Running a small business can be very hard, especially at the start, when you may be dealing with most business tasks on your own. Small business apps come in very handy for such one-man companies, freeing the time and resources for you to invest in the business growth instead of the exhausting business routines. Here you’ll find a helpful list of the best apps for small business fitting all needs and helping organize and systematize daily business operations. The fact that some of them are free (at least for a trial) is also a great plus for those who are on a budget and count every dollar to launch their startups.
#1 Pkge.net
Due to globalization, we no longer have to produce everything we need. Neither do we need to buy items from the local producers if we don’t like the quality or consider the pricing to be too high. It’s now possible to order anything from any corner of the globe, be it a cozy sofa for your office or some critical raw materials, spare parts, or office supplies. If you are ordering many items and track packages from numerous merchants, the whole enterprise can be a real hassle. Pkge.net is a convenient one-stop solution for all your tracking needs. You only need the track order number to keep all your packages under control. Registration is quick, and after you’ve provided the postal tracking IDs to the system, it will store them and will notify you about the change of your shipment status. Tracking a shipment has never been so easy!
#2 Shopventory
Shopventory is definitely not the best inventory app for small business, but it doesn’t have to be, especially given that small businesses on a budget may access most of its functions for free. It’s quite limited in terms of advanced inventory management as it’s fully reliant on the POS and eCommerce solution you use as a merchant. However, it’s a flexible tool in terms of POS integration, supporting such major vendors as PayPal Here, WooCommerce, and Square. Shopify also joined the list recently, now giving you a reasonable number of possibilities to organize your inventory in a neat and convenient way for free or within the minimally priced package.
Pros:
- Low pricing, many features available for free;
- Easy and quick integration with numerous financial gateways;
- Intermediate, effective inventory capability;
- Advanced reporting features;
- Appealing dashboard and intuitive interface.
Cons:
- Functionality is fully reliant on the POS software and e-commerce solutions you’re using;
- Access to information within the POS/e-commerce platform’s API only;
- Limited customization.
#3 SalesForce
SalesForce proudly refers to itself as a #1 CRM platform in the world, and that may be a fair statement, given that this app makes a variety of functions like marketing, sales, and customer service integration a cohesive business activity. That’s why SalesForce is always on the list of top 10 business apps that any business, from a small family firm to a huge corporation, may find helpful.
Major features of SalesForce include:
- Advanced customer relationship management;
- Complex CRM integration of multiple business functions;
- Detailed customer profiles available for processing by marketing, sales, and commerce departments;
- Greater personalization of customers’ experiences;
- Quicker customer support and greater conversion of leads;
- Effective task automation.
The only complexity of using SalesForce comes when you select the pricing plan and the spectrum of features you need. There is little transparency on that issue, probably because the creators tried to customize their offers as much as possible, allowing their clients not to pay for what they don’t need. Thus, you may choose among the SalesForce products for small business (these packages include sales and customer support for the teams of up to 10 persons), specifically sales solutions (e.g., sales cloud, CPQ, billing, etc.), marketing, commerce, or engagement packages, integration, analytics, success plans, and many others. The small business solution will cost you from $25 to $1,250 depending on the size of your team.
#4 Trello
Trello is one of the best apps for small business owners bringing in the systematization of tasks and better project management. With Trello, you won’t experience any issues with assigning tasks and controlling their completion. Everybody in the team will always have a clear vision of what he or she has in work, displaying the outcomes of those tasks’ completion in the Trello boards as well.
The most sizeable benefit of Trello is the simplification of collaboration, which is vital in the modern era of outsourcing and work in distributed teams. With the help of Trello boards, team members can share ideas and complete tasks no matter how far from each other they are. Thus, Trello is a useful piece of productivity software enhancing task management and project management.
#5 Hotschedules
Another great solution for team scheduling and task management is Hotschedules. Though somewhat narrowly focused on the shift-type work, Hotschedules can still improve the staff’s performance due to dramatic reductions of time waste.
Pros:
- Easy, intuitive interface;
- Broadcast and private messaging features;
- Advanced assistance in work-life balance for employees;
- Labor and sales snapshots.
Cons:
- Unavailable on an individual basis – the employer needs to register a corporate account first;
- No notification for an extra available shift;
- Too pricey for the bugs and problems that users often report.
#6 Wrike
Wrike is also on the list of great mobile apps for small business as it’s a highly flexible SaaS product available in numerous languages and supporting a great number of project management functions and tasks. With Wrike, you can easily track all your projects and monitor the staff’s compliance with deadlines. In addition, it’s effective in scheduling and management of workflow processes. Thus, with Wrike, you always get an all-in-one solution for the neat organization of your daily routines so that even a quick glance at the current workflow dashboard gives you a complete picture of where your team is.
Key features of the app include:
- Project management and team collaboration panes;
- Numerous PM functions and visuals, including the workload view, Gantt charts for the processes in progress, advanced resource tracking, and time tracking;
- Collaborative work tools, e.g., the Wrike Live co-editor and a task-specific public chat;
- File storage and in-system editing;
- Inbox for each team member to allow quick updates on the task status changes.
#7 Gusto
Speaking about payment apps for small businesses, we can’t help mentioning Gusto as an affordable and efficient system for payroll and benefits management. Today, the company’s list of clients exceeds 100,000 small businesses. Such popularity is explained by affordable pricing of the app combined with a multitude of appealing features, such as:
- Ready employment paperwork;
- Simple payroll calculation, tax calculation, and tax filing;
- Advanced synchronization of all employee information;
- Suitability for numerous business sectors;
- Coverage of all insurance types, 401(k) savings, 529 college savings, HSAs and FSAs.
Try Gusto if your accounting and payroll needs are basic. It’s a perfect solution for small businesses that take care of all the financial routines.
#8 Scanner App
Having some files in the printed form is great, but what to do if you need them digitalized as quickly as possible, preferably without the quality sacrifice? Here the Scanner app comes in handy; it’s a free and handy scanner app that enables you to scan any documents with the help of the iPhone. The features of this simple app are impressive:
- Quick scanning with the help of the iPhone camera only;
- Ability to save the scans in a variety of formats (PDF, JPG, or TXT);
- A feature of the doc’s personalized signature;
- Sharing of the docs via email or their upload to a cloud.
#9 Square
A bit more advanced than Gusto, Square is a one-stop solution for all financial issues of your firm, which makes it the best app for small business accounting. It covers a variety of functions ranging from the POS software for online sales to comprehensive payroll management. When using Square, you get:
- A handy POS setup;
- Advanced integration of eCommerce solutions with online merchant websites;
- Different sorts of branded hardware (magstripes, terminals, etc.);
- An automatic invoicing feature;
- In-depth analytics and reporting.
#10 Wunderlist
The last but not the least, Wunderlist is a magical personal assistant that can help set any business up and running. It streamlines planning with the help of a “My Day” checklist. It opens on any device and is perfectly synchronized not to let you lose any of the vital plans out of sight. But one important remark is that it closes in May 2020. All active users and those who want to try the service should refer to Microsoft To-Do instead.
A Wrap-Up
All in all, choosing any apps from this list guarantees that your small business operations will run smoother and your productivity will continue increasing. It’s always a pleasure to delegate some of the tedious tasks to assistants. So, choose the handy helpers from our list and concentrate on what matters the most – your business development and growth.