7 Small business apps that will transform your businesses

The accounting industry benefits daily from the technology boom. It wasn’t long ago that some colleges and universities discussed “general ledgers,” “the books,” and so on.

Accounting hadn’t changed in a long time, but now I am pleasantly surprised when I see new applications emerging that can change accounting and help you efficiently and effectively run your business. I’ve narrowed it down to seven business apps that will transform your business.

QuickBooks Online (QBO)

QBO empowers you to run your business at its best by saving your time and money. According to Intuit, over 98% of customers agree that QBO makes it simpler to manage a business like theirs as it acts like a hub that you can integrate with other apps.

QBO also connects to your bank and credit card. In addition to your connected bank accounts and apps, QBO provides customized reports to view your business’ growth. With reports, you can see your business’ trends and make informed decisions.

Personally, I love running comparisons either year by year or quarter by quarter. I don’t think that you have to be a geek to appreciate this.

If you are a serious entrepreneur, you will know how valuable this is.

Benefits

• Instant backup
• Access to data from anywhere at any time
• Instant score card and reports
• Collaborate with partners
• Improve cash flow
• Receipt management
• Up-to-date software

Dext

This app saves a ton of time and, indirectly, makes you the best record keeper. As you take pictures of your receipts or email them to your unique Dext email, the built-in OCT technology reads the data such as supplier name, invoice number, invoice data, costs, taxes, and methods of payment and submits them to your preferred accounting software.

One of our Numetrica clients submitted over 1,300 receipts to Dext by having his kid scan them in a few minutes – this saves hours of time! Our staff can configure a Dext account in a matter of minutes, upload receipts, and have them published in your accounting software to save even more time and money.

Better yet, Dext saves electronic receipts for 10 years. If the CRA asks for any of those receipts we can identify them again in minutes. Time saved is money earned – tax-free.

Benefits

• Save time
• Improve accuracy of uploading receipts
• Audit trail
• Connects with QBO
• Record keeping
• Cloud storage

Dropbox

This is one of my favourites – all of our clients’ data live on this app. We can easily go to any client’s folders and find any documents that were previously saved.

For instance, one of our clients in Victoria, BC was looking for his GST election. With Dropbox, we instantly identified and submitted it to the CRA portal. Not only did we save time, but we also saved paper! We used to go through so many boxes of paper, but since adopting Dropbox, we have not printed any tax returns for the CRA or clients.

Another great Dropbox feature is transferring files. For example, if your mortgage broker wants a copy of your T1 General or tax return, we just simply select the file or files and use file transfer. This is super secure and the transfer will expire in a couple of days if not downloaded.

I highly recommend this since emailing tax files is not safe and can be hacked. I still see clients transfer sensitive documents such as tax returns through email, if this gets hacked it will be disastrous.

Benefits

• Secure file sharing
• Cloud storage
• Instant document signature
• Back up
• Secure file transfer

Slack

I have nothing against email, however, if you have hundreds of clients and send numerous emails, good luck finding a piece of specific information in those emails! Through Slack, specific channels can be created. These channels could be clients’ names and the communication about those clients is then conducted in that channel. You can easily see what actions need to be taken, what has been accomplished, and more!

Benefits

• Better communication with the team
• Communication trail
• Communication per channel/clients
• Sharing documents

T-Sheets (now QB Time)

This superpower software application keeps track of employees’ hours, time, and even their location through GPS. Once you or a manager has approved the hours, the data can be sent to QBO for the payroll to be processed. Employees can be set up on T-Sheets and work on different projects.

One of my favourite features lets you see how much time was spent on a specific project either by all staff or just one employee.

Benefits

• Keep track of employee hours
• Keep track of hours per project
• Keep track of employee time and location
• Adding employee hours effectively
• Efficient scheduling

Rotessa

Cash flow mismanagement is a number one business destroyer.

Let’s face it, if you can’t pay your expenses on time, you are faced with disaster. Once you start using Rotessa and have the authorization to debit clients’ bank accounts, the cash collection becomes more efficient and effective.

Benefits

• Less processing charges
• Automatic bank debits
• Connects to QBO and Xero
• Cash straight to your bank account

Hubdoc

Similar to Dext, it saves the receipts, reads relevant or important data, and publishes them to QBO. What I really like about this app is that once installed and connected to a bank account, it will download bank statements as far as 2016 in a matter of minutes.

We set up one of our dentist clients on Hubdoc since he had no time to go to the bank, order the bank statements, and wait for a long time to receive the statements. Once we set him up, as he and I were discussing how we can transform his business, Hubdoc fetched over 300 bank statements!

Benefits

• Save time
• Improve accuracy of uploading receipts
• Audit Trail
• Connects with QBO
• Record keeping
• Cloud Storage
• Fetching bank statements

Small businesses can be transformed when you use just a few – or all seven – of these powerful business apps!