Whether your a financial adviser, or an Insurance provider if your running your own business you know the importance of getting things done efficiently. Running a small business requires wearing many hats, and there's a plethora of applications available to you to get things done. We've sifted through the hundreds of applications and software that's out there, and found the best applications we think you should consider looking at to help things run smoother.
From time management to accounting, here are some of the best applications we found that can help you with your business. Even if you don't own a business of your own, some of these apps are still beneficial for managing time, and even getting your taxes done.
Financial Apps
Quickbooks accounting software is a must have for anyone running a small business. Now they offer a mobile application along side their desktop client. Their app provides quick invoicing and billing statement views, as well as providing you a quick at a glance, from your phone, or tablet. You can also integrate bank accounts, credit card, Square, PayPal and many more through the mobile application and upload data to your Quickbooks account seamlessly.
Quickbooks is free on the app store, however you'll need to sign up for an online account which will run anywhere between $5 to $35 per month for the first 6 months depending on the your needs.
Gusto is an app that helps streamline your company payroll and tax benefits. Gusto is able to report new employee's online to the government. Gusto can also take care of local, state and federal tax filing. You can also enable automatic deductions for employee benefits and workers compensation payments; and even email digital pay stubs to your employees.
Gusto charges its users $39 per month plus an additional $6 per month, per each employee. They do offer a 1 month free trial for those who want to give it a try.
Communication
Microsoft Teams is the latest app developed by Microsoft to help you chat, call, and create meetings for today's business owners. Teams integrates seamlessly with numerous other app's to truly bring you a unique experience for your team. Integration with Office 365 allows you to schedule and join online Skype meetings with HD video, share your files, apps and even your desktop online as well.
Skype is one of the best known video conferencing applications around. Many competitors have tried to overcome Skype's dominance, but have never been able to replicate the simplistic design, and overall quality of what Skype has to offer.
The basic Skype software is free, and it's also free to call other Skype users. Rates for calling mobile and landline numbers do vary however.
For larger businesses, Skype for Business is available via Microsoft Office 365. Prices range between $5 to $12.50 per user, per month.
Time Management
Microsoft Outlook Tasks is a great way to keep yourself organized and on-track. Creating tasks in the Outlook app on your Android or Apple device is easy, and let's you set timed reminders to help you stay on time. Tasks can sync across all of your devices so long as they are connected to the same email account. Set tasks in outlook for any number of accounts from an office 365 account, to a custom email provided by Natural Networks.
TripIt consolidates travel plans into a single itinerary that can be accessed at any time and on any device. Users just have to forward their travel emails to TripIt, and the app integrates the meetings from there. You're also able to check departure times, delays, find directions to airports, and even view the weather.
Business Organization
Evernote is an app which syncs notes across your mobile and desktop devices. To-do lists, notes, reminders, and anything you want to make a note of and access from anywhere over an internet connection is easily done so with Evernote.
You are given 60 megabytes of data per month with the free account. The Plus version costs $34.99 per year and features monthly uploads of 1 GB, letting you access notes when your offline, emails to the app and access support via email when you need it.
They also offer a $69.99 per year premium version, which gives you 10 GB of data per month, and other features like the ability to search for text within PDFs and office docs. The business version costs $12 per user, per month, and comes with team and admin features.
Microsoft OneNote is a great application available on Android, iOS, Apple, and Windows. OneNote allows you to collaborate with team members, invite new team members to work on documents, share notes, and OneNote allows you to quickly access your notes from anywhere.
You can download and use Microsoft OneNote for free.
We're very excited to see the app market continuing to expand and feature some very intuitive applications to help grow and sustain small business's. Stay up to date with news and technology on our blog each week.
