If you are running a small business, probably you know that to manage your business effectively, manage data is very important. With the right data management system, you will be able to create more workflows and better handle various tasks.
But what kind of software is suitable for your situation? Here are the best free software for small business owners that you may want to consider!
ProfitBooks – Top Free Accounting Software
ProfitBooks is a fast-growing and amazingly simple to use free accounting software. It lets you create beautiful invoices, track expenses and manage inventory without any accounting knowledge.
With ProfitBooks accounting software, you can create professional estimates or invoices and track outstanding payments due with few clicks.
Whether you are manufacturing, distributing, selling, servicing, or just managing the inventory, ProfitBooks can handle all your business processes with ease.You can easily share the transaction data with your accountant and know what’s going on with your business with just a few clicks and take better decisions.Some of the key features of Profitbooks:
- Create beautiful invoices
- Receive online payments using payment gateway
- Record advance payments
- Track accounts receivables with sales reports
- Simplify purchase workflow with POs
- Track manufacturing processes
- Maintain product batches
- Track inventory flow at multiple warehouses
- Easily find low stock using powerful reports
- Generate detailed tax reports
- Collaborate with your accountant online
- Record manual journals
- Track business expenses
Google Docs – Best Free Office Suite
Google Docs is an online word processing program by Google.
Google Docs brings your documents to life with smart editing and styling tools to help you easily format text and paragraphs. You can choose from hundreds of fonts, add links, images, and drawings.
Google Docs also enables collaboration between colleagues. As the document is saved in the cloud, the creator can share the link to the file for editing to other people.
With Google Docs, users also do not have to worry about hitting the save button every time they make changes. The application automatically saves the document at regular intervals so even when the internet connection is lost, users can still find their additions and modifications.
Some key features of Google Docs:
- Editing
- Comments
- Styling
- Fonts
- Linking
- Images
- Drawings
- Templates
- Built-In Google Search
- Add-Ons
Canva – Best Free Image Editor
Canva is a multimedia design platform that allows users to create social media graphics, presentations, posters and other visual content.
Canva gives businesses, organizations, and even individual professionals with a very simple design platform that enables them to create amazing and professional quality graphic designs. This online design solution offers a throng of powerful features, including a simple drag-and-drop design tool and a vast collection of over 1 million photographs, graphics, and fonts.
Some key features of Canva:
- Adding text to photos
- Speech bubble maker
- Image Transparency Tool
- Photo Enhancer
- 8,000 Templates
- Photo Blur
- Photo vignette
- Design grids
- Free icons
- Photo frames
- Stickers
Buffer – Top Free Social Media Manager
Buffer is an internet-based app intended for managing social media content. Its primary function is for sharing content across today’s well-known social media sites. It offers the ability to spread content via a simple approach. The app has the ability to connect to all social media accounts while making it easier to create and schedule posts.
Instead of traditionally logging in on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, and other social media sites, Buffer will do it all at once. It also makes it convenient for users to create posts and have them uploaded with a single click. The app contains a browser extension for seamless integration with WordPress, Chrome, RSS readers, and other important tools for sniffing out content.
Some key features of Buffer:
- Multiple posts and tweets
- Social profile sharing
- Profile management
- Multi-media format sharing
- Agency/business planning
- Analytics and insights
- Stats comparison
- iOS and Android support
- Team collaboration (via administrator rights)
- 2-step account login
- Customized scheduling
- Standard buffering
Calendly – Best Free Tool For Scheduling Meetings
Calendly is a simple, easy-to-use scheduling software, which aims to save time, accelerate sales, and improve service quality.
