More often than not, however, most of these board meetings fail. Despite the good intentions and great experience in the room, the painful truth is that precious time and energy is frequently squandered by directors and CEOs. I have experience this lot whilst running my own creative agency and, of course, this blog.

Just like a good board helps the CEO and team manage their business, and provides unique counsel and support. It is only good if it’s managed well.

That is just the peak on the iceberg when it comes to running a successful business. What matters is the daily operations and the people that make these operations possible. While it is a great pleasure to have a sound board (that provides that much needed support and financial backing) you have to take care of daily running’s and staff within your business.

With that said, I used to have sleepless nights when it came to end-of-month admin duties. With my own start-up being relatively small and all admins and finances handled in-house, I’d often find myself not having the luxury of a free lunch break or, even worse, I’d only knock off at 7pm.

That is all in the past now, over the past month – or so – I have been one lucky user of Sage One’s Accounting service. And just so that we are clear; I am not an accountant, nor do I have previous experiece with any accounting nor payroll software, this was initial encounter with services of this kind. In a nutshell; Sage One’s online service is an online accounting tool that lets you manage your business’ day-to-day running; From issuing and tracking invoices, checking bank statements, processing payments, keeping track of your inventory and work to be done to the simple task of time management – Sage One helps you easily manage all of these and more.

Setup was quite easy. Seeing that I did not know what I was getting myself into, I did not want to commit to foreign/3rd party services that I would end up chucking away because there’s (usually) a lack of support or understanding on my end so I opted for their free 30-day trial. Its quite easy to sign up here. All they asked was my particulars and those of my company. A simple click to add my branding, running accounts (clients), bank accounts (financials) and I was set to go. There’s even a section where one can give access to your accountant to manage.

The free trial entitled me to access for 2 users within the company, myself and my active partner. While the accountant has their own tabs. Once all is set, all that is left to do is for you to edit in missing information such as your suppliers and stock (inventory) you need to keep. Invoices and bank statements issued using the service are kept on your profile in the cloud for when, you know, the taxman comes calling or future reference should something go sour.

What really made the sage experience noteworthy was that it comes ready with a smartphone app that you can use on the go. So if you travel a lot like me, or are just forever mobile (because, business wont easily come to you) this is something worth looking out for.

Sage One’s online accounting tool is definitely one for the books and a great tool for small businesses that want to make use of a professional services, without having to cough out absorbent prices.

Sage One Accounting and Payroll are available as free trials.

Audi recently announced LTE for select models, and a recent report from EE Times suggested that Google’s had the automotive space squarely in its sights since Apple announced its iOS in the Car initiative supported by BMW, Daimler and others. We’ll remain skeptical until we see a product demo, but it would be more surprising if Big G didn’t do something with car companies to stymie its arch-foe.

– Engadget