Top 5 Mobile Apps for Small Business – Guest Blog

Apps have become a huge part of my business.  I use all sorts of apps for various aspects of my daily routine and I’m not sure I could survive without them.  I am able to have apps on various mobile devices and even on my desktop and they all save me time and allow me to work wherever I am, even on the train or when I have to walk the dog.  I love the ability to be productive even while I am away from the office.  I thought I would share some of the best apps I believe to be valuable if you are self-employed or running your own small business.

Top Five Apps for Business

1. Calendars or tasks managers are essential and I have tried many and found them to be lacking for one reason or another. I finally found Task-Pro that works fantastically well and allows me to add my tasks to my calendar quickly. With this app you can set alarms, section off different projects and stay on top of your schedule at all times. There is also a brilliant app for anyone who uses Google Tasks with their Gmail account called Go Tasks that synchronises perfectly.
2. Weave is a brilliant app especially for expenses and project management. The app will help you to keep track of all spending when you are out of the office as well as the money you are making. I love this app as it allows you to add collaborators so if you need feedback from clients or contractors they can simply be assigned to the set project.  The ‘to do’ feature is also one of the best ones I have found for project management.  The other thing I like about Weave is that it works with personal projects too so it has benefited my personal and business life.
3. Social media plays a huge role in any business these days. If you want to keep on top of your social networking you need to invest a lot of time into building trust and followers as well as adding links. There are some great apps that are designed to save you time as they allow you to quickly schedule posts to the main social networks such as Twitter and Facebook.  My favourites are Bufferapp and Flipboard. Bufferapp allows you to share your updates quickly across multiple platforms and Flipboard allows you to view the content of others as well as sharing possibilities.
4. If you often think up new ideas, take photos for research purposes or find a lot of information online it is useful to use the Evernote app for storage purposes.  You can send all of your data to Evernote and gain access to it on multiple computers and mobile devices. Evernote will store everything you send to it so you can share or use it later when you have time.  I use this app on my mobile phone and desktop as it’s perfect for saving valuable pages from the web that I can use in my research or share with networks.
5. Another great Google app is my final recommendation. Google Drive is perfect for saving and editing files whether you are working on your tablet, laptop or PC you can gain access to your work. The 5GB of free storage is also a definite bonus and you can use the app as cloud storage too.

Those are my five favourite apps. They cover essential business aspects from accounting to tasks and everything in between.  Many of the apps can be downloaded on multiple operating systems allowing you to be flexible and kept in sync wherever you may be sitting, or walking.

Carlo Pandian is a freelance writer and blogs about personnel management, self development and small business accounting software. He also writes tutorials on QuickBooks financial accounting software and has collaborated with influential blogs such as New Startups, Business2Community and Entrepreneur Country.