people and keep track of where they were at.

Managing emails is always a huge time-drain! What other tools did you look at when searching for a solution?

I started by looking at help desk software to use the ticketing systems built into them. And they worked ok. They were functional, but the cost wasn’t economical when you’re a team of 4 or 5 people, and the pricing is all per-user. Price was a real pain point, and I needed something affordable. 

I also looked at some of the other project management software out there, and in some cases, it had limited email functionality, and in other cases, it didn’t. Lots of them could turn emails into tasks, but very few could manage emails and reply to emails from inside the same application, which is one of the things I really love about Pixie.

Nice! So what else do you love about Pixie that made you start using it?

There are lots of things I love about using Pixie. I love that emails are automatically assigned to clients’ records, making them easy to find. Being able to assign emails to team members to deal with is also really helpful. And the fact that you can reply to emails from within the same platform just saves so much time. 

I also really like the task templates. I’ve got some clients, for example, where I don’t have access to their bank accounts, so being able to create a template email and send it at the start of each month to request their information is huge - it means I don’t have to keep reinventing the wheel each month. It allows me to be more consistent and have more control over what gets sent to clients.

How has Pixie helped you, and how much time do you think you’ve saved?

Now I have my Virtual Assistant set up in Pixie, she deals with many incoming emails for me, and I never have to see them. This has been huge for my focus and productivity because it allows me to focus on the emails that need my attention, as well as all of my ‘working on the business’ tasks. I get a lot more accomplished this way.

It’s completely transformed how we manage email with our clients, and I’ve probably saved at least an hour a day from not jumping between emails and tasks. I’d say that some weeks it could easily save me 5-10 hours. It’s made a huge difference. 

What does the future hold for you and Pixie?

Pixie is the cornerstone of what we do. The email functionality is so integral to how we work. I don’t want to use other tools like Slack. Looking forward, I’ll continue to build out my template tasks and emails to standardize my processes and keep my messaging consistent. I’m looking forward to what else Pixie has in store for me.

To follow Amy's journey you can connect with her on Linkedin here. If you'd like to see how you can save 5-10 hours per week in email management and stop client requests from falling through the cracks, request a free product walkthrough today.