Six Tech Tools To Help Your Small Business Run More Smoothly

More and more, technology is becoming the backbone of many businesses, and businesses that do not adapt to changing technologies have a much harder time innovating, attracting new talent and appealing to customers. At the very least, embracing new technology can help your business run more smoothly, so here are six tech tools to help.

Google Drive

Google Drive is being used by more and more businesses and continues to be a favorite of startups. The benefits are obvious: currently 15 GB of free cloud storage with the ability to purchase more. Google Drive allows your business to keep much of its paperwork, documents, and spreadsheets in the cloud, allowing for easy collaboration. By having your documents, e-mail, spreadsheets, and calendars all in one place, it will make it much easier for your employees to all be on the same page.

MailChimp

MailChimp is one of the most popular programs for e-mail promotion. Maintaining an e-mail list of clients is a lot smoother in MailChimp than trying to do mail merge or keeping an Outlook contact list. MailChimp allows you to start and manage e-mail marketing campaigns, manage e-mail lists, keep track of your subscribers by showing how many people are subscribing and unsubscribing to your list, how many people are opening your e-mails and all kinds of other useful stats.

Square Reader

Square Readers are quickly becoming a favorite of the small business community. Square Readers are small devices that require a smartphone or a tablet and allow merchants and small business to easily accept credit card payments on the spot. They are a lot simpler than traditional methods of accepting credit cards and will allow your business to more smoothly process those transactions and attract a wider customer base.

Industry-Specific Programs

Professionals are always investing in and getting inspired to make new software programs and technologies to cater to specific industries. For example, for tax professionals, things like tax practice software from Canopy might be a good investment. It offers accounting services, a customer database and easy access to many different kinds of IRS forms with planning features that allow you to take the best course of action on behalf of your clients. For just about every industry, new programs and technologies are coming out all the time, so it's important to stay on top of new releases to make a determination whether or not something will be beneficial to add to your business.

Accounting Software

Many small businesses still use handwritten invoices, and these can be very difficult to keep track of. If your business has not yet moved over to one of the many options available for accounting software, it could save your employees time and headaches when numbers don't add up or they can't find something. Some industries have accounting software merged into more industry-specific software, so all of your customers' data is in one place.

Conferencing Software

Whether you use Skype or something more in-depth like join.me, having the ability to communicate with team members, wherever they may be, is a valuable resource. Video conferencing in many cases is not only easier to use than a traditional conference call but cheaper as well. Many programs allow you to share your computer screen, which can be invaluable when trying to solve a problem or train an employee.

Hot new technological tools are being developed every day to help your business run more smoothly. While it's usually a waste of time and a bad idea to continuously upgrade to new technology, as that creates turmoil, it's equally as important to stay aware of technological developments in your field and in the general world of business, so you don't miss out on the newest technological trends that could be of great benefit to your business.