online business tools

9 Smartphone Apps to Manage Your Money

Annie Mueller — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 20:57:07 +0000

Link:

http://www.openforum.com/articles/9-smartphone-apps-to-manage-your-money

Keeping track of your cash flow and accounts shouldn't be a big time sink. You've got more important things to do. So pick up your smartphone. Managing your company’s money on-the-go has never been easier.

1. Expensify

This on line service plus phone app allows you to create "expense reports that don't suck," which would be nice for everyone involved. You set up an account (free for individuals; $5/person for business expense report approval), download the right app for your phone (iPhone, Android, Blackberry, and Palm), and start uploading receipts, adding account information, tracking expenses, syncing with QuickBooks, and creating reports and spreadsheets.

If you only get one money management app, Expensify should be the one.

2. Pageonce

Losing money on late fees because you forgot to pay a bill is just bad business. Set yourself up with Pageonce to end that senselessness. It allows you to track multiple account balances, bills, and payments, and set up alerts with the Payments Due feature so you don't forget to pay the bills. An account is free, as is the app for Android, iPhone, Blackberry, iPad, and Windows Phone.

3. BillTracker

For a simpler take on the bill reminder service, try BillTracker. This one is exclusively for Apple users: iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch, and the app costs $1.99. Users appreciate that it is straightforward, simple to use, and has both calendar and list view for upcoming bills. It's also pretty...

4. Loanshark

Know the key to money management? Know where your money is going. Loanshark allows you to calculate loan payments and will produce a full amortization table for you, so you can see how much interest you're paying, how much an extra payment or two would help, and more. $2.99 for the iPhone or iPad app.

LoanCalculator provides the same services for Android users, and it's a free app.

5. Paypal

The go-to method for on line payments, Paypal is still a must for easily managing your money, payments, and transfers. The mobile app allows you to easily check your balance and payments received, as well as make payments or transfer money to your other accounts.

6. XE Mobile Currency

Whether you're traveling for business or putting together a proposal for an international client, having a handy currency converter makes it easy to keep track of dollars to euros or yen or... whatever. XE Mobile Currency provides live currency rates, and has apps available for iPhone, iPad, Android, Blackberry, and Windows Phone; all are free.

7. ProOnGo

Expense tracking at its simplest and best. ProOnGo starts with the cloud-based service. Individual accounts start as low as $0.99/month and go up to $9.99/month; business accounts start at $27/month for up to 5 users and go up from there. Once you get your account set up, you can download the appropriate app; Android, Blackberry, iPhone, and Windows phone are all covered. ProOnGo allows you to input receipts, track mileage, track your time, and create reports for Excel or Quickbooks (or a custom format).

8. ClockIn or TimeClock

When you just want a simple time tracking application, one of these will do the job. If you are a freelancer or outsourced worker, you can easily track hours logged on different projects. If you're the boss, you can track your own hours and see where your time is going. See ClockIn for Apple products (free) and TimeClock for Android ($3.99).

9. Invoice2Go or MobileBiz

These invoicing apps are musts for freelancers in general and freelancers on the go in particular. Get the invoicing done, so you don't have to worry about remembering to do it when you get back home (and potentially, forgetting and potentially missing out on some money you're owed...).

Input your client's information, your hours worked, the rate, and any other expenses (or discounts and deductions). Send the invoice straight from your phone. For Apple users, the app of choice is Invoice2Go; a bit pricey at $10.49, but you can get a free trial version to make sure you like it. If you do, and you use it, it's well worth a $10 price tag to avoid missing an invoice. For Android users, MobileBiz is a feature-rich invoicing app with free, trial, and pro versions.

This article is from Annie Mueller of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

10 Free Business Tools Too Valuable To Ignore

Ken Kaufman — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 22:09:05 +0000

Link:

http://www.openforum.com/articles/10-free-business-tools-too-valuable-to-ignore

Small business owners and entrepreneurs love to save money, but at some point we’ve all learned the lesson that “you get what you pay for” the hard way. In a marketing-era where "free" offerings are the cornerstone of lead generation, we’ve also become wary of watered-down products that don’t add value unless we sign up for the paid version. In fact, free stuff can consume way too much time and even end up costing money.

In the spirit of understanding that “free” is not always a good option, here is a list of ten resources and tools you'd be crazy not to use. For each, the free version is actually a good, productive, legitimate product or freely shared trove of valuable content for everyone to consume.

1. Dropbox

This powerful product ends the challenge of storing and syncing files and documents on different devices and computers. And, with the ability to share all of your important stuff with others, Dropbox is a cloud-based productivity tool that entrepreneurs love. The free offering comes with 2GB of space, with paid plans for a fee.

