The Beginner’s Guide To Dubsado (and how it can take you from overwhelmed to killin’ it, fast)
Ah, Dubsado. I’m a big fan. A huge fan.
Picture teenage-me crying at a Maroon 5 concert (true story) and you’re getting close to the love I have for Dubsado.
Okay, maybe that’s a little extreme. But I really do love Dubsado. And I reckon you would too, if you gave it a shot.
If you haven’t ever heard of Dubsado, you aren’t alone. Despite the fact that me, my clients and over 27,000 other people use it, in the UK in particular Dubsado is still a bit of a mystery to many. And even those who have heard of it often don’t know what it actually is…
So let’s start with the basics.
What is Dubsado?
Dubsado describes itself as ‘A business management platform for everyone.’ Vague, yes. But also true.
At its core, Dubsado is a piece of CRM (Client Relationship Management) tech. It helps business owners streamline, automate and generally make things simpler in their businesses.
It’s software that helps you to create forms, schedule calls, send invoices, automate emails, manage clients, and almost anything else you could think of that your business does. Instead of faffing around using 25 different tools and trying to make them work together in some sort of logical way, you can use one tool (Dubsado) to do all of that and more.
Are you starting to see why I love it so much?!
Who is Dubsado for?
It might be easier to ask, ‘Who is Dubsado not for?’ - because it works for pretty much everyone, in my experience. It’s so customisable that it can be built to do entirely different things for every business that uses it - and that’s its superpower!
Dubsado generally positions itself as a system for creative businesses, for anyone from photographers to designers to coaches and make-up artists and everyone in between. Basically, if you’re a service provider and some part of your business runs online, you can use Dubsado to make your life easier.
In my experience, lots of creative businesses exist slightly accidentally… and creative people often aren’t particularly excited about the ‘running a business’ part of their work. The invoicing, the admin, the emails, the back-and-forth, even more emails. It’s endless. You’re a designer or a photographer or an artist because you’re good at what you do - and you’re probably not thrilled that making money from your passion now means you have to be a ‘business owner’ too.
Dubsado helps with that.
It takes all of those nitty-gritty things that you spend ages dealing with right now and turns them into simple, streamlined workflows and processes that you can trigger in the click of a button.
Instead of having an inbox bursting to the brim with people going back and forth about the specific time of a discovery call, they can book online using a Dubsado scheduler.
Instead of sending 500-word long emails about the specifics of your proposal for a new client, you can send a snazzy-looking proposal in a flash using Dubsado.
Instead of chasing unpaid invoices and creating PDF invoices every single month for the same client, set up repeating invoices and automatic invoice reminders in Dubsado.
All of those little snooze-inducing tasks that drain your last ounce of energy? There’s a Dubsado feature for every single one.
What does Dubsado do?
Again, the better question might be, ‘What doesn’t Dubsado do?’ - and the answer would be ‘practically nothing’. Because Dubsado has such a huge range of features that it would be impossible to explore every single potential use here without writing a 7,000-word dissertation. And I am not going to bore you to tears with that.
There are two things I hear over and over again from clients:
“Harriet, I’ve heard of Dubsado, but I have no idea what it is or how it could help me”
“Harriet, I tried. I tried my absolute hardest, but Dubsado is just too overwhelming. It’s not for me, sorry.”
And it is tough. There are so many features, so many things Dubsado can do, so many ways it can help you that it’s impossible to quickly summarise all of it in any meaningful way. Dubsado can pretty much be anything you need it to be - and that’s what makes it feel so overwhelming!
So instead of trying to give you some sort of prescriptive way that you can start using Dubsado, instead I’m going to give you a quick summary of Dubsado’s core features before diving a little bit deeper into the best bits, so that you can start thinking about how it could help your business.
Core Feature: Forms & Templates
Contracts, agreements, questionnaires, lead capture, proposals: you can build a form for pretty much anything in Dubsado. And the responses to your forms can trigger other parts of your automated workflow so that potential clients can take themselves through your enquiry process without you lifting a finger.
