Top business and finance apps for business owners

As business owners ourselves, we understand that your time is valuable and believe the tech you use should give you back time (not take away from it). That’s why we’ve created this list of top business and finance apps for business owners that will set your business up for success and growth in 2022.

*Learning curve score: 1 (easy) – 5 (difficult)

Best productivity apps for small businesses

Hiver

If you use Gmail for business and have multiple inboxes or send recurring emails then this add-on is a must and will help you nail your customer service! Hiver helps you easily access, assign and track emails coming to a shared customer service account. Hiver also has a great range of email templates that you can use when sending out various emails.
Learning curve: 2.5
Integrations: Gmail

zCal

A fast and free calendar scheduling option for online meetings to save you loads of time. While there’s not as many features as a paid-alternative like Calendly, zCal provides a lot of value if you don't need the other features, and you’ll never have to send a generic booking link again.  
Learning curve: 1
Integrations: Google, Office 365, Zoom

Tally forms

Need to collect information internally or externally? Tally is a powerful and stylish form builder for all sorts of needs – no coding required! Best of all there’s a free tier that allows you to do almost anything you want. You can also link this with a no-code tool like Make to connect to Xero for contact management and invoice entry if required.
Learning curve: 3.5
Integrations: Google, Notion, Slack, Zapier, Make

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Best apps for online banking and finance function for small business

Paytron

We love (and use) Paytron as it offers low cost, same day global payments to 180+ countries with automated reconciliation, and allows you to hold money in 37 currencies and convert them for 0.5% (!!!). This app is super easy to set up, and makes it simple for businesses to pay and get paid, and even allows you to pay international bills created in Xero – just click approve.
Learning curve: 1.5
Integrations: Xero

Airwallex

This app simplifies doing business overseas and helps you streamline your finances and admin. Collect and hold money in more than 11 currencies, give your team cards, set spending limits and manage employee expenses in real time. With good foreign exchange rates and hourly Xero integration so your books are always up to date…what more could you want?
Learning curve: 1.5
Integrations: Xero

Best bookkeeping and accounting software for small businesses

Dext

Dext is one of our go-to digital bookkeeping tools that we tell everyone about – it allows you to capture and store all your invoices, receipts and bills and automatically sends them to Xero. That means no more wasting time scanning, saving and manually uploading receipts (🥳).
Learning curve: 2
Integrations: Xero + other major accounting softwares

Pinch Payments

There are loads of online payment platforms to choose from, but if you’re looking to collect payments on autopilot, try Pinch (it’s what we use). Pinch seamlessly integrates with Xero, invoices are easy for customers to understand, there’s a great range of payment options including direct debit (perfect for if you struggle with late payers), and we think its back-end admin is way simpler than competing products.
Learning curve: 3
Integrations: Xero + other major accounting softwares, Hubspot, DEAR Inventory Management

Best project management apps

Xero Projects

Monitor projects and profitability in one dashboard with Xero Projects. Prepare quotes for jobs based on your estimates, send customised invoices, and track time and costs using the app timer or location-based tracking. Xero Projects has improved a lot since it was brought out, and is a great option for businesses that don’t need a full fledged job management tool.
Learning curve: 2
Integrations: Sits within Xero

ClickUp

ClickUp is a cloud-based collaboration and project management tool for businesses of all sizes and industries. Features include task assignments and statuses, alerts and a task toolbar. Users can create custom dashboards, assign comments and tasks to specific team members or groups of team members. Although it doesn’t have invoicing options, the mobile app is very user friendly, and has internal time tracking and integrated options if needed too.
Learning curve: 3.5
Integrations: Slack, Google, Dropbox, Microsoft, Zoom, Time tracking (various options)

Best to-do list app

Google tasks

Like a paper to-do list but better. This simple app is hidden behind a button in Gmail and Google calendar and (in our opinion) has improved a lot lately. Keep track of your daily tasks and set recurring tasks, organise multiple lists, and track important deadlines. Tasks synchronise across all your devices, so your lists and tasks go with you, wherever you are.
Learning curve: 1
Integrations: Google Workspace, and Make and Zapier allow you to connect it to anything you want!

Best ways to forecast for business

Causal

Causal's formulas are in plain English – no cell references or obscure syntax – and a single Causal formula can do the work of tens, and even hundreds of spreadsheet formulas. Built-in scenarios let you easily compare what-if scenarios and understand the full range of possible outcomes of your model. Causal helps you build models fast, connect them to your data, and share them with interactive dashboards and great looking visuals.
Learning curve: 5
Integrations: Xero (paid), Google Sheets (free), Airtable, Hubspot

Pry.co

Great for startups and businesses that need to produce models for investors – say goodbye to messy spreadsheets. Pry makes it easy to track and categorise revenue and costs, review profit, loss and balance sheet, add metrics to investor updates, and always know your cash runway and forecast anything with custom formulas. This app is similar to Causal but a bit more user friendly, plus they’ve just introduced a free tier now as well.
Learning curve: 4.5
Integrations: Xero, Google Sheets

Website Builders

Unicorn Platform

Unicorn Platform is a drag and drop website and blog builder tailored for startups, mobile apps, and SaaS. Their pre-built template designs are great and take the decision-making out of design choices, and are easily customisable. It’s not only easy to use but easy to master as it requires no-coding skills to build a seriously cool-looking landing page.
Learning curve: 4
Integrations: Intercom, Drip, Crisp, Google Forms, Maps

Carrd

A simple to use website builder that lets you create one-page sites for everything from personal profiles to landing pages to capture emails. Carrd’s free tier is great, and has a low cost paid option, and you can easily build one-page sites for pretty much anything. It’s simple, responsive, and has excellent templates and options to customise, even at the free level.
Learning curve: 4.5
Integrations: Airtable, Email, Zapier and Make

Apps if you want to push yourself

Make

Make is the ultimate integration tool/workhorse/unicorn/extraordinaire! Make is a no-code tool like Zapier but you can create more complex workflows, and you get more bang for your buck! Integrations are THE way to optimise your workflows. Basically you can connect apps and automate workflows in seconds and can also move data between apps without effort. For example, we now receive notifications in Slack for Xero transactions, so we don’t have to always check our Xero dashboard.  
Learning curve: 5
Integrations: ActiveCampaign, Airtable, Android, ClickUp, Discord, Email, Facebook, Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Sheets, Instagram, Mailchimp (the list goes on…basically anything and everything 😂)

Tech should help, not hinder your productivity, so try not to use these apps as a way to procrastinate (trust us, we know, it’s tempting to try everything!)

We hope you’ve enjoyed our top picks this year for business and finance apps for business owners. We get that finance isn’t a stand-alone function, so we work with startups and established businesses of all sizes to implement tech solutions that save time and add value across all parts of your business.

Choose technology that streamlines your business, rather than adds more things for you to do (fancy is not always functional!), and remember, look for opportunities to automate repetitive tasks and processes, you’ll be amazed at how many efficiency gains you’ll make with a little legwork.

We’re more than just accountants. Find out how we can help you streamline your accounting and business tech.

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