The software, systems and tools I genuinely use to run Rachael Does Design and regularly recommend to other business owners.
LET ME SHOW YOU WHAT WORKS...
It's not a giant list of things that I have just tried once, I have just consolidated everything I swear by to keep my business simple and running smoothly.
PLUS - I'VE GOT YOU A FEW DISCOUNTS ↓
I like an easy business.
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Not a small one, easy will never mean unambitious.
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Just one that doesn't need seventeen different systems and a three-hour YouTube tutorial to get something done.
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Over the years I've tried A LOT of tools. Some lasted a month. Some made everything more complicated and some became such a normal part of running RDD that I genuinely wouldn't want to run my business without them.
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Those are the ones you'll find here.
Get paid, keep your accounts in order, look after clients, send marketing emails, create stunning content and keep everything organised...
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I recommend most of these tools to most of clients anyway, so I have also signed up to the referral programmes that make sense, which means some of the links below will save you a few quid too. Win, win.
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Quick heads up: Some of the links on this page are referral or affiliate links. If you sign up through one, I may receive a commission or referral reward. It doesn't cost you anything extra, and in some cases you'll get a discount or reward too. I only recommend tools I genuinely use and rate.
GET ORGANISED / GET PAID / GET SEEN / GET CREATIVE / KEEP CLIENTS HAPPY / WORK SMARTER
GET ORGANISED
​The tools I use to manage my business, keep track of my finances and make sure everything has a clear place to live.
GOOGLE WORKSPACE
Basically the backbone of my entire business.
Email. Client folders. Forms. Docs. Meetings. File sharing. It's all here.
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My client portals are Google Drive folders. My questionnaires are Google Forms. My business documents live in Drive. My meetings happen through Google Meet and because it's all connected, I don't need another complicated client management system sitting on top of it.
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Why I rate it: Everything talks to everything else.
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I use it for: Business email, Google Drive, client portals, questionnaires, Docs, Sheets, Meet and file storage.
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You get: 10% off your first year of an eligible Google Workspace Business plan when you use my referral promotion.
XERO
The place I can see exactly what's happening with my money.
Xero is where the financial side of RDD comes together. Invoices go out. Payments get recorded. Expenses get tracked. My accountant gets what they need. But one of the biggest reasons I love it is that my other financial tools connect straight into it. Starling and GoCardless both link with my Xero account, so when I log in I can see transactions coming through without jumping between different platforms trying to work out what's been paid, what's gone out and where everything is up to. It gives me one place to keep an eye on the financial health of the business — which, as the person actually running it, is exactly what I want.
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Why I rate it: Everything financial starts talking to each other.
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I use it for: Invoicing, expenses, bookkeeping, transaction tracking and keeping my accountant happy
FEDERATION OF SMALL BUSINESSES
The business backup I hope I don't need, but I'm very glad I've got.
FSB is one of those things I think more small business owners should know exists. My membership gives me access to things like legal templates, business guidance and expert support for those moments when running a business gets a little more serious than choosing what to post on Instagram.
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Contracts. Policies. Legal questions. HR issues. The grown-up business stuff.
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I don't need to know everything myself. I just need to know where to go when I need proper advice.
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Why I rate it: There's proper business support sitting in the background when I need it.
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I use it for: Legal templates, business guidance, advice and support.
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And if you're in the North West or Cheshire...
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I'd actually recommend speaking to Darren Gallimore rather than blindly signing up online. Darren is my local FSB contact and can talk you through the membership, what support is available and whether it's actually right for your business.
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Darren Gallimore
North West / Cheshire – Federation of Small Businesses
Email: darren.gallimore@fsb.org.uk
Mobile: 07733 445 570
1:1 appointments: Available via Darren's Calendly scheduling page.
ADOBE ACROBAT
For the official stuff.
I use Adobe Acrobat for contracts, signatures and important client documents. I can send documents for signature, keep everything properly recorded and handle the official side of the business without needing another big system.
