Angeli is the Founder and COO at Workast. Her team ensures our users have an exceptional customer experience with Workast and takes care of all user issues.
Affordable apps and technology are important in a small business. There are many elements required to run a business that are often overlooked such as communication, accounting, finance, task management, content management and more.
We asked the Founders and Owners of small businesses all around the world what their best affordable apps for their small business was and this is what we found:
Slack is a communication platform for teams that allows asynchronous communication. It is an app loved by many business owners and entrepreneurs.
“If your business has gone fully remote or pivoted to a hybrid workplace, I recommend replacing internal email communication with Slack. I did this and it has dramatically lowered the amount of emails my staff had to deal with on a daily basis. Instant messaging in apps like Slack will improve the speed of your enterprise's internal communication, boost employee engagement, and lower email fatigue and overload." Nathan Liao, Founder, CMA Exam Academy
“Slack is a great communication tool for small teams, especially in remote work setup. Document sharing is also made easier. We get to create specific groups for different projects and use the platform to share our messages and files.” Michael Hammelburger, CEO, The Expense Reduction Group
“I’m the CEO and co-founder of a remote Saas company with 15 employees. I’ve been more than happy to pay a few dollars a month for Slack, because it does so much for us as a company. We use it to stay organized, collaborate on projects, but we also use it to improve company morale and the culture. We have it on our phones when needed and it transfers well to our computers - connecting us all instantly.” Lindsey Allard, CEO, PlaybookUX
“With a team of roughly a dozen remote employees, we are always on the hunt for new apps that improve engagement and productivity in the workplace. We have tried and tested numerous apps over the last 12 months, and I’m happy to share what has stuck around. First and foremost, Slack has been incredibly helpful when communicating in a remote environment. Instead of scheduling Zoom meetings all day, I can simply instant message different employees throughout the day. I can also organize my employees into groups and share information with selected employees.” Laura Fuentes, Operator, Infinity Dish
“Slack is one of the best tools for enabling continuous and straightforward communication within the company. If you want your intra company communication to be effective and straightforward, you need to be able to keep everyone in the loop. Slack offers a way to do that - you can create thematic channels for all the different tasks, departments and projects you’re working on.” Harry Morton, Founder, Lower Street
Google Workspace is a collection of apps that help small businesses manage their email, communication, productivity, files and more.
“As a fully remote business servicing clients around the world efficiency in communication and collaboration is imperative. So we make great use of G Suite and the associated apps. Between to-do lists and campaign documents our team is constantly connected and working together seamlessly. We had considered Office 365 but G Suite in my opinion is far superior! The apps are free for your team to download to their devices should they need to jump into a document while they are on the go!” Natalie Athanasiadis, Founder, Ormi Media
“Google Workspace. It is an easy and all-in-one application ideal for a small or large team. We used this for our collaborative projects and to secure our documents. Google Workspace functions on cloud-based data, virtual conferencing, documents, presentations, and more. Team members can have access anytime and anywhere with the help of this application and Internet connection. Every business owner can upgrade it whenever they want since it offers a reliable plan compared to other applications.” Sonya Schwartz, Founder, Her Norm
Freshbooks is an accounting and invoicing software for small businesses.
“One of the absolute best apps I’ve found for small businesses is FreshBooks. It is, without a doubt, the best accounting app out there! With meticulous bookkeeping and a good accounting app, you can access a goldmine of information about your small business’s profit margins, revenue, and overall financial well-being. FreshBooks helps you do all this and more!” Sam Shepler, CEO, Testimonial Hero
“One of my favorite small business apps is FreshBooks. It’s a simple accounting software for freelancers and small businesses. I use it in my small business because it has many helpful features such as: Personalized invoices, Automatic billing, Business expense tracking. Minute by Minute record of how you spend your time and money. As compared to its competitors, Freshbooks makes it very easy to do business accounting, stay organized, and anyone can use it! “ Amira Irfan, Business Lawyer & Entrepreneur, A Self Guru
Quickbooks is an online accounting software for businesses which assists with invoices, bookkeeping and managing cashflow.
“When it comes to business finances, QuickBooks is a veteranto the game, and its consistent popularity should speak for user satisfaction.Why does it continue to be a favorite? The app, though not free, is prettyaffordable. Plans start as low as $10 for those who are self-employed, and $15for those who want to take advantage of single user account with many of thebasic bells and whistles (income and expense tracking, financial reports,invoicing capabilities, etc.).” David Adle, CEO, Netinfluencer.com
“This is a useful accounting software tool that we use, as it allows us to conveniently send out invoices, pay our employees and also help us prepare for tax season. It is also quite intuitive and easy to use, as it even offers video tutorials for beginners that help one learn how to navigate the platform.” Eden Cheng. WeInvoice
“When you're running a small business, the most difficult part has nothing to do with your real job, it's the bookkeeping, accounting, and backend management that takes the most time and productivity away from you. Expensify has grown on me and I've come to rely on it for cost tracking, reporting, and reimbursement. Simply launch the app and take a photo of a receipt or mileage log. Expensify could not be more convenient for me as a small business owner.” Timothy Robinson, CEO, InVPN
Grammarly is an app for small businesses that helps making writing copy easier. It reviews spelling, grammar and punctuation, and ensures that the content is written correctly.
