We’ll talk about applications that can help you improve and generate a good and respectable business, reflecting a professional image towards your customers and employees. Some of these apps can avoid more than one headache, and others can change how you do business. The technologies applied to these apps were from the exclusive use of big companies in the past, but now even freelancers can access them, making the field a lot more even for small businesses and teams.
Without further adieu, let’s go!
1. Paypal
PayPal it’s an online payment system that follows you wherever you go. You can associate credit or debit cards to it and pay with your phone, tablet, or computer, just with a couple of clicks.
One of the best features of PayPal is its integrations. You can link a PayPal account to almost every paid app available. (Games, cloud storage, accounting, payroll, online shopping, and virtually everything there is out there) You can use it to transfer money nationally and internationally.
You can also set a PayPal payment method on your online store so people worldwide can pay you with no problem at all without using local payment methods. Also, Paypal can calculate the taxes and shipment costs automatically.
Pros
- Works nationally and internationally
- It has integrations with almost all the paid apps and online stores for shoppers and vendors
- Automatically calculates taxes and delivery costs
- Very reliable security against scams and hackers
- International recognition and good for business
2. Asana
Like the slogan of Asana says, “Work anytime, anywhere.” This means you can always have your projects and tasks available for consult as long as you have an internet connection.
Asana is a workflow tool (tasks and projects) covering every project from the beginning to the end. Also, it connects team communication, organization, and planning. Its interface is amicable and intuitive, allowing one to get used to it quickly and focus on its work.
Pros
- Good price/quality relation
- Google Calendar sync
- Gmail sync
- Structure and flexibility at the same time
- Free version
Prices
- Basic: Free version for small businesses or freelancer teams.
- Premium: $10,99USD monthly per year. Small firms or teams on their way to growth
- Business: $24,99USD monthly per year. It’s aimed at small and medium enterprises with resources and portfolio management capabilities
- Enterprise: Better control and project following management
3. Jira
Jira is a task-manager online tool. This browser-based software combines plan, control, launch, and data management software. Pick or create workflows, and integrate already in-use-by-your-team tools. Connect the teamwork with the product’s roadmap, and optimize your whole work with the automatizations. It has scalability and security in its base to take care of your work and leave those tasks for the app.
Its Java-EE-based software allows it adaptability, customization, and flexibility. Because of this, their client list is very thick and has companies like SAP, IBM, Electronics Art, CERN, BBC, Harvard, Stanford, and another 11.500 clients in over 107 countries.
Pros
- Integrated with the Atlassian suite
- Fully integrated with other apps
Prices
- Free: Up to 10 users.
- Standard: $7.50USD per user per month, allows up to 100 users. It is aimed at small organizations and freelance teams.
- Premium: $14.5USD per user per month.
If you’re interested in apps for small businesses, you might want to read our article about Top 5 Content Management Systems For Online Businesses. It’s very thorough!
4. Confluence
Confluence is a web-based corporate collaboration software developed by Australian software company Atlassian. As they say on their page: Create, collaborate and organize all your work in one place.
Dynamic pages offer the team a place to create, capture and collaborate on any project or idea. The pages help your team structure, organize and share the work in a way where every team member has the same visibility of the institutional knowledge and access to the information they need to do their job.
Confluence offers three types of storage; Cloud, data center, and server, each for different types and sizes of businesses and teams. This is definitely a must when talking about apps for small businesses.
Pros
- Free version.
- Integrated with the Atlassian suite
- Unique dynamic pages for flexible teams and tasks.
- Various storage options.
- Multiple management, flexibility, and resources depths for different needs and team skills.
Prices
- Free: Allows up to 10 users and almost all the COnfluence’s tools.
- Normal: $5.5USD per user per month. Up to 100 users, more support, and tools.
- Premium: $10,5USD per user per month. Full support and customization options. All the tools are available. It is aimed at small and medium-sized companies.
5. Friday
Friday’s features dynamic work teams and task management for companies. It includes team check-ins, cloud HQ, asynchronous work, day planner, task manager, and goals. If your employees are from all over the world or your country has several GMT and you need to create an excellent async workflow, Friday can give you what you are looking for.
Pros
- Friday planner
- Goal tracking
- Integrations (Github, Google Meetings, Zoom, Trello, and Asana)
- Team profiles
Prices
Like many SaaS industries platforms, Friday features a differentiated list of prices depending on the use and intensity of your work.
- Individual: 4USD per user per month.
- Team: 6USD per user per month
- Company: Contact sales
6. Google Drive
Google Drive is a file storage service introduced by Google in 2012.
It’s a browser-based Cloud Storage service, allowing total sync with all Google apps like Google calendar and Gmail.