And you don’t need the full Adobe Creative Cloud suite to use it, Acrobat is available separately if document management is all you need.
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Why I rate it: A simple, professional way to handle contracts and signed documents - stores everything inside so you never loose a contract - send auto reminders when clients don't sign straight away.
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I use it for: Contracts, e-signatures, PDFs and official client documents.
GET Paid
These are the tools I use to keep the financial side of RDD running without spending my life checking the bank.
And the best bit? They work together.
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STARLING → XERO ← GOCARDLESS
GOCARDLESS
Payment plans without the monthly payment chase. SOLD.
If you offer retainers, memberships, recurring services or payment plans, this is one worth looking at.
I use GoCardless to automate recurring payments rather than relying on clients remembering to manually pay every month and this is where my setup starts getting clever without actually getting complicated:
GoCardless connects directly to Xero.
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So payments aren't disappearing off into another system that I need to keep checking. I can log into Xero and see what's happening alongside the rest of my business finances. Set it up. Let it run. Keep an eye on it through Xero. Get on with the actual work.
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Why I rate it: Less payment admin, fewer things for me to remember and it works with the financial system I'm already using.
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Great for: Payment plans, recurring invoices, retainers and regular client payments.
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AND I'VE GOT YOU £100. Sign up through my referral link and collect £500+ in payments within your first three months and you'll receive a £100 cash reward.
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STARLING BUSINESS
A free business bank account that just works like it should.
No monthly account fee. No paying for a load of bells and whistles I don't need. Just straightforward business banking through an app that's genuinely easy to use. Starling is the bank account behind RDD, and one of the biggest reasons it works so well for me is that it connects directly to Xero. My bank transactions feed into Xero, alongside the payments I'm collecting through GoCardless.
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So rather than having three completely separate systems:
STARLING → XERO ← GOCARDLESS
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I can log into Xero and get a much clearer picture of what's actually happening with the money in my business.
Simple. Connected. Very little faff.
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Why I rate it: It's free, easy to use and fits neatly into the rest of my financial setup.
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I use it for: All of my day-to-day RDD business banking.
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Cost: £0 monthly account fee for Starling's standard business account.*
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Starling eligibility and any charges for additional services apply. There's currently no referral reward attached to my link — I'm recommending it because I genuinely use and rate it.
GET CREATIVE
The tools and resources I use to create and design marketing materials for my own business and my clients work and bring brands to life.
It is also worth mentioning that I use the full Adobe Creative Suite for brand design work but that software is only really useful for others in my line of work - if you are and you want to chat about it - pop me a message! I am ALWAYS willing to chat through what you need :).
*FLODESK - AN ABSOLUTE FAVE
Email marketing that actually looks like your brand.
I use Flodesk for far more than sending newsletters. My email marketing, nurture sequences and parts of my client onboarding all run through it too, so everything feels considered and on-brand from the moment someone lands in my world.
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Why I rate it: It’s easy to use, looks brilliant and makes automation feel anything but automated.
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I use it for: Email marketing, nurture sequences, launches, client onboarding, client offboarding, quick landing pages and automated emails.
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You get: 25% off your first year.
CANVA
No, Canva doesn't replace a designer.
There. I said it.
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What Canva IS brilliant for is actually using your professionally designed brand once you've got one.
I create the proper design work in professional design software, then I regularly give my clients Canva templates and tools so they can keep showing up consistently without needing me every time they want to post something.
Canva isn't where your brand strategy happens. It's where a good brand becomes easy to use.
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Why I rate it: It makes good branding easier to actually use day-to-day.
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Great for: Social content, presentations, marketing materials and using your brand consistently.
ENVATO ELEMENTS
My creative cupboard.
Fonts. Mockups. Stock imagery. Graphics. Templates.
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Rather than buying individual assets every five minutes, Envato gives me one place to find creative resources when a project needs something extra And because I work across completely different brands and industries, having a huge library available is ridiculously useful.
