Mobile Development
Business
20 Best Apps for Small Business
Running a business often may be a difficult task. Whether you're new to the game or have been at it for a while, you'll undoubtedly be thinking about ways to enhance and streamline your regular business operations. Fortunately, in this digital age, there are more technology tools than ever before available to help company owners.
It's hard to find an area where there is no dedicated application that facilitates the functioning. Such help can be especially beneficial for small business owners. And their types are all kinds - from desktop-based accounting systems to mobile small business management software. Often, such applications help automate business processes, save time and money.
In this article, we've concentrated on the most useful applications for small businesses. All of these provide significant performance while also providing value for money.
Accounting
Managing the company's accounting is crucial to its proper functioning. There is no company in the world that works without keeping its accounts, so it is even more important that it is run well. Here are the applications that can improve and facilitate the accounting task.
QuickBooks Online
This is one of the most well-known accounting software packages available. This scalable program is ideal for a range of small businesses. It was voted the best overall accounting app by Business.org. You can tailor this program to your company's needs, thanks to its high degree of flexibility, adaptability, and scalability.
This is one of the most expensive small business applications as it costs $25 per month, so it is worth choosing when your company achieves some financial stability.
Xero
This is a cloud-based small business app for mobile devices that may be used to track their income and interact with their accountant or bookkeeper from any device. You can add an infinite number of users to your Xero account at each subscription level with it.
This is a significant feature in accounting tools, as lower-tier subscriptions on such systems usually allow fewer users and only higher-tier plans enable limitless people.
Zoho Books
This is another cloud-based accounting software that allows bookkeepers, accounting professionals, and business owners to manage their company’s finances. With a few clicks, it transforms everyday business activities into automated processes that allow people to work together across departments to stay on top of receivables and payables, manage inventory, automatically import and match bank feeds, and get real-time tracking of projects for customer invoicing.
It has a free version only for businesses that have less than $50,000 in annual revenue, so it's perfect if you are a small business owner. If the earnings are higher, the price is $10 per month.
Wave
Small business owners seeking free accounting software will find that Wave Accounting is a great fit.
This financial management system is simple to use and approachable. Additionally, it can be accessed by unlimited users. The Wave's invoicing capabilities make it an especially appealing option for service-based firms. It is also a great solution because their mobile application is easy to use and requires no special mobile device.
Payroll
Having a business, not everything can be done on your own, and this also applies to small businesses. So workers are essential, and this is linked to wages for them. Therefore, you should make the people who work for you receive the money they earn, and that everything is clear and transparent to you and the tax office. Business apps can make this incredibly easy.
QuickBooks Payroll
Another application from QuickBooks. With a direct connection to QuickBooks Online, unlimited payroll runs, and next-day or same-day deposits, it provides all 50 states' complete payroll services. Transparency is a huge advantage of this system.
All of us have mobile phones full of mobile apps, QuickBook has its own, where employees can view the salary calendar and how many days of vacation they have. This is not a cheap app, it costs $10 per month plus $4 per employee.
Gusto Payroll
Gusto was created with small businesses in mind and aims to simplify time-consuming activities such as employee payroll, onboarding, benefits, and support. It's cloud-based, so it may be accessed from virtually any location using an internet browser.
You can easily upgrade or downgrade your plan if you need new features or aren't currently utilizing others. Their basic plan costs $39 per month plus $6 per employee.
TSheets
TSheets is a time-tracking software that gives you the ability to measure time on any device and make it simpler than ever before. It also allows you to streamline payroll and invoicing, manage vacation requests, and get real-time reports.
TSheets can connect with other small business apps in addition to QuickBooks—including Sage, Xero, and many more. Their subscription plans start at only $20 per month, plus $8 per user per month.
Payroll4Free
Like in its name this is one of the few payroll software that allows you to conduct payroll at no cost. The lack of a monthly fee is a huge advantage of this application. Every businessman can tell you that it's not easy to start your own business.
The beginnings of the company are never the easiest, everything is missing; time, people, and of course money, and the lack of a fee for such an important tool as a payroll coordinator makes this one of the top small business apps.
This small business management app can be used to track time off, make payments, and write checks. It also has live assistance as well as employee portals.
Points of sale
Point-of-sale software lets you take customer orders and finalize transactions, which may be customized to match your company requirements. Restaurants, for example, require systems that allow them to manage and organize tables. Such systems can also help in organizing self-service checkouts in supermarkets, but small businesses usually do not need such solutions, so treat it as a curiosity.
Vend
This is a store-specific point of sale that allows you to set sales objectives for your team, manage inventory easily, and forecast purchasing trends. Vend is the web-based point of sale solution that enables you to sell to your consumers and keep them coming back. It may be used online and offline, and it's simple enough for anybody to use. Vend connects with a number of payment options and works with the most popular point of sale hardware and software.
For a price of $99 per month, you get features like reporting and analytics, secure cloud backup, integrated payments, and unlimited products or users.
Shopify
It is simple to start an online shop with Shopify. It includes useful features such as the ability to send email notifications to shoppers who leave their virtual shopping carts. It also provides mobile software and equipment for making purchases in-store. It is one of the best small business management apps which got its a separate mobile app.
Their prices are quite affordable science for the subscription you have to pay $29 per month and up. However, hardware and payment processing are additional costs.
