Running a small business isn’t easy and it’s even harder for women. On top of the issues of running the day to day operations of a business, many female entrepreneurs also struggle to have families. Being at the office, picking up Andy from soccer practice and sending your workers checks out on time? There has to be something out there to make your life a little easier.
So what takes up your time at work? Barclays found that entrepreneurs on average spend 16 hours a week on administrative work, four hours on regulatory work. Developing their business only got eight hours a week! That’s a lot of time and money focused on paperwork rather than your business.
Does anyone like paperwork? It’s easy to lose or damaged and then there are the hours spent trying to read it and enter it into your database. In the age of digital information, paper still takes hours or days to go from a paper form, to data in your system.
Imagine a world where you entered that information once on a mobile device. You could take photos, capture GPS location, or even capture someone’s signature. All of that data would go straight to the cloud and easily integrate with your system. If you needed to share it, you could send a customized PDF to your client. No more lost forms, no more damaged data, no more data entry and no more ink smudged hands. Sounds nice doesn’t it?
With mobile apps, that world is here. You can already do all of those things and more with your phone. Why not harness it and save yourself the time and hassle? Those long hours you may have spent on paperwork can now be focused on growing your business. If you have workers in the field, they can spend more time doing their job, rather than commuting between the office and sites.
Mobile apps also give you the flexibility to work anywhere. Fill out invoices at your kids’ soccer practice, or at a quick break from meetings. Wherever life or work takes you, the work can still get done.
Whatever your business does, you started it because you were passionate about the work. Spend your time doing the work you love, not worrying about paperwork.
What are your must-have mobile apps for running your business and increasing productivity? Share them in the comments below.
About the Author
Katie is a content strategist for Canvas in Reston, Virginia.