Core Feature: Invoicing
Dubsado allows you to connect a payment processor (Stripe, Square or PayPal) to your account, so that you can send invoices (one-off or recurring), take payments and send receipts and reminders directly in your Dubsado account.
Core Feature: Scheduling
Allow potential or existing clients to schedule calls or meetings into your calendar without endless back-and-forth emails. Connect Dubsado to your calendar so that you’re in complete control of when appointments can be booked.
Core Feature: Client Portals
Instead of sending documents back and forth, losing track of files and always being asked to resend things to clients, Dubsado allows you to build a client portal for each of your projects, where you and your client can access everything you need for the project.
Core Feature: Automated Workflows
And the crème de la crème of Dubsado features: automations. Seriously, there’s pretty much nothing you can’t automate in the Dubsado platform. Build workflows for common client scenarios so that you can move clients from A to Z without even being at your desk.
Dubsado How Tos
Now that we’re clear on the main functions, let’s start thinking a little creatively and get to grips with how each one of those core features could transform your business from UGH to OH YES in the blink of an eye.*
*Disclaimer: it might take a little longer than a single blink, but ‘in a few hours and many many blinks of an eye’ doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.
How to use Dubsado Forms & Templates
What we know already is that Forms can be used to collect data from clients at pretty much any stage of their journey with you:
Enquiry form
Proposal
Contract
Project questionnaire
Feedback/offboarding form
What we don’t yet know (but will do in a mere 457 words time) is how to start building specific Forms that will make your business life a whole heap easier.
Dubsado Forms are based on Templates: you build a Template that can then be duplicated over and over again so each client has a fresh version of the Form to complete. The five types of Template you can build Forms using are:
Contracts: legally binding agreements between you and a client at the start of a project. Clients can sign these digitally, saving the hassle of printing and scanning contracts, and sending a Contract can be triggered in a Dubsado Workflow, so that you don’t have to create a Contract for every new client manually!
Sub-Agreements: just like Contracts, these are legally binding agreements between you and the client. If a client project needs multiple Contracts, you can set up a main Contract for the project and then use multiple Sub-Agreements for specifics.
Questionnaires: which can be used for anything you want! Whether it’s an onboarding form, a feedback form or an offboarding form, a Questionnaire can be built with any questions you want and send out to as many clients as you need answers from.
Proposals: as long as you have Packages set up in your Dubsado account (basically, Packages mirror your business packages or any bespoke ways of working with you - they’re super easy to setup and you only have to do it once!), you can easily create custom Proposals for every potential client. You can fully brand them, add images, text and whatever else you want to add to them - and your clients can view and agree to them digitally whenever they want.
Lead Capture: these Forms play a very important role in triggering a potential client’s record in your Dubsado account. By gathering all the necessary information right from the start, you’re able to use Workflows to trigger automatic emails, which can direct leads to schedule a call, fill in another Form, or do anything else you want them to do.
Before jumping in at the deep end and creating all the Forms you could ever possibly need for your business, pause for a moment. Because the real secret to mastering Dubsado is nothing more complicated than planning.
Yup, that’s all there is to it. Sit down and really think about the journey each of your clients goes through when they work with you. And then think about where a Dubsado Form would be useful in that process. And then also think about what comes before and after completion of that Form.
And, before you know it, you’ll know exactly which Forms you need to build, what info they need to gather, and where they fit into your operational processes.
How to use Dubsado for Invoicing
No matter how much you love your job, you don’t do it solely for the fun. You do it to get paid, right?! And I’ll bet that creating invoices, chasing invoices, processing payments and sending receipts probably aren’t things you want to spend your time doing.
And that’s where Dubsado comes in.
In Dubsado, you can create one-off or repeating invoices, accept payment directly from those invoices, and trigger automatic payment reminders when it gets close to a payment’s due date. Basically, everything invoice-y, you can do with Dubsado.
