Owning your own small business can be exciting and rewarding; however, it also brings with it, its own set of unique challenges. If you are anything like us, you are always looking for ways to simplify the ins and outs of the day-to-day business. With the abundance of new business management apps out there, we have found some great tools for keeping organized and sane, so that we can focus on the aspects we love about small business ownership. Below we detail a few of our favorite discoveries.
Every business has different needs, so I’ve kept this list relative small. The idea is that the following apps are not only effective and time-tested, they are flexible in a sense that they can be used in nearly any type of business (or even personal) ventures!
Getting Organized
If you struggle to keep all of your brilliant ideas organized, these apps will help you stay on top of your projects and prevent you from letting the little details slip through the cracks.
Evernote is an excellent tool to store all of your notes, research, lists, inspirations and more－all in one place. Available for use across all of your devices, you will always have access to the necessary information, no matter where you may be. Evernote comes in handy for client meetings especially, since you can easily jot down notes during the discussion that you can refer back to later using the amazing search features included.
If you work with a team, Asana, while not perfect, is a great way to start organizing your ever-growing list of to-do items. Their team-collaboration features, live updating comment window, and keyboard shortcuts make for a truly fast and easy experience. What’s even better, is you can separate work tasks from personal tasks and become an organized person overall!
Lastly, and this is probably the most flexible, cost-effective, and simplistic tool of them all: Trello. Trello is great for building simple processes and organizing information. People have used Trello for just about anything you can imagine: CRM, bicycle shop ordering, keeping up with the news, paying bills, and the list goes on. If you’re a small business and are seeking to do some self-organization, Trello is definitely worth taking a look.
Managing Your Finances
Unless you have an accounting degree, you probably find managing your company’s finances tedious and confusing. I personally recommend bringing someone on staff that can do this for you (just to save you the headache). However, I understand that doing so isn’t always that easy. Luckily, there are several new apps that make the financial aspect of business a breeze.
Expensify is a great resource for managing both your expenses and the expenses of your employees. With simple receipt uploading, mileage tracking, and other tools, this app streamlines the expense management process.
FreshBooks is another useful finance tool for small business management. An accounting tool “designed for you, the non-accountant,” this easy-to-use app allows users create invoices, track expenses, draft spending reports, and much more.
Other Tools
There is an endless list of tools being created and released every day. What I’ve included here does not even scratch the surface. These are just tools that helped me along in the past and are also spoken highly of by clients I work with. For larger businesses, however, a custom tool is often the best way to become most effective. Do you have any tools that you recommend for small businesses? If so, what is it and why?