Running a business from home is not an easy task, and at the same time, there are complications and ease both when you work from home and operate a home office. A business is an organization that consists of entities involved in professional, industrial, or commercial activities and business checking is important.
A home business refers to the business that you operate from your house that requires a strong customer base. As the owner, you have a separate healthy space to operate your business and handle everything on your own. The big question that pops is how to handle all of the responsibilities?
There are numerous software and business tools to save business owners from running business haphazardly. These tools help you smoothen the business process. With the number of software applications for business owners on the rise, it is sometimes difficult to choose what software is the best for you.
Tools Needed to Run a Business From Your Home
Starting a business is challenging, and you need some tools for help. Here are some of the best software applications :
1. Time Tracking App
Operating a business from home needs a strict set of disciplines to function properly. If you have an online business with many employees, you need to track their time, for which you need time tracking tools. If you are handling startups and small businesses singly, you can track your own time.Â
timeTracko
timeTracko is a productivity tracking application and one of the essential tools that help in the analysis of the workforce by tracking time. You can clock in, clock out, and measure the total working hours from this application. There is a separate button for a break and private time, and it calculates the active hours and office hours.
Some Features of timeTracko
- While working at the office, it tracks the whole time you give to work. There is individual, real-time tracking for each project, client, and task.
- timeTracko tracks mouse and keystrokes to detect how actively your employees are working. There is a feature that generates activity levels and shows the frequency of activity in percentage.
- The screencasting option allows you to find mistakes done by employees and give feedback for productivity improvement.
- Productivity label allows categorization of websites, URLs, Apps, and Software as being productive, unproductive, and neutral. From this point, you can encourage your business employees to do better.
- The summary of usage with detailed report generation helps improve the business’s productivity.
2. Collaboration App
Collaboration apps are handy when you have to handle a team for business purposes and project management. Instead of long meetings and time-consuming to-do lists with evaluation, management tools save time, and it is easier to know who is doing what work. Each member can make changes and drop their ideas helping in relationship management.
Trello
Trello has a board and card system that makes it unique from other collaboration apps. It has various project management functions and provides a communication channel for employees to communicate. The projects are marked on board, and there is a card for every task. There is a system of notification for all members.
Some Features of Trello
- Trello is featured with a drag and drop editing option, and users can attach files and send deadline notifications.
- The application backups information and is supported in mobile phones too.
- It consists of a progress meter checklist and allows easy upload via Google Drive, Dropbox, and other cloud services.
3. Cloud-Storage App
Cloud storage applications are very useful when sharing and storing many documents, including google docs, that need constant editing and inputs. Cloud storage apps keep backup, and your data is safe virtually, and you can access it whenever necessary.
Mega
Mega is a cloud storage application that regards security as its top-most priority. Mega is a great cloud app to store confidential files and documents in business. Mega is reputed and trusted as an app free from spying and equipped with strong security.
Some Features of Mega App
- It is supported by any operating system: Linux, Windows, Mac.
- The mega application provides end-to-end encryption via TLS, AES-128.
- You can use this app to sync with different devices.
- It provides storage from 15 Gigabytes up to 16 Terabytes.
- Mega provides users with annual reports and file versioning.
4. Expense Tracking App
Any business owner—especially those working from home—keeping track of expenses is an essential step in bookkeeping. An abundance of expenses might create a need for an accurate tax calculator. Beyond that, an expense tracking app is a great tool for compiling and monitoring expenses, ultimately keeping the business accounts fresh and updated.
Whether it is your car insurance or any other work that requires bank balance transfer affecting your business budget, expense tracking apps help state the present state of your finances and take care of credit card, and how you spent in the past, and they provide an option to improve your spending habits with the transfer of money online.
Shoe Boxed
Shoe boxed is a receipt tracker application for which you do not need to type in your expenses manually. You can click a picture and extract the vendor, payment method, date, and details present in the image. You can instantly generate the report to send from your cell phone.
Some Features of Shoe Boxed
- Shoe boxed has a feature to transfer the image of receipt into data that humans easily understand.
- It provides a scanning feature, OCR, i.e., Optical Character Recognition.
- The reports generated from any location are sendable to others.
- Integrations are easy with the Shoe boxed app, and there is no fear of losing receipts and not typing huge numbers.
5. Tool for Engaging in Social Media
While running a business from home, you can miss out on interacting with people and expanding your professional network. Some applications are just more than social media apps and allow official setup and a way to interact with professionals, sell your ideas, stay in touch with business-oriented people, and stay updated with a recent corporate blog post.
LinkedIn is the most famous and biggest network created for the professional development of users. You can use Linkedin to find internships, build connections and learn and sharpen your skills. Linkedin is a great choice for people running a business from home.
Some Features of Linkedin
- The home button takes you to the place where all posts are visible. These posts are from the pages you follow.
