With the prevalence of digital productivity tools, you might expect businesses to be more productive than ever before. Yet, many business owners still list “improving productivity” as a top concern. Since new tools are coming on the market every week, business owners could find themselves wasting considerable time and money trying out option after option to find the tool that best meets their needs. To help cut through the clutter, we’ve assembled a list of the top 5 most versatile free online productivity tools for small businesses.
1. Wave
Website: http://www.waveapps.com
Regardless of your business structure, number of employees, and industry, you’ll need a way to track your business finances. Wave empowers small business owners to handle all aspects of their business funds, including building financial statements, sending invoices, processing payroll, reconciling bank statements, tracking income and expenses, accepting credit cards, and more. Even better, this freemium service offers personalized bookkeeping and accounting advice from professionals for a nominal fee.
2. MindMup
Website: http://www.mindmup.com
As your business grows and evolves, you’ll need to keep on pace with new ideas for marketing, business development, and lead generation. Mind mapping tools were created for just this purpose, but MindMup is no ordinary mind map. Unlike many free services, MindMup doesn’t limit the number of maps you can create with their free plan. You can include photos, videos, spreadsheets, and other media directly into your maps. You can also upload finished projects to the cloud for easy sharing. In addition, you can download projects into a variety of formats, including PDFs and PowerPoints. Perhaps the best quality of this productivity tool, however, is its intuitive interface that allows you to quickly and easily capture all your ideas during brainstorming sessions.
3. Toggl
Website: http://www.toggl.com
The creators at Toggl understand a fundamental truth about tracking time for small business owners – it is a necessary evil. They designed the browser-based app with a large timer button; toggle it on to start the timer and toggle it off to stop timing. If time tracking gets much more complicated than that, people won’t use it consistently. For users that want an easy-to-use application that still allows for some customization, there are simple point-and-click tagging features that allow for categorization by client and by project type. The Toggl team also recognized that business owners need fairly robust reporting capabilities, so they allow users to create reports by client, by project, or by specifying a preset or custom time period.
4. IFTTT
Website: http://ifttt.com
In today’s interconnected environment, we all use lots of tools, programs, and devices on a daily basis. Unfortunately, the multitude of digital applications vying for our time can be a significant time waster. IFTTT (If This, Then That) is a digital integration tool that allows your apps to work together, allowing you to do less work. The program boasts over 550 different “services” or connected applications that can be used to automate your daily tasks. Wish you could set up an automated reminder in Slack to prompt your team to submit their expense reports? IFTTT can handle it. Want your Whirlpool Smart Dryer to send you a text message when your laundry is done? IFTTT can take care of that too. With thousands of applets (or automated tasks) across hundreds of devices, your ability to improve your productivity and automate more of your workday is limited only by your creativity.
5. Canva
Website: http://www.canva.com
If this article were titled “The best programs your graphic designer wish you didn’t know about”, Canva would be at the top of the list. Canva’s drag-and-drop interface allows even the tech newbie to create professional looking documents in minutes. These aren’t your typical cookie cutter templates that look like they came from Office 2005. Canva has allowed thousands of business owners to build high quality promotional materials without hiring a professional graphic designer. The free software includes templates for everything from business cards and resumes to social media banners and infographics. While their design platform is a huge asset to your business toolkit on its own, the website also boasts a helpful learning portal that includes free classes on topics such as “Graphic Design Basics” and “Branding Your Business”.
When searching for free online productivity tools for small businesses, it’s important to consider how the tool will be used within your organization, which features are included within the free plan, and what additional costs will be incurred to get premium features if you decide to upgrade. Since each of these tools offer feature-rich services in a free package, they are a great starting point for accomplishing a variety of tasks within your business that would likely otherwise be outsourced to an expensive professional.
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