20 free apps to improve your business productivity
By Tim Adler on Small Business UK - Advice and Ideas for UK Small Businesses and SMEs The post 20 free apps to improve your business productivity appeared first on Small Business UK.
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By Tim Adler on Small Business UK - Advice and Ideas for UK Small Businesses and SMEs
Lloyds Bank has revealed that British SMEs with low digital capability could unlock up to an additional £84.5 billion turnover if they were to embrace technology.
However, many entrepreneurs baulk at having to buy expensive software packages outright or license Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) when the bill could run into thousands of pounds each year for small businesses on razor-thin margins.
Yet there are plenty of office productivity solutions out there that don’t tie you in to contracts.
Providing your workstation – whether it’s a desktop or mobile – is up to date, there are plenty of free alternatives to expensive software packages.
Some of these apps listed below use the freemium model, where entry level functionality is offered for free but you have to buy bolt-ons to unlock the full potential of what the app can do.
Some platforms are funded by advertising while others offer a free version as a way to scale up quickly.
Here are 20 free options for boosting your business productivity that don’t involve tying up hard-earned cash flow:
- Office Suites
- Email Apps
- Accounting
- Collaboration and Project Management
- Workplace Communication
- Social Media Management
- AI Tools
- On the Move – Apps for the mobile business
Office suites
Google Workspace Essentials
Google’s suite of online tools places more of an emphasis on collaboration than other suites out there. You can select people to work with you on the same document, spreadsheet, presentation or form, and you can all make changes in real time. The beauty of Workplace is that it interconnects with Google’s other offerings, such as Google Drive, which offers 15GB of free storage, and its Google Analytics tools, which shows you how web pages are performing. The latest addition to the suite is its AI (LLM) tool ‘Gemini’, which can also act as an assistant within some of the afore-mentioned tools.
Microsoft 365 Apps Online
Office was the ubiquitous business suite, offering staples such as Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and Outlook. Now rebranded as Microsoft 365, the free apps available offer the core products, plus you can store up to 5GB in its OneDrive back-up service. It also has its own AI platform ‘Co-pilot‘. To find out more about the full version of Office 365 go here.
Zoho
This basic free web-based suite is aimed at entrepreneurs and small businesses and includes a word processor, spreadsheet builder, CRM, and various other tools. It’s fine for simple tasks but you’re going to need to look elsewhere for more sophisticated features. It stores all of your documents in its free online storage space (1GB), and allows you to share them with (member) friends via email invitations. Zoho Writer has some nifty touches like a dark mode and a clacking typewriter sound to liven up a quiet office, while Zoho Sheet – its version of Excel – also allows real-time collaboration.
LibreOffice
This is an open source office suite, which means any of its millions of users can improve functionality. Available in over 100 languages, LibreOffice includes apps such as Writer (word processing), