Technology is truly wonderful, and we live in an amazingly convenient digital age. It is not just our personal lives that technology makes better, though; businesses can benefit just as much, if not more, by leveraging the latest developments in technology and applying them to key areas such as business management tools.
Any business manager, regardless of the industry they’re operating in, can turn their smartphones into a business management machine. Whether it’s sending out invoices or drawing up complex financial projections, there are a whole host of apps created specifically for the business owner of today that help save both time and money.
5 Amazing Business Management Tools and Apps
Here are 5 smartphone apps that every business owner should have.
1. Something for productivity
It doesn’t matter what type of business you run or what its size is—productivity is one of your most important factors.
Evernote is by far the most popular productivity app that is used by millions of people worldwide. Its intuitive UI lets you clip bits and pieces of information from all other the internet, store them in one place, and tag them so you can find them later on down the line. Audio, video, text, screenshots, and other snippets and titbits all end up in one place.
In addition to this, it has journalistic functionality for lists and notes. It is by far one of the best business management tools.
2. Something for time tracking
Time is money and as a small business, it is your most valuable asset.
Whether you are a sole trader who needs to keep track of your hours for billing or you have a small team of employees who you want to keep more accountable, time tracking apps make this very simple.
Our personal favorite is Toggl, a nifty app that can be used on desktop and mobile to track where every last second of your time is being spent. You can create different projects, clients, and employees, amongst other things, and export the data into colorful and user-friendly graphs.
3. Something for project management
It’s no good tracking time and being organized if your projects aren’t going to stay on track. Project management apps are brilliant business management tools that help keep your workflows streamlined and heading in the right direction.
If you are a fan of simple interfaces and user-friendly apps, you are going to love Trello. It is a visual app that uses a board style interface where you can create lists. Within these lists are different cards and these can be moved between different lists as the project trundles on as per the Kanban system.
4. Something for team communications
Although project management tools let you keep up-to-date with current goings-on, you still need the means to have immediate contact with employees, particularly if you’re not a fan of email clients or are the type of person who is inundated with them day in, day out.
Stride is a great communications app—it is more user-friendly than Slack and easier to get going with. The basic service can also be used for free. Although it is not packed with as many features as Slack is, it is perfect for smaller businesses who just want a communications tool that can be used on both desktop and mobile.
5. Something for payment processing
If your business has point-of-sale purchases (i.e. you take payments physically in person as well as online) then you need a payment processing system that isn’t going to break the bank.
Square is a great solution for this. All you need to do is use a very small card reader and plug it into a smartphone or tablet (a tablet is obviously the better choice here) and you can process credit card payments with a swipe, just like any other retailer. It doesn’t rely on the internet, either, and receipts can be sent via email. It has no monthly fee, but transactions do attract a fee of 2.75%.
You can also use PayPal Here, however, the major downside is that payments do not go into a bank account, they instead go directly into a PayPal account.