You can store, share and modify your files in the same platform and interface, allowing 15GB of cloud-free space for every user. These files are secured by the Drive incorporated encryption, with no local files or ad improvement algorithms.
With Drive, you can create collaborative spaces with your work team or company, depending on the level of access of every team member. You can design people to admin, modify or just read documents or files.
Although it is not superior to services like IDrive or Dropbox, many big companies prefer Google Drive because of its integrations (Slack, Atlassian, Adobe, Salesforce, Autodesk, etc.) Also, the AI-assisted search tool helps you find files and documents a lot faster.
Pros
- Free version
- 15GB free storage
- Total sync with the Google platform
- Suitable for freelancers and small and big companies.
7. Slack
In a small business working completely on remote work, communication is crucial. For it, you need a tool that allows you to communicate dynamically, fast, precise, and with a ton of integrations with other apps like calendars, emails, CRMs, and storage clouds.
WhatsApp has the option to talk directly and in groups but only on one level. Slack has conversations, groups, channels, and workspaces.
The workspaces can be different companies, different community groups, or different work teams. You can have channels, groups, and conversations entirely separated inside them.
This way, you can divide the goal for each workspace. For example, you can have one for your team members, so you always are connected, and you can have a totally separate one for customer support or customer service.
The app integration department is pretty good, too, as you can link your Google Calendar, Calendly, HubSpot, Jira, Confluence, and several CRM, Cloud, and calendar services. If you’re too focused on your job that you forget to connect to a meeting, Slack will send you a message with the link to the conference. At the same time, you can configure your status to “in a meeting,” indicated with an emoji for just that, so all your work team and customers know that you’re in the middle of something.
You can share all kinds of files, from text to images and video, or links to your storage on the cloud.
The text interface is intuitive enough, so you don’t need to learn to use it to get to work from the first minute.
Pros
- Work closely with clients, teammates, and partners in real-time or async.
- It’s Suitable for any size or scale team and business.
Prices
- Pro: $2.67USD per person, per month, when billed yearly.
- Business+: $5USD per person, per month, when billed yearly.
- Enterprise Gold: Contact Slack Sales.
8. Harvest App
Harvest provides time tracking and online invoicing tools and services for freelancers and small businesses. This app works with small and big teams and companies, making invoicing and hiring decisions a lot easier.
With Harvest, you can track the hours spent by your team in different activities like management, marketing, sales, or studying. You can create billable or non-billable activities to know how much you have to charge your hourly-charge clients and how much you have to pay to your freelances.
In addition, you can create several projects, so at a glance, you know how much time and money you and your time are spending on what projects and what activities.
Pros
- Integrations with other apps
- Free version
Prices
- Free version
- Pro: 12 USD per month.
9. Calendly
Calendly is a personal and professional meeting schedule center that erases the need to schedule appointments by email, allowing you to spend more time working and less time coordinating. The automatization and calendar integration makes the process very smooth and more bilateral, giving your prospects, clients, or employees the chance to schedule their meetings with you according to your predefined free time.
So you can define when you’re free, and they can decide when the meeting will take place inside that predefined timespan.
You can choose how much padding time between meetings you need to have, how much time in advance before an appointment you need, and the max hours of the day you want to spend in meetings. The sessions will automatically appear in your calendar with the calendar integrations linked to your preferred meeting app. It’s wholly automatized.
Pros
- Automatized schedule process
- App integrations
- Customizations and options to manage your time
Prices
- Basic: Free
- Essentials: $8USD per month for individuals who need powerful scheduling automation.
- Professional: 1$2USD per month for individuals and small teams looking for more integrations and customizations.
- Teams: $16USD per month for teams and companies that want to collaborate more efficiently
- Enterprise: Large teams and organizations need advanced security, control, and support.
10. Zoom
Zoom Cloud Meetings is one of the leading teleconferencing software apps and is almost perfect for work and work teams videocalls. This is a secure and stable videoconferencing platform suitable for your business’s corporate needs, including online events, meetings, webinars, chats, and phone calls. Zoom includes a free plan for up to a hundred participants with a 40-minute time restriction.
Pros
- Automatic meeting scheduler with reminders
- Recycle pre-used meeting URL (you can use the same URL for the daily and monthly meetings if you have one)
- Free version
Prices
- Free
- Pro: $14.99 per month
Wrapping apps for small businesses up!
Of course, you can use many more apps for small businesses to improve your organization, workflow, payment, outsourcing, and management over all of your company or team. Still, these are just some of the basics your must know to get your online shop to the next level, always taking advantage of the power of the SaaS. To learn more about the Saas Industry, please read our article, which includes a bit of history.
In the next blog, we’ll see each other, have a Wunderbar day!