To take payment through Dubsado, you’ve got two options: either connect a payment processor of your choice to allow clients to pay online, or send invoices that clients pay via bank transfer or another offline method.
It’s entirely up to you which option you choose, but it’s worth bearing in mind that triggering automated workflows is more tricky if you don’t connect a payment processor, because you’ll need to manually update a Dubsado invoice once you’ve received payment outside of Dubsado.
A payment processor is basically a piece of software that allows you to take payment from your clients into your bank account - the processor is like the middle man between your account and the client’s payment method. If you’ve ever paid for a frappe with ApplePay or ordered a takeaway using PayPal, you’ve used a payment processor.
For Dubsado, you have a choice of processor you can connect:
Stripe
Square
PayPal
There are pros and cons to each, as with everything, but they all essentially do the same thing - they process your client’s payments, while taking a little cut of your fee. Once you’ve connected your payment processor once, you shouldn’t ever need to worry about it again!
One final thing to do before sending your invoices is to make sure your Packages are set up. Invoices are based on Packages, which are essentially your services. If you’re a designer and you offer a Bronze, Silver and Gold website design package, those packages will become your Dubsado Packages. Again, they’re simple to set up - and Dubsado have a handy guide with a snazzy video here.
And once your Packages are done and your payment processor is connected, you’re ready to send invoices!
Invoices can be created as one-offs or repeating invoices, which is really handy for clients who are on a retained service or are working with you on a subscription-type basis. You can customise the design of your invoices, add which Package(s) you’re invoicing for, and then you’re ready to send - which you can do directly from Dubsado via email, or you can generate a link to send to your client.
For repeating invoices, you can choose the frequency of invoicing, the date the invoices are sent, and customise everything you can do in a one-off invoice too.
How to use Dubsado for Scheduling appointments
Instead of spending ages trying to find a perfect moment in time where both you and your client are available to chat, the Dubsado Scheduling tool connects straight to your calendar so that your client can find the best time for them.
Scheduling works using Templates again, where you decide on types of appointments that you want to offer to your clients. In each Template, you can specify the type of appointment, its duration, location, your default availability (perfect for having #BOUNDARIES so clients aren’t booking calls outside of your preferred working hours!), add custom confirmation and reminder emails AND choose whether or not the appointment requires payment.
Once you’ve set up your Template appointments and connected your external calendar, you’ll be able to generate a Scheduler for each appointment type. That link will allow someone to book into your calendar at a time that works for them, as long as it a) doesn’t clash with another of your calendar events, and b) is within your default working hours for that appointment type.
Your Scheduler can be sent to clients via email (manually or as part of an automated workflow), added to their client portal or embedded directly on your website, so that it can be accessed whenever it’s needed.
Once an appointment is booked, a client can receive a custom confirmation email (which might include a Zoom link or any other information you want to give them) and can also be automatically sent reminder emails before the session too.
How to use Dubsado automated Workflows
Workflows are what makes Dubsado really really great. Because they take so much admin off your hands. If there’s a task you do with every new client or at a certain point in every client project, the chances are it can be automated with a Dubsado Workflow.
At the most basic level, Workflows are timelines of processes that happen in your business. They can include any of Dubsado’s features and each stage is triggered by either your action or a client’s action at a previous stage.
And if that sounds confusing, it isn’t. It’s just a tough thing to explain in a wordy-way! Here’s an example of a really simple new client Workflow:
Client completes an Enquiry Form on your website
Client is sent an email with a link to your discovery call Scheduler
Client books a discovery call into your calendar
Client is sent a booking confirmation
You have a call with the client
You send a Proposal to your client
Your client agrees to your Proposal
Client is sent a contract and their first invoice
Client signs the contract and pays their invoice
Client is sent a Project Questionnaire to complete and a link to their client portal
If you had to do every part of that manually, it could take you potentially hours - even before you’re earning any money from that client. But by using Dubsado and automating the Workflow wherever possible, you don’t need to do a single thing until step 5. And after that, you only need to decide little details about the Proposal and then it’s back to being automated again.
