17 Digital Tools Every Small Business Owner Needs

Looking for digital tools to promote your small business? Here is a list with 17 Essential Digital Tools Every Small Business Owner Needs

digital tools for small businesses

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New digital solutions regularly outpace existing methods. Businesses (and their owners) that fully exploit the capacities of modern technology have access to solutions that are often much more user friendly and efficient than traditional methods. Advancements in technology have also made digital solutions much more expansive than before and they now make dealing with a slew of business problems relatively pain-free. Whatever you do or sell, there is definitely something you’ll find in the list below that can smoothen out your operations, improve sales, and better your relationship with your customers.

Accounting Solutions

BoomTax integrates with many popular accounting software packages like QuickBooks and Xero to provide super simple 1099, W-2, and ACA e-filing. 

Some notable features include:

  • Import tax data with Excel, PDF, XML, or over API
  • E-file without an IRS/SSA account
  • Export forms to mailable PDFs
  • Email forms to vendors and employees on a customizable site
  • Unlimited free corrections
  • Support typically responds in 15 minutes or less

QuickBooks is a classic piece of accounting software that greatly simplifies bookkeeping. Over the years it has had significant updates to both its UI/UX and capabilities that have kept it at the forefront of accounting solutions. QuickBooks has a number of features that are highly favoured by their clients:

  • 24/7 access
  • Adaptive design for easy access on different devices
  • Automatic synchronization for consistently updated information
  • Ability to interface with banks or other applications
  • Easy tax entitlement claims
  • Unlimited free customer support

Xero is another popular software for simplifying accounting. Some of its features are similar to QuickBooks, but it has a lot more functions that are directly related to managing the actual expenses of your business. Some of the most popular features of Xero include

  • The ability to accept and make payments
  • Simplified expense claims processes
  • Interfacing with banks
  • Project tracking
  • Contact management
  • An accounting dashboard for tracking daily finances

Sleek is also an accounting program, but it also offers various other generalized services that are often helpful for multiple businesses. Besides the standard bookkeeping features, Sleek also offers assistance with incorporating, compliance, and insurance. Their accounting software offers

  • Timely updates
  • Payroll management
  • Receipt scanning using WhatsApp
  • Responsive support

HR & Recruitment

GrabJobs is a fast-growing recruitment platform centred in Southeast Asia. More than just a simple hiring platform that connects recruiters to applicants, GrabJobs offers a variety of add-on features to provide recruiters crucial insights and support to make managing candidates easier.

  • Job posting duplication across over 20 job boards in one click
  • 24/7 interview chatbots
  • Smart candidate matching and filtering based on interview scores
  • Automated interview scheduling, with reminders and confirmations
  • Analytics, including efficiency and recruitment metrics

JuzTalent is specifically an HRM software, meant to make managing employees simpler. Their available solutions cover a variety of possible needs from employee self-onboarding to payroll and leave management.

  • Self-onboarding and independent uploading of personal details by employees
  • Automatic tax regulation compliance
  • Complete leave management system, including application and approval
  • Scheduling with attendance tracking

Carbonate is another HRMS like JuzTalent. It’s meant to simplify human resource processes and reduce workforce requirements by increasing efficiency. Digital solutions also decrease your company’s carbon footprint. Some of the popular features of Carbonate are

  • Payroll management
  • Scheduling and attendance tracking, with optional facial recognition
  • Performance evaluation
  • Leave management

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems

Hubspot offers a CRM system with free basic services and then additional paid enterprise features. Their system is meant to help your business track sales and marketing activities and their effectiveness in real-time. Metrics like these are exceptionally valuable for tracking performance and identifying opportunities for additional growth. Their free features include

  • A reporting dashboard
  • Performance insights
  • Pipeline management
  • Deal tracking
  • Unlimited users, data, and up to 1,000,000 contacts

While they don’t have a freemium model, Pipedrive offers a free trial of their CRM system. Exactly as it sounds, Pipedrive is meant to help you streamline your pipelines and focus on the work that makes sales happen. Their customers prefer their product for more than a few reasons, including:

