Best business apps for business owners and start-ups

Mobile apps have become part of our day to day lives and most of us couldn’t live without them. But if you want to simplify or improve your daily business operations, streamline your processes, or help you to be more productive. Whatever it is you want to do, there’s likely to be an app for it. Here’s just a small selection of a few of them.

Microsoft OneDrive

Most people use Microsoft 365 now for their businesses. OneDrive is part of all Microsoft 365 packages If you use OneDrive on your computer to store your business files, then the OneDrive app is a must. Allowing to access all your files / documents / spreadsheets / pdfs from any smartphone or tablet. It offers the ability to file share, stops lost folders and files and means you don’t have to boot up your laptop if you simply want to see a document or file or quickly amend it.

Nomisma

When you’re running a business, keeping on top of your figures is essential and being able to do this when you’re out and about can be crucial in some businesses. Whether it’s scanning receipts, raising invoices, or just being able to check your cashflow, a great accountancy app is an essential. Here at dns we offer Nomisma a marketing leading accounting software package to our clients free as part of our accounting packages.

OfficeTime & Toggl Track

Depending on what business you run, tracking time can be crucial for billing, understanding how much time to allow for projects or jobs and assessing the cost and charge out rate for projects. There are loads of time tracking apps out there. Two that I’ve come across are OfficeTime and Toggl Track. They provide easy time tracking, team, and project planning.

Microsoft OneNote

Microsoft OneNote is part of Microsoft 365. It’s a notebook for all your notetaking needs. You can have notebooks that you can divide into sections and pages. It has easy navigation and a great search facility, meaning finding your notes will be easy. You can type, highlight, or use ink annotations on your notes and your notes will be available and synchronised across all your devices.

Also See: Best software and apps for freelancers and self-employed

Microsoft SharePoint

SharePoint is also part of Office 365 and is a great tool for sharing, accessing, and managing information / documents and collaborating with your team, clients, or suppliers. It avoids having multiple versions of documents and emailing them backwards and forwards.

Square

For many businesses, taking payments on the move or moving around a premises is key. Square allows you to take credit card payments through mobile devices and doesn’t charge a start-up or monthly fees, it simply takes a percentage of each transaction.

Zapier

Zapier allows you to automate regular tasks and link multiple apps and software. It creates workflows so when an event happens in one app, Zapier can tell another app to perform (or do) a particular action. For example link your receipt scanning software to your accounting software, so every time you scan a receipt it will be automatically uploaded to your accounts software. Or when you post on one social account, it’ll post on another. Or copying data from a spreadsheet to somewhere else.

Trello

Trello is a project management tool but can be used for so much more. It organises you projects into boards and then you have lists on a board and cards within the lists. Imagine a whiteboard with lists of sticky notes and on each note is a task. It’s also great for creating things like a library of content for social media that you can reuse again and again. You can manage your projects from anywhere using the Trello app.

Microsoft Teams

Whether its your own team or bringing teams or groups of people together, Microsoft Teams is a great app and software package to do this. Great to share files, schedule online meetings, have online chats, video meetings or record meetings. You can use the free version and meet with up to 100 people for up to 60 minutes.

With so many productivity, operations and organisational apps out there, it can be a nightmare for business owners to find the right tools. This is just a handful. What are your favourites?

About the author

Gary Zouvani
I am a qualified chartered management accountant with over 25 years’ experience working in industry and accountancy practise. Currently DNS group operations director I manage over 50 employees as well as head up our accountancy franchise proposition.