Businesses all over the world rely on a slew of online tools to help them run their businesses. From invoicing software to customer relationship management software, there is a seemingly endless number of options out there. While all these products can make a business more productive and efficient, they also undermine a company’s ability to focus on the most important aspects of its business.
Whatever your business needs – you can probably find a tool online that will help you with email marketing, social media marketing, analytics, networking etc. Fortunately, there are free tools available on the Internet that help small businesses grow.
Odoo
Odoo is a suite of open source business apps that cover your company needs: CRM, eCommerce, accounting, inventory, the point of sale, project management, etc.
Top features:
- Get accurate forecasts
- Automate activities based on your sales scripts: calls, meetings, and quotations
- Real-time messaging to enhance collaboration
What’s interesting about this tool: Odoo focuses mainly on CRM and ERP functionalities. It also has a large application market due to its open-source model.
Pricing: From $14 user/month
Basecamp
Basecamp is the preferred tool for teams who enjoy its modern social media-like interface and carefree team collaboration features.
Top features:
- Projects to manage multiple users’ work
- Message boards for discussing new projects or ideas
- In-app collaboration with the team
- Reporting on project performance
- Separate dashboard for showing to clients
What’s special about this tool: Basecamp is free for teachers and students!
Price: $99/month for unlimited users
NetSuite
NetSuite is an unified business management suite, providing various tools for ERP, Financials, CRM, HR, and eCommerce.
Top features:
- Multiple currencies and taxation rules, financial consolidation, subsidiary management
- End-to-end eCommerce management (order management, CRM, marketing, and finance)
- Services resource planning (resource management, project accounting, timesheet, and expense management)
- Business Intelligence (dashboards, reporting, and analysis across the integrated processes)
What’s interesting about this tool: NetSuite offers various toolsets –NetSuite CRM, NetSuite OpenAir, NetSuite Global Business Management, NetSuite PSA etc. Be ready to take time and filter out which NetSuite solution could be the best for you.
Pricing: On request
Best Business Resource Planning Software – TeamGantt
Nothing beats a classic Gantt chart software for resource planning of a project. This next business management software serves a similar purpose. TeamGantt allows you to use a simple Gantt chart for your project scheduling and resource planning.
Assign as many resources to a task as you want, along with their working hours to make resource planning effective. The details about resources working on a particular task can be viewed by applying a filter and identifying the individual resource workload, so that you can allocate tasks according to the capacity, avoiding burnouts.
The easy drag and drop interface of the tool lets you quickly make changes according to the schedule, without causing any unnecessary delays.
Key Features
- Drag and drop functionality
- Gantt charts, along with filters
- Multiple customizable task views
- Planned timeline vs. Actual timeline viewer
- Task assignment to multiple team members
- Workload view by task or hours
- Actual vs. estimated hours for time tracking
- Task dependencies
- Resource availability tab
Pricing Plans
- TeamGantt provides Free and paid subscription plans.
- The paid plans start from $49.75 per month for a team of up to 5 members. The price changes with the number of team members.
Best Business Team Collaboration Software – Chanty
Chanty is aimed to boost team collaboration and productivity in all business segments. Chanty lets you stay in touch with your team in private, public, group and one-on-one conversations. The Teambook keeps all your messages, tasks, files, and links in order. Chanty offers audio calling and video conferencing functionality with screen sharing. It has a built-in task manager with the Kanban board, that allows you to turn messages into tasks, assign a teammate to perform the task, set a due date and priority.
Voice messaging lets you instantly communicate with your team in audio format. Chanty integrates with Trello, Asana, Zapier, Google Drive, Dropbox, Onedrive, Github, Gitlab, Bitbucket, Mailchimp, Giphy, and other apps.
Key Features
- Unlimited message history
- Private, public, group and one-on-one conversations
- Integrations
- Audio/video calls
- Voice messaging
- Built-in task management
- Kanban board
Pricing Plans
- Free basic plan
- Business plan starts at $3/user per month
Dropbox
1CRM includes integration with the Dropbox online storage system. When composing an email, you can easily attach documents from Dropbox to your email. As well, backups of your entire 1CRM system, both software and data, can be automatically saved on a regular schedule to Dropbox. And if needed, those Dropbox backups may be used to restore your 1CRM system onto their original server, or another server.1CRM-Dropbox Integration
Google Docs
Users of Google Docs can import, create, edit and update documents and spreadsheets in various fonts and file formats, combining text with formulas, lists, tables and images. Google Docs is compatible with most presentation software and word processor applications. Work can be published as a Web page or as a print-ready manuscript. Users can control who sees their work. Google Docs is ideal for publishing within an enterprise, maintaining blogs or composing work for viewing by the general public.
