It is crucial for every business to streamline daily operations since nothing else is as effective in promoting productivity and cost-efficiency as automation. However, small companies can’t always afford advanced software tools and systems allowing for that. Hence, reasonably priced or even free small business software, regardless of their functionality, always work best for them.
In this article, you will find the list of ten diverse tools that small business owners prefer to use in their work and will learn about the benefits of these tools firsthand.
11 Small Business Software Apps that Experts Like to Use
1. Time Tracking and Project Management with actiTIME
actiTIME is a popular software that combines essential time-tracking and project management features that make it a great choice for small businesses looking to improve productivity, manage projects efficiently, and gain insights into their team’s performance.
- Easy transition and onboarding. actiTIME has an intuitive and user-friendly interface, making it easy for employees to track their time and for managers to monitor and analyze the data.
- Flexibility. actiTIME provides various options for logging work hours, including manual entry, timer-based tracking, a mobile app, and a
Chrome Extension for automatic tracking based on computer usage. This flexibility allows employees to choose the method that works best for them. - Project management capabilities. actiTIME offers project management features, such as task assignment, progress tracking, and deadline management. This helps small businesses effectively manage their projects and ensure timely completion.
- Reporting and analytics. actiTIME allows employees to track their time on different tasks and projects accurately. It provides detailed reports that help managers analyze productivity, identify bottlenecks, and adjust their expectations.
- Integrations. actiTIME integrates with dozens of popular software solutions via Zappier and allows to synchronize data input across the other tools you may use via
API. - Cost-effectiveness. actiTIME offers affordable pricing plans suitable for small businesses with any budget and helps teams save extra through increased productivity.
Such a diversity of functionality is the main reason why the team at Casino Game Maker loves to apply actiTIME, and the app’s mobile version adds an extra value to those of their employees who often travel and work away
from their desks:
actiTIME more than meets the needs of my company
It’s an amazing product, it is extremely well-polished and a good deal better than other apps which have higher license fees. At this point, actiTIME more than meets the needs of my company. Thanks for developing such a wonderful app!
2. Invoice Management with Invoicely
If you want to get paid accurately and on time, you have to master the art of invoicing. This is particularly true for small businesses because every dollar spent or earned makes a big difference for them. Invoicely can become a great helper in your invoicing chores, and as stated by Tomas Mertens, the CEO and Owner of Solitaire Paradise, it is specifically built for small businesses:
Invoicely allows you to easily send out invoices and automatically follow up on them. The tool offers a lot of flexibility, such as invoices in multiple languages and support for multiple currencies. Furthermore, the automatic follow-up of the invoices clears so much time that I can now spend on
my business itself.
Furthermore, I can easily add a company logo and make other design changes so that my invoices look professional and handcrafted. Thus, Invoicely has the greatest influence on the productivity of my business.
3. Email Marketing with Mailchimp
Email marketing is a sure way to promote your products, attract new customers and educate the existing ones. In other words, successful email marketing campaigns can contribute to profitability a great deal. Therefore, adopting a specialized marketing tool for delivering and tracking these campaigns is a wise
idea. And according to Kate Diaz, an Interior Designer and the Owner of Swankyden.com, Mailchimp – the top marketing platform existing today – works perfectly well for small businesses:
The basic version of the app is free, making it easy for startups to build their email marketing campaigns. It’s very easy to use thanks to the pre-made email templates. There are also pre-made signup forms, opt-in popups and audience segmentation. Plus, you have an option to personalize your
campaigns.
I like that Mailchimp offers a mobile app where you can have an insight into your performance. You can apply it to send out emails whenever and wherever you are in a few simple clicks. That’s pretty convenient.
4. Team and Client Communication with Slack
Even if you run a one-person business, you rarely work in isolation. To sell products, reach new audiences and be successful, you need to communicate with others, and there are plenty of tools that can assist you with that just well. Glen Wilde, the CEO of Diet to Success, told us that Slack is the best platform for staying in close contact with clients and employees, and it has been immensely helpful in his day-to-day operations as a CEO:
Much of my work involves back-and-forth communication between my staff and clients. With Slack, I have a single system for managing all of that communication.
I can create group channels or private channels between a single employee or client and me. Group video call is another useful feature and an excellent alternative to Zoom. Thus, I have no need to jump between emails, phone calls and other chat functions when using Slack, and it feels nice.
