8 Helpful Finance Apps for Small Business Owners

Without a doubt, people who run small businesses have more than just their jobs, day-to-day deliverables, and client requests on their plates; they inevitably have lots of financial information, receipts, data, and calculations to keep track of. Sometimes, they may face problems while drawing up a budget or tracking personal and office expenditures—things that can greatly affect an independent business owner’s bottom line. Moreover, living in such a fast-paced world, it can be easy to forget to pay back a loan or file taxes on time.

Fortunately, there’s an array of mobile apps to help manage finances, to trade, or to keep an eye on a budget while doing business or traveling.

In September of 2016, users downloaded around 130 billion apps from the App Store alone, and about 2.23% of those downloaded were financial apps. This data is proof that these types of apps are gaining popularity. In a way, they’ve become so-called digital advisors that can give tips on when and how to spend funds, how to detect amounts of “misspent” money, and more.

Some apps even have algorithms that can automate processes or notify users when they are on the brink of making a costly mistake.

However, while looking for the best financial apps, it’s important to consider a broad array of features:

• Does the app help you to reach your goals (whether that’s expenditure tracking or tax payments alerts)?
• Is the app equipped with high-level security and fast real-time execution?
• What do you need from the app, a friendly user interface or more advanced technological features?

Here are the top 8 financial apps designed to help you to run your small business or manage personal finances as a freelancer.

IRS2Go

IRS2Go by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is perfect for those who dread tax season. It easily deals with tax reports by tracking returns, checking the refund status, making payments, and allows you to locate free tax preparation assistance. It also includes a secure payment processed through your banking account.

The app uses your location to help you seek nearby Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) or Tax Counseling for the Elderly (TCE). IRS2Go also enables you to make phone calls to the IRS or VITA/TCE locations. One thing to note: the app isn’t able to store the Social Security number (SSN) due to security risks—it has to be entered manually. IRS2Go is available for free on iPhone and Android.

Mint: Money Manager

Mint: Money Manager helps you plan your budget and reduce expenses with accurate, automatic calculations. It can track all of your financial operations via your banking accounts and also can be set up to receive bill reminders. The beauty of this app is that it’s integrated with all major Canadian and US financial institutions and banks. Mint reminds you of upcoming bills and can automatically pay them for you (if necessary). Also, Mint suggests financial accounts with the best interest rates and can provide valuable advice on managing finances not only for your business, but also for you and your family.

As for the app’s cons, as of right now it’s only available to Americans and Canadians, and it also has no percentage-based savings goals. Mint is available for iPhone or Android for free and can be synchronized with Apple Watch.

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Goodbudget

Goodbudget is a useful envelope budgeting app. It’s also been downloaded more than 1 million times and has earned the reputation of a faithful companion in preparing financial reports and analyzing expenditures. All of the transactions conducted within your business framework are synced with the cloud. Moreover, you’re granted email support and 5 years of stored transaction history.

Users can apply tools like “Bill Keeper” and “Capital One Wallet” to keep up with upcoming bills and procurement processes. It’s synched with multiple devices, giving you a chance to share info with budgeting partners. The app doesn’t have a demo version, so, before choosing its paid version and installing it, it’s best to watch some videos to understand whether it meets your needs. Goodbudget is available on both the App Store and Google Play.

MoneyBook

MoneyBook by Noidentity has a simple and attractive interface. Download this app on your mobile phone you can track all the monetary operations in the form of animated statistics. MoneyBook holds profit and expenses info, makes precise calculations in the currency you need.

It supports an array of languages, including English, Spanish, Italian, German, French, Russian, Finnish, Swedish, Dutch, and Chinese. In case you lose your mobile phone, feel secure using its free cloud backup. As of the time of this article, MoneyBook is available only for iPhone users at the price of $2.99.

Simple Loan Calculator

Simple Loan Calculator by Clean Micro is a good fit for small businesses owners with loans. With this mobile app you can enter your profit value and get info on affordable loan amounts you can spend within a certain period of time.

In addition, this calculator can be useful for those who deal with credit sales. The app is free and easy to use, but lacks graphs that could simplify financial information. Currently, it can be downloaded only from the App Store.

Learn: How to Invest in Stocks

Learn: how to invest in stocks by Rubicoin, Ltd. is a great tool for novice investors. It’s a free app with a user-friendly design that teaches you how to invest step by step. With this app you can enjoy 40 lessons of original content that outline the basics of investing in the stock market. If you prefer, you can listen to the audio-only versions on the go and mark what you already learned to track your progress. Download the app for both iPhone or Android.

Toshl Finance

Toshl Finance is a handy expense tracking tool for small business owners. As a budget keeper and bill organizer, the app monitors expenses under the same account, filters budgets by categories and tags, exports PDFs, Excel spreadsheets, Google Docs, and CSV reports. Other Toshl Finance features include: supports for 165 currencies (with real-time exchange rates) and cloud syncing, so you don’t have to worry about losing spending histories.

Toshl Finance nicely displays the info, providing charts, expense locations maps, graphs, and notifications when you approach your budget limits, repeated expenses/income within a custom time period, photos of receipts, and more. Download it for iPhone or Android.

Venmo

Venmo is a handy app for sending and receiving money. Forbes calls it a “crown jewel” financial app, and there’s good reason why. Use a recipient’s name, @username, email or phone number to send money immediately. The app won’t allow you to forget your or your partners’ debts, as it stores all the necessary info. It’s also possible to sync Venmo with Facebook or phone contacts.

Beyond that, the personal financial info is highly protected thanks to encryption. You can find Venmo on the App Store or Google Play.
Each mobile app is useful in its way as it responds to certain needs and requirements. This by no means covers the full list of available apps that can be used by individuals and small businesses to plan and control budgets, expenditures, investments. Need something that’s not already out there? You can turn to mobile development experts with experience with financial app development who can create something fresh and unique by combining some features and functions of the above-mentioned apps.

This article was submitted by Yana Yelina and does not constitute the views or opinions of Upwork.