Simple Tools for Running a Small Business

Freshbooks is a cloud-based accounting software in which you can easily create professional proposals, send client invoices, manage cash flow, and track your time, expenses, and mileage. Freshbooks also allows you to manage projects, view client emails, and create checkout links that integrate with popular payment gateways so it’s easy for you to get paid online.

Jotform is a user-friendly online form builder that helps you create and customize forms for various purposes. Whether you need to collect customer feedback, accept online payments, or gather job applications, Jotform makes it simple and straightforward. You can set up conditional logic, customize post-submission pages, and even integrate Jotform with other online programs to streamline your workflows, save time, and improve your overall productivity.

Canva is a free graphic design platform that enables you to create professional-quality graphics and marketing materials. With its vast library of templates, images, and design tools, Canva allows you to easily create eye-catching visuals for social media, beautiful branded worksheets customers can download, and so much more. Canva is an essential tool for any small business owner looking to up their design game.

The Smart Business Calendar is digital calendar subscription that does the thinking for you, by adding important dates, marketing ideas, and business deadlines automatically added to your digital calendar. You’ll also receive monthly email reminders and access to the master database of dates so you can stay ahead of business opportunities.

The Business Finance Tracker is a simple-to-use spreadsheet that allows you to track all of your business-related financials quickly and easily. The Business Finance Tracker makes tax preparation a breeze helping you keep your business mileage, home office expenses, income, expenses, and other information organized so it’s ready for tax season.

Cognito Forms is a powerful online form builder you can use to create complex forms with advanced features such as conditional logic, calculations, and integrations with other apps. With Cognito Forms, you can create custom order forms, event registration forms, and more. Cognito Forms also offers flexible pricing plans to fit any budget.

MailChimp is a popular email marketing platform with which you can design, send, and track email campaigns. MailChimp allows you to create landing pages, send large email blasts, and create automatic email responses and targeted messages for new subscribers.

Trello is a free project management tool to help you organize and prioritize your tasks and notes. With its intuitive drag-and-drop interface, you can create boards, lists, and cards to manage projects and collaborate with contractors and team members. Trello becomes even more powerful when you integrate it with other online programs and set up custom automations to speed up your workflows and save you manual steps.

Airtable is a flexible spreadsheet-database hybrid that allows you to organize data and workflows in a user-friendly way. With its customizable views, powerful filtering and sorting options, and integrations with other apps, Airtable can help you manage your projects, track your inventory, and much more.

Later is a social media management tool that allows you to turn your posts into linked content with a http://Linkin.bio mini web page. With Later, you can also schedule and publish your posts and stories, save frequently used hashtags and media, and analyze your social media performance.

Passion Planner is a paper and digital planner system that goes beyond keeping track of your appointments and to-do list, and helps you set and achieve your goals. With Passion Planner, you can choose from a daily, weekly, or academic calendar to manage your schedule and reflect on the progress you’re making toward your goals.

Dropbox is a cloud storage and file sharing platform where you can store and securely share files and folders. With Dropbox, you can quickly access your files from any device, collaborate with others, and share password protected files with expirations dates.

Notion is an all-in-one digital workspace where you can organize notes, manage projects, keep track of tasks, and build custom databases in a single platform. With Notion’s flexible and customizable interface, you can adapt it to your specific business needs by creating custom tables, Kanban boards, knowledge bases, wikis, web pages, and more, making it an incredibly powerful and versatile tool.

Wix is my favorite website building and hosting platform that allows you to create beautiful, professional-looking websites without any coding knowledge. With its intuitive drag-and-drop interface, library of customizable templates, and built-in HTTPS and SSL protocols, Wix makes it easy for anyone to create a website that stands out and is mobile optimized.

Shopify is an all-in-one e-commerce platform for creating online stores, managing products and inventory, and processing payments. With its user-friendly interface, integrated shipping discounts, and powerful features such as abandoned cart recovery and multi-channel selling, Shopify is a popular choice if you’re looking to sell products online.

Slack is a messaging tool where you can communicate and collaborate with team members, contractors, and even other programs, in real-time. With Slack, you can easily organize your conversations into channels, share files and documents, and integrate with other apps, so you can stay connected and on top of your work.

Teachable is an online course creation platform that enables small business owners to create and sell online courses. With Teachable, you can easily create and customize your courses, manage student progress and engagement, offer digital downloads and coaching services, and build a business by sharing what you know.

Grammarly is an online grammar and spell-checking app designed to proofread and improve your writing. Whether you’re drafting an email or your next blog post, Grammarly will check your grammar, spelling, and punctuation in real-time, and offer you suggestions to improve your writing style and the clarity of your message.

Zoom is a video conferencing platform that allows you to host virtual meetings, webinars, and online events of nearly any size. With Zoom, you can collaborate with clients and team members by sharing your screen and reviewing files in real-time, or host large-scale virtual events requiring attendee registration, panel discussions, and recorded playbacks.

Squarespace is a website building and hosting platform where you can create and launch professional-looking websites without coding. With Squarespace, you can easily customize your website template, add pages and sections, and integrate your site with built-in tools and third-party apps.

Square is a payment processing and point-of-sale tool enabling you to accept credit card payments, create and send invoices, and manage sales transactions. With Square, you can process payments from your smartphone or tablet, create an online store and manage inventory, and even manage payroll and employee scheduling.

