Guest Article by Lucy Reed, Gigmine

Life is busy. If you’re an entrepreneur, busy may be an understatement; however, there are ways to manage responsibilities with apps for your mobile devices, including working from home. The right apps can help you handle the financial aspects of your business, such as invoices, expenses, and due dates, as well as boost productivity and improve communication with your employees. Discover Lafayette shares some of the best options to keep your business finances organized and help you stay on top of communications, meetings, and other daily activities while also reducing stress. 

QuickBooks

QuickBooks needs no introduction for anyone in finance. For the self-employed or small business owner, QuickBooks is a time and money saver. It allows you to track income and expenses, generate financial reports, and send and organize invoices. Higher-tier options provide time and inventory tracking and high-level financial overviews. You don’t need multiple employees to use the app; it’s appropriate for single or multiple users. QuickBooks is a paid app, but the company scales the fees to let you choose the features you need to stay on top of your business from your smartphone or other mobile devices.

monday.com

Organization is one of the keys to success. monday.com is an app that allows you to plan and implement all areas of your business in one place. It includes:

• Project management
• Inventory tracking
• Sales and CRM
• IT management
• HR onboarding

monday.com offers customizable templates to help you meet all your business needs, such as creating a social media or content plan for your website, managing customers, and syncing with other programs, such as Adobe CC, for a full overview of your business. You can use a free version with two seats for basic needs or scale up to add more features, including plans that allow you to collaborate with your entire team and automation options that can greatly decrease stress levels and improve productivity.

Calendly

Does your day include meetings with clients, vendors, and employees? Calendly is the app that can help you manage all your appointments in one easy-to-use location.

Back-and-forth emails are frustrating and a drain on your time. Calendly allows you to create simple rules and share your availability for the day, week, or month with others so they can pick a free time.

You don’t have to give up your other calendars. Instead, Calendly pulls information from your existing ones, including calendars in Outlook and Google. The app offers tiered pricing, so you only pay for what you need. Additionally, it can boost productivity by integrating with Zoom, Stripe, PayPal, Zapier, and SalesForce.

Gusto

Many small businesses have several employees but don’t have the budget for a human resource officer to manage all employment-related matters. Even if you and all your employees work from home, there are still tons of rules, regulations, and tax-related matters to handle. Gusto offers something a little different than other payroll management apps—it lets your employees access a self-service portal for their payroll and benefits. The app comes with customer support, so you’re never on your own. Other options with Gusto include:

• Hiring and onboarding
• Time tracking
• Time-off requests
• Access to HR experts for real-time advice

Like other small business apps, Gusto offers a few tiers of service to choose from, from basic full-service payroll to a full concierge option.

Boost Output With Apps

Small business owners can improve their day-to-day operations from anywhere using smart apps for finances, project management, scheduling, and payroll.