It eliminates the old-school way of using email and phone tags for scheduling appointments, calls, interviews, demos, and more. It allows hot prospects to connect right away, and ensures staff doesn’t lose them to phone and email tags.All you need to do is to set your availability preference, share the link with clients, colleagues, etc. and let them pick a time for the event, which is automatically added to your calendar. It’s more efficient and simplified compared to traditional appoint scheduling solutions, and it makes it easy for users to setup, use, and manage scheduling of appointments and more.Some key feaures of Calendly:
- Open API
- Simple and modern interface
- Calendar integration
- Fully optimized for all devices
- Automatic/custom notifications
- Enhanced privacy and controls
- Team scheduling
- Group events
- Invitee calendar integration
- Can be embedded with websites
- Metrics and reporting
- APIs and Webhooks
Hubspot – Best Free CRM Software
HubSpot CRM is built to be a platform that allows sales teams to get started quickly without making much of a change in their existing workflow. It is a solution ideal for companies that are still starting to recognize the value of CRM and want to try it out or for enterprises that are not using their existing CRM systems to their fullest potential.
HubSpot CRM is a smart and easy option that carries all the necessary basic features but without the often confusing complexity, many other CRM platforms have.
HubSpot will help you easily create beautiful contact and company profiles, as it can neatly organize every single detail from your customers’ communication with you. It effectively assigns and tracks your deals, controls the performance of your agents, and offers a single, detailed dashboard where all team members can keep track of the company’s activities.
Some of the key features of Hubspot CRM:
- Customize views
- Deal and Task Board
- Drag and Drop Communicator
- Email Integration
- Phone Integration
- Website Integration
- Enrichment
- Social Media
- Company Database
- Website Visitors
- Email Connections
Slack – Best Free Tool For Team Communication
Slack is a messaging app that gives you one platform for all your communications, offering real-time messaging, file sharing, archiving, and search. It’s built for modern teams so you can have all your communication in one online location, instantly searchable, and immediately accessible from whatever connected device.
Slack works with more than 1,500 external apps and services, giving you one fully flexible and extendable platform. It has several internal and external sharing options so you can receive and share files with anyone. It offers advanced search, filters and sorting that make it easy to get the right files that you need. You can set filters by variables such as recent type, relevance or file type.
Some of the key features of Slack;
- Conversation channels
- Private groups
- Messaging
- File sharing
- File browsing
- Voice/video calls
- Feedback
- Progress archive
- Notifications
- Integrations
- Open API
- iOS & Android apps
- Data security
- Data encryption
- Single Sign-On
- Two-factor authentication
Trello – Free Software For Managing Projects
Trello aims to simplify collaboration by tracking your team’s tasks, projects, and files all in one app.
You can see who’s working on what as well as what the statuses of tasks and projects are. It can help you track your entire work progress from start to finish.
This cloud task management app also helps you spot bottlenecks before they occur. For instance, seeing a team member swamped with tasks, you can reassign some of these tasks to another employee.
Accessible from a desktop browser, Trello also provides you with free Android and iOS apps, lending to greater flexibility. You can manage your projects in the office, field, or anywhere you are internet-connected.
Some key features of Trello:
- Free for the basic service
- Quick overview on front and back of cards
- Easy organization with tags, labels, and categories
- Drag and drop functionality
- In-line editing
- Checklists, with a progress meter
- Easy uploading of files and attachments
- Data filtering
- Archiving of card records (e.g., comments and changes)
- Deadline reminders
- Email notifications
- Activity log
- Assign tasks
Freshdesk – Free Helpdesk System
Freshdesk is a cloud-hosted help desk solution equipped with best-in-class features for delivering quality customer support.
The software is designed to meet the demands of both small businesses and large companies. With it, users can broaden their reach through launch multi-channel support, streamline operations using automation tools, increase productivity through gamification, as well as reinforce customer support efforts using self-service portals.
Freshdesk also has a phone system built into the system where users can accommodate calls from clients. Currently covering over 30 countries, this will allow you to perform call center operations without having to invest in a full-fledged business phone system.
