That being said, most of the apps that will save you the most time and money are usually going to be available in a free variety. Once you have updated your business practices to the 21st century with all the basic tools to that are vital to any business to stay competitive in this high speed world, you can focus on the niche apps that will strengthen the line of business you specifically operate within. But to get started, there are some basic tools that will help you starting from day one.
Scheduling Apps
Scheduling was once done by a secretary on a large paper calendar and all of your employees would have to make appointments in that fashion. However, there is a better way to do this now that will free up your personnel’s time to make the business more money. Besides the basic calendar system that will be standard on any smartphone or tablet PC, you can get an app that allows you and your employees to share their scheduling calendars with everyone. That way, you can not only keep track of your own meetings but also check on other team members or even invite a coworker to a meeting with one simple click.
Inventory Apps
Inventory control is one of the most important things to do when trying to keep costs in check. Nothing will push your bottom line down faster than lost, stolen, or missing products. One of the best was to keep control of inventory is to have access to your numbers from anywhere in the world on your smartphone. Though this was once something you could only do when sitting at a desk at work, there are several great apps out there that will allow you to check your inventory levels and monitor your sales numbers from the palm of your hand.
File Sharing Apps
The ability to share files is one of the most important elements in any business. Let’s say you had two sales associates in two different states that needed to share documents instantly. This used to require faxing each document one at a time and dealing with the time and fees associated with that process. Fortunately, there are several great apps out there that allow all of your employees to access a giant shared folder from anywhere in the world to upload and download files at any time. It is essentially like having a large fileserver with you at all times but it’s just a simple app on your smartphone or tablet.
This is just a taste of how people are using apps to boost business profits for little or no money. There are several other great apps out there to help your business grow, so make sure you shop around. Many of the best apps are free and just feature some small ads to support their programming costs, but some specialized business apps will cost a bit of money. Even if you have to pay for an app, the benefits of the time and money it can save you will likely offset the expense almost immediately.
