How to be a more productive business owner
Running a small business often requires you to wear many hats while juggling endless amounts of tasks. With so many things to keep in mind from invoices to inventory, anything that can make your business life a little easier is much appreciated. Here are 5 apps that you can leverage right now to work smarter, not harder.
Finance: FreshBooks
The FreshBooks app give small business owners and solo-prenuers an easy way to manage and track invoices. It allows you to create personalized invoices, automatically bill your clients, and accept credit card payments via your mobile device. You can also create customizable business reports, inclusive of balance sheets and income statements. This app is compatible with desktop, iOS and Android devices; pricing starts at $15 per month.
Payments: Square
Square is fast and convenient way to manage payments for your business. The app uses a small, portable square-shaped card reader that you attach to your mobile device to take payments. Square also offers a point-of-sale system that tracks customer information and inventory. This app is compatible with iOS and Android devices; pricing averages at 2.75% per sale.
Communication: Slack
Slack is an instant messaging platform that allows you to organize your team’s conversations through public and private channels. The app also allows you to share files, images, etc. within the chat conversation. It also integrates with other apps such as Google Drive and Dropbox. This app is compatible with desktop, iOS and Android devices. Slack is free with an ability to search up to 10k messages, and $6.67 per user/month for unlimited chat search.
Project Management: Trello
Trello is a project management app that tracks your team’s activities in an easy and flexible way. Trello allows you to create cards for each task where you can add comments, due dates, attachments, etc. You can also add or assign the cards to other team members, who are alerted whenever there are changes or updates. This app is compatible with desktop, iOS, and Android devices. Pricing is free, but starts at $9.99 per user/month if you want to include app integrations.
Organization: Dropbox
Dropbox is the most popular cloud platform for storing and sharing files. The app offers a secure way collaborate with team members, automatically sync files, and recover old versions of documents. Dropbox allows you to access your files across multiple devices, including desktop, iOS, and Android. Pricing starts at $12.50 per user/month for 3 TB of storage.The purpose of productivity apps is to get more done in less time.
