One of the top reasons small businesses fail is inadequate financing.
To be honest, financial tasks such as sending out invoices, monitoring expenses, and keeping up with payroll and taxes can be extremely challenging when you are preoccupied with growing your business.
While these tasks are crucial to the continued success of a small business, they are definitely tedious and will often entail more time and resources than you have. Fortunately, business tools and apps both for Android and AppleMac products are available to keep you on top of the game.
Wave
Wave is a simple and user-friendly accounting software platform that was designed specifically for small businesses, independent contractors, freelancers, and entrepreneurs who have nine or fewer employees. In fact, since it was launched in 2010, Wave has been used by more than 2 million users to handle their accounting, payroll and invoicing needs. This tool comes with powerful protection and performance for your PC, allowing you to track your business’s sales and expenses. It also allows you to mange your invoices and customer payments, scan receipts, generate accounting reports, and pay your employees.
Wave also comes with a receipt scanner that is 100 percent free. No need to visit Aliexpress to purchase one specifically for this purpose. This software also offers free, cloud-based services. Unlike similar free accounting software programs that have limited features, Wave has an extensive list of accounting features that can be used for free without the costly monthly free. More importantly, if you run into any problems even with the help of this software, Wave can easily help you connect with a local accountant through the ‘Find an Account’ option.
Since launching in 2010, Wave has been used by more than 2 million small business owners, consultants and freelancers to manage all of their accounting, payroll and invoicing needs. Wave also has a handy receipt scanner and is 100 percent free. And, if you do run into any serious problems, Wave can connect you to a local accountant through it’s ‘Find an Account’ feature.
QuickBooks Mobile
QuickBooks Mobile is an invaluable tool for anyone who handles the finance and accounting requirements of a company. It is integrated with QuickBooks Online to make it easier for business owners to manage their accounting, no matter where the job takes them. Just like Quickbooks Online, Quickbooks Mobile can be used to generate and edit customer information, estimates, sales receipts, and invoices. Any changes made are also immediately available on Quickbooks Online.
Quickbooks Mobile allows you to prepare an invoice or estimate instantly when you are with a customer or client, even when you are in a remote location. There is no need for you to go back to your office or turn on your laptop, saving time and resources for both you and your customer and allowing you to manage your entire business remotely. Quickbooks also enables you to get a sense of the overall financial health of your company. Because it can easily be integrated with other accounts, including business bank accounts, PayPal, credit cards, and others, data from these sources will be seamlessly uploaded to your books without the need for too much effort.
Gusto
The best finance apps for small businesses will help owners avoid doing needlessly complicated and frustrating tasks, chief among which is managing the company’s payroll and benefits, while ensuring that it will stay compliant with existing laws and regulations. Gusto, formerly known as ZenPayroll, helps streamline a company’s payroll, tax, and benefits process. More than just tracking the on-boarding of employees, Gusto also automatically reports all new hires to the government.
Some of the most important functions that Gusto does to benefit small business owners include the following: handling local, state, and federal tax filings, automating benefits and workers’ compensation payments, and e-mailing digital pay stubs to employees. Furthermore, you can even use Gusto to monitor your employees’ sick and vacation time. Gusto pricing is also cost-efficient, you only have to pay $39 a month, plus $6 per employee. This means that if you have 10 employees, you only need to pay $99 per month.
Goodbudget
Goodbudget a functional envelope app that is very similar to another app called Mint, however, it requires more manual input. Downloaded more than 1 million users, Goodbudget has earned a stellar reputation for being a reliable partner when it comes to preparing financial reports and analyzing expenditures. Features such as “Bill Keeper” and “Capital One Wallet” allows business owners to monitor upcoming bills and ongoing procurement processes.
Goodbudget allows you to set up your own categories for expenses and monitoring your business’s expenditures, and their subsequent consequences, on any mobile device. All of the transactions you input or are uploaded from your business processes are synced with the cloud. Because you can sync it with multiple devices, the app offers you the choice to share necessary information with any of your budgeting partners. Because this does not have a demo version, users should make sure that the app has all the features they are looking for before they proceed with the paid version.
Expensify
Expensify was created by a developer who wanted a better option for generating expense reports. The app easily integrates with services such as Uber and HotelTonight to record expenses instantly. These expenditures are then consolidated with other manually types of expenses, to help managers examine business trips and determine which areas they can save money on.
Expensify has a free version that allows up to 10 free smart scans per month along with a free mobile app and unlimited storage for receipts. The premium version costs just £4 ($5) per month per active user and allows for unlimited smart scans, basic expenses approval, and integration with other finance apps like QuickBooks orXero.This app is very popular with small business owners, precisely because of its competitive pricing. One disadvantage, however, is that it can be hard to learn at first, given the inadequacy of online documentation. Some users have also pointed out that the support team can be difficult to contact.
