Sometimes being efficient can seem like a daily chore – whether it’s keeping tabs on expenses, checking the quickest travel route or following energy saving advice. We’ve rounded up the top 10 apps to help make your business processes smoother.
Google Docs/Sheets
This app allows you to continue to share, edit and collaborate on projects where ever you are. If you use Gmail as your business email, this will prove a really efficient option. One small business that makes the most of Google docs/sheets is marketing agency, Bring Digital. Its director David Ingram says: “We love this app in the office. It pretty much negates the need to have Microsoft Office. It is also very usable across devices and all documents are live, so it’s much cleaner when multiple people need to edit a document”. If you’re looking to share and save large files with clients that don’t use Google Docs, Dropbox or WeTransfer are alternatives and are also free.
Price: Free
Citymapper
Whether you’re looking for a way to ease the stress of your daily commute, or if you run a business where staff travel to external meetings a lot, tools like Citymapper can help with up-to-the-minute information on public transport tell you when your bus or train will arrive. They’ll give details on how long a journey will take and the cost of each option. These are useful capabilities for saving precious working hours and money. Other useful transport apps to have at your fingertips while you’re rushing to and from the office are the National Rail Enquires app , London Transport live and, if you’re planning on booking flights for business, SkyScanner.
Price: Free
Receipts by Wave
For a small company, tracking of expenses is important for keeping within a budget. One way to keep an eye on what’s claimed is to save receipts digitally. Apps such as Receipt bank allow you to scan documents, save them to your phone and share them with your colleagues. Luke Budka, director at TopLine Comms, says: “Receipt Bank saves us time on a routine admin task that would ordinarily take quite a few hours each month to sort out.”
A similar, free, alternative is Receipts By Wave, which adds up the cost from all the receipts that you scan.
Price: Free
Skype
This popular desktop tool is great for video conferencing as well as its instant messaging feature. If you have workers or clients in other countries (or even other cities) this is a free way of keeping up with them face-to-face, when you can’t be in the same room. Bring Digital frequently uses Skype when email won’t suffice. “We’d rather talk through the details and Skype is great for this. It means our video calls are free, and it also keeps our business phone lines free for incoming calls,” says Ingrams.
Price: Free
JouleBug
Trying to be energy efficient might not be a riveting office habit, but create a game of any chore and it becomes that bit easier. JouleBug does just that. It awards points every time you follow an energy saving habit. If you’re an avid gamer fan or just proud of your Candy Crush record, the chance to climb a leadership board and win virtual trophies – just by remembering to switch off the lights once you leave a room – then JouleBug could be your perfect app. Recommend this to your colleagues and they might choose it over a sneaky game of patience.
Price: Free
Voucher Codes
Whether it’s a celebratory staff lunch, a networking dinner or regular office birthday gifts, this discount app can help you shave some cash off your business’s out goings. The Vouchercodes.co.uk site is useful, but means you have to print off vouchers. This, however, keeps vouchers at your fingertips and its GPS tracker means that it finds businesses nearby to you where offers are available.
Price: Free
The Cloud
If you’re glued to your smartphone while on the move – constantly checking emails, following the headlines or keeping up with social media posts – this app that offers free internet in hotspots across the UK. You just sign up for an account, download the app and log in wherever you are. If you and your colleagues use company mobiles this could help keep data costs down.
Price: Free
WeQ4U
If you ever have to call large company’s numbers for business, this app could be a handy addition to your mobile screen. It saves money on high cost numbers – like those prefixed with 01, 02, or 03 – as it waits in the phone queue for you until an operator becomes free. WeQ4U suggests you’ll save around 30p a minute on high cost phone calls.
Price: Free
AA parking
Both John English, founder of Security Drivers International Ltd, and Ingrams recommended this app. “This is great when we are visiting clients in city centre locations. Negating the need to drive around searching for a space, I think I’ve lost count of the time and petrol this has saved me”. It holds information on all the free and paid car parks in the UK and Ireland and gives you directions to the nearest space. English says AA Parking is an app he’s encouraged his whole team to use.
Price: £2.29
Account Tracker
This is another tool that’s helpful for keeping an eye on your spendings while on-the-go. English recommends it for personal use, but it could also be applied to business expenses. “By using Account Tracker I can easily monitor my outgoings which is a great way of keeping an eye on the pennies”. You can input all your bank accounts and view the balance of each on a single screen. It also allows you to set budgets for spending on different categories, such as mobile, savings or food and drink. English describes Account Tracker as a “great budgeting tool, which helps me keep track of my spending, balance and sends me handy reminders for bills”.
Price: £2.99
Content on this page is paid for and produced to a brief agreed with E.ON, sponsor of the Efficiency hub.