6. Proposal Management with Better Proposals
A good business proposal may serve a plethora of purposes, helping you to engage in a gainful deal, form long-term partnerships, sell products, find sponsors, and more. However, creating a successful proposal requires knowledge and skills. And to those who feel like they could use some assistance with their proposal making, Noman Nalkhande, the Founder of WP Adventure, recommends applying Better Proposals:
This piece of small business software has a bunch of extremely professional and fully customizable templates ready to go. In addition, you can set up a payment process right from the dashboard. This makes it incredibly easy for a client to receive your proposal and pay directly through it.
Not to forget that Better Proposals also allows for checking who has opened your proposal, so you can take the necessary next steps to either close the deal or nurture it a bit more. In short, Better Proposals is a fantastic tool every small business should take advantage of.
7. Work Scheduling and Vacation Tracking with actiPLANS
making it easier to plan and manage workloads.
Real-time visibility. With actiPLANS, small business owners and managers are always updated about their employees’ availability and leave balances. This helps in planning work schedules and ensures there are no conflicts or overlapping leaves.
Customizable policies. actiPLANS allows businesses to create their own leave policies, such as accrual rates, carryover rules, and blackout periods (when employees are restricted from taking time off). This flexibility ensures that the tool can adapt to the specific needs of each small business.
Mobile accessibility. actiPLANS offers mobile apps for iOS and Android devices, allowing employees and managers to access the system on the go. This ensures that everyone can stay connected and updated, even
when they are not in the office.
8. HR Management with GoCo
The quality of team performance and overall business output significantly depends on how well you manage people. However, hiring an HR specialist is not always an optimal option for a small firm. Hence, Max Harland, the CEO at Dentaly, loves to implement GoCo to fulfill different HR-related tasks himself:
It is a cohesive and fully-functional tool that acts like having an HR team of your own. It can handle onboard recruits, perform time tracking and house various employee documents. GoCo can also integrate with a massive assortment of payroll software, making it easier for a business owner to focus on more vital tasks besides handling payroll.
Using GoCo, employees can self-manage their benefits and other perks like paid leaves, which is a time-saver for both employers and the employees. The changed schedule also reflects in Slack, making it a lesser hassle to maintain.
9. Customer Support with Freshdesk
Superb customer service enables businesses to sell more services or products and attract new clients with ease. Hence, it’s pivotal to employ tools and systems that foster high-quality customer support and let companies render it effortlessly. Let’s assume Freshdesk as an example. According to Jeff Lanno from
Hola Weddings, this tool forms the basis of customer support in their company, and he could not imagine how to work without it anymore:
Being able to quickly assign customers to a staff member and having pre-established responses through the canned comment option makes us incredibly efficient and saves us a lot of time.
With Freshdesk, it is also great to prioritize who has to be responded to, whereas the monitoring functionality shows our team what can be improved. Last but not least, the app is totally free for small companies, which makes it just perfect.
10. Online Accounting with Zoho Books
Small businesses often feel resistant towards managing their accounting chores online because they are concerned about the security of their data, high software price, accuracy and accountability of these solutions. Luckily, modern software solutions take care of these risks making small business owners lose time and money on managing accounting manually.
Zoho Books is one of the leading online accounting software for small businesses that automates finance management and relieves accountants and bookkeepers of manual calculations and paper work. The software offers a free 14-day trial and a free plan.
I’ve not seen anything as affordable and easy to use as Zoho Books. The reports are simple to run and can be scheduled to generate automatically. As a small business owner, I no longer worry about ageing receivables with the automatic payment reminders in Zoho Books.
Stephen J. Lalla – CEO, Dynamic Image Marketing Systems, Inc.
11. Expense Tracking with QuickBooks Online
Small businesses owners usually don’t consider their cash flows somewhat significant, so they often prefer saving up on automating tools and managing data in Google Sheets. While it does its job accurately and well, there are still accounting features that Google Sheets and similar tools don’t cover.
QuickBooks Online is small business accounting software for tracking income, expenses and VAT and sending
invoices. Plus plan users also get recurring transactions, inventory tracking, project and budget tracking. The software analytics tools and reports reveal cash flow, losses and profits and build balance sheets.
Before QuickBooks I dreaded the accounting side of my business. Now I can get everything done in minutes and spend time doing what I love.
Ash Read – Full time self-employed
