About the Landscape Juice Network

Founded in 2008. The Landscape Juice Network (LJN) is the largest and fastest growing professional landscaping and horticultural association in the United Kingdom.

LJN's professional business forum is unrivalled and open to anyone within within the UK landscape industry

LJN's Business Objectives Group (BOG) is for any Pro serious about building their business.

For the researching visitor there's a wealth of landscaping ideas, garden design ideas, lawn advice tips and advice about garden maintenance.

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Free online tools to help your business

There's a massive array of free (and premium) tools now available online that can all help us make our business easier or aid our creativity.

 

If you've come across a tool that'll help other LJN members then please add it here:

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  • PRO

    Aviary is a pioneering and leading provider of creative tools for web and mobile. 

    With a suite of online creative applications and a powerful API, we offer a simple (and free!) solution for creators of all genres to build, edit, and share their work. We're a small, creative team and we're passionate about powering the world's creativity. If you're an awesome person who wants to help us achieve that goal, we'd love to hear from you!

  • PRO

    A new way to open and edit PDF files online, PDFescape frees users from the typical software requirements for using the de facto document file format. Completely online, PDFescape requires no more than a modern internet browser and an active internet connection. Select any of the major features above to learn more.

     

    http://www.pdfescape.com

  • PRO
    http://www.payroo.com/

    Free payroll software. Brilliant, fully HMRC compliant, easy to use.
  • Http://www.yousendit.com

     

    allows you to send files up to 50MB to clients/colleagues etc by uploading to their site and they send a link.  Cuts out horribly large email attachments and also reduces number of CDs to send.  Does need to be single file if using the free version, paid for is more flexible.  Of all sites of this sort that I have used it has been the most reliable, although some recipients have problems with both zip files and with pdfs ;)

     

    It has saved SO much hassle

     

    Amanda

  • Open Office is all the 'fun' of Microsoft Office but with only one non-existant payment! (I love a freebee!) Comes with a writing program that's pretty much identical to Microsoft Word, a database like MS Access, a drawing program, and for the adventurous a program called 'Impress' that I have never even looked at and another mystery calculation thing. Open Office Writer can create PDF documents for free, and can save/open files in formats that can be read by MS Word and other programs, plus can open documents in obsolete formats!

     

    If you handle lots of photos (maybe you keep photos of completed projects or handle them for publicity?) then FastStone Image Viewer is excellent. It's everything that's good about the Microsoft equivalent but without the bad bits, and even has a few useful editing features, such as changing contrast, colour etc, cropping, resizing... the list goes on.

     

    I know very little about computers but have found both of these to be just as good if not better than expensive Microsoft products.

  • Have you tried using this Nick?  I've just taken a look at the demo and it seems very good , I expect Sage aren't too pleased. I used to do payroll as part of my previous job and to keep the software up to date was very expensive, this free software may well be the answer for any small business, if it works. I would be interested to know if you've used it for any length of time and how successfully it links to HMRC. Thanks for highlighting anyway :)

    Nick @ NM Garden Services (NMGS) said:

    http://www.payroo.com/

    Free payroll software. Brilliant, fully HMRC compliant, easy to use.
  • PRO

    I have used it since April this year, no problems.
    I used to use Sage Instant Payroll for 2 years and hated it. I still use Sage Instant Accounts for book keeping though.

    Sally Bishton said:

    Have you tried using this Nick?  I've just taken a look at the demo and it seems very good , I expect Sage aren't too pleased. I used to do payroll as part of my previous job and to keep the software up to date was very expensive, this free software may well be the answer for any small business, if it works. I would be interested to know if you've used it for any length of time and how successfully it links to HMRC. Thanks for highlighting anyway :)

    Nick @ NM Garden Services (NMGS) said:

    http://www.payroo.com/

    Free payroll software. Brilliant, fully HMRC compliant, easy to use.
  • PDF means Page Display Format.

    Sending a quote to a cllient in PDF form means that they will see your quote exactly the way you produced it.

    They can't edit it or tinker with the price or terms so there's less chance of them fiddling the numbers or denying that something was written in or a picture you attached didn't get recieved or displayed.

     

    It just gives you an extra bit of security  etc....

    John  said:

    What exactly are PDF files and how will I benefit from using this ?

     Please remember that most of us on here are landscape gardeners, not computer experts....  lol   

    Philip Voice said:

    A new way to open and edit PDF files online, PDFescape frees users from the typical software requirements for using the de facto document file format. Completely online, PDFescape requires no more than a modern internet browser and an active internet connection. Select any of the major features above to learn more.

     

    http://www.pdfescape.com

  • http://sourceforge.net/   This site is an excellent open-source resource. There are thousands of applications, mostly free, or costing peanuts in the grand scheme, covering everything from office-related, education, games and design software to software-writing applications.  ('open source' means that the source code is open to play with - for software author types - rather than 'closed' as with patented proprietary programmes such as MS Office which can only be upgraded by the owning company and must be bought from them only.)

  • Errr... actually PDF stands for Portable Document Format, and was devised by Adobe Systems originally for paperless proofing of printed documents. Most PDF documents are editable with Adobe Acrobat Pro, so I wouldn't say they offer any extra security.

    David Channon said:

    PDF means Page Display Format.

    Sending a quote to a cllient in PDF form means that they will see your quote exactly the way you produced it.

    They can't edit it or tinker with the price or terms so there's less chance of them fiddling the numbers or denying that something was written in or a picture you attached didn't get recieved or displayed.

     

    It just gives you an extra bit of security  etc....

    John said:

    What exactly are PDF files and how will I benefit from using this ?

     Please remember that most of us on here are landscape gardeners, not computer experts....  lol   

    Philip Voice said:

    A new way to open and edit PDF files online, PDFescape frees users from the typical software requirements for using the de facto document file format. Completely online, PDFescape requires no more than a modern internet browser and an active internet connection. Select any of the major features above to learn more.

     

    http://www.pdfescape.com

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