- My network includes a list of people you are connected with on Linkedin. Suggestions are there based on your current connections.
- The jobs section recommends the positions open on your location and keywords from your profile.
- The notifications are available within the LinkedIn app to notify you of any member invite or mentions.
- The “Me” section displays information about you and your professional data. You can use your idea to make the profile interesting with more career details.
6. Accounting and Financing Tool
Manual calculations or tracking are not enough for calculating expenditure and revenue with a line of credit, and even a small mistake can have adverse effects and cause problems. So for handling the overall financial department on your own, you need help with accounting and finance tools with liability insurance.
Xero
Xero application takes charge of your finances and is cloud-based software that helps users deal with accounting. This tool is great for bookkeepers and accountants and is tractable for small businesses.
Some Features of Xero
- The everyday business includes paying bills, connecting with banks, and claiming expenses, and the Xero app provides all these features for user benefit.
- Xero app helps in accepting payments, tracking projects, and managing contacts.
- This app helps in capturing data, paying runs, handling files and reports.
- It helps in sending invoices and provides the service of multi-currency accounting. You can purchase orders, create quotes, and calculate sales tax.
7. Freelancer Tool
In the business world, it is not always possible for you to play every role independently. Whether you are making e-commerce software or coding for other projects, you need the help and collaboration of others in this situation. You can make use of freelancer tools when you need a hand from others. The freelancing tools can help you bring great productivity within budget.
Upwork
Upwork is a platform for freelancing to find freelance writing, website builders, software development, graphic designing, etc. The job provider post jobs, and the freelancers can choose from the variety of jobs available.
Some Features of Upwork
- You can post a job and hire the person remotely.
- Users can buy projects and search for the talent they are looking for.
- If you want to join Upwork as an employee, you can explore the work according to your expertise.
8. Invoicing Tool
When a business runs on invoices, it is essential to keep track of receiving and getting payment with management apps. If the process slows down, it can cause problems for the one receiving and for you for not getting the budget in time with limited liability. Some apps help in sending invoices faster, such that the flow of cash remains unaffected and business administrations take place flawlessly.
Wave
Wave is an amazing application available for free and includes accounting and has automation. Suppose you have a business to start, then it’s better to get this application. The features of the wave are promising for business handlers who operate businesses from their own houses.
Some Features of Wave
- It has a dashboard that shows all of your finances at a place. You can check important information relating to the budget in the dashboard in graphical form.
- The accounting feature of the wave app has editable account charts, journal entries of journals, a proper balance sheet, a report for profit and loss, bank reconciliation with cash flow report.
- The free invoicing feature allows automation with recurring invoices, scheduling invoices.
- Invoice tracking of the status and estimation of invoice conversion.
- It allows wave expense tracking and wave accounts payable with wave contact management, wave inventory with reporting.
9. Tool for Communication
Running a business from home is not similar to going to the office and interacting with colleagues. Formal and informal communication gap is reduced when constant communication is virtually possible for interacting with co-workers. You can conduct online meetings using applications like Zoom.
Zoom
Zoom application is a communication tool based on the cloud, and business holders can virtually connect with clients. It has an excellent audio, takes access from your device’s camera, and provides other features for collaboration. It is downloadable as a mobile app and easy to use.
Some Features of Zoom
- Zoom provides an option for sharing the screen with application sharing. When you are presenting as a part of your business, you can share your screen or only the app you are using on your computer.
- The scheduling option helps you schedule meetings early on so that you do not forget or skip important meetings that you have to attend. It provides delegation for co-hosts and schedulers.
- Zoom provides a feature of recording in which you can record meetings and upload to any place, preferable.
- You can hold meetings for 500 to 10000 people at a time. Users can use zoom from iOS or Android devices.
10. Social Media Management Tool
Social media is full of surprises and professional opportunities for those in need. You can create profiles on many social media applications. But you also need another application that takes care of all other social media accounts and some reliable document managers.
Hootsuite
If you need to write several articles and post via different apps simultaneously for your business, then Hootsuite is the best choice. Hootsuite helps in the management of social apps and helps the business run smoothly with a third party’s involvement.
Some Features of Hootsuite
- Hootsuite provides an option for the creation of posts and scheduling them. You can make plans about your posts and create amazing new content for your business.
- This application allows you to view all of your social media channels and keep track of messages and posts in them.
- Hootsuite helps users plan work by helping them view the content scheduled. Real-time recommendations generate effective campaigns.
- You receive real-time incoming messages from different social accounts and interact with users.
- Hootsuite gives a chance for analyzing by generating reports of your frequency of using social media.
Conclusion
While running a single business from home, you need an ultimate guide to handling personal finance and loan refinance. The business operating for any type of business needs a set of rules and tools for your small business to help business bloom right from your home.
