Present Tense Recommends: 24 Innovative Apps for Business Insight

At Present Tense, we aim to help make your life a little bit more manageable. In our blog series, Present Tense Recommends, we've shared our thoughts of significant business influencers and trending podcasts - next up, innovative business apps that will lift your business game.

Why Apps?

In a school classroom, all students learn in their own way; later on in life, those varied learning styles transfer to the workplace. Today, in an attempt to increase productivity, workflow, and communication - apps have entered our world. These babies on the market are designed to make your life more manageable and limit the clutter that floods our inboxes. Apps are here to simplify it all. Work from anywhere, log in from your mobile device, and get what needs to be done completed successfully. These are only a few ways that apps help manage all the things. With so many out there on the market, a quick overview of your business needs will help weed out the nonsense.

Apps for Your Goals

Depending on your goals both at and away from the office, an app that works for you might differ from ones that work for your mates. When deciding on what to implement for your small business, there’s a lot to consider: Is it affordable? Is it user friendly? What’s the commitment required? How do you get help if you need it? It used to be that we’d have to go back to school, take a course, or hire a mentor to up-level our knowledge and continue to grow our business. Today, apps help to teach and learn, improve a business, boost that reach, and even streamline all of those work matters. They allow you to easily transform your business performance, elevate your efficiency, and free up time in those constantly busy days.

Which will you choose?

A selection of apps we like, and a few features:

• Salesforce

  • Mobile app that crosses all sorts of platforms - manage and organize that business from anywhere

  • Might just be the largest name in all CRM platforms

  • Plans begin at $25/user/month

• Trello

  • Inviting user interface

  • Moves cards around as tasks are assigned, delegated, and completed

  • Includes upgrades and plug ins available

  • Organizer app directed at visual learners - helps to manage that busy personal and professional life

  • 2 pricing plans - free or $12.50/month

• Square

  • Sell from anywhere; collect payments, get all of those data and analytics you may need and follow up with all of your customers and clients

  • Considered one of the best mobile payment apps on the market

  • 2.6% + $.10 for each in person payment accepted

• Quickbooks

  • Track those expenses, manage/create/send accounting details and figure out where all of that money is heading

  • ‘One of the biggest names in the accounting world’

  • Free trial, simple plan $15/month, essentials $23/month, or plus at $31/month

  • Connects to multiple accounts

  • Accounting/financial management app

• Freshbooks

  • Cloud-based software providing accounting and management

  • Also allows users to take credit card payments and integrates with multiple other apps

  • Create those invoices for personal and professional use

  • Offers a free plan, $15/month, $25/month, or $50/month options

• Asana

  • Online productivity app ‘simplifies tracking of projects across teams’

  • Shifts those streams of communications to within the app thereby decreasing the amount of emails swamping your inbox

  • Considered the best of the project management software on the market

  • Manage that workflow across all employees

  • Free or premium plan $9.99 per person per month

• Microsoft 365

  • Known as a fabulous software app; run it all from the cloud

  • Provides Word, Excel, and Powerpoint with the backup of OneDrive

  • Personal $6.99/month or $69.99/year, up to 6 users $9/99/$99.99, or go the enterprise/corporate one that raises the fee but provides lots of additional items

• Paypal

  • Best in online payments

  • No monthly fee

• Evernote

  • Organize your planning, tasks, and notes all in one synced/uniform space

  • Note taking made simple

• Gusto

  • Move your HR and full payroll team to this platform

  • Begins at $39 per month plus an extra $6 per person monthly

  • Move that onboarding process to an app

• MailChimp

  • CRM & Marketing app tool - think automation galore

  • Manage all of those marketing goals and needs - newsletter, landing pages, forms, ads, and templates

  • Free or $10 a month

• Toggle

  • Track and manage your time across multiple platforms

  • Cost begins at $9/month

• Proven

  • Manage/organize your hiring process and needs

• Buffer

  • Manage that social media all in one space

  • Post, schedule, engage, and influence

• Hootsuite

  • Social media management - track, monitor, schedule across all accounts

  • 1 user $19/month with 5 platforms, 3 users $99/month unlimited scheduling, 5-10 users $559/month unlimited scheduling and 35 social profiles

• Skype

  • Communication/video conference/calling app

• Ring Central Office

  • A phone system app for your business

  • Cloud based phone system beginning at $19.99/month and tiered from there

• Quickbooks Go Payment

  • A combination of the offerings of both Square and Paypal, this app allows you to ‘swipe a card, scan it with your camera phone, or key in details to accept payments’

  • Pay per payment processing

• DropBox

  • Upload, transfer, and share files amidst the cloud

  • ‘Most popular platform on which to store and share files in the cloud’

• Basecamp

  • Team management software - manage projects, connect, check in, and communicate with clients and staff

  • Categorizes projects allowing communication, calendar, check ins, and more

  • Free or $99/month

• Zoom

  • Works beautifully for remote teams

  • Work, communicate, share, video chat

• Hubspot

  • CRM software all in one spot, onboard and streamline all of your needs - best to organize all of your contacts

  • Integrates with heaps of other platforms/apps

  • Free/$50 per month/$800 per month

• My Minutes

  • Manage your task time

  • Free for users

• Wave

  • Invoice, expense, track, scan, and manage all things billing

  • Free accounting software (with add ons for purchase)

Technology is constantly changing, adapting, and shifting focus. Which apps you choose to employ to help improve your productivity, management, onboarding, communication, and scheduling can help you find more time in your own schedule to explore your endless potential. So pay attention to that ever encroaching mountain of new apps on the market. Whether they help you budget, pay, onboard, optimize, or organize, the abilities of these new gizmos and gadgets might just elevate your expertise to new heights.