Blog
The Best Online Tools to Get Your SME off the Ground
With an initial burst of energy and enthusiasm for your business, you’ve probably poured a lot of time and resources into bringing your idea to life. But have you thought about how you’re actually going to get it off the ground now? Whatever industry you’re trying to make a name for yourself in, there are some tried and tested online tools to help your business take off. Here are a few…
Reporting and dashboard software to understand growth
Growth for an SME is paramount. You don’t just want to survive, you want to thrive – which means you’ll need to have a good overview key stats and figures. A tool such as Grow could help you to do that: it gives you an at-a-glance view of key statistics, such as revenue versus forecast graphs, customer locations, leads by source, the number of new customers each month, the amount of revenue made each month, net income and the cash balance in your business account.
A tool like this one really will make it easier for you to keep on top of those key figures, bringing a sense of control when you have so many other things going on. Take a look at its key features and how it works.
Printable checks for payroll and accounts payable
Many businesses (but particularly SMEs) struggle to keep on top of their business finances. That’s not because they’re not diligent enough, but rather because financial admin takes up a lot of time, and can be pretty complex for a new business owner.
With this in mind, you should consider checking out the products available from someone such as Intuit Quickbooks. Its printable checks, for example, allow you to write business checks that are fraud proof, synced with your accounting software and designed with tasks like payroll and supplier payments in mind. Intuit also has lots of other tools to help you with the financial aspects of growing a business, so check these out.
Apps to understand scheduling and labor budget
If you’re a new business, the chances are that expanding to accommodate new employees is something that both thrills and terrifies you in equal measure. Taking on staff is a sign that your business is thriving, but it’s hard to know when it’s the right time to do: what if you can’t really afford it? What if you can’t pay their healthcare or offer a pension plan? What if you take on more staff than you need and don’t make enough money to cover the expense?
Apps such as When I Work take things back to basics and help you to view your business’s schedule, the availability of your employee or contractor, and even your overall budget for labor in your business right now. It’s a good app to use if you want to keep control over the cost of having staff to help you as your SME gets off the ground, so take a look at how it works and see if it would be useful for your business.
Apps to keep everyone on the same page
If you’re working with someone else to grow your business, you’re going to need to make sure you’re on the same page. That’s why a tool that allows for open communication is really important. One such as Slack, for instance, is geared to helping with this. You can make ‘channels’ of communication for specific projects, topics or teams, or just use the app to send direct messages about anything relating to your business.
You can also drag, drop and share files into the conversations too, and because everything is automatically indeed and archived, you can easily specific words or files to save time hunting down important messages or ideas later on.
These are just a handful of tools that will help to get your SME off the ground, but they’re all very useful and very highly rated. Do you have any recommendations of your own to add?
Comments