The iPhone is not just for fun – it’s also a great tool for small business. You can keep track of your customers, finances, and projects, and stay connected to the office no matter where you are.
Here is a starter list of must-have apps for business:
- Track your expenses with the Shoeboxed app.
You can actually capture images on your iPhone of a receipt, organize it, and store it online – all for free.
- Keep track of time you work on projects with Minibooks.
Connected to FreshBooks, Minibooks will then let you bill your clients for your time. You can track several projects at once. Even if you turn off your iPhone, it continues to track your time. It’s $9.99 but there is a free lite version you can try to see if you like it.
Plan your taxes ahead of time with Contracter, Freelancer, Small Business Tax Calculator.
By typing in your hourly or weekly rate, this free calculator will tell you what your monthly rate is, how much of it you’ll owe in taxes and how much you get to take home.
Manage your taxes with Opcenter.view- Quickbooks Desktop Data on the GO.
Connect to all your Quickbooks accounts and transactions – the app is only 99 cents, but you’ll have to download a desktop app as well as be a Quickbooks owner to fully use it.
Manage your business contacts with the LinkedIn app.
Browse your business connections from your iPhone, and be ready to establish new contacts with LinkedIn’s free app.
Organize tasks with EasyTask Manager.
Carry a digital to-do list with you, prioritize tasks, and add them to a calendar – all for free.
Keep track of your customers via Salesforce Mobile.
To fully use this app, you’ll need a Salesforce account – though there’s a lite version that you can try out for free for 30 days. Manage your customer accounts and initiate phone calls and emails.
Keep track of payroll through SurePayroll.
Pay employees, enter payroll hours, approve and run your payroll with just one click. This app also keeps track of payroll deadlines and helps submit payroll forms to the government. It’s free, but you’ll need a SurePayroll account to get full access.
Create visualizations of your business data with Roambi-Visualizer.
Get instant access to important information in graphical form. The app is also compatible with Excel spreadsheets. In addition the free version can access Salesforce.com, while the enterprise version is compatible with SAP Crystal Reports and SAP Business Objects.
Get hundreds of top business book synopses with Top Business Summaries.
Get text and audio recaps on popular business titles including “Wikinomics” and “Blink.”
Have another business app that you find invaluable? Add it in the comments, and make sure to let the Appolicious community know about it. Find more iPhone apps at Appolicious.
RedHotFranchises
IPhones, Computers and other modern entertainment gadgets can now indeed be used to build a lucrative business opportunity and commercialize your Small Business.
These iPhone Small business apps can definitely help to save more time, since time is money, make the most of apps to maximize your time value in any location.
Shara Karasic: Thanks for the list of productivity applications for iPhone. Do you know if the same apps are available for the Blackberry. I recently got a Curve 8310 smartphone. The person who sold it to me had recently bought an iPhone.
Great post Shara.
If I could add an eleventh to the list.
Follow your twitter on Tweetdeck
Kip Marlow
Wonderful article. Just got an I Phone reviewed a variety of apps to make me more efficient. You helped me greatly.
Thanks.
Shara Karasic
Martin – not sure if the same apps are available for the BlackBerry – perhaps you can ask at a site such as http://crackberry.com/. Andee – thanks for mentioning TweetDeck – here is the Appolicious review of the iPhone version: http://www.appolicious.com/apps/tweetdeck-for-iphone-tweetdeck-::50606. Kip – glad to help!
Shara: Thanks for the link. I will check it out.
Seeing lists like this makes me feel just a slight pang of desire for an iPhone…then I remember AT&T. If Apple really wants to tempt me they’re going to need to release a CDMA iPhone for Verizon.
Randy Jones
Martin Lindeskog is looking for equivalent apps for BlackBerry.
In the case of MiniBooks, please checkout “ReportAway! for FreshBooks” at http://www.reportaway.com . It does more than MiniBooks and it runs on a BlackBerry.
Jeff Ski Kinsey
For the truly small biz, there is “kinito lite” for accessing your SugarCRM app from the iPhone or iTouch.
