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In the sea of business apps out there, one may get confused in selecting one (or more) suited for the actual needs of the small business owner. While the small business apps can help run a business, these can help with accounting, money management, budgeting, running payroll, and more.
That is why I’ve tested many of the business apps online and bring you the top selections that can help you better manage all aspects of your business. For convenience, each of the apps outlined here is available on Google Play for Android users and the App Store for iPhone users.
Best Accounting Apps
Accounting is essential for a successful business. That is why you should select a great bookkeeping and accounting software that will help you keep track of everything going on in your business. Knowing your finances helps your business stay healthy, grow and develop.
1. QuickBooks Online
QuickBooks Online is the leader in small business accounting software, and it is a fan-favorite among accountants and bookkeepers. Coming in different pricing plans with different options, QuickBooks Online has a feature for everyone’s needs. You can send invoices, manage taxes, track billable hours and inventory, and even run payroll. Read more about QuickBooks Online in our detailed review.
2. FreshBooks
FreshBooks is a cloud-based accounting app, making it an excellent option for people on the go, like photographers or event planners, for example. Compared to QuickBooks Online, FreshBooks offers intuitive navigation and operation, and it is straightforward to integrate and start using it. FreshBooks allows customizing and automating plenty of features, so you will never miss sending an invoice or a payment on a camera financing loan. Read the full FreshBooks review here.
3. Zoho Books
A part of the Zoho family of financial apps, Zoho Books is another excellent app for accounting. The features of Zoho Books are excellent; the app has one of the best user interfaces around. Zoho Books offers automated workflows, custom invoices, expense tracking, budgeting, and much more. See what else is offered with Zoho Books in a detailed review here.
4. Wave
Wave is free cloud-based accounting software that allows users to add unlimited users, unlimited bank and credit card connections, and much more. Wave also allows you to manage accounting, payroll, and invoicing. It comes with a receipt scanner and has excellent customer support options.
5. Sage One
Sage One is a cloud-based accounting app that has interesting features that small business owners would find appealing. The app allows creating invoices, keeping track of finances, tracking time, tracking expenses, and much more. It has project management options as well for both freelance and contract workers. Read the full Sage One review here.
6. Xero
Xero is an accounting app that allows you to send invoices, sync with a bank, and share your accounting books remotely, and even manage payroll on the go. Xero’s other features are not as advanced as many other accounting apps here, but it is simple to use and may be suitable for small businesses with limited accounting needs.
7. Due.com
Due.com is an intuitive and multifunctional app, and it allows you to send recurring payments, manage invoices, sync with PayPal, and much more. A free version of the Due.com app allows dealing with only five clients per month, but the paid version has more options.
8. TurboTax
TurboTax is a part of the Intuit family of financial apps, the creators of QuickBooks. TurboTax has excellent features and intuitive navigation and use. A version specifically aimed at small businesses helps with tax preparation, including federal and state income tax returns.
Best Payroll Apps
When it comes to paying your employees, the value of a good payroll app comes in real handy. The payroll apps are designed to track every variable, help track and manage wages, and tax calculation and filing. Many of these apps have employe portals for easy onboarding and track payment history, billable hours, PTO, and more.
9. Gusto
Gusto is another small business app that helps your business. Gusto’s features are well organized. It offers automatic tax calculation and files state and federal payroll taxes, has a simple and elegant onboarding process, easy payroll runs, and much more. Read a detailed Gusto review here.
10. QuickBooks Payroll
A part of the QuickBooks finance apps, QuickBooks Payroll seamlessly integrates with the QuickBooks accounting software. It is a full-service payroll system that allows unlimited payroll runs, same-day or next-day deposits, and many other helpful features.
11. Patriot Payroll
Patriot Payroll is a full-service payroll platform that integrates with the other Patriot services or third-party integrations. The payroll service allows direct deposits, unlimited payroll runs, multiple locations and pay frequencies, automatic tax calculation and filing, and much more.
12. OnPay
OnPay is a payroll provider that also has benefits management and HR features. The app is transparent and straightforward to use and offers a lot of functionalities for seamless payroll runs. Things like pay calculation, payroll tracking, payroll history, and more, as well as benefit plans administration, and filing, and tax payment, are all parts of OnPay’s features. Learn more about this app in our detailed OnPay review here.
13. Payroll4Free
Payroll4Free is a service that allows you to run payroll and get basic functionalities for free. It allows tracking of vacation time, making direct deposits, and sending paper checks. However, the more advanced features like tax filing and W-2 processing come for an extra fee.
Best Budgeting Apps
The advancements in app development brought forth plenty of app opportunities, and that now includes budgeting apps. These enable tracking incoming and outgoing payments, keeping track of different categories, and much more.
14. inDinero
The inDinero app pulls all the bank and credit card statements from your synced accounts. The app then consolidates all expenses and provides a comprehensive report on how much you’ve spent, what you’ve spent it, and when you’ve spent it. It is a valuable tool for many small businesses, as it also provides forecasts on the future financial trends of your business.
15. Mint
Mint is another budgeting app that uses the data from the bank and credit accounts you’ve synced, tracks your spending, and provides weekly reports. Mint has an exciting feature where you can set up a specific budget for a task, and the app will analyze the bank/credit card statements to check the spent amount. It may be helpful to see if your business spends too much on coffee, for example.