“I use Grammarly whenever I write an email or a sales proposal. It helps me in being more efficient, but I enjoy using it primarily because it is always evolving and has gamification elements. It's enjoyable to watch recommendations change as I write, and the app more accurately represents the idioms I use.” Stewart McGrenary, Director, Freedom Mobiles
“Our core job function is writing, and Grammarly has made it much easier for us to check our pieces. Not only that, but it's a lot easier to use than Hemingway Editor and ProWritingAid. It's also free to use indefinitely, making it an ideal writing tool for any small businesses like ours.” Michelle Devani, Founder, lovedevani
Workast is a task management for small businesses that use Slack to communicate. Workast assists teams in managing team work, projects, to-do lists, and everyday tasks.
“Workast is an app that is going toward wherever teams work so you can easily track and complete your projects --simple to use, very collaborative, and user-friendly. I love how I can instantly check through your to-do list, share list items, and assign tasks to the team. Workast has a very solid integration that you can use to upload the tasks, files, schedules, notes, and meetings all at once. It helped us in our day-to-day collaboration by automating the process and managing integrations quickly.
There are Apps I also checked with similar functionality like Asana and Trello but they are more complicated and expensive for my small team. Asana and Trello have those tools that require having their own accounts which makes it complicated for some.
Workast easily and consistently transfers data between our company and other software programs. We rely on it to transfer data, no more manual transfer on data and our systems are always up to date. No more bugs and need for coding, we do not need to do manual copying and pasting between systems. Creating something complex without coding is what Workast does which is great for beginners and also for a small business like us.
We really can't imagine life without it!” Courtney Quigley, Business Reputation Consultant, Rize Reviews
“Wix is a drag-and-drop web platform that allows the user to quickly and easily create a fully operational website. This app allows the user to easily design their own website which every business should have. This offers the option to embed innovative functions like mobile development, SEO, eCommerce, and more. You can use this app for free, but when you want the advanced features, you can pay up to $4.50 per month only.” Martin Luenendonk, Chief Executive Officer, FounderJar
Only 1 out of 26 unhappy customers complain. The others simply churn. That is why proactively hearing the voice of customers and measuring feedback is the key to happy customers.
With Zonka Feedback, a Customer Experience and Feedback Platform, getting started to measure feedback is simple and effective. Choose from a tonne of available templates to create your surveys, customize as you like, and distribute feedback forms at all customer touchpoints and channels like offline through tablets and kiosks, through email and SMS, online, in-app and on website.
With real-time notifications, CX workflows, automation and in-depth reporting, identifying at-risk customers, taking action and closing the feedback loop, small businesses can start their boost customer satisfaction and business growth.
“The biggest weapon you have for helping you grow as a business is an understanding of your customers’ needs. Getting that information can be a lot of guesswork but asking them directly is always the best way. Survey Monkey is one of the easiest tools to use for creating effective and fully customizable surveys that you can send to your customers via email, social media, and more. Qualtrics and SoGoSurvey are also great alternatives, but this is the most versatile tool in our experience.” Olivia Tan, CocoFax
Canva is a design tool which is very flexible and affordable for small businesses. Canva helps teams create and design images. It is an online tool which is user friendly and includes many different templates and integrations to create whatever their team needs.
“Canva is a must for business. If you are doing any form of online marketing and are planing on making graphics you will want to use it, or even for creating amazing shareable presentations you can use to pitch potential customers. It’s becoming a super tool for business, especially with the integration of new tools such as charts.” Tom McGregor, Founder, CreatEcards
Timetastic is an app for arranging and managing time off work. It's used to request and keep a record of how much time off you've taken, and it keeps track of your annual PTO allowance.
I've been saying it over and over again recently - Timetastic is brilliant: really feel like the founders sat down and said "what is a real pain about managing leave/holidays etc. -- right, let's fix it. All of it". Timetastic absolutely nails all the issues with booking leave. I've never seen a more efficient system for leave: see who's out for the day, or the week, notifications to line managers and approval requests are all automatic, switch between week/month/year calendar views, see who's out in the team, list goes on and on. And the app is brilliant too. I honestly think Timetastic should be a "business" household name." Chris Hayward
"It's so affordable - it pays for itself in the time you save! Staff love it - they get clear visibility of how much holiday remaining and can easily book time off Slack - if you use Slack you can get it to post everyone's availability in the morning We use it for holiday, work from home, sickness, mat/pat leave and more!" Ben Collier
The technology used within your business can help make your business more successful. Time is money, and good software and apps can help save your small business money so try out a few apps before deciding on the right application for your small business.
Workast
