A small business owner has so much to do to ensure success, from managing staff to invoicing customers, dealing with suppliers and inventory, marketing, sales, accounting, websites, communication, and so on. Additionally, incorporating a reliable cash invoice receipt templates into your office management system can streamline the payroll process, ensuring accurate and professional documentation of employee earnings and deductions, thus simplifying your financial record-keeping tasks.
If you are running a small business, there are two things which can make all the difference between a successful business and an expensive failure – the right people, and the right tools. While finding the right people is entirely up to your business needs, the right tools are almost universal – and this makes them simple to use.
Innovation in things like automation, artificial intelligence, and machine learning are now widely available – at an affordable enough price to make them cost-effective investments, so you can utilize these tools to improve your business in all the places it is most important.
Recruitment
Starting the perfect team comes from a great recruitment plan, and there are different talent management systems that you can use as a small business to recruit the best people.
What you want to look for is a system that helps track applicants as well as providing tools to help choose the right person – such as pre-employment assessments and video interview platforms.
Zoho is a good applicant tracking system, or you can use something like Picked to create a battery of tests to use during the application process.
Human Resources
Without a specific HR person on the staff, managing employee records, payroll, benefits, and scheduling can be a handful – but there are several different HR apps available. Some are more about ensuring that staff can see their rotas and ensuring that their schedules work, while others are about a full-service view of each employee, including training and development.
BambooHR and bob are excellent examples of HR information systems for small businesses.
Documentation, Storage, and Office Software
Managing office documentation, email communication, storage, and networking can be a headache, but luckily there are all-in-one solutions that can help.
Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace offer a similar suite of office-based software options for creating documents and spreadsheets among other things, including collaboration through live document sharing, the opportunity for cloud storage solutions, and email connectivity. While PDF.Live gives users the opportunity to merge PDFs, convert files into PDF format and get signatures from customers, all of which make the sales process much easier.
Website and Online Presence
Businesses in the modern era need to have a strong online presence, and that starts with a website. Content Management Systems (CMS) like Wix and WordPress make creating your own website simple enough for anyone. Add-ons for analytics and SEO can help make sure that the content you have on your website can be found on search engines.
Social media is an important marketing tool, and software like Hootsuite makes managing multiple accounts straightforward and simple.
Accounting
The backbone of any business is the finances, and the right accounting tools can ensure that budgets are met, suppliers are paid, and profit can be made. QuickBooks and Sage are really easy to use and understand, even for a small business, and they are all-in-one solutions for invoicing, purchasing, tracking expenses, and preparing accounts for the tax man too.
Product and Service
Selling physical products online needs specific software such as Shopify, and other eCommerce shops, which can be integrated with your CMS or managed as a separate entity. If you have a wide product inventory, you’ll want to be able to stay on top of stock details, with something like Sortly – or if you have more of a budget, then you might want to go more full-service with something like Sage, who do more than just accounting software.
Team Management
Once you have all your products in place and available to be purchased, and you have your marketing out there and the team in place – you need to be able to manage what everyone is doing, without having to micromanage.
There are tools available to make projects easy to manage. Applications like Monday and Asana are built to allow every employee to see what needs to be done, what tasks have to be completed, and what the deadlines are. Colleagues can share updates with each other and ask for support when it is needed.
Communication and collaboration ties into this, with software like Slack and Skype perfect for instant messaging and video calling to keep everyone in touch.