Square
Square is a third-party payment processor. This is a good choice for business starters because of how monthly fees are resolved. Many key elements such as a discount management app and barcode scanning system are available in the basic plan, which is free. Square charges flat fees for credit card transactions processing.
They don't vary depending on the type of credit card used. Online transactions are more expensive, which is a standard practice in the retail industry to account for the potential increase in fraud compared with face-to-face purchases.
Lightspeed
Lightspeed Retail is one of few small business apps that provides both the software and hardware that lets business owners expense tracking of items across multiple locations. This is the ideal choice for small businesses with fewer than ten locations, such as chain clothing retailers and other firms. However, it is not the cheapest solution.
Compared to other apps, it is relatively expensive as the monthly fee is $79 plus $29 for each device registration.
Projects and Campaigns
When you run a small business, you have a lot on your mind, it's hard to remember everything, and not everyone has time to write everything in a notebook. That is why technology and numerous project management or marketing apps come to the rescue. For projects and campaigns, it helps to have software that will track everything for you. That way you can see what is happening with drafts, orders, outcomes, and finished products.
Monday.com
Monday offers you over 200 templates for managing various workflows. It is one of the best small business apps for planning, tracking, and delivering the best results for your team. This is a great solution to start any business.
If you do not have more than 2 positions where this program will be used you can use the free version. The next plan costs $8 per seat per month and up.
Asana
Asana is one of the small business apps that you can use to do projects. But here you can list all of the people on the project, set due dates, and give comments about what needs to be done. All this is in its free version which also offers unlimited storage for files up to 100MB each.
The ad on their website says 'With Asana as your work manager, you’ll stay on top of everything your team’s doing' - for a free app, Asana fulfills this role remarkably well.
Trello
Trello is a project management software that makes it easier for teams to collaborate by automating certain tasks to save you time. If you want to, you can add a person to a card when it is moved to a column. Or you can set up a board where tasks are added every week or every month. Also, Trello is a free application. It has its own iOS and Android app.
Jira
Jira is one of the small business management apps which is designed to be focused on managing software development workflows and product roadmaps. It also provides extensive reports, and their accuracy and size can be adjusted as your business grows.
Jira is 'The #1 software development tool used by agile teams.' It's great for starting a business because it supports up to 10 users or 3 agents, includes 2 GB storage, offers community support, and is always free as no credit card is needed while signing in on their website.
Team communication
Everyone knows that the flow of information in a company is essential for its proper functioning. When documents, sheets, or other data can be accessed by each employee, no time is wasted on exchanging information and translating various issues or changes.
Digital documents not only make them transparent in the company but also make environmentalists happy by saving paper. In addition, in the era of a pandemic, the exchange of information in a conventional way is limited, so a large part of us now work remotely, and to make it still possible, it is worth meeting each other, at least virtually.
Zoom
Zoom existed before the pandemic, but it gave it a fresh start. In addition, Zoom allows you to take advantage of the cloud for live streaming and collaboration. It's perfect for hosting large gatherings via videoconference because it works across all platforms. You may hold conferences of up to 500 individuals with add-ons to some of the premium business plans.
The cheapest, free version allows 100 people to gather for a maximum of 40 minutes, but the next price point, Pro for $149.99, allows for longer, 30-hour meetings with the possibility of recording. Subsequent thresholds allow for even greater expansion of the possibilities, up to the above-mentioned 500 participants or unlimited cloud storage.
Google Workspace
It is a collection of Google tools such as Google Calendar, Google Drive, Google Meet, and many more. The possibilities are actually endless. You may use the app to create to-do lists as many as you want, and you may assign tasks to other people on your team.
It has Google Hangouts, which can be considered one of the communication apps, and the possibilities such as video conferencing or the ability to share files are the key element to boost productivity of your company.
Google Workspace also offers additional, typically business functions, such as the ability to use individual e-mail addresses with your own domain, a minimum of 30 GB of disk space for storing documents and e-mails, and a 24/7 technical support service available via e-mail and by phone.
The all-inclusive payment plan costs $5 a month or $50 a year per user.
Team Viewer
This software is designed to remotely control the operating system via the Internet without the need to install a server or client in the computer's mass memory. Using the program, the user can transfer data, conduct chats, virtual training, live presentations played directly from the client's computer, and manage a server based on the Windows platform.
The cheapest plan costs just over $ 50 and allows one licensed user to initiate a device connection one session at a time. It is a great choice for training and working from home.
Microsoft Teams
With this Microsoft's solution, you'll get a suite of services, including video conferencing and instant messaging.
The free edition allows you to unlimited group meetings up to 60 minutes, up to 100 participants per meeting, 5 GB of cloud storage for each user, unlimited chat with colleagues and clients, file sharing, tasks, and polls, data encryption for meetings, chats, calls, and files. However, only Microsoft Teams is available in this version.
The creator of Windows also offers other applications of Microsoft Office such as Exchange, OneDrive, SharePoint, Outlook, Word, Excel and, PowerPoint.
Wrapping Up
Starting or running a small business is not a simple task. Every day you face common problems that only make your day unpleasant. Fortunately, technology allows us to thwart these problems, and business applications are the perfect proof of this. Starting from the most important aspects of the company, such as accounting, payroll, and management, to customer service or team communication, all these areas of the company can be improved.
We hope you will be able to improve the functioning and results of your company with this one of the best small business apps.