16. Expensify
Expensify is a budgeting platform for expense account development and management, and it allows scanning receipts from day-to-day sales, travel receipts, and more. Any small business can use Expensify for expense reporting, card management, approvals, and employee and manager reimbursals.
17. Neat
Neat is an interesting little app that allows you to file receipts and invoices, create tax and expense reports, and much more. It is among the most useful apps that help any office go paperless and keep everything organized and neat. While the app itself is free to use, the cloud service comes at a fee.
Best Banking Apps
Today, all larger banks have their apps where you can see your bank balance, available budget, pending charges, and more. But many of these are also available for personal and professional accounts, which helps manage the personal and business financial state.
18. Capital One
With this mobile banking app, you can check the state of your personal or business account. Also, keep track of your credit card payments, transfer money, make payments, and more, all on the go.
19. Bank of America
The Bank of America mobile app is among the best banking apps in the USA now, as it has excellent functionalities, usability, and more. It allows you to do everything you would typically do in a bank – see your balance, track expenses, and pending payments, and make payments, all on the go.
20. Citi Mobile
Citi Mobile is the official banking app for Citibank. It grants access to personal and business accounts with Citibank, and you can keep track of all the critical data like available budget, pending payments, and more.
21. Simple
Simple is not an actual bank, but it is an amalgamation between an app and a bank. The service is intended to make banking simple and enables you to keep track of finances, pay your bills, and much more. However, the downside is that it is more for tech-savvy people, as it has a revolutionary design and features.
Best POS Apps
Every business owner knows the importance of having a smooth paying experience for your clients. It involves an advanced point of sale or POS system that will make the sales easier for both parties. The more advanced POS systems record payments, automatically update inventory, calculate tax, and more.
22. Square POS
The Square POS platform has modern features that allow customers to pay with credit cards by swiping the proprietary card reader. Square is a perfect option for small businesses and mobile businesses as it provides inventory management, POS, and more, all from a centralized hub.
23. QuickBooks GoPayment
The QuickBooks GoPayment app comes with a free card reader. Still, the app is so advanced that it enables you to use the integrated camera of your mobile device to scan a customer’s credit card, and it integrates with the Apple Watch. Keep track of the inventory, the most often sold items and much more analytics with this POS app.
24. PayPal Here
The PayPal Here is a point-of-sale app that transforms your smartphone (Android or iPhone) into a credit card reader. The app can create invoices, process checks, and works via your PayPal account instead of your regular bank account. It can be tricky for some businesses, while some find it works better this way.
Best Industry-Specific Finance Apps
Here I list some of the best apps that are industry-specific. From restaurants and eateries to small handcrafting businesses, these apps have great features and options.
25. TouchBistro
The TouchBistro POS app is among the best options for restaurants and cafés. The app was designed with these industries in mind, so all the features reflect the actual needs of the business, like CRM platform, rewards option, customer web application, and more. Learn more about the TouchBistro app here.
26. Revel Systems
The Revel Systems is a POS app designed to turn an iPod into a restaurant management tool. The app allows many functionalities, from seating and orders to managing financials, sales, inventory, and even employee schedules.
27. Nowait
Nowait is an app for restaurants that don’t take reservations. Instead, the app takes over the waitlist process and plans the waitlist, notifying the customers, arranging the seating charts, and optimizing the front-on-house section.
28. Inventory Tracker
The name of this app is self-explanatory: an app designed for tracking inventory. The other features of Inventory Tracker include sales, expenses, credits, scanning barcodes, creating spreadsheets, and more. Inventory Tracker is one of those necessary yet straightforward apps that make your business management a little easier.
Best Misc Finance Apps
Unlike the dedicated apps above, here I list apps that offer simple yet often essential services for small businesses.
29. LivePlan
LivePlan is an app that helps you create a business plan. The features include one-page pitches and infographics. It also tracks your budget and revenue, as it integrates with your existing accounting software, and you can always send precise pitches.
30. TSheets
TSheets is a timesheet app, in case you did not guess by its name. The app is handy for employee time management, as it tracks time, PTO, vacations, and more. A necessary app for correct payroll processing.
31. InvoiceCare
InvoiceCare is an app that syncs with your accounting/invoicing system and facilitates the management of all accounts receivable under one platform. The app sends emails to remind late-paying customers, and they even make reminder phone calls and send thank-you notes to on-time-paying customers.
32. Simple Loan Calculator
The Simple Loan Calculator is an app that calculates your monthly loan payments. You will have to enter the terms of your loan, interest rate, due date, and the like, and the app will calculate everything using advanced algorithms. It will provide an amortization table and graphs for a visual representation of your loan.
33. Asana
Asana is one of those apps that are perfect for project management. The app enables you to assign and track an unlimited number of projects in a single dashboard. Manage assignees, due dates, comments, and get unlimited storage for files up to 100MB each. Plus, the initial version is free.
34. Evernote
Any small business owner knows that they constantly need to note things down. Instead of going around with a giant ledger, you can use the cloud-based Evernote app and keep track of all random information in one place. Plus, you have everything readily accessible, as the app integrates with email, communication, and other productivity apps.
To Wrap Up: Apps Run The World
Here I’ve listed only 35 financial apps useful in the business world, and small business owners could benefit from them. There are many more out in addition to these; any small business owner who is well prepared and knowledgeable can use these to save time and money and have a better, more efficiently run business.