Top 5 paid-for apps and websites for your small business

In January we published our top picks for best websites and apps for small businesses, if you missed it, you can find it here.

We came across so many truly helpful and innovative tech solutions for contractors, freelancers and SMEs, that we just had to share a few more with you. So this month, we’ve put together our Top 5 Paid-for list, apps and websites which could help you save money by improving the way you work.

• Base   Do you work in sales? Well actually yes you do, we all do. And if you think you could stand to improve your customer/client database and past/current and future projects, then you should try Base. Boasting a successful on-boarding rate of 97% this CRM promises not to pass you over to any third-party support teams, everything is in-house. They offer a free trial and monthly plans start from £25.

• Desktime   Available via app and desktop, Desktime is the next step-up from tools like Toggl (which we covered in the Free blog). Desktime tracks what each employee is currently doing on their desktop and analyses the data to give you a break down of productivity. There’s a free trial for 30 days and then prices start from US$9 per month. It’s especially useful for companies who may have staff members who work remotely or across several locations. Desktime is for you if you want to really crunch the big data and make improvements as a result.

• Kashflow    Kashflow is the fantastic new cloud-based tool that Warr & Co have introduced for 2016. It’s available on desktop and via a mobile app and its purpose is to help you keep on top of your accounting from anywhere. Track your finances, quotes, invoices, customer details, expenses and payments from a user-friendly dashboard. Warr& Co are also offering a free 14 day trial, after which prices start from only £5 per month . Watch the demo video on our site here: https://warr.co.uk/kashflow/

• IBM Watson Analytics   What is Watson Analytics? Well basically it’s the big data tool of your dreams! Simply upload your business data and Watson begins work, it will even recognise patterns and suggest a list of starting points even before you define your goals! You can also report till your heart’s content with the additional functionality to create infographics on your own custom dashboard. There’s a data limited free version which you can try to see what it’s all about, and if you love it they quote individually for the amount of data you’d like to analyse.

• Docusign   Contracts are important, and sometimes you may find it’s up to you to issue them. If that’s the case, Docusign is a brilliant solution. Upload your contract, mark where it should be signed and email it to the recipient – you can even send reminders via email. We love this tool because it takes paperwork and stores it securely online for you, leaving you free to easily access it as and whenever you need to. They offer a 30 day free trial and monthly plans start from as little as £6.

If you’re using any great apps or cloud-based solutions which you think would be helpful to other contractors, freelancers or SMEs, why not share them with our community on Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter?