17 Useful Apps to Stay Connected During the Holidays
By Kim Honjo
The holiday season can be a chaotic time for many small businesses and startups. Customers and prospects are traveling, employees are working remotely, businesses are closing their books, and there’s always the push to have a successful Q4 to round out the year. Maybe you’re also traveling and visiting family and friends, but don’t want to completely unplug during the holidays. Luckily, there are a plethora of mobile apps available to help small and medium-sized business owners stay connected during the holidays. I’ve put together a quick list of helpful apps that you’ll want to install on your mobile device before you hit the road.
The Connected Workplace
What once seemed impossible is becoming more commonplace everyday — running your business from your phone has become a reality. No matter where you are, you can still monitor active deals, sign-off on documents and provide memorable customer experiences.
SalesforceIQ — Sell smarter from anywhere. With this app, you get instant access to all of your CRM data, right from your inbox. It’s easy to stay on top of all the deals moving forward from anywhere.
Google Drive — Access your files and collaborate on documents from wherever you are. Work together in real time on documents, spreadsheets, and presentations.
Docusign — Don’t let paper-based processes slow you down. Circulate, revise, and approve documents in one place.
Desk.com — Now you can help customers from anywhere. Extend the power of Desk with this app. You can respond to requests, solve cases, and collaborate with your team.
Productivity
Got employees spending the holidays at all four points of the globe? Today’s innovative technologies can keep remote team members in touch and projects on schedule from anywhere with an internet connection.
Basecamp — A web-based project management and collaboration tool. Connect your whole team, assign projects and tasks, set deadlines, and share files in one unified space.
Trello — A favorite of our team. Trello is a visual organizational tool that keeps your team’s projects all in one place. Great for teams and projects of all sizes, and customizable for any kind of workflows.
Clear for Mac & iOS — Simple intuitive app for managing your tasks, reminders and to-dos. Create personalized lists that sync with iCloud.
Financial and Accounting
Revenue and cashflow are a large part of any business. But for small businesses, it can mean the difference between obtaining new inventory, giving employees bonuses, or not having enough on hand to pay the office lease. These apps help owners keep an eye on balances, and speeds up invoicing and expensing.
Invoice2Go — Instead of waiting to get back to the office, invoice on the spot. Get paid faster, and save time. Best of all, everything is backed up in the cloud and synced across all of your devices.
Expensify — No more saving receipts and tedious expensing. With this app, you can track expenses, snap pictures of receipts, and generate and submit expense reports on the go.
Paypal — Take care of financials quickly: check your balance, pay employees, and receive payments (including credit cards).
Social:
Some business owners do double duty by managing their company’s social media account or have their own active social presence. Use these apps to stay connected with your customers and the world.
Social Studio — Extend Social Studio’s capabilities anywhere you go. Publish content, engage with your community, and listen while on the go.
News apps — Stay up-to-date on breaking news and events. Apps like CNN Mobile and BBC News lets you create newsfeeds, skim through headlines, watch videos, and receive breaking news alerts.
Feedly — Prefer to get your news from multiple sites and sources? Setup a Feedly account to organize all the media you consume in one place: blogs, publications, YouTube channels etc.
Pocket — Sometimes you come across articles, videos and blog posts that you don’t have time to look at. Save it to Pocket and view it later, even while offline. Great for waiting in lines and aboard airplanes.
Traveling
Traveling during the holidays can be a stressful time for anyone. As a small business owner, you never know when your plans might change. Maybe an opportunity arises that needs you to meet with a prospect for lunch, or fly out to meet a customer. These apps keeps you organized and informed.
TripIt — One of the first travel organizers and it keeps getting more robust. Access your itineraries, sync with calendars, get directions, and even get flight refunds (TripIt Pro).
Localeur — Traveling to a new location or interested in getting local recommendations of eateries, shopping and sights? This app gives you curated lists and recommendations straight from the people who live in the area.
Hipmunk — Fast, easy hotel and flight booking. Hipmunk has a simple visual interface, notifies you when airfare prices drop, and allows you to book hotel rooms directly in app.
Your time is precious. It’s time to make every second count. Learn how to take your productivity to the max with our latest e-book today.
