Running a business is no easy task; your to-do list seems to never end. From monitoring expenses to handling customer enquiries, resolving complaints, and keeping track of employee work schedules, you tend to feel overwhelmed. What you need is a good app to assist you with these tasks. There are thousands of applications out there to help increase productivity and make your life easier as an entrepreneur.
To get you started, we have put together five apps that range from organisation to communication and expense reporting:
This application acts as a safe place for all your files and allows access from any smartphone, tablet or computer. It covers Google Docs (Documents), Google Sheets (Spreadsheets) and Google Slides used for presentations. Not only can you store files and share files with your team or clients, it also permits collaborative editing of documents, spreadsheets, presentation slides, forms and more. With your google account, it is free to use and allows for up to 15GB storage.
“Use Evernote as the place you put everything…Don’t ask yourself which device it’s on- it’s in Evernote”- The New York Times. Evernote provides you with the tools to remain organised while syncing information across all your devices. You can capture bits and pieces of information from the web, make notes out of them, tag them for easy searching and embed images and videos. It also allows you to create checklists and set reminders to keep you on top of activities and keep your thoughts organised. The basic version is free to use.
Keeping track of your expenses can be a hassle while out on a business trip. Expensify will help to take care of this with streamlining your report process. By just taking photos of receipts with your phone, it automatically extracts the relevant information and generates expense reports. It also allows you to link your debit/credit card to your account so that the charges directly reflect on the expense report. It is free to use for one user and available to teams and corporate users at a minimal cost with a free 30-day trial period.
Mailchimp manages your mailing lists and creates newsletters for your customers. It allows you to build and customize email templates which you can use to send out campaigns. It also allows for reports to be generated in order to know how well the email performed. This enables you to learn more about your customer and know what is relevant to them. It is free to send up to 12,000 emails per month if you have 2,000 customers or less.
This is a time management app and is ideal for work-life balance. Rescue Time helps you understand your daily habits so you can focus and be more productive. It also sends you a detailed report on where you spend time and allows you to set your productivity goals.
All the apps listed can be accessed on both mobile and desktop platforms. With these apps, you are sure to become more productive and maximize the most out of your business.