The startup world is inundated with a long-running list of challenges that never seems to end. No matter what industry your company belongs to, the key to success is steadfast efficiency. If you’re subjecting your business to unorganized or outdated practices, you’re likely costing your business and wasting time that could be otherwise spent growing your business.
Today, startup entrepreneurs are at an incredible advantage thanks to open accessibility to a host of intuitive software programs that are specifically engineered to streamline business practices to increase overall efficiency. If you’re in the market for some new, innovative software to take your startup to the next level, you’ll first need to know what kind of software to arm yourself with. Using this guide, we’ll walk you through the types of modern software your startup needs.
1. Business Planning Software
What’s a business without a business plan? These integral elements to the foundation of any business make forecasting straightforward and allow you to gain bigger-picture insight into the information you need to know at any given moment. Business planning software allows you to set growth goals that bring your company to the next level and track those goals to gauge your progress.
Some useful features of business planning software include:
- Generate income statements, balance sheets, and break-even analysis forecasts
- Collaborate and share plans with investors
- Assess your finances, revenue, gross margin, expenses, and working capital
- Make revenue projections
- Create team salary forecasts
Check out of our favorite business planning software programs:
- NetSuite
- LivePlan
- Enloop
- BizPlanBuilder
- PlanGuru
2. Accounting Software
Being a business owner, you have plenty of goals that ultimately boil down to making money. When you make money, you have to file taxes, and in order to accurately fulfill your legal obligation, you’ll likely need to hire an accountant. Fortunately, amidst the digital age, you don’t necessarily need an accountant on retainer if you have some high-level accounting software in your tech arsenal.
Whether you need audit assistance or simply need a place to sign all of your documents, the right accounting software can streamline your tax season every year.
Accounting software can help you keep track of your finances, complete your balance sheet, and pay your taxes as quickly and correctly as possible.
3. Project Management Software
Productivity is easily the most important piece to your startup puzzle. There are hundreds of digital tools out there designed to keep you and your team on their A-game every single day. Investing in project management software is a smart move for a startup of any size.
These genius programs allow you to do everything from manage team efficiency to track the time it takes to complete a deliverable from start to finish. With so many options available on the market, picking the best project management software for your startup means assessing your needs and wants. Whether you’re more interested in collaborative work or bird-eye views on projects, there’s a program out there that will suit your startup well.
Check out these business favorites:
- Asana
- Robohead
- Monday
- Trello
- Huddle
4. HR Software
Even if your company’s workforce is only a handful of workers, having some form of human resources is an important element to integrate early on. Even if you decide to have a part-time HR professional on board, having HR software makes it easier for you to comply with legal regulations and tackle any human-resource-related matters. Whether you need digital assistance in hiring new employees or developing benefits packages, smart HR software can do it all.
5. Internal Communication Software
Communication is an indispensable factor that plays a huge part in the success of any business. If your workspace is like most modern startups, your team works in an open office setting, or you could be leasing coworking space, that can get pretty noisy if everyone decided to communicate at the same time. To silence the noise and keep productivity high, invest in smart internal communication software.
Sure, there’s no ousting the classic (and incredibly important) email, but having an instant messenger can streamline your channels of communication and allow you to work harder and smarter.
Check out these star-studded internal communication software programs:
- Slack
- Blink
- BlogIn
- Flock
- Slenke
6. Idea Management Software
Idea Drop is a cloud-based idea management solution designed for mid-size businesses. It offers an idea submission portal, collaboration tools, campaign management, idea curation, and analytics. What’s not to love?
Idea Drop features idea submission, which allows users to capture ideas from multiple teams with the help of customizable forms. Users can also tag other users, including hashtags, links, and attachments. The software also features idea cloaking, which allows users to submit ideas anonymously.
Did we miss anything? What software programs are essential to your business? Let us know in the comments below.
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These are great tips. My fiance’ is a small business owner and uses a few different things to help himself.