This is a really simple example of a Workflow in Dubsado, but they can be used for so many scenarios. Once again though, the secret to success with Dubsado is planning. Planning Workflows is one of the most important steps in making Dubsado work for you - and it’s something that I spend a lot of time working through with my clients so that I can build Workflows that take the pressure off rather than adding more to a client’s overburdened plate.
Before building a Workflow, there are a few things to get clear on and make sure are in place:
Start with your Lead Capture/Enquiry form - which bits of information do you need from a lead in order to trigger the most relevant Workflow for them? For example, you’ll likely have a different Workflow for clients on different Packages - so knowing which Package a client is interested in will make sure the right Workflow is triggered
Write out your process - what do you do now to move that lead from enquiry to paying client? Which stages does your client go through and what do you do manually at the moment?
Gather every piece of content, information or collateral that factors into your Workflow, including copy for emails, branding for Proposals, bank details for Invoices - every tiny little detail that will come up in your Workflow
And once your Workflow is built, it’s time for the most important part of the process: TESTING! Get a friend or family member to go through the process as if they were a potential client - if anything doesn’t make sense or feels too complicated or doesn’t trigger properly, you’ll need to revisit it before it goes out to clients!
How to use Dubsado Client Portals
And finally, Client Portals. If you’re an in-person service provider, like a hairdresser or makeup artist, you might not need a Client Portal. But if you’re a service provider who works largely online, delivering digital services to your clients, having a Client Portal can be an absolute lifesaver.
A Client Portal is basically a little space on the internet that’s private between you and your client where you can store every file that’s relevant to your project. If you’ve onboarded a client using Dubsado, you can give your client access to your proposal, contracts, invoices and any forms they’ve completed using Dubsado, as well as uploading any non-Dubsado files to the portal too.
AND, if that wasn’t enough, you and your client can use the Portal to manage the progress of your project too. Your client can schedule appointments, see updates, timelines, deadlines and have conversations with you directly in their Portal. It’s essentially a one-stop-shop for everything you or your client could possibly need while you’re working together.
If you’re currently storing files in Google Drive, communicating via email, sending invoices through your accounting software, and using Calendly to schedule calls, a single Client Portal can replace all of that hassle.
Client Portals are hugely customisable and can include almost anything you want them to, so check out Dubsado’s collection of Client Portal resources to find the perfect setup for you.
Convinced? Get started with Dubsado!
If the last 3,000-ish words haven’t convinced you that you NEED a bit of Dubsado in your life, I give up. Because even writing this has made me even more certain that Dubsado is one of the best things since sliced bread - actually, it might even be better than sliced bread, but don’t hold me to that.
Basically, it’s great. You need it. You should get it, right now.
And you can give it a go yourself here.
The learning curve for getting started with Dubsado can feel intense, I know. One of the things that makes Dubsado so great is that it does so much and it’s so customisable - but that’s also the thing that can make it tough to get your head around to begin with.
If you’re convinced you need Dubsado but just don’t have the time or brain space to get it setup in a way that actually works for you, I’ve got your back. In my signature service Organise + Optimise, I handle everything for you. From mapping your Workflows to building your Forms, creating your Templates and setting up your Scheduling, I’ll build you a Dubsado platform that’s completely custom to your business so that you can focus on doing the work you love.
Plus, bonus alert: you’ll also get 20% off your first year (when paying annually) or your first month (when paying monthly) of your Dubsado subscription. What more could you want?!
If, on the other hand, you quite like the idea of building your own Dubsado but just need a plan to get from zero to Dubsado-hero, that’s exactly what my Dubsado Workflow package is for. I’ll help you map out your Workflow, figure out exactly which bits of content you need to create, and give you my tips and tricks for getting started with your own Dubsado build.
And that’s all from me! I hope you’re as in love with Dubsado now as I am!