Gone are the days when you had to be at the office to do work. The advent of the home computer tore that whole notion to smithereens. While some would lament that they feel their office following them around wherever they bring their cell phone, many are singing the praises of mobile technology. If you’re a small business owner, you should take advantage or a few of the best apps out there. Next time you’re in line at the car wash, you can run your payroll or edit that business proposal or even check on an invoice.
GoogleDocs
The mobile version of Google’s awesome document editing application is pretty much just as cool as the original. Using the app you can view and edit documents and spreadsheets on the go and because GoogleDocs stores everything in the Cloud, you can easily share your revisions among multiple users and across multiple devices. The iOS version costs $4.99 while the Android version is free.
MiniBooks FreshBooks
MiniBooks puts all of your customer’s billing information in the palm of your hand. Need to check on an old invoice? Done. Need to pull up a client’s full contact info? Done. The app also lets you run timers for jobs that pay by the hour so you can keep an accurate count easily. Once you’ve created an estimate with the app, you can transform it into a printable invoice quickly and easily.
Evernote
Evernote is a great app for the forgetful among us. If you’ve ever needed to make a note on the fly, you can do it through Evernote and thanks to Cloud storage, that note or reminder will show up on all your devices. This is great for everything from shopping lists to keeping notes on meetings and conferences.
Square
Square is probably the best app for credit card holders. If you’re a small business owner who wants to begin accepting credit cards but you don’t want to go through the headache of setting up an account with the credit card company, you can simply sign up for a Square account. The company does not charge a flat rate for transactions (most companies charge $0.10-$0.15 across the board). They only take 2.75 percent of each transaction. Just plug the Square credit card scanner into your smartphone’s headphone jack and begin expanding your business today.
Carolyn is a guest blogger who writes about small businesses and small business solutions like BigCommerce to help optimize performance.