2. Google Apps

If you have a business, your email address needs to end with @YOURDOMAIN.com. Using gmail, yahoo, or other services looks unprofessional and hurts your credibility. Google Apps solves all of that for free (for up to ten users), plus you will have access to familiar Google tools and applications and lots more from third-party developers to help you run your business from anywhere.

3. #Smallbizchat

Several weeks ago I was the guest on a Tweetchat, an interview and interactive session conducted entirely on Twitter. This weekly show, known as #SmallBizChat, covers a variety of topics relevant to entrepreneurs every Wednesday night from 8-9 ET. There is no paid version or subscription as author and small business expert Melinda Emerson offers this content for free.

4. SCORE Templates and Tools

A nonprofit organization dedicated to educating and helping entrepreneurs with over 13,000 volunteers and 370 offices around the US, SCORE also has a section on its website with free templates and tools. This trove includes business plan forms, financial templates, contract samples/templates, and local resources. You can even ask a question to a local, volunteer mentor right through the website.

5. Google Analytics

In a business environment that mandates a presence on the web, Google Analytics helps you maximize your online efforts. This robust reporting tool can tell you almost everything you need to know about the visitors to your website, the content they consume, and the efficacy of your digital programs.

6. Market Research by Manta.com

If you sell to other businesses, Manta has information on over 24 million businesses in the US, which you can access for free. You can sort by social networking handles, revenues, start date, number of employees, geography, and more. If you need to define the size of your market, this is the place to go … and you can get what you need without a paid subscription.

7. HR Tools by Insperity

If you have employees, then you need to be thinking about HR from a compliance and a strategic perspective, all with a focus on maximizing your return on the cost of recruiting, training, managing, and retaining employees. HR Tools by Insperity includes articles, tools, forms, checklists, and so much more, covering every human resources topic imaginable. If you’re thinking about hiring a new employee,or doing performance reviews, or you want to know how to manage employees who telecommute, they have everything you’ll need to navigate the challenges associated with being an employer.

8. LinkedIn

I am still surprised by how many people do not have a LinkedIn profile. If you want to be taken seriously in your business, you need to set one up. As you make connections, your network will help you find employees and business opportunities. And there is plenty of content on the web to teach you how to maximize your efforts. The free version is likely all you’ll ever need, although I’ve heard good things about the paid accounts as well.

9. LogMeIn.com

You can access your desktop any time you need with the robust, free version of this remote desktop management tool. Perhaps the best thing about LogMeIn.com is the ability to quickly log in and use software on your desktop from anywhere, regardless of whether or not the device you are on has the same software.

10. Producteev

A cloud-based task management system, Producteev is a great tool for keeping your inbox clean and your tasks organized based on a user-friendly workspace and tagging system. I’ve been especially pleased with how this product integrates with Google Apps.

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This article is from Ken Kaufman of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

7 Effective Tools for Managing a Virtual Team

Justine Grey — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 22:27:03 +0000

Link:

http://www.openforum.com/articles/7-effective-tools-for-managing-a-virtual-team

Whether you run a smaller business or are starting to expand operations to a large group of people, at some point you’ll need to start using tools other than your email inbox to collaborate and communicate with your team.

Look no further than these seven effective tools for managing a virtual team, while improving your efficiency and productivity.

Google Apps for Business

Google Apps helps small business owners manage their teams, collaborate, and work together remotely using Google’s familiar suite of office and communication tools (Google Docs, Calendar, Gmail, Chat).

The paid Google Apps for Business service adds to the free service upgraded email storage, better contacts management, increased security, mobile access, and the ability to manage multiple domains in one account.

For me, the best feature is the ability to use Gmail with my .com domain name, seamlessly. I maintain the professional appearance provided by my own email address, while enjoying all the benefits of Gmail. However, while Apps is generally easy to use and manage, I’d love to see a more user-friendly interface.

Nathalie Lussier, who created a handy video tutorial for managing email with Google Apps, says it’s been a lifesaver. “We keep all of our systems and processes detailed in Google Docs," Lussier says. "We schedule meetings via Google Calendar, and we use it to manage shared inboxes, too.”

Highrise

Created by Jason Fried’s 37 Signals (who also created Basecamp, below), Highrise is a robust contact management system, perfect for small business owners.

With Highrise, you can save and organize notes and email conversations, keep track of proposals and deals, and even get text messages or email the next time you need to follow up with a contact.

Charlie Gilkey, co-founder of Lift Off Retreat and coach at Productive Flourishing, loves it. “So much of our business," Gilkey says, "is based upon real interactions with real people, and it's hard to know who's talking to who sometimes. Highrise lets us keep track of conversations across the team using the tools we already use, rather than having to go to a dedicated CRM and send email from it.”

Yammer

The popular “social network for companies,” Yammer helps virtual teams collaborate in a social media-like atmosphere, similar to Facebook. While it’s used by huge companies like 7-Eleven, eBay and Groupon, it’s still a great tool for smaller businesses because it offers a free basic subscription and advanced features cost only $5 per user, per month.