Some of the key features of Freshdesk:
- Feedback Mechanism
- Helpdesk and customer satisfaction reports
- Real-time customer analytics
- Customized Reports
- Portal Design and Customization
- Agent Management and Delegation
- Custom Ticketing, URL, and apps
- Customer Segmentation
- Custom SSL Certificates
- IP and Network Restrictions
- Identity and Access Management
Xtensio – Create & Share Beautiful Documents
Xtensio is a platform where teams can easily create and share living documents. It helps teams collaborate on documents, presentations, proposals, reports, sales sheets and other strategic exercises in real-time.
The editor works like a web builder so it’s easy to add images, videos, tables and other interactive modules. Drag and drop, resize, change backgrounds, and specify colours and fonts to match brands.
Some key features of Xtensio:
- Drag and drop functionality
- Embed and Export
- Save/Share Templates
- Revision History
- Privacy Control
- Full-Screen Presentation
- Dedicated URL/Team Workspace
- Dedicated Customer Success Manager
- Premium Support & Onboarding
Sunrise
Best Free Accounting and Bookkeeping Software for Solopreneurs.
If you’re serious about expanding your business, tracking your expenses and income is key to the survival and expansion of your business. Sunrise exists to keep you accountable and help you with budgeting.
The first thing you’ll notice about Sunrise is how attractive and user-friendly it is. The colors, fonts, and layout pull you in and push you to explore the easily navigable site.
Aside from the user experience, you’ll also notice that invoices from this platform are pretty detailed. They cover all the information you need to include.
This platform encourages sole proprietors to keep records. For instance, if you have to carry out a transaction outside the platform, you can easily import the receipts of other transactions.
Sunrise offers seven fields for contact records. These custom fields include currency, email attachment, delivery mode, payment terms, and other major fields. You’ll also see all the transactions and activities you’ve done for specific customers in the recent past.
You can also connect your bank accounts to Sunrise. That way, you’ll easily track your transactions and expenses more accurately. You’ll also know if your customers have paid their due invoices.
There is proactive reconciliation that helps you figure out problematic or unresolved transactions. It’s different from the standard reconciliation method that allows you to reconcile your transactions on a daily or weekly basis.
With proactive reconciliation, you’ll reconcile every transaction individually. Although this might be a lot of work, freelancers and entrepreneurs might come to enjoy this feature.
Pricing
There’s a free plan with limited features. If you wish to access all the features Sunrise offers, you could start with a 14-day free trial of the Sunrise Plus plan to get a feel of what it’s about. You could continue with paying $14.99 monthly.
You could take bookkeeping a step further on the software by hiring a personal bookkeeper. There are three packages for this. The Early package goes for $149/ month, the Growing package goes for $299/month and the Corporate package goes for $499/month. Feel free to choose which plan works for you.
Pros
- It has a user-friendly and easily navigable interface
- You can upload your receipts with ease
- Customer support is outstanding.
Cons
- You can’t resize the column in the invoices.
TurboCASH
Best Budget Accounting Software for Small Businesses.
TurboCASH is a free accounting software for small businesses that helps you manage your finances on a budget. While older versions of this software are free, the more recent versions—such as the TurboCASH 5—come at a budget-friendly price.
TurboCASH is a great starting point for small businesses looking to get started with accounting software. It offers basic but necessary features that’ll keep you on top of your financial game.
The platform is also a useful budgeting tool and a great way to manage your sales tax. Plus, it supports multiple languages and different currencies around the world.
Pricing
Although TurboCASH 4 is free with quite a few great features, the Version5 comes with a lot more features but is available at a budget-friendly price.
There are two pricing packages. The Single User plan on Version5 goes for $60/year. But if you want more users, you’ll need to subscribe to the Multi User Plan that goes for $200/ year.
Pros
- It makes budgeting easy.
- Grants you the liberty to create multiple databases for your company.
- It is user-friendly.
Cons
- The free version offers limited features.
QuickFile
Best Free Cloud-Based Accounting Software for Medium-Sized Businesses.
QuickFile was designed to meet and help resolve the financial record-keeping struggles in your business, and it offers a range of interesting features to achieve that.
