First, What Are Small Business Tools?
A business tool is an application or software designed to help organizations run their operations efficiently and effectively. These tools not only allow businesses to stay connected with their employees and customers, but they also help them stay competitive in the marketplace.
With trends and markets developing and changing rapidly in today’s digital world, the right small business tools can help your team stay up-to-date and in control.
The Best Tools for Small Businesses
When time and money are limited, you need to make the most of what you have. The right apps and free small business tools can help you maximize your time without spending a fortune.
So what are the best tools for small business owners? We asked a handful of entrepreneurs to give us some of their top picks in various categories, including marketing, human resources, project management, and more.
Check out their suggestions below.
Editor’s note: Don’t worry, these aren’t paid recommendations, but authentic recommendations from users who have had amazing experiences with these tools.
The 3 Best HR Tools
Human resources is another aspect of an organization that requires a lot of tracking and organization. With employee records, paid time off, benefits packages, electronic signatures, time tracking, and more, there’s a lot to manage within the HR department.
Doing everything manually can be a huge waste of time and can cost you in other, less visible ways, like a poor employee experience or rule violations.
HR management tools for small businesses can help you streamline the most time-consuming HR processes, freeing up your time for broader efforts, like building a great company culture.
Bamboo HR
At BambooHR, we’re dedicated to freeing people to do great work. Our HR software makes tasks like managing employee data, tracking vacations, and onboarding employees easy and effective.
Our software acts as an extra pair of hands when it comes to growing your business, nurturing your employees, and creating business value. We control your payroll, help you hire, and even monitor performance.
Evan Ropp of Homes Alive Pets says, “BambooHR is probably the best tool we’ve adopted in the last two years… It’s helped us manage our employees’ vacation days, sick days, and many other headaches that were constantly eating up our time.”
Goodhire
Goodhire can handle all background checks for your current and potential employees, making the process simple, fast, and accurate. They want to make sure that the people you hire are the best fit for you and your company.
As we are a small company, we recommend Goodhire if background checks are part of your hiring process, which is why they are also listed on the BambooHR Marketplace.
JazzHR
JazzHR specializes in applicant tracking and recruiting software to help you find and hire the best candidates for your organization. The platform can help you with every step of the hiring process, from finding the right people to organizing interviews and briefings.
Alex Robinson has had a lot of success with JazzHR at his organization, Team Building Hero. “Once we started using JazzHR,” says Alex, “we became much more organized in our hiring process. We’re getting more done and saving time. I estimate we save over 10 hours on each new hire, plus the benefit of making good hiring decisions.”
Must-Have Marketing Tools
To grow your business, customers need to know who you are and how you can help them solve their problems. That’s the core of marketing.
Of course, with the rise of content marketing, the number of media channels you can use to communicate that message has skyrocketed. Between email newsletters and social media posts, it can be difficult to keep track of what you’re trying to say and who you’re trying to talk to.
That is, it’s difficult unless you have an arsenal of business tools at your disposal.
Marketing tools can automate the content publishing process and help you keep all of your channels in sync. Some also provide insights into the performance of your campaigns, so you can tailor your strategy to your target audience.
Best of all, you don’t have to be a marketing expert to use these helpful small business tools. Content marketing is a key driver of ROI, which means there are now a wealth of beginner-friendly marketing tools to help you stay on track.
Eye-Opening Analytics Tools
Of course, you won’t be able to determine whether or not your marketing efforts are working without measuring the results. Analytics tools can help you do just that across all of your marketing channels.
They can collect, organize, and display your data so you can spend more time making informed, strategic decisions. Without this type of analytical support, it can be nearly impossible to find and analyze all of the metrics that help you evaluate the effectiveness of your digital content.
User-Friendly Website Hosting Tools
You can’t run your marketing initiatives without a successful website. And you can’t have a successful website without a reliable web hosting platform.
Arguably one of the most valuable tools for small businesses, web hosting involves paying a provider to host your website’s content. Providers also perform server maintenance, software updates, and troubleshooting, meaning the health of your site is often left to you.
Having the right small business tools to manage your website is crucial to providing great service to customers. Any delays or site issues can send people to your competitors.
So, with all this in mind, which are the best of the best?
Accurate Accounting Tools
Keeping track of key figures, such as company revenue and expenses, is critical to creating a successful organization. But there’s a lot that goes into running a business, and manually tracking all those numbers invites human error and potentially costly mistakes.
Most small business owners don’t have a background in accounting, so taking on the responsibility of keeping track of finances can be quite a challenge. After all, you started your gardening store because you’re passionate about gardening, not keeping track of inventory.
The best small business accounting tools (like the ones below) can save you time while helping you keep more accurate records.
Productivity-Boosting Project Management Tools
To-do lists are helpful, but they can only stretch so far before you become overwhelmed by the amount of things that need to be done. Growing a small business is, ironically, no small feat, and it takes the entire team working together to be successful.
However, there are a lot of moving parts, even on the smallest of teams. Keeping track of who does what and when is tricky without the right small business tools to help.
Project management tools can help you keep everyone focused on their tasks and on schedule, even as your team expands and your bandwidth increases. The best platforms can help you set up workflows for each project and encourage collaboration between your team members. This will help keep bottlenecks to a minimum and keep your organization moving at full speed.
Additional Small Business Tools
In addition to the useful small business tools we’ve already listed, there are a number of other tools that can help your organization run smoothly. They don’t necessarily fit into one of the categories above, but they’re worth mentioning if you’re interested in building a successful small business.
What Tools Should You Use for Your Small Business?
While these recommendations are a good starting point, only you can determine which small business tools are right for your specific organization. You probably have a list of tasks in your business that you’d like to solve or simplify, whether it’s payroll management or project assignment.
Part of growing a business is discovering new challenges and finding solutions along the way.
So how can you decide which tool is right to solve your top current problems and support your progress in the future?
You can follow the steps we suggest in our HR Software Buyer’s Guide below:
Determine current challenges and what activities would solve those challenges.
Determine the challenges you’re likely to face in the next five years and what activities would solve those challenges.
Identify all the stakeholders who need to weigh in on this decision.
Determine their top concerns for a potential solution.
Research potential small business tools and compile a list.
Identify what features would best support the activities you’ve identified that would solve your challenges.
Identify which features would address each stakeholder’s concerns.
Determine whether each potential tool has the features needed to solve your challenges and address stakeholder concerns.
You may also find a tool of your own that supports your organization in exactly the way you need. Either way, with the right tools and strategy, you can grow your business, even with a shoestring budget and limited time resources.