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Why I rate it: Loads of creative resources under one subscription.
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I use it for: Fonts, mockups, stock assets and creative resources.
COMMUNICATE
Good client experience isn't having the fanciest CRM on the internet, It's making an effort to make things easy for you AND your client. These might be "controversial" tools - but I get so much feedback on the simplicity of them, I listen to my clients not the randomer on the internet telling me not to use certain tools.
LOOM
Sometimes a three-minute video saves fourteen emails.
If I need to show somebody how something works, explain feedback or walk them through something on screen, I'll Loom it.
They can watch it when it suits them. I don't have to write War and Peace. Everybody wins.
It's particularly useful for client handovers because I can actually show someone what to do inside their own platform rather than trying to explain it in a 700-word email.
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Why I rate it: It makes explaining things ridiculously easy.
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I use it for: Tutorials, client handovers, walkthroughs and quick explanations.
WHATSAPP BUSINESS
​Yes. My clients can WhatsApp me. Yes it really works as a business process...​
And no, my boundaries haven't spontaneously combusted. WhatsApp Business gives me a quick, human way to communicate with clients without every conversation needing to become an email chain or another scheduled call. The important bit isn't the tool. It's having boundaries around how you use it, for me - I have a tablet with a SIM card inside - for £12 a month. The tablet form ensures I don't just slip a phone in my pocket and it stays as a piece of business tech!!
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Why I rate it: Fast, familiar and human.
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I use it for: Client communication during active projects.
WORK SMARTER
The tools I use to save time, reduce admin and make the day-to-day running of my business easier. I am not the most "forward" business when it comes to this - but I am just me and my clients. I don't need to be - are you over complicating the tools you need to be using?
CHAT GPT
My thinking partner. NOT my replacement brain.
I use AI a lot in my business, but that statement comes with a huge caveat - I don't hand it my business and ask it to think for me. I use ChatGPT to challenge MY ideas, organise MY thinking, spot gaps, research MY thought process and prompts, sense-check things and help me get what's already in my head into something useful.
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The ideas still ALWAYS start with me.
The opinions are ALWAYS mine.
The strategy doesn't get outsourced to a robot.
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Why I rate it: Used properly, it makes me faster without making my business sound like everybody else's.
I use it for: Challeging thought processes, research, organising ideas and sense-checking.
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Also - I need to tell you that I pay for my subscription - roughly £18 a month. But it takes my bots from basic - to actually helpful and I have built my own bots, using my own working style and thinking patterns - which really helps keep my thoughts inline with my own way of doing things.
GEMINI
The one that's doing the admin while I'm on the call.
One of my favourite uses of Gemini is meeting notes. It can take notes from my calls and help get that information back into my Google ecosystem afterwards, which means I'm not trying to have a proper conversation while frantically typing everything somebody says.
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My notes are there. They're organised. They're where I need them.
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This is AI doing exactly what I want AI to do:
Taking admin OFF my plate.
Not replacing my expertise.
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Why I rate it: It works brilliantly alongside the Google Workspace setup I'm already using.
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I use it for: Meeting notes, summaries and keeping information organised.
IF I HAD TO START AGAIN TOMORROW...
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I wouldn't buy every shiny piece of software somebody on Instagram told me I needed. I'd build a simple stack where things actually talk to each other.
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- Google Workspace to run it.
- Starling to bank it.
- Xero to see the numbers.
- GoCardless to collect recurring payments.
- Flodesk to communicate and market it.
- Canva to keep the brand consistent.
- Adobe Acrobat to handle the official stuff.
One last thing...
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This page isn't sponsored by whoever offered me the biggest commission. It's my actual toolkit, some links are affiliate or referral links. Some aren't.
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If there's something I use and love that doesn't pay me a penny, I've included it anyway because I'd rather recommend the right thing than the thing that pays the most and if one of my links happens to save you some money along the way?
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Even better.