Entrepreneurs often need to juggle meetings, networking, employee requests, expanding product lines, and finances – so managing their days can be a challenge. Luckily, technology has made it easier to handle scheduling, task management, and business operations.
There are a multitude of apps that can help your business – from sourcing new talent across all job boards with Proven to catching a ride to your next meeting with Lyft. Today, we’re sharing our recommendations for apps that can help entrepreneurs better run their startup business:
Gusto streamlines many human resources (HR) processes. The app manages payroll, tax, and benefits procedures, handling all employee tax filings, automating deductions for benefits and workers’ compensation payments, and emailing pay stubs to employees. It can also integrate with accounting software like QuickBooks and time tracking software like TSheets and Homebase, keeping information in one secure location. Gusto services start at $39 per month, with an additional $6 a month per employee.
QuickBooks makes it easier for entrepreneurs to understand their startup’s financial health. The QuickBooks mobile app – free with a QuickBooks Online subscription – allows users to create, view, and email estimates, invoices, and sales receipts; access customer information; convert estimates to invoices; receive payments; upload photos of receipts; download and reconcile bank transactions; and use custom QuickBooks Online forms. QuickBooks can connect to your business bank account, credit cards, PayPal, and Square to upload data seamlessly and track your expenses.
Slack is a team communication tool that gathers group messages into one place, making information instantly available and searchable. Entrepreneurs can organize their team’s conversations into both private and public channels or send direct messages – encouraging teamwork and increasing communication from anywhere. The app also makes it easy to share images, PDFs, and other files and automatically indexes and archives any message, notification, or file. There is an unlimited free version, but paid plans come with message archiving, unlimited app integration, guest access, and group calls, among other features.
Asana can help busy entrepreneurs manage projects more efficiently. Users can assign tasks and due dates, provide comments on coworkers’ actions, and immediately see a project’s status and progress – all without having to schedule meetings or daily check-ins. The free version allows up to 15 team members and unlimited projects, but the premium version ($9.99 per member per month) allows an unlimited number of team members and dashboards, advanced reporting, and custom fields, among other features.
Dropbox allows users to store and share files on the cloud. It’s especially useful for entrepreneurs that need a reliable way to share information with telecommuters or other out-of-office employees. Dropbox Business offers file recovery, data encryption, user- and company-managed groups, Microsoft Office integration, and access to Dropbox Paper’s collaborative document editing. Pricing begins at $12.50 per user per month.
DocuSign is ideal for entrepreneurs who need to obtain signatures and handle transactions. The company provides electronic signature technology and digital transaction management services for facilitating contracts, complete with authentication services, user identity management, and workflow automation. The app provides a simple way to create, send, and receive documents and complete transactions from anywhere, anytime, on any device. The app is free and plans start at $10 per month for a single user.
Salesforce1 empowers entrepreneurs to connect directly with customers and run their startup from a smartphone. It channels customer information into a single, integrated platform, enabling entrepreneurs to build client-centered marketing, sales, and customer service departments. With mobile analytics, entrepreneurs also gain a more complete understanding of their customers to make smarter decisions from anywhere in real time.
G Suite offers cloud computing tools for businesses of all sizes. Starting at $5 per user per month, G Suite includes at least includes 30GB of Google Drive cloud storage per user, with more storage available to Business, Enterprise, or Team editions. G Suite also offers smart scheduling and shared calendars for enhanced visibility into the day-to-day schedules of your entire team; collaborative document, spreadsheet, and presentation editing; email and video conferencing; and archived emails and chats with mobile data management. G Suite is integrated with Salesforce, allowing marketers and management the ability to better manage and collect CRM data.
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