One of the biggest challenges business owners face is the high cost of software for their growing business. If you are like me, you want to run your company with all the benefits of an enterprise level organization while keeping costs to a minimum. There are many free tools that give you incredible functionality. I’ll help you find some of the best small business software and free business tools available to help your growing company.
If you are looking for the best free software for small business there are lots of options to choose from. In fact, more and more businesses are ditching expensive business software for tried and tested free software alternatives. We all know there’s a ton of options out there from creating documents, spreadsheets, and presentations to email marketing, invoicing, time tracking, banking, note taking and project management.
Wave
Wave is an accounting, invoicing, and receipt tracking software for small businesses. We rank it as one of the best free accounting software available. Its free plan includes bank and credit card connections, unlimited income and expense tracking, and unlimited receipt scanning with Android and iOS apps.
Wave’s invoices have professional templates you can customize based on your business needs. The accounting software is cloud-based, so you can access it on any device with internet access.
With its free software, Wave is missing payroll abilities. For an additional monthly cost, you can do employee tasks like manage vacation time, calculate benefits, and pay your employees. Overall, Wave’s online user reviews indicate that users enjoy the software’s overall ease of use. User complaints center around tech issues and poor customer service.
Slack
Whatever your industry, effective communication between your team members is almost certainly vital to the smooth running of your company.
Online communication tool Slack enables you to try its services for free for an unlimited period of time. If you choose this software, you can group your team messages according to channels, which enables those working on a particular project to communicate more effectively.
Under the terms of the free plan, you’ll have access to 10,000 of your team’s most recent messages. Other benefits include unlimited one-to-one voice and video calls for individuals, as well as 10 integrations with other apps such as Google Drive and Microsoft 365.
If you’d like access to a wider range of features, you can upgrade to one of the company’s paid plans, which offer services such as group video and voice calls.
Glip by RingCentral
RingCentral is a leader in providing business and customer service communications solutions for businesses of all sizes.
And Glip is its free offering that’s designed to help you meet smarter and communicate faster (and more effectively) through team messaging and video conferencing—in the same app.
Not only does this small business software help teams stay in sync with each other and clients, no matter where in the world they are, it also comes with other useful features like:
1. HD video
2. File sharing and collaboration
3. Task management
4. Screen sharing in online meetings
5. 24-hour meeting durations
6. And more…
Glip is perfectly suited to remote teams—your guests can join a meeting without downloading anything (all they need is to put your meeting URL into their web browser). Plus, the software is simple to download on both mobile and desktop apps, allowing you to work together, from anywhere.
Cisco Webex
Cisco Webex is a user-friendly collaboration service that might be familiar if you’ve ever joined a Webex meeting. The app combines messaging, file sharing, and video meetings with business calling.
Webex is ideal for companies that already have Cisco hardware. If you’re using Cisco phones for telephony, then adding Cisco Webex and Meetings is a breeze.
Cisco is on the cutting edge of the communication industry. They even coined the term cognitive collaboration. Cognitive collaboration brings artificial intelligence into team meetings and conference rooms.
Cisco Webex includes access to virtual assistants and tools like People Insights. People Insights allow you to learn about your colleagues before starting a call.
Virtual whiteboarding tools make sharing visual ideas quick and easy and can be integrated with a physical whiteboard supplied by Cisco.
Features include:
- Secure end-to-end encryption for messaging, video, and calls
- Integration with existing Cisco equipment
- Video and audio conferencing
- Screen sharing and file sharing
- Integrations with third-party apps and bots
- AI enhancements for cognitive collaboration
Square
Square is a free point-of-sale (POS) software. A point-of-sale records and processes payments from customers. Overall, we consider Square the overall best free POS software.
When you sign up for a Square account, you receive a free magstripe reader. Included with the Square software are analytics and reporting, inventory management, and a basic customer relationship management (CRM) system. Additionally, you get a free Square online store that syncs your in-store and online inventory, so you know exactly how much product you have in stock.
The costs of Square come when you process a payment. For every swipe, Square charges 2.75%. So for every $100 paid from customers, you have $97.25 deposited in your bank account. The 2.75% rate is competitive with other payment processors.
Trello
If you’re juggling numerous projects across your company, you could improve your efficiency with project management software Trello. Based on the Japanese model of Kanban management, Trello uses virtual boards that enable you to visualize your progress on key projects and then decide on your next steps. The most common analogy used to describe the software is a whiteboard covered in Post-It notes.
You can also assign tasks, establish timelines, create calendars, and view metrics. Once you’ve created a new task, every aspect of the task can be managed, tracked, and shared with other members of your team.
Another point in Trello’s favor is that the software has integrations with apps such as Confluence, Slack, Dropbox, and Evernote.
Zoom
Zoom is a well- known video conferencing platform, and 2020 really brought Zoom into the mainstream. This collaborative software is known for making it quick and easy to communicate over video conferencing. Other features include:
- Zoom Phone
- In-line translation and transcription
- Conference and waiting rooms
- Hand-raising features
- Question and answer features
Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams is part of the Microsoft 365 productivity suite. If you know your way around tools like Excel and SharePoint, then you’ll love Teams. There’s even a free small business software version available.
This app started as a replacement for Skype for Business. Now, Microsoft Teams is an advanced collaboration tool, with options like Business Voice.
As part of the Microsoft 365 catalog, Microsoft Teams come with end-to-end encryption. You can connect with employees through web conferencing and online meetings. Plus, there are channels and instant messaging like you find in Slack.
You can open up Microsoft Teams to external contacts who use the same app in their business by enabling guest access.
Features include:
- Integrations with third-party apps and Microsoft 365
- Business phone and direct routing
- End-to-end security and admin control
- Team channels and one-on-one messaging
- Video and audio conferencing
- Easy file searching
Microsoft Teams keeps getting better. Features like direct routing and virtual backgrounds are recent additions to the portfolio. The company also keeps adding new ways to make Microsoft Teams help you become more productive.
Google Docs
Google Docs is part of a suite of free cloud-based tools provided by Google. With Google Docs, you can create word processing documents and share them with team members. The team members can edit the documents at the same time.
All the writing and edits are saved in real time. Google Docs is a great free alternative to Microsoft Word. A downside of the free version of Google Doc is its storage is capped at 15GB.
Many business owners struggle with figuring out how to share documents, photos, and videos with co-workers or remote workers. Something unique about Google Docs is the ability to upload photos, images, and documents and share a link with whoever needs to download them. This saves time because you don’t have to share the photos or documents from a physical device like a USB flash drive. Additionally, your business documents, photos, and videos will never get lost or misplaced because they are stored in the cloud.
Conclusion:
Small businesses are always in a hurry. If they delay, their profit will decrease. Attention and time is a limited resource for entrepreneurs. That’s why many of them choose to use the all in one business software because of its various benefits. In fact, launched in 2015, HubSpot is the one of the most popular all in one business tools.