by Frontier Business on
By Alexia Chianis
As a small-business owner, your to-do list is endless and time is a commodity. If you want to get more accomplished without working harder or longer, incorporating a few apps into your daily routine could be the answer.
From apps that help with time management to those that streamline workflow, we’ve researched dozens of affordable small-business productivity apps and compiled this list of the top fifteen.
Best Business Productivity Apps for Organization
Regardless of what business you’re in, staying organized is key to success. These apps can help you get your professional life in order.
Available on Apple, Android, and Windows mobile devices.
If you’re overwhelmed by sticky notes, Evernote is for you. This multifaceted app is a handy tool for jotting down reminders, making project to-do lists, and storing important emails and contacts. Once you capture a note, it’s instantly available across your devices.
Think of Wunderlist as a high-powered, easily shareable to-do list. You can set reminders, schedule due dates, and group related lists into a folder. Lists sync automatically, so everyone you’ve shared your list with stays up-to-date.
Pocket is a popular save-for-later app that helps you organize online content. When you find an online article or video that interests you, put it into Pocket. Once saved, the content can be accessed from your smartphone or tablet—whether you’re online or not.
Best Business Productivity Apps for Time Tracking
Time-tracking apps can help you and your team stay on task and track billable hours. If you want to boost your efficiency, download these helpful tools.
Available on Android mobile devices.
RescueTime alerts you to digital distractions and helps you gain a better understanding of your daily habits. It tracks how much time you spend on applications and websites, and it summarizes the information into a detailed report.
Available on Apple and Android mobile devices.
This powerful app is impressively easy to learn. With Toggl you can track hours spent on projects, view graphs that show how you’ve spent your time, export timesheets, and sync your data with other business productivity apps.
Available on Apple mobile devices.
If you’re a goal setter, you’ll love My Minutes. The time-tracking app allows you to set a maximum or minimum amount of time you want to be involved with a task, and then it sends you a notification when you’ve hit that goal. You can also set the app to send out a morning notification with a breakdown of your goals for the day.
Best Business Productivity Apps for Project Management
A good project management app can help streamline workflow and facilitate team communication. Here are a few apps that do just that.
Available on Apple and Android mobile devices.
If your email gets cluttered with project communication, you might want to try Basecamp. This app offers you a private and secure online space where you and your employees can create and assign tasks, establish deadlines, and engage in strategy discussions.
Available on Apple and Android mobile devices.
Tracking your team’s workflow just got easier. Trello is a highly visual app that uses Pinterest-like cards to represent tasks. In the application, you can assign members to project boards, create checklists, and even add attachments to specific cards.
Available on Apple and Android mobile devices.
Asana is more text based than Trello, but it offers many of the same features. The app allows you to create project tasks, assign due dates, and share documents, making responsibilities and processes clearer than ever.
Best Business Productivity Apps for Receiving Payments
There are several payment apps that cater to small-business owners, but some have better reputations than others. Each of the three apps we’ve included here has a proven record of success.
Available on Apple and Android mobile devices.
Point-of-sale systems can put a big dent in a small budget. That’s where Square comes in handy. It’s an affordable card reader that plugs into your smartphone or tablet so you can process payments anywhere—in your store or on the go. You’re charged 2.75% of each swiped card transaction, though that fee increases slightly if you manually enter card information.
Available on Apple, Android, and Windows mobile devices.
Similar to Square, PayPal Here is a small card reader that plugs into your smartphone or tablet. PayPal Here accepts most major credit and debit cards, and there are no monthly fees. Each swiped payment costs 2.7%, with keyed-in transactions costing a bit more.
Available on Apple, Android, and Windows mobile devices.
Dwolla is a user-friendly platform that’s earned a wealth of positive press for taking the hassle out of sending and receiving money. With Dwolla, you can easily collect payments on one-time invoices or on recurring bills.
Best Business Productivity Apps for Accounting
The market is overflowing with accounting apps—each claiming to be the best. Here are a few you can trust to deliver on their promises.
Available on Apple and Android mobile devices.
QuickBooks Online has a lot to offer—you can generate estimates, handle vendor invoices, and even track sales. The app also offers a multitude of pre-created reports you can customize to your needs, and it connects to many different accounts, including your business bank account and credit cards.
Available on Apple and Android mobile devices.
FreshBooks is a highly visual and intuitive app, making it a great choice for service-oriented businesses that are looking for a light accounting solution. It can generate several different accounting reports, and you can also use it to log receipts or bill clients.
Available on Apple and Android mobile devices.
Wave is a platform designed with small-business owners in mind. It can take care of several accounting needs, including invoicing, expense tracking, and receipt scanning. It also records sales and customer payments.
Leveraging a few of these key apps can boost your efficiency, giving you more time to build your business. If you have a favorite business productivity app to recommend, tweet @frontierbiz.