Zapier is a powerful automation tool that allows you to connect different online tools so you can automate your workflows. With Zapier, you can easily set up automated tasks such as drafting contracts, sending emails, and updating spreadsheets, to save you time and increase your productivity.

Google Forms is a completely free online tool that allows you to create custom surveys, quizzes, and questionnaires. With its user-friendly interface, you can easily design and share forms online that will automatically generate graphs of the results. Google Forms also integrates with Google Sheets, making it easy to analyze your data further and gain valuable insights.

Asana is a popular project management tool that enables you to manage tasks and workflows with ease. With Asana, you can assign tasks, set due dates, and view your assignments in a variety of formats, such as a list, Kanban board, or on a calendar, so you can stay organized and on top of your work.

Calendly is a scheduling tool that allows you to streamline your meeting and appointment booking process. With Calendly, you can set your availability and meeting parameters, sync it with your digital calendar so you’re never double booked, and easily share open times with your clients. Instead of back-and-forth emails to find the perfect meeting time, just send someone your Calendly link and you’re done.

Google Domains is my go-to domain registration service for finding, purchasing, and managing domain names. With Google Domains, you can search for available domains, choose from a variety of domain extensions, take advantage of built-in privacy protection, and easily set up custom email addresses and aliases.

Stripe is an online payment processing platform that allows you to accept credit and debit card payments from customers around the world. Stripe offers a variety of features, such as fraud detection, product payment links, and subscription management, plus it integrate with lots of other online tools which makes it a popular choice among small business owners.

PayPal is an payment processing platform allowing you to accept payments online and in-person. With PayPal, you can easily create and send invoices, accept payments from customers around the world, setup installment payments, and manage your finances all in one place.

Form Publisher is a Google Forms add-on that uses the form responses to automatically create documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. With Form Publisher, you can quickly generate custom documents, such as contracts, invoices, and receipts, and automatically send them to your customers or clients.

MileIQ is a free app that helps you track the miles you drive for business. It automatically detects and logs each drive you make and allows you to easily classify them as business or personal trips. With MileIQ, you can save time and money on taxes by accurately tracking every mile and maximizing your deductions.

Google Voice is a telephone service that allows you to create a phone number or business line where you can make and receive calls, send text messages, and accept voicemails. With Google Voice, you can easily forward calls to your existing mobile or office phone, customize your voicemail greeting, and block unwanted calls.

Yelp Biz is how you can add your business listing to Yelp, manage your profile, respond to customer reviews, and gain insights into your customer base. With Yelp Biz, you can easily update your business information, add photos, and interact with your customers.

Linktree is a tool that allows you to turn a single link on your social media platforms into a beautifully organized mini web page with multiple links, buttons, and calls to action. With Linktree, you can easily organize and share links to your website, your products and downloads, and other important pages all in one place.

Buffer is my favorite social media management tool for planning and scheduling social media posts across various platforms. With Buffer, you can prepare your posts ahead of time, save drafts to work on later, and integrate with programs like Canva to make sharing graphics a breeze.

OneNote is a digital notebook and note-taking app that I use almost daily to quickly and easily keep track of ideas, tasks, and information. With OneNote, you can type out text notes, take screenshots from other programs, add PDF printouts, perform math calculations, and so much more.

Apple Shortcuts is an app for iOS devices that helps you automate tasks and streamline your daily workflows. You can use pre-built shortcuts or create custom Apple Shortcuts that will perform a specific series of actions such as sending messages, creating calendar events, and converting files, with a single tap or at a certain time of day.

InShot is a free video and photo editing app with which you can create and edit professional-looking photos and videos for all your marketing needs. With InShot, you can do the basics, like trimming and cropping, plus more advanced editing, like adding filters, music, and text to your videos, and adjusting the brightness, contrast, and saturation of your photos.

Pirate Ship is a website where you can buy and print shipping labels at discounted rates. With Pirate Ship, you can compare shipping rates and transit times, track your shipments in real-time, and also import orders from third-party platforms.

Planyway is my favorite Trello add-on that gives you the ability to visualize your Trello cards on a calendar and time-block your tasks. When you sync your digital calendar with Planyway, you can drag-and-drop Trello cards into your schedule to help manage projects and stay on top of deadlines. Planyway is also available as an add-on for Jira, Chrome, and Microsoft Teams.

AddEvent is a calendar event tool that allows you to create Add to Calendar buttons so that attendees can easily save events to any digital calendar platform. With AddEvent, you can create event pages, collect RSVPs, create paid subscription calendars, and integrate with other popular programs like Mailchimp, Zapier, etc.

Google Drive is a cloud storage and file sharing platform enabling you to to create, store, share, and collaborate on documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and more. With Google Drive, you can easily access your files from any device, collaborate with others in real-time, and sync your files across devices.

Efile4biz is a website recommended by my CPA where you can file and send 1099s, W-2s and ACA forms. With Efile4biz, you can quickly add your information, complete your forms, and submit your necessary tax documents, all at a reasonable price.

Chat GPT is an AI-powered chatbot that can assist you in various ways, like answering common business-related questions, helping brainstorm marketing ideas, and drafting sales page content. With its natural language processing capabilities, you simply type out what you’re looking for, just as you would to an assistant, and let Chat GPT go to work.