In smaller businesses, employees often struggle with the management of certain aspects, particularly when it comes to tasks that require specific knowledge or training. Thankfully, there is plenty of software available for small businesses to help with all the departments that they may find difficult to operate. From bookkeeping to marketing, here are some of our top picks for specialised software to ease the burden of small business management.
- Accounting
The finances for a business can stretch from invoicing to wages to tax returns and managing the accounts requires a good understanding of the financial world. You also need a record of your income and your outgoings in order to track profits - one aspect you probably don't consider when you are looking for accounting software is an expense tracker. Check out the expense tracker at FreshBooks here - you can connect this directly to your bank account so you never miss out on a penny of those business expenses when it comes to your tax returns.
- Communication Relationship Management
A CRM software tool can help you analyse and track your interactions with your clients to better understand your relationship with them. As a small business, maintaining and nurturing these relationships is vital for the survival of your company. CRM software can also help with tracking your interactions with potential customers and provide valuable data that will help drive sales and increase customer retention. Tools like Zoho can provide an invaluable insight into your customer relationships and identify where you can improve as a business. If you look after your customers, you increase the likelihood of customer loyalty and word of mouth recommendations, which are essential to help your business grow.
- Marketing
The growth of your company is largely down to your marketing efforts. Whilst quality service and customer care is important to build your reputation, marketing is essential to bring in new customers and maintain your positive reputation amongst your client base. In addition to the more traditional forms of marketing, digital marketing has been taking the industry by storm for the past few decades, and it doesn't look like it's going to be slowing down anytime soon.
There are so many different forms of digital marketing, it can be difficult to know where to begin. For example, MailChimp is a popular option for email marketing and offers a free service with the opportunity to grow as your business does. HubSpot offers a choice between CRM focused, sales orientated or full-fledged marketing software to help automate your marketing efforts and take a huge amount of stress off your shoulders. These are just a couple of options for marketing software as you can also find services that focus on print marketing, SEO or social media marketing. Do your research into what type of marketing might be the best investment for your company and which method is the best way to reach your customer base. It's always best to have at least a few of these on the go, to ensure you're covering multiple bases and effectively reaching your target market.
- Project Management
Without solid project management practices, tasks can become more complicated than they need to be, employees can be left with little guidance and overall, things can get messy with no real direction or aim. Good project management software can prove to be invaluable to your company, as it can help break down big projects into individual manageable tasks whilst also providing an overall view of the bigger picture. It can be essential for your time management and tracking your progress through each project, as well as giving insight into where your resources are being expended. Some project management software can be linked with timekeeping or invoicing software, like FreshBooks, to streamline the entire process and aid your communication with your clients.
All in all, the software you need for your business depends on its size, your industry and what products or services you offer. This list is a good place to start though, as accounting, CRM, marketing and project management are all useful things to have in place to improve your processes and general workflow. Streamlining each of these will do your brand the world of good, as well as your customer service and reputation - all of which should subsequently improve your profit margins.