Hi Shara, I work at Intuit and wanted to point out that we have another great iPhone App for small businesses called GoPayment. It lets business owners process credit card payments via their mobile phone, including the iPhone. It also lets them send an e-mail or text receipt and it syncs with QuickBooks so they don’t have to waste time manually re-entering transactions when they get back to the office. We have a customer who has 22 of her HVAC techs using it and she estimates that they are saving between $6,000 to $10,000 a year compared to their previous method. If you want a demo, just let me know.
Really great list, Shara! Thanks for including MiniBooks and a ton of other super productive tools for the freelancer on the go : )
FreshBooks integrates with Shoeboxed, also. So with MiniBooks and the Shoeboxed app, it’s super easy to transform piles of paper receipts into invoices in FreshBooks.
Rayanne Langdon — Queen of Hearts, FreshBooks.com
Shara Karasic
Sharna of Intuit – thanks for letting us know about GoPayment. And Rayanne, good to know that FreshBooks also integrates with Shoeboxed. So many cool ways for businesspeople to use their iPhones!
Shara
By the way, Appolicious just launched curated app lists for iPhone and Android – check out the one from Anita Campbell – “5 Essential Small Business Productivity Apps”:
http://www.appolicious.com/curated-apps/small-business-productivity-gtd
Or add your own list of your favorite business apps:
http://www.appolicious.com/curated-apps/featured
Shara
You might want to see HyperOffice for iPhone. It lets you access official mail (including Outlook), contacts, calendars, tasks and also documents on your mobile.
Paqq iphone
I spend waaayyy too much time on my LinkedIn app…much more than I have ever spent using LI on my PC. I just take those little extra moments we get throughout the day to make connections, track down old friends and see what other people are up to. Great app, and the price is absolutely right!!
Sopi
This list of apps is a big help. specially to small businesses who are establishing a name. I hope you could share some more apps. I also know a site which can help you create ideas to promote your products and services.
This is the source:
http://itunes.apple.com/app/adpack/id359562015?mt=8
thanks.
pixelrogue
mmm… sure that ShoeBoxed is free? My understanding is that the app is useless unless you subscribe to a monthly plan starting at 9.99.
ChoScore
When you think about it, iPhone apps have really changed the game for small business. For under $100 we’ve been able to implement applications that would have cost hundreds, if not thousands of dollars 5 years ago. From managing schedules (Schedule Me), to strategic sales profiling (OrgChart) to expense report creation and management (Expense Reports), implementing an infrastructure is easy…and best of all, if the app doesn’t work as expected or you out grow it, it’s easy to replace for minimal cost.
andrew
Check out http://www.BiznessApps.com
Were a start up company that let’s businesses create their very own iPhone app for only $39 a month. We have specialized templates for restaurants, bars, realtors, lawyers, gyms, and more.
Mobile apps are about building that connect with with your customers as well as establishing credibility, and what better way than creating your own iPhone app? I highly suggest checking us out.
Andrew Gazdecki
CEO of Bizness Apps
jstar
You can really see the benefit the iPhone gives different types of users. Most small businesses i know use iPhones personally, and by incorporating these business apps into the iPhone they can easily share information with the other employees. I cant see any other iPhone competitor bring this sort of game to a large variety of users!
Amber
I totally agree! Can’t live with out my iphone for my business.
🙂
Tynnisha Hamilton
Is there another post like this for 2011? I could only seem to find this one, but would really find it useful if I could find a post for this new year.
Hi Tynnisha, great idea 😉 there probably should be another post like this for 2011. In the meantime, just wanted to let you know that Appolicious just launched new app directories for both iOS and Android, including a Business subcategory including finance, expense, productivity, stocks, business travel and more apps… You can find them here:
http://www.appolicious.com/categories
http://www.androidapps.com/categories
Best,
Shara
Director, Social Strategy, Appolicious
http://www.appolicious.com
http://www.androidapps.com
Joey M.
Scanalyzer Pro Barcode Reader is excellent.
Is there another post like this for 2011?
Hi Jack, the 2011 version of this post is here: https://smallbiztrends.com/2011/02/50-must-have-small-business-iphone-ipad-apps.html
Enjoy!
Shara
kamran
Hi Sara,
Please advice me how shall i get my business over the i phone local deals.We are a hair and beauty salon bases in east london uk and want to publish our deal to local area.