When people first created apps, most were for pure fun. However with the surge in the app market over the years, there have been an abundance of helpful apps that serve all kinds of purposes.
The apps that I want to focus on today is apps that’ll help entrepreneurs all across the board. These particular apps are vital for the growth of an entrepreneur as these apps cover everything from banking to handling marketing plans so that you don’t have to. On top of that, some of the apps that I’ll be mentioning do not cost a thing – which, lets be honest, is the best kind of app for an entrepreneur.
For General Banking/Budgeting
Mint
Mint is an app I mentioned before coming especially handy for household budgets. However it can also apply to businesses as well. Mint is an app that follows all your income and expenses seamlessly. All you need to do is hook the specific account to the app and every time money comes in or out, the app will track it.
On top of that, the app will send you weekly reports, and give you instant access to credit reports, bank statements and more. What’s also nice about the app is you can divide your expenses into specific categories to make it even easier on you to break everything down.
Goodbudget
An alternative to Mint is Goodbudget. Available for Android phones, this is basically Mint with more customization in mind. It functions the same way as Mint, however with the amount of customization involved, there is a steeper learning curve to using the app in general.
Spendee
For the entrepreneur who wants everything simplified you have Spendee. Spendee is an app that focuses on being simple and managing your finances. This simplicity is what separates it from Mint. Differences between the app are:
- Once the app is synced up to your bank account, Spendee requires you enter each expense manually.
- Spendee will also send you reports highlighting your spending habits as well as your income sources.
- You can also set smart budgets to ensure you don’t overspend in certain areas.
For Accounting
QuickBooks
If you’re a small business, you’re going to need an accounting system of sorts. Either you can start jotting down everything into an excel spreadsheet, or you can consider some accounting apps.
Out of all of them, QuickBooks is one of the most recognized accounting software around. Now available in an app form, you can do all your bookkeeping from your phone. The app will provide tax accounting to even payroll, inventory management, and profit analysis – all depending on what version you’re paying for.
FreshBooks
Another good alternative is FreshBooks. While this accounting software will cover the basics, it also does it entirely for free. You can access the software from your phone as well as computer and it’ll oversee expenses, invoices, and cash flow among other things. It’s simple and it’s a good upgrade from an excel spreadsheet if you want a little bit of sophistication to your current accounting practices.
Wave
Another free accounting service to try out is the Wave app. What’s interesting about this app is that it covers everything that FreshBooks covers, but it goes above and beyond what is necessary. Not only do you never have to pay a cent to the platform, but the app also offers receipt scanning, and has a network of accountants available to help Wave users.
For Inventory
Inventory Tracker
If you’re selling physical product, you’re going to be in need of something to track inventory. Inventory Tracker in this case will help you a lot and save you ample amount of time and headaches. It’ll review your inventory and start to make tracking easy for you by requiring you to scan the bar codes of your items. Once you do that, your work is done and you wait until the app prepares a spreadsheet for you to export. The app will also review and sales, credits, and expenses for you too.
The only catch to this app is that it’s only available for Android.
SOS Inventory
For the rest of us, if we need inventory tracker, we may turn to SOS Inventory. What’s cool about this app is if you happen to get QuickBooks, you can easily integrate this app in with QuickBooks. This allows you to manage your inventory in one location.
Even if you don’t have QuickBooks integration, you can still track your items based on a variety of attributes, create tickets and packing slips too, among other things.
For Point Of Sale
Square
What’s equally important to any business is to ensure that you are getting paid for the goods and/or services you provide. While small businesses used to struggle with this in some capacity, this app is a saving grace.
If you haven’t been keeping an eye on tech startups, then this big name tech startup may have been hidden under your nose. And the thing is is this app is fantastic Square has changed how small businesses process credit card transactions all across the globe thanks to it’s existence. Either through a tablet or your phone all you need to do is swipe a customer’s credit card and that’s it.
Square handles the transaction entirely for free with no charge at all to the customer. The only cost is on the business end where you’ll pay a 2.75% fee for each transaction made.
PayPal Here
If you’re a PayPal fan then you might want to consider this app over Square. That’s okay. Business should be done in a way you’re comfortable with. For PayPal users, they have PayPal Here which can process credit cards, invoices, and even checks all from your phone.
The only rub to this app is that PayPal Here works via PayPal rather than your bank account. In other words if you’re not synced properly, your transactions will be sent to your PayPal balance rather than to your bank account. So make sure everything is synced up properly.
QuickBooks Go Payment
The last option I’ll mention is one for Intuit fans. Intuit is the company behind QuickBooks among a few other apps I’ve mentioned above. Anyway, they have their own point of sale app in QuickBooks GoPayment which let’s you swipe or scan cards to process transactions. You can also review analytics, best-selling items and can integrate this app with Apple Watch.
For Managing Staff
TSheets
Even a small team of employees can be a chore to manage in various sectors. Fortunately for the various staff managing apps, managing can become a lot smoother. Take TSheets. This particular app focuses on managing payroll through various functions. It can:
- Manage employee’s time by tracking their schedules;
- Automate timesheets so you don’t have to.
- Integrates with QuickBooks among other accounting software so you can track it from one location.
Proven
Maybe you’re at a stage where your solo and looking to expand instead. A hiring process can be grueling and frankly quite boring as well. Thanks to this app, Proven, you can post a job listing across multiple job boards all at once, filter applicants quickly, and section people into various categories. You can even leave notes for those candidates you can read when you revisit them later.
Whereby
Formerly known as appear.in, this is an upgraded version to video call services like Skype and Zoom. What’s nice about this particular app is that you get an exclusive link and the ability to create multiple rooms.
Best about this app is that there is a free plan available. You can have unlimited calling, but the group is restricted to up to four callers being on at a time. However the paid version can allow significantly more participants for larger groups. This app is perfect for the solo entrepreneur or a really small group to do calls if they’re on a budget.
Slack
The final app I’ll cover is Slack. Slack is a powerful platform for startups or regular entrepreneurs to gather. Slack is basically a modern-day instant messaging app for your group and other communities to gather. It’s slick and simple design makes it easy for you to create groups and sections within your community for various topics.
Slack is helpful for a variety of reasons. First it creates a single space for messages which can save not only unnecessary video meetings, but also you to send out a mass amount of emails. This will save you a lot of time and keep you and your team productive.
You can even use Slack to join other groups and land potential clients or others who are interested in your business. Best of all the base version is absolutely free.
Get Started With Your Business
There are a lot of moving parts to starting and operating a business. Fortunately there are dozens of apps for your particular situation. All you need to do is do some research and see what comes out. You’d be surprised what you can find and how much value it can bring to your business.