Best apps for entrepreneurs on the go

15 Oct 2015

Entrepreneurs in South Africa are dependent on their mobile devices to run their business, with an increasing number using cloud-based apps to stay on top of their affairs wherever they go. Most of the time small business owners are getting things done on smartphones and tablets and spend less time working on a notebook or a desktop.

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With bandwidth costs lower than ever and Wi-Fi nearly everywhere, small business owners and employees can be productive wherever they are. Thanks to the growing affordability of smartphones with large displays and the great selection of apps on the market, today's SME can operate completely on-the-go. Here are a few of our favourite apps for the mobile entrepreneur.

Collaboration - Slack

Slack is a collaboration platform that brings all your communication together in one place. It is real-time messaging, file sharing, archiving and search for modern teams. It's affordable even for small businesses and is a great way to drive collaboration when employees might not often be together in the same building. It also integrates with many tools that businesses already use, such as Dropbox, Trello and Zendesk.

Customer relationship management - Zoho

Most good CRM systems today have apps for the popular smartphone platforms. Zoho CRM Mobile Edition, for example, is a native application that lets you access your CRM data anywhere, anytime from your mobile phones. This enables you to stay on top of the latest business developments, collaborate with your team and make the right business decisions, no matter where you are.

Accounting - Xero or Sage One

A decent online accounting package, like Xero or Sage One, will help you keep your business running with a solid mobile app. You really should not have to go back to your office any more to reconcile, send invoices, add receipts and create expense claims - your accounting software should have an app that lets you do it from a mobile device.

Expense management - Expensify

Expensify streamlines the whole process of managing expenses for a small business owner and his or her team. It makes capturing receipts, tracking time or mileage, business travel and creating expense reports quick and easy, sparing headaches for everyone.

Productivity - Google Docs, Sheets and Slides

Google's office productivity suite is clean, attractive and powerful. Apps included are word processor Docs, spreadsheet editor Sheets, and presentation maker Slides. Managing even complex documents is relatively simple and the suite is compatible with Microsoft Office files, so you can transition between your desktop computer and your mobile device.