Key features include microblogging, profiles, groups, private messaging, file uploads, robust security, and a searchable knowledge base generated from your archived discussions and interactions.

Sarah Burns, Director of Communications for LauraRoeder.com, a Social Media Marketing firm, is always looking for effective collaboration and communication tools. “LauraRoeder.com is a completely virtual company with team members working around the globe," she says. "With Yammer, we instantly all know what's going on, what we're working on, what's finished and what needs to happen next. It's our own internal status update tool. Best of all it's very much like one of our favorite social media tools, Twitter, so it's familiar and easy to use.”

Go2Meeting

If you run a virtual team and regularly need to meet to share training, tutorials, and ideas, look no further than GoToMeeting. Developed in 2004 by Citrix Online (who also created GoToWebinar and GoToTraining), GoToMeeting allows you to host an online meeting with up to 15 people.

With their web conferencing tool, you can share any application on your computer in real time and save your sessions for future use.

Jason Dirks, co-founder of Meylah, the social marketplace for all things creative, relies on GoToMeeting and Dropbox extensively. “Our favorite tool that we use to manage our virtual team, other than Dropbox, is GoToMeeting," says Dirks. "GoToMeeting allows us to connect and collaborate with our team anytime on the phone or computer.”

Dropbox

Dropbox is an incredible tool for teams, and even individuals, who need to access documents, photos, and videos anywhere they are. Whether from a laptop, desktop, or mobile phone, with Dropbox you and your entire team can drag and drop files into one shared folder that’s accessible anywhere there’s a web connection.

My only disappointment with the service, which should be fixed soon, is that you can’t implement read-only permissions for certain users, which means important files can get removed and deleted accidentally.

Tina Su, chief happiness officer at blogs Think Simple Now and Work Awesome, uses it as a network storage device. “I love Dropbox. It’s free (for the first few gigs), quick to setup, easy to share, automatically backs-up and mounts like a hard drive. We use it to store and share documents, software code, and resources like graphics.”

Basecamp

Another great collaboration tool created by 37 Signals (see Highrise), Basecamp is an online project management tool used by millions of people and businesses. It allows you to create various projects, share information, and collaborate with your team and with vendors and clients. Plus it features to-do lists, messages, file uploads, and more.

I use Basecamp with my Work Life Joy team, and it’s wonderful because it allows me to create multiple projects and to-do lists for each team member. We can share messages and files and exchange them within Basecamp as well as through our email inboxes. A calendar feature was just announced, which I’m particularly excited about.

Nathalie Lussier, founder of Nathalie Lussier Media, an "all-in-one solution" for technical, design and marketing, appreciates its usefulness and its ease of use. “Basecamp is perfect for us because it allows us to have projects for each of our clients," Lussier says, "and internally for our own milestones. It's a great way to communicate and keeps all the relevant information and files sorted by project. I love how easy it is to use, and that we can see at a glance what needs to be done, who is responsible, and which projects are moving ahead. It's a huge time and lifesaver.”

Infusionsoft

A leading marketing automation platform, Infusionsoft has been regularly touted as the “swiss army knife” of all-in-one business solutions for small business owners.

From email marketing to CRM to E-Commerce, Infusionsoft gives you a powerful way to keep things all in one place and extend that ease of use to your team.

I’ve used the software as an affiliate of other sellers, and it’s great for managing important affiliate programs such as resources areas, banner generators, email lists, and even lead tracking.

Louise Flory, Project Manager for Marie Forleo International, uses it to look after tens of thousands of clients in more than 108 countries. “Infusionsoft, helps keep our business streamlined by having our email marketing, shopping cart, and affiliate program in one robust package," Flory says. "Having it all in one place saves us time so we can focus on what we do best – making our clients outrageously happy!”

This article is from Justine Grey of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

7 Reasons to Rethink Free Online Tools

Thursday Bram — Sat, 14 May 2011 20:10:40 +0000

Link:

http://www.openforum.com/idea-hub/topics/technology/article/7-reasons-to-rethink...

For a small business just starting out, free tools for running a company — for bookkeeping, word processing, file storage, contact management — can make a world of difference. Such tools can help you keep the cash you need to get through the tight spots every new business has.

But free tools are often worth exactly what you pay for them, providing as many problems as solutions. It’s important to consider the potential issues that you may face, if only so you can plan for the time when those free tools can be replaced.

1. Free tools often lack important features.

Getting tools to do what you want isn’t always as easy as it seems. Matthew Jones, co-founder of Shizzle Dizzle Magic, found that Google Docs didn’t quite do the same thing as Microsoft Office. “One of the first things I tried was Google Docs. We have a lot of forms and contracts that we use for each customer. I wanted to put them in the cloud so I could use them from any computer and eventually ditch Microsoft Office. Unfortunately, it became a nightmare. A lot of the formatting was lost and it was darn near impossible to get it back. Also, I couldn't make the forms do a lot of the things I wanted them to do.”

