Top 5 Administrative Tools for Small Businesses

Thanks to the constant progress of digital tools and the variety of packages available to businesses of all sizes and means, business administration is now easier than ever for small business owners.

However, the tedium of managing the day-to-day of everything from incorporation to recognition, tax management, and recruitment takes up a lot of a business owner’s valuable time – time that could be better spent elsewhere or enjoying other aspects of life.

With that in mind, below are the top five administrative tools for small businesses.

1. Incorporation Service

Determining what kind of legal entity your business will be is one of the most crucial decisions that small business owners face. Whether during the planning stage or for other reasons during the lifecycle of your business, choosing to incorporate is a critically important consideration.

Most small business owners seek legal expertise and help when incorporating, but you can also incorporate online and potentially save yourself a considerable amount of time and money. 

However you go about it, incorporating allows a small business to issue stock options, access different types of funding, provides additional credibility, establishes a layer of protection between business owners and the business’ operations, and features several tax incentives.

As a result, incorporation is one of the most important decisions a small business can make, whether during the startup stage or later on. 

2. Recognition Software

It was already a well-established fact before the pandemic, but 2020 was definitely the year during which business leaders at companies of all sizes recognized the importance of recognition and rewards in the workplace, whether on-site, remote, or hybrid.

Because of this recognition, a growing number of companies now offer reward and recognition software that helps make peer-to-peer and manager-to-employee recognition easier and more varied. In addition, there are different price points for various sizes, so you don’t need a workforce of hundreds of thousands to get a lot out of these programs. 

If you want to create a culture of recognition, there is no better way to do so than putting in place the digital tools and infrastructure to support it. Developing and fostering this kind of culture is particularly important for small businesses with a remote workforce that might be distributed worldwide, and therefore does not have the chance to meet and form relationships in person.

3. Tax Software

Having a trusted and reliable tax software underpinning your accounting and finances is essential for small businesses for several reasons. First off, many small business owners are unaware of all of the many business deductions available to them, and tax software will help you find them.

Identifying all of the credits and deductions available to you as a business owner will help you lower your tax rate. Most good tax software will also make sure that you are entitled to claim anything you do claim.

While all of these deductions are freely available on government websites, trying to make sense of the various conditions and qualifying statements can be confusing. 

Having good tax software also makes e-filing easier and reduces the chances of mathematical errors. A professional accountant is expensive and, though often well worth it, not always necessary.

A tax software program for small businesses is something every small business owner should look into. Keep in mind that there is tiered pricing depending on the size and scope of your operations. 

4. Task Management 

Task management software helps teams schedule and manage tasks in ways that allow teams to collaborate, share information, keep up to date on workflows and ensure that every employee knows what they are supposed to be doing at all times. Most task management software syncs and integrates with things like Google calendar and even communication programs like Slack to automatically update all downstream applications.

Task management software is crucial for small businesses because it helps them prioritize tasks, delegate them, manage time and keep everyone on track to meet critical deadlines. When used properly, these tools eliminate the need to use and organize sticky notes, micromanage employees, search through emails for to-dos, and waste time creating task hierarchies.

Task management applications are helpful for businesses of all sizes and with various workforces, from fully remote to hybrid or entirely in-office. 

5. Recruitment

Small businesses often overlook recruitment software because many owners figure that a smaller number of positions to fill means less need to try and make recruiting more automated and efficient. However, this could not be further from the truth.

Recruitment is the driving force behind sustained growth for businesses of all sizes and deserves care and attention, regardless of whether you are looking to fill two positions or 20. Moreover, with so much competition for top talent, a finely tuned recruitment process that efficiently finds and onboards people quickly is a significant competitive advantage. 

There is a wide range of recruitment software on the market to choose from, with different price points and packages for firms of all sizes. Recruitment software helps small businesses find and track qualified candidates, interview people, and even onboard new employees, making your hiring process more automated and, importantly, intuitive from start to finish.

The bottom line is that recruitment helps you find and shortlist people more effectively than a traditional, purely man-powered process. 

Conclusion 

Automation and better organization in the above key areas of business administration are two things that firms of any size can use.

Consider technology:

• To help you form a legal entity as you start
• To find ways to recognize and reward employees for hard work
• Like tax software to help you stay on top of your finances
• To automate task management for more streamlined workflows, and better use of time
• Like recruitment software to make finding and hiring the right people more efficient

There is a myriad of options out there to help you run your small business more effectively. The above areas of business administration are some of the most important but by no means the only ones deserving of strategic investment. 

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