Starting a small business the bulk of work related to accounting, marketing, and paperwork lie on the shoulders of an owner. Such amounts of work to be done can reduce the quality of the achieved results, which might have a direct impact on the success of your business overall. To concentrate on the main aspects of running a small business, the owners need some assistance. In case they are not ready to getting employees financially, they can delegate some of their duties to the specialized small business software.
In this post, we’ll present some of the best software tools for running a small business.
Wave for Accounting
Wave possesses itself as free accounting software for small businesses. It’s 100% web-based software. The simple layout of the interface allows using the program even to people who have little-to-no experience in bookkeeping. The benefit of Wave software is that all the data is automatically backed-up in cloud storage, so there’s no way you can lose important information. The service offers a diverse selection of features, such as:
- The possibility to connect with multiple bank accounts and credit cards;
- Receipts scanning and synchronizing them with other account data;
- Double-entry system;
- Tracking sales tax on income and expenses;
- Generation of financial statements;
- Recurring billing;
- Invoicing.
Wix for Website Creation
The development of any small business needs it to be present on the web. By creating a website, you can increase awareness about your brand/ products and attract new customers. The software that can help you create a professionally-looking website without the need to hire a professional developer is Wix. We’ve compared it with some other popular tools for creating websites, yet this one appeared to be most convenient for those who don’t have experience in web development.
Wix allows creating a website within minutes due to the diverse selection of templates and themes that can be customized to make your website really unique. The features you can apply to your website include:
- Online booking;
- Blogging;
- Logo maker;
- Adding online store;
- The possibility of site content optimization for search engines;
- Mobile-friendly site version available;
- Drag-and-drop website builder.
Canva for Getting Quality Visual Content
The success of your business is directly related to the marketing strategy you use. When creating a website, you should optimize it for SEO to lift it to the top of the search and increase the conversion. Social media can also become free platforms for the effective promotion of your company. However, none of these will bring the desired results without quality content, especially visuals.
Small business usually doesn’t have funds to be spent on the production of exclusive photo and video materials. However, you can use Canva and some other web-based software to create infographics, images, presentations, and even your company’s logo. Its intuitive interface and the simplicity of applying the tools make this service understandable even to those who have zero experience in visual content design.
Still, it’s not enough to utilize quality software. To know what is trendy in visual content and how to make it work for your goals, you need to read some specialized sources of information. Movavi Blog can be helpful in this regard.
Canva features:
- Hundreds of business templates for creating business cards, invoices, and presentations.
- Diverse features for photo and video editing;
- The possibility to customize templates to make your visuals look unique;
- Creating posters.
Rippling for Payroll
Your employees’ payroll management may take a lot of time and effort, distracting your attention from things that really matter. While the offer is huge, you should choose the payroll software matching your needs. One of the top-rating software you can delegate this task to is Rippling. This is an online platform for managing employees. The software takes care of all the processes related to hiring and offboarding the employees, as well as:
- Payroll. The system collects and synchronizes the data about the hours and deductions automatically, which allows it to calculate the payroll within 90 seconds only.
- The software checks compliance with the regulations, laws, and other legal stuff.
- Rippling files the payroll taxes automatically.
- Time-tracking feature to know the working hours of your employees.
- Allows creating any type of reports by means of powerful reporting tools.
Chanty for Team Collaboration
The possibility to always keep in touch with your team is one of the basics in running a small business. The year 2020 showed us the importance of having reliable communication software to share ideas and work on your team projects. Chanty is an online collaboration tool giving you lots of possibilities for remote communication with your colleagues and employees. It has an intuitive interface and is available for both desktop PCs and mobile devices. This allows getting access to the platform wherever you are. Here is what else this service offers:
- Textual, voice, and video chat;
- The free version allows up to 10 team members;
- Built-in task management;
- Sharing links, files, and screens;
- Pinging a colleague or the whole team to get a quick reaction to the message;
- Teambook for monitoring, filtering, and browsing your team communication history;
- Integration with other online apps and social media platforms;
- Data encryption for ultimate privacy.
Summing Up
The efficiency of small businesses is all about management. When you distract your attention trying to catch up with all the processes that need to be done for your business to function, you will likely fail to succeed in a lot of aspects. By delegating the routine to the software products, you get more time for developing business and marketing strategies, searching for new ideas for your business development, teamwork, and creativity.
Despite some of the services we’ve chosen for you offer paid features, you shouldn’t refuse to give them a try as they are usually worth every cent you pay for them.