2. You can outgrow free tools surprisingly quickly.

Edward Hechter’s company, Party Pail, soon outpaced the capacity of the free tools the firm had used at its founding. “The capabilities of the "free" email were so limited that they cost us money, and made things difficult for us to manage our customer care team as we grew from 2 people to 20+. Things like spam control, the ability to provide customers with automatic responses and receipt confirmation, the ability for multiple people in a customer care organization to share an email account were solved by using an inexpensive "cloud" service for email where we now host over 100 email addresses used by the company for a wide variety of customer interaction methods. Again, this less than $20 per month tool saved us much more than the cost by enabling our work groups to collaborate on customer requests, share a common customer service email box, and provide customers with better, faster responses.”

3. That free tool can suddenly grow a price tag.

Marjorie Asturias, who runs Blue Volcano Media, has been using the Outright bookkeeping system for free but recently learned that the service will soon have a monthly fee. “I’ve been using Outright for about 3 years, and have been impressed with the simple yet powerful bookkeeping functions. It was perfect when I was a solo entrepreneur, with a clean, user-friendly interface and stable and secure database. They are transitioning to a paid model, but for users who were on the system prior to the switch, they can continue to use Outright for free until the end of 2011. Still, the transition has hurt them quite a bit as they tweak the interface — many users complain on the forums that it's no longer as user-friendly, and I’ve had to grapple with missing data and unsynced invoices (Outright syncs with Freshbooks, the web-based invoicing system) for several months...I worry that as my business grows and theirs does as well, they won’t be able to handle all the problems, resulting in a bad bookkeeping experience for entrepreneurs who rely so heavily on them. They’ve since fixed some of the problems, but I continue to monitor my books carefully and am reviewing other options (including paid, complex ones like Quickbooks) in the event that they fail again.”

4. You may not be able to easily upgrade when you need new features.

Bookkeeper Katrina Harrell found that her tools weren’t working in all situations, and she needed a new solution. “I use ZohoAssist to remote access my clients' laptops to perform bookkeeping services to them and it works great, except for my Mac clients — I have recently noticed a terrible lag time of 5 seconds! Not productive at all! My staff was losing time (and costing money). After about two weeks of this I reluctantly moved to a paid remote access program called join.me, and it's much better! I did consider upgrading to ZohoAssist’s paid version — and actually did for the free trial — but, nope, still lagged 3 to 5 seconds.

5. Free tools aren't always compatible with the paid tools your vendors, customers, and employees use.

Lawyer Todd Gallinger learned the hard way that compatibility can be key. “I run a small law office with two full-time and two part-time employees. When we initially hired the part-time employees, I needed to get more computers. I purchased two very inexpensive desktops which came preloaded with Ubuntu, a free version of Unix. I had worked with Ubuntu before, and knew for the basic tasks online and in word processing, it is very easy to use. However, no one but me in the office could figure it out. Additionally, we ran into problems with the formatting of Open Office, a free office suite and competitor to Microsoft Office. Ninety percent of our work is in the word processor, and Open Writer works well for letters and other basic documents. However, much of our work needs to be in specific formatting required by the courts. Open Office couldn’t do this and, if we opened a file created in Microsoft Word, it would mess up the formatting. For these issues, we abandoned the computers and free software. I set up Microsoft Windows XP and MS Office on the computers. Though they run slow (since the software is not as efficient as the free versions), people now know how to use them.”

6. Free tools often do not include customer support.

Angela Nielsen has faced exactly that problem more than once. “The biggest problem our company has faced using FREE services, is the lack of prompt support. Most free services we have tried only offer support forums or the like, and when we have had a problem, we had nobody to call (or even email) for fast response. Running a business means we need answers to our problems solved right away, and don't have hours to dig through support forums. Our solution was to be very careful when choosing any type of free service or product. If there isn't same day support offered, then we tend to purchase support plans, or upgrade to a paid service so we can get the support when we need it.”

It’s not always easy to get access to the free tools you want to use.

Sonny Ahuja uses free tools, but has had difficulty training his clients on them. “I am a social media coach and visit my clients often to train their employees on how they can use Twitter, Facebook, etc. effectively to increase their business. Personally, I used TweetDeck for these applications but soon realised that working between several different computers, I will have to choose another option as Tweetdeck has to be downloaded first on to any computer before it can be used. So now I use and train people on Hootsuite which you can log in to from any browser or computer with a login and password and it doesn’t matter if it’s your own computer or a client’s computer that you are using. It made my life a lot easier!”

This article is from Thursday Bram of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread: