When running your own business, things can easily get out of control, especially in the beginning when you’re the one pulling all the ropes. A missed meeting with a client, a lost receipt or a miscommunication issue with your team – all these can have a negative impact on your business’ well-being and growth. Luckily for you, with just a bit of planning, you can keep everything under control. Here are five apps that are helping small to medium-sized business management.
1. EasilyDo
Just between the point where things start crowding up and the point where you get a secretary or a virtual assistant, there’s a phase when you simply have too much to keep track off on your own.As its name suggests, EasilyDo allows you to easily do just about everything. The app is basically your virtual assistant, and it’s a perfect tool to stay coordinated and keep track of things.EasilyDo can keep track of emails, schedules, reminders, it can provide smart navigation options with real-time weather and traffic conditions and many other useful features.
You can also customize EasilyDo with data streams from social networks so you don’t have to spend precious time browsing – you’ll have all the important events right in front of you.
2. TripIt
Running a business sometimes means travelling from place to place to meet with potential clients and partners, but with all the things you have to coordinate, keeping track of all the details of your trips is the last thing you want on your mind. TripIt intends to make travelling a whole lot easier by being a central hub for your journeys – it puts together your flight itineraries, car rentals, hotel bookings and everything in between, so you don’t have to go back and forth through piles of confirmations, reservations and itineraries. With the Pro version, you also get real-time notifications when a better seat becomes available, you can keep track of reward programs, you can share your travel itineraries with other people, and much more.
3. Expensify
Travelling aside, there are a whole lot of other expenses to keep a track of when running a business. While there are several apps and tools to keep track of such things, none of them are as powerful and easy to use as Expensify. The app can automatically keep track of credit card transactions and can generate repots for easy tracking. Receipts can be added to the expense reports by scanning them with the smartphone’s camera, so you won’t have to keep tons of receipts lying around. Expensify is also scalable: it offers simple expense tracking solutions for small business users, but plays well with bigger businesses as well by integrating with ERP systems and offering complex policies and multi-stage approval workflows.
4. Evernote
So you have EasilyDo for your schedule, TripIt for your travelling and Expensify for your finances – what about your ideas? Evernote is the perfect tool to help you get your ideas out of your head and onto paper. Well, not literally onto paper, but you get the idea. You can save or clip webpages, insert voice memos, type down your ideas or write them with your finger or stylus, snap a picture and attach it or record a video – Evernote can handle absolutely everything. It can also classify your data for better tracking, and you can also share it with other people. Last but not least, it runs on all devices and platforms, so no matter where you are when inspiration hits you, Evernote will be ready.
5. Google Drive
Unless you’re set on managing your business retro style, and keep your data saved on tapes, CDs or other outdated storage mediums, chances are you’ll need a cloud file storage solution that’s safe, accessible and easy to use. If you’re using an Android-based smartphone, or Google’s email system, congratulations – you already have a Google Account that has some free cloud storage space associated with it, but there are some pretty sweet deals on business plans as well, including a plan with unlimited storage. While there are also several other cloud storage space providers out there, Google’s offer may be the better choice because of all the integrated services – you also get access to the online office suite, you can share files and documents with other users, and you can rest assured when it comes to security, as Google has some of the best security systems you can get.
By Jason Phillips and Conosco.com!
