Five Must-Have Apps for a Small Business

Five of our must-have apps we recommend to every new (and existing) business owner

No matter if you sell coffee, candles or hand-carved chess sets, these must-have apps will streamline your processes, keep track of your money, and make marketing more enjoyable.

We’ve narrowed it down to our five must-have apps, because let’s be honest: no business owners I know have the time to navigate through lists of 25 different apps to find the best ones, let alone set them up and use them!

Small business owners need practical and efficient apps that won’t break the budget. Here is our curated list of the five apps that we actually use every day in our small business.

QuickBooks Online

I use QuickBooks Online for my accounting software for all of my businesses. It’s user-friendly, customizable for any type of business, and is easy to understand even without a deep understanding of accounting. Whether you are first starting out as a solopreneur, or are a growing tech company, QuickBooks has a version for you.

Plus, the cloud-based version, QuickBooks Online, allows you to access your information from any device, anywhere.

I recently downloaded it’s smartphone companion, the QuickBooks app. This app can track expenses and mileage, run payroll on the go, and keep an eye on your cash flow.

My favourite feature is the Receipt Snap function. Snap a photo of your receipt, and it extracts the information, creates an expense, and attaches the photo to the expense. It works quite well – sometimes I have to manually change the account or the date, but overall it’s much simpler than saving all my receipts in a box for year end and then pulling out my hair for two days going through them.

Plus, if you use QuickBooks for invoicing, you can easily send invoices and track payments from the app.

If you are looking for an accounting program, they offer multiple packages based on the needs and size of your business. I highly recommend it as an accounting software, and their app has transformed my day to day bookkeeping into an easy process.

I have a referral link here. It won’t cost you anything if you use this link, but I get a little bonus for referring new customers. Which I am happy to do, because it’s a program and an app I definitely recommend.

Canva Pro

I loved the free version of Canva, but once I went to Canva Pro, I understood the hype.

My five favourite canva pro features:

1. Resize your graphics to fit a variety of social media image aspects. Turn an Instagram post with an aspect ratio of 1:1 into a story size of 16:9 into a Pinterest graphic of 1000 x 1500 pixels with one click. And Canva knows the ratios, so you don’t have to remember them.
   • There’s even a “Quick Create Collection” where you can choose multiple social media platforms and then bulk create images for each of them.
2. Brand Kits – create a Brand Kit with your brand’s palette, fonts, and logo. Take a pre-made graphic and easily switch over the elements to your brand’s colors and fonts, and drop your logo in.
3. Access to all the photos, graphics, templates and fonts.
4. Export designs with transparent backgrounds. Bonus: remove the background from an image with one click! I’m always amazed how well this works.
5. Share directly to your social media from Canva. I make pins in Canva Pro, and post them to Pinterest without leaving the app. There is also a scheduling feature, which I haven’t tried yet but have heard good things about.

I can’t go back to the free version of Canva, and for $12.49/month CAD, it’s worth it for me.

Square

I am in so deep with Square.

Why Square?

I have used other Point of Sale (POS) programs in the past, and I have had other payment processors, but I keep coming back to Square.

Their payment processing rates for credit cards are higher than average (2.65% for credit, debit is only 10 cents), but the tradeoff is worth it for me. Almost every feature I mentioned above is free, except their rewards program (which is pretty great and worth it for me). There’s no monthly contracts, no terminal rentals or PCI compliance fees, and no lengthy cancellations where you have to be on hold with a sales rep for 4 hours to beg them to cancel your account. If you aren’t using your account, there is no charge. There are no strings, there are no hidden fees.

There are a lot of reports and insights built into the POS that I love to obsess over. They were also very responsive to tech issues that I had with my first Square device.

And during the pandemic, they pivoted very quickly to their e-commerce offerings, allowing small businesses to easily set up websites with pickup, delivery and shipping options at no additional cost. I set up my entire Square website in an afternoon, and now customers can order online for pickup at my coffee shop.

If you sign up for Square through my referral link here, we both get free processing on $1000 worth of sales for the first 180 days!

Google Keep

Google Keep is simple and quick to use, which is why it’s my go-to for lists, planning and brainstorming ideas with others.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Google Docs, Sheets, Forms and Calendar. I use these as well, and they are great.

But often, I want to quickly jot down notes without any fuss of searching in my Google Drive – I am not the most digitally organized person. Instead, I am that person with hundreds of lists, and I want an app that makes that simple and easy. That’s why my go-to is Google Keep. I can have an idea, and in 30 seconds, make a note of it and send it off to Amber for her input.

Google Keep has become my default Notes app on my phone. You can take notes, make lists, recordings, take photos and make drawings. Keep also allows you to add labels to your notes and invite collaborators, as well as set reminders in your notes.

Plus, it syncs with Google Docs and Google Calendar.

Instagram

It’s the app we all pretend to hate, but still spend so much time on our phones scrolling through our feeds and catching up on our friend’s stories and sending each other reels.

So regardless of how you feel about Instagram, here are three ways to make the app work for your small business:

offer special discount codes in your stories

People like to feel like they are part of an elite club. Giving them discount codes in your stories or your feed feels special. Instagram is about community, and offering special deals to your Instagram followers makes them feel valued.

Set up Instagram Shopping

Turn your feed into a digital storefront. For this, you need a connected Instagram and Facebook account. If you are not in a market that supports Instagram’s e-commerce features, you will also need a website to process sales. Then, set up Instagram Shopping to set up your storefront on Instagram.

Heck, even if this feature isn’t available to you yet, it doesn’t mean you can’t directly sell products to your customers. I’ve seen businesses hold flash sales in their stories, or take orders by DM. You can turn followers into customer just through posting on the app.

Engage with your followers

Instagram is a great way to showcase who you are as a brand. Like, share, comment. Answer DMs quickly and professionally. Allow your followers (your current and potential customers) to personally connect to your business and your brand. Be real, authentic, and timely in your engagement.

What are your “Must-Have” apps for running your small businesses?

Let us know in the comments what your favourite apps are to make your life as a small business owner just a little bit easier.