We know that as a small business owner you probably rely on your mobile phone a great deal. There are lots of apps out there that can help you get more out of your mobile, allowing you to get even more done when you’re away from your desktop. Do you need to sign a legal document from the back of your taxi? Put together a presentation from the airport or process card payments away from your desktop POS system? With the right apps you can do all of those things and become a powerhouse of productivity. We’ve decided to take the hard work out of it and have put together the best apps for small businesses in 2019, read below to find out more.
Best calendar app: Tempo
Tempo is a free app available for both iOS and Android. It allows you to sync multiple calendars into one location, so you don’t have to waste time flicking from one calendar to another. It will even scan your emails to find conversations regarding upcoming appointments or meetings and will include this in your calendar (if you haven’t already done so). If you accidentally double book yourself, Tempo will let you know that you’re busy at that time. It will also send email summaries of your daily agenda, will let you directly dial into conference calls, get your flight schedule and connect with your social media accounts. It’s an all-rounder for saving you time.
Best for Task Management: Taskful
Taskful is a free task management app available on both iPhone and Android. It functions as an electronic to-do list, helping you streamline the management of your ongoing tasks. It makes prioritising easy, simply colour-code your jobs by days of the week based on category or due date and set ongoing tasks to repeat for however long you require. This is especially useful if you have quotas to meet. You can add friends or add to your list using Siri and can also integrate your account with other apps so you have everything covered. To make sure you stay motivated there is a daily task bar which displays a graph to chart your progress.
Best For Presentations: Paste
Paste is a free collaborative presentation-building app available for iPhone and Android. It’s an alternative to PowerPoint and allows you to create eye-catching streamlined presentations that are instantly available to share with your co-workers. You can format screenshots, videos and links to easily create proposals and slideshows. The handy, ‘storyboard’ setting lays all your slides out clearly, so you can easily arrange them to flow seamlessly in your presentation. The app can also integrate with Slack so you and your team can communicate and share each other’s projects instantly. Paste is created by FiftyThree and can used alongside their other app Paper.
Best Calculator App: Calzy
Calzy is a free calculator app that has won the 2018 Apple Design Award, however it is available for IOS systems only. This app just isn’t any old calculator, it offers both basic and advanced scientific options for all your business needs. The 3D touch buttons offer lots of different key options in a small streamlined screen and you can even customize the keypad to suit your individual needs. Don’t worry if you make a mistake, you can simply amend your calculations by tapping and holding on the right of the screen. The app also stores past results for reuse in any new calculation. There are additional features including dark/light modes, decimal rounding, currency rounding, bookmarking calculations, Face ID/Touch ID support, widget and iMessage extensions and iCloud sync.
Best Transcription App: Otter
Otter is a real-time transcription App that is suitable for both iOS and Android. It uses automatic speech recognition (ASR) to transcribe conversations in real-time. It’s an ideal tool for creating accurate written records of a meeting or interview. So you are not distracted by taking notes. Once your conversation has been recorded and transcribed you can edit this text in the app. It also allows you to share these conversations with your contacts and link to your Google or Zoom account. There are two options for this app, the basic is unpaid, but the paid version is around $9.99 a month and allows you to transcribe over 6,000 minutes of audio.
Best Point of Sale App: Square
Square is a free point of sale app available for use on iOS or Android. It allows you to accept credit card and debit card payments from customers so your business can offer flexible payments to your consumers. Payment processing fees are 2.75% for each transaction using any major credit card. Customer payments are added into your business account within two business days, however if you want to you can pay 1% of the amount deposited and get your funds the same day. This app effectively will turn your mobile into a streamlined POS system that is entirely mobile and easy to use, ideal for offering your customers payment flexibility.
Best Accounting App: Xero
The Xero accounting app is available on both iOS and Android. It includes a paid subscription service that helps small businesses carry out accounting procedures such as accounts payable, accounts receivable, employee payrolls and purchase orders. The trial subscription offers 30 free days of service, after this expire it will cost you $9 a month for up to 20 banking transactions. There are further plans that increase in cost and transactions to meet your needs. If you are a non-profit you will receive a 25% discount. You can also receive a 15% discount if you register multiple companies.
Best Legal Document App: HelloSign
The HelloSign app is available for both iOS and Android. You can sign documents on the go, from anywhere. It comes with both free and paid plan options such as Pro, Business and Enterprise which range from $13 up to $40 per month. Pick which plan suits you best for your needs and you’ll be able to scan, edit, sign and send documents straight from your phone. It can also easily integrate with Gmail, Google Docs, Salesforce and Oracle.
Written by Stuart Cooke, Blog Editor at NI Parcels and Irish Parcels, courier comparison services for businesses of all sizes.
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