First off, QuickFile helps with automated bank reconciliation. This feature means that every transaction that happens is compared to your bank records to prevent mistakes and keep an up-to-date record.
You’ll also have access to VAT calculations. With both standard and flat rate calculations, QuickFile helps you keep an updated record of your value-added tax. You’ll be updated on the exact amount of your income that goes into taxes.
Finally, QuickFile also manages your payments and purchases from platforms and clients like Worldpay, PayPal, etc. You’ll always get your receipts and invoices.
Pricing
There are a variety of plans that are grouped. Majorly, there’s the free version that’s further classified into XS (extra small), S (small), and M (medium) plans. You don’t have to pay a dime to access the above-highlighted plans. However, you would need to pay a sum of €49 + VAT/per year for the L (large), and XL (extra large) plan.
Pros
- Each package comes with a handful of impressive features.
- It is great for tracking your expenses and taking care of VAT.
- It is great for Medium to Large Businesses.
Cons
The 2 or 3 step transaction process is not impressive.
Skype
With the rise of remote working, it’s essential that you choose the right video conferencing platform for your business’s needs. While a number of rivals have emerged in recent years, Skype’s free plan remains one of the most attractive on the market. As well as supporting one-to-one chats, the app enables you to hold group video calls with up to 100 participants.
A major advantage here is that you don’t need to download an app in order to use the service, and can do so through your browser.
Wix
If your business requires a website (and in the digital age it almost certainly will), the free website-building tools offered by Wix may well come in handy. Operating through a simple drag-and-drop interface, the software enables you to add key elements to your site without any knowledge of coding, which makes the process far less demanding for beginners.
If you’re seeking a no-frills website, the company provides hundreds of design templates for free. Be aware however that the free version will automatically display ads for Wix on your company’s site.
LibreOffice
If you’re a fan of traditional Microsoft Office packages such as Word, Powerpoint, and Excel, but would rather avoid the price tag, LibreOffice offers an attractive, free alternative.
Its main services are Writer (word processing), Impress (presentations), Calc (spreadsheets), Base (database), and Draw (vector diagrams). As the successor to OpenOffice, LibreOffice is compatible with a range of document formats such as Microsoft Word, Excel, and Powerpoint.
Thunderbird
Whatever your organization’s size or industry, sending and receiving email is likely to be at the heart of your operation. Although arguably less well-known than some of its rivals, free email app Thunderbird is likely to offer all the features you need to manage email communications across your business.https://c28001c62fd1cbb4fb8c24008856a24b.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html
Its main features include a mail account setup wizard, a quick filter toolbar, tabbed email, smart folders, and an add-ons manager. There is also a one-click address book feature, which enables you to add people to your contact list by clicking on an icon next to their name when they send you a message.
If you’re sharing large documents, you can also speed up the transfer by uploading these to an online storage provider and sharing the link.
Duplicati
Open-source backup software Duplicati enables you to back up files and folders through strong Advanced Encryption Standard/AES-256 encryption. It will also save space across your network with incremental backups and removal of duplicate data.
If you opt for Duplicati, you can run updates through the web-based interface or via the command line interface. The software is configured by a web interface that runs in any browser, and therefore can be accessed from anywhere.
Duplicati is compatible with Windows, MacOS, and Linux operating systems.
Mailchimp
While the term “spamming” evokes a sense of dread in most legitimate business owners, email marketing can nevertheless be a key to the successful operation of many companies.
Mailchimp is an American marketing automation platform and email marketing service. Using the free version, you’ll have access to a number of features such as one-step automation, which will deliver messages to your customers depending on who they are and how they interact with your company.
This version enables you to send messages to a single audience of up to 2,000 contacts. Although this is likely to be sufficient for many small businesses, you can increase these figures by upgrading to one of the company’s paid plans.
Conclusion
A lot of people agree that good business management software will enable you to streamline your operations, maintain better contact with your clients and help you avoid mistakes. It will also help you prioritize tasks and stay focused on your bottom line.