  • Pipeline’s user-friendliness
  • Integration with over 300 other tools like Google, Xero, Asana, and Slack
  • Task automation
  • Pipeline customization and planning

Capsule’s offers a CRM that’s simple to use and understand, with everything essential to a good system. Like other top CRM systems, they offer a pipeline that’s customizable to match your sales process that highlights important deals. Like Pipedrive, they offer a free trial of their service. Their list of features include

  • The ability to create multiple pipelines
  • Currency support
  • Opportunity filtering
  • Task and calendar management, including task automation
  • Sales analytics

Digital marketing channels

Modern marketing channels like Google Ads are more than just a service for buying ad space. They offer features that help your ads target your customers with as little waste as possible. With Google Ads, your ads will of course show up in Google search results. Key features include:

  • Ad appearance customization
  • Keyword theme advertising
  • Location-specific advertising
  • Budget-based advertising
  • Ad performance tracking

Facebook Ads are extremely popular because they still have a wide reach and are famously affordable. Setting them up is largely the same, except that you’ll have your choice between targeting Facebook on desktop, Facebook mobile, Messenger, and Instagram users—or all of them! Whatever your choice, you’ll have access to some useful features like

  • Ad appearance customization, including videos and slideshows
  • Audience selection
  • Budget-based advertising
  • Ad performance tracking

Marketing automation software

If your company uses emails to market to customers, Mailchimp provides an extremely useful service for improving your process. Their platform helps you easily construct great-looking emails and collect feedback on their performance. With Mailchimp you’ll be able to

  • Create audience lists
  • Create personalized emails and recipients
  • Test and schedule emails
  • Collect insights on engagement

SendPulse offers a more comprehensive suite of marketing tools than Mailchimp. Their list of features actually includes a CRM system as well, which supplements their marketing tools well. With SendPulse, you’ll find

  • The ability to market via emails, SMS, chatbots (on Messenger, Telegram, WhatsApp and similar services), or push notifications
  • Automatic integration of SendPulse products into the SendPulse CRM
  • Insights on marketing and sales performance
  • Collaborative tools to improve team communication

Metigy uses AI-driven technology to improve marketing decision making for their customers. You can also use their service to manage ad campaigns and social media marketing. Among its list of features, you’ll find:

  • AI recommendations for your brand based on the performance of previous marketing campaigns
  • The ability to create and publish social media campaigns
  • Analytics for performance tracking

Digital Ordering

Oddle is a digital ordering platform that caters primarily to restaurants. As a restaurant manager, you can set up services and online offerings that make management easier and customer service more efficient. Popular features of Oddle include

  • Setting up an online menu
  • Reservations management
  • Contactless dine-in and delivery ordering
  • In-person point of sale service

TabSquare is also a service geared toward helping restaurants find digital solutions that streamline operations management. Their AI-driven services attempt to help customers make the most of their dining experience, going as far as to make personalized recommendations based on personal preferences or popular food and beverage pairings. Their service has features such as

  • Order management
  • Integration with existing POS and kitchen systems
  • Smart self-service ordering systems
  • Online takeaway/delivery order management
  • Integration with Google Pay

FoodZaps provides many digital ordering add-on features but is primarily a point-of-sale system. Their service is specifically designed to be user-friendly for smaller food and beverage businesses and can be operated without an internet connection. Some other popular elements of FoodZaps are:

  • Customer self-ordering
  • Process and kitchen station management
  • TV menus and queue displays
  • Inventory management
  • Cashier and printing integration

Conclusion

Modern solutions to unchanging business problems are largely about automating processes to save on labour and time. Even once-complicated tasks like designing eye-catching adverts or creating online menus are now a breeze for someone with minimal previous experience. That’s part of the beauty of digital solutions is that you can easily capitalize on industry knowledge from experts who’ve come before and then realized solutions to their problems. Why not take advantage of every tool you have in your kit?

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