Four Tools That Small Business Owners Need to Keep Things Together

What Do Small Business Owners Need?

I’m a small business owner, and have been for most of my life. Over the years, I’ve often wondered: what do small business owners need to keep everything running smoothly in this competitive business world? Small business owners often juggle multiple responsibilities, which makes using the right tools essential for keeping everything organized.What tools are others using for small business administration? Are these tools the same for running an online business or local businesses?

I started in a family business—my parents ran a small clothing manufacturing firm in Northern Europe.

When I first began, it was in the role of an administrative assistant. It wasn’t a full-time position by any means; I worked about an hour a day after school. I was 14 years old, helping my parents with translating and answering emails.

As I got older, I became more involved in my parents’ company in a business sense. Gradually and steadily, I gained more trust and moved into more permanent and responsible positions.

Years passed, and I eventually left my parents’ company. I tried and failed at a few businesses before finally ending up at yet another small company—Muncly, and now I’m self-employed.

Over the years, I’ve built a solid “stack” of software tools that I use to keep things organized, and in this article, I’ll briefly share them with you.

Disclaimer

In this article, I won’t be sharing apps that help a business owner to grow a business or analyze market conditions. Instead, I’ll focus on the essential, must-have tools small businesses should have. While you could technically work without them, I wouldn’t recommend it.

I’m also not covering apps for marketing, branding, emails, images, etc. Let’s be honest—most independent businesses don’t do those things, and they manage just fine and are in demand.

This is my take, and you’re welcome to disagree. Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn and we can have a meaningful conversation.

Google Apps for a Small Business Owner

First and foremost, sign up for Google Apps for Business, specifically their office suite.

There’s an alternative that’s more feature-rich—Microsoft Office—but I am not their target audience. It’s too bulky and complex, and the same Word file often doesn’t display the same way on two different machines.

I’m not a fan of Microsoft products in general. Again, that’s just my opinion—I find their software buggy and frustrating.

For example, I recently bought an Xbox to occasionally play with my son. I chose it for the subscription service, where you don’t need to buy games but can rent them. I don’t pay monthly subscription fees; instead, I buy gift cards to use for a month at a time. Every time I try to redeem one, it’s a hassle.

I know this doesn’t have much to do with Microsoft Office, but the frustration is similar. When you register for Office, they issue you a long, random email address with an Outlook.com domain. It’s slow and buggy, and Google Docs is just a better alternative for small business owners.

Microsoft Office is a decent option, but I don’t recommend it for small or independent businesses.

I’m not affiliated with Google in any way, but I’m a heavy user of their suite for business. We use Google Docs for offers and quotes, and Sheets for all our calculations. The only app we don’t use is Slides—we use Keynote instead.

Keynote is a Mac-specific app, so if you don’t have a Mac, you’ll need to use Google Slides. It’s fine, but I prefer Keynote for its ease in designing beautiful presentations, better templates, and a better choice of fonts (though Google Fonts offers a massive library, which can sometimes be overwhelming).

CRM System for Small Businesses

Next on my list of must-have apps for small businesses is a CRM system. If you run a small company, and want to operate better, sell more, and be ahead of other companies, you need an app to track the following:

• Your leads/prospects
• Your opportunities
• Your accounts
• All your contacts

That’s the bare minimum. If you don’t keep track of this information, you’ll lose business to those who do. You’ll end up spending money, time, and effort to attract customers constantly because most of them will simply fall through the cracks.

Let me give you a few examples.

When we first started Muncly, we didn’t have a CRM system. In those early months, we were so busy with new customers that I didn’t realize form submissions from our website were going into the spam folder. 

When I finally checked and started replying to those emails, one of the leads turned into a meeting and then into a big project—our biggest so far. But I missed four other leads that week. Some didn’t reply, and others had already made decisions. So I didn’t meet customers but I’ve learned a lesson.

You should also keep track of your current opportunities. Don’t overcomplicate it—just make sure to note them down, especially if someone else handles sales alongside you.

It’s incredibly difficult to monitor someone’s sales performance without basic information like customer name, close date, deal amount, and next steps. Almost impossible.

A lot of small businesses that become our customers get a “quick win” within the first two weeks after signing a contract, simply because they realize some business had fallen through the cracks.

When it comes to CRM tools, I personally recommend Salesforce.

But before I explain why, I should give a disclaimer. I’m a Salesforce consultant, so I’m biased. I’ve worked with Salesforce for most of my career, but there’s a good reason I advocate for it. I recently wrote an article on the best CRM system for small businesses, which might be worth reading after this one.

There are around 4,000 CRMs out there. Many of them market themselves as “best in class” or “the only one you need.” In many cases, that’s true for very specific, narrow use cases. However, Salesforce stands out for its versatility .

Salesforce is like the Swiss Army knife of CRM systems. It can grow with your business, is capable of more than you’ll likely ever need, employees love it, and has a large community of professionals to help you implement it. We’re one of them, by the way.

Budgeting Small Business Owners

As a small business owner and manager, you can benefit from a tool for budgeting. Over the years, I’ve talked to many entrepreneurs, startup founders and people in business, and everyone does it differently, but I personally prefer a rather unique tool.

I use this tool for both personal and business finances. The reason I love it is because of its integration with many vendors, its simplicity, and its zero-dollar budgeting philosophy. I’m not a financial expert, so you might want to consult one, but I use this app daily to track our company’s money.

The app I recommend is YNAB (You Need A Budget). Full disclosure: that’s a referral link. If you purchase the app, I’ll get a few months free.

Small Business Invoicing App

An invoicing app is also an absolute must-have. There are many options, and depending on your industry, you may prefer different ones.

I like to keep things as simple as possible. For customers that require timesheets (which is all of mine), I use an app called Harvest. It’s a great tool that includes all the features you need to run a small consultancy firm where you bill clients by the hour. You can create projects, invoice retainers, log billable and non-billable hours, and even have your colleagues’ hours approved.

I love the app for its simplicity and its built-in time-tracking process, which we adopted without overcomplicating things.

For those in other industries, a great free alternative is Zoho Books. We used this app before switching to a more detailed hourly tracking system, and it did a good job. It’s flexible, sends payment reminders, allows heavy customization of invoices, and integrates with other software, which can be perfect for your business needs.

Not Essential – Accounting App

Lastly, for most small businesses, I recommend using an accounting app to manage financial operations.
With an accounting app, small business owners can easily monitor cash flow, handle taxes, and manage employee benefits like health insurance and retirement contributions, especially when your business grows.

We use Xero, the app provided by our bookkeepers, but this isn’t an essential tool.

We managed for quite a while without a bookkeeping app. I know our bookkeepers used something, but all I ever asked for was a simple revenue and loss statement and that should be it. 

I might change my opinion over time, but for now, I think an accounting app is nice to have but not crucial.

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Cheers,
J.