I've definitely been there myself - this is what I would do if I could do it all over again. Some of this may or not be applicable depending on what you have to invest in to this.
Lead Intake - This is probably the most important cog in the whole sole proprietor wheel. You have to get cash in to the business. So you need this to be either automated or have someone to help with this. I would use Go High Level as a supplementary software to Jobber. I would pay someone to set this up and not try to do it yourself. A really solid set up will take 30-90 days to make depending on how deep you want to go so don't expect this to be an over night thing but it can make things very easy on you in the field then you can do all your manual follows up during dedicated time.
Accounting - Do not do this yourself. Not at any level. You can find good bookkeepers that are affordable for smaller businesses. Jobber takes care of all the basic stuff as far as invoice tracking, integrating with major accounting software but DO NOT spend your time classifying transactions. This is a waste of time for you. That being said, you DO need to make sure you are looking at it and evaluating every month. If you don't understand how to read or analyze a P&L definitely educate yourself but you don't need to put it together yourself.
Time management - I don't think the answer is more software. Jobber has a calendar to put tasks on, you can automate it to sync with google calendar if you want notifications on things. Jobber invoicing is pretty quick and you can do it from your phone. So is quotes. Turn on all the automations in jobber. That will help a lot. You just need to make dedicated time every day to do things in your business. The reality is when you first start, you're going to be wearing a lot of hats and you're not going to have a lot of time for yourself. Make sure dedicated time for your admin and never schedule any job during that time (I'd do first thing in the am then last thing in the am). Check your phone every hour for lead intake if you don't have a system doing it for you so you're getting back to customers quickly. Be on the look out for good people to help you grow. Being ready for an employee can happen pretty quickly if you're on top of your stuff so always be on the lookout, even if it's just part time.
I can't agree with Greg more...
Your business (ie sales) is going to thrive if you can be one of the first people to respond to new inquiries. For me, that meant if I were in the field working, I would text them on the spot and give them times to chat when I knew I'd be on my way home or done with the project. People always commented how quick I was to get back to them. I also set up templates on my Yelp business account so I could quickly and easily respond with lots of info when I got messages there.
Unless you have an accounting background, I feel it is one of the first things in your business that should be outsourced.
Regarding time management and remembering all the things yo have to do... for me that came down to putting everything on my calendar and using alarms on my phone. Running a business requires all of your mental bandwidth. For me, it's really easy to forget things. If I don't add it to calendar and set an alarm, there's a good chance I'll forget about it. Alarms are free and have saved me many times :)
