A small business owner doesn’t find success cooped up in an office all day. He or she needs to be out in the field, finding clients and customers and interacting in the community they belong in.
Of course, this requires that they are nimble enough technology-wise to still run the day-to-day tasks of their business.
Thankfully, there are a handful of apps on the market today that make the job so easy that you can do it from a smartphone or tablet.
Several of these also integrate with major accounting software vendors, such as Xero or QuickBooks .
Here are some must-have apps
Expensify
Long gone are the days of receipt collecting. Today’s goal is to be as paperless as possible and being that the device in our pocket that comes everywhere with us has a pretty nifty camera attached to it, you can snap photos of pretty much anything, including receipts. Expensify allows you to take a photo of a receipt. From there, the technology organizes what the receipt is and can be organized into categories that make sense for your accounting team. As mentioned above, expensify is one of those apps that can link up with Xero. Your workflow can stay the same when tracking expenses using expensify; the added integration with your accounting software just eliminates an extra step, which is always welcomed.
Evernote
Ever have a good idea and forgotten to write it down? Evernote aims to fix that. It’s been around for some time now and has the reputation as the world’s best note-taking app. All of those to-do lists and team collaboration sessions now all fit into one app that syncs across all of your devices and on the web. If you’re looking to organize your business and perhaps your life, look no further than Evernote.
PayPal
Another logical app for the business owner on-the-go. As a small business owner, your goal should be to make the payment process as seamless as possible for the customer. That means giving them plenty of options — all of which PayPal supports. Anyone who has ever shopped online likely has a PayPal account. As the company grew, businesses realized the importance of it and now it integrates easily with accounting software to ensure all money incoming and outgoing from your PayPal account syncs correctly with your financials.
Harvest
Looking for a fun way to do invoicing and time tracking? Harvest is your answer. Its simple user interface lets you quickly create invoices (all of which can sync up with your accounting software) and then you can send those invoices out to your clients and vendors. More than 10,000 businesses use Harvest for its simple time tracking and more-powerful-than-you-expect reporting. It’s a beautiful piece of software especially for those who use time to bill clients.