Asana
This simple and free (up to 15 users) task management solution is easy to use and rather flexible. Much like asanas in yoga. It lets you create repeating tasks, assign them to team members, and keep track of the task progress from a single customizable dashboard.
Wrike
In real-time, Wrike allows you to analyze performance insights with clunky spreadsheets. Customize everything to your needs, from the dashboard to automation, add comments, live edit, share information with stakeholders, look at individual tasks or team projects, and more. Wrike can also integrate with various tools like GitHub, Slack, Box, SalesForce, and more.
Or get started with Connecteam’s free task management tool! It’s that much easier to allocate tasks, even on the go, to build transparency and hold your team accountable.
Proofhub
This easy-to-use project management and team collaboration software is a great option for small businesses. By replacing the multiple tools required for task management, collaboration, time tracking, communication, file sharing, and reporting with a single all-in-one software, and gives teams a central source of truth.
Sellsy
One of the challenges with managing sales processes can be combining sales process data from various channels (online, PoS and inside sales). Sellsy combines that with client relations and contact marketing, as well as inventory management and even time tracking.
Xero
Xero is an increasingly popular choice for online accounting. This 1CRM plugin enables straightforward integration between Xero and 1CRM. Once configured, it keeps the most important accounting entities in both systems in sync.
The integration synchronizes Accounts, Invoices, Bills, and Payments, with additional features in Tax Codes and Product Category modules. It supports multiple currencies (it’s standard in 1CRM), but in order to use it your Xero account must also support multi-currency, which their base-level service does not.1CRM-Xero Integration
Quickbooks
Some people may choose to completely outsource their accounting and use multiple apps to manage invoices and track expenses, but other small businesses will opt for QuickBooks or Xero. QuickBooks lets you email invoices and accept online payments, while also integrating with 3rd party apps like Square and Paypal. On top of that, you get complete payroll functionality, automatic cloud backups, and audit trails. QuickBooks has everything you need to properly manage your finances.1CRM-Quickbooks Integration
Freshbooks
Invoicing, accounting and billing are essential business functions that should be managed well. FreshBooks is an easy-to-use, highly accessible and scalable cloud software that makes all these business functions simple, organized and professional-looking.
xTuple
The path from product manufacturing to sitting in the hands-on of your customers can be complex. xTuple is a free open-source ERP solution with an integrated CRM system, intended mostly for companies producing products rather than services.
Best Business Process Management Software – Nintex Promapp
Nintex Promapp is a business process management software that helps organizations share process knowledge through a central repository. The tool is designed in a way that it facilitates the development of simple visual tools out of complex process maps, documents, and Visio charts – making it easy for your team to track changes in the process
Suitable for teams belonging to any industry and of any size, Promapp allows teams to collaborate together in real-time through a dashboard and easily monitor progress. By applying the ‘processes I’m in’ filter, you can gain access to only particular processes and then move forward along the way. You can also bookmark your favorite processes to further improve accuracy.
This business management software provides a comprehensive solution covering a broad range of processes ranging from basic document management to more elaborate workflow automation and built-in risk and compliance management, to name a few.
Key Features
- Personalized dashboards
- Configurable tags for identifying processes
- Risk and compliance management
- Automated workflow management
- Documents management
- Process variation management, along with cost changes
- One-click process feedback
- Integration with third-party apps
Pricing Plans
- Nintex Promapp’s pricing works on grounds of the number of processes added. The license starts from $950/month.
Loyverse
This free POS tool, as the name implies, is a POS and loyalty program solution for businesses like beauty salons, florists, and small stores. It includes analytics as well as inventory management and is available for free on Google Play and the iTunes App Store.
KeyHut
If you’re more into old-style DOS desktop registers, KeyHunt by Dale Harris is your solution. And if you’re not, it’s still worth checking out the grumpy humor and 90s-style website of the developer.
Conclusion
There are lots of online tools available for small business owners. So many that it’s hard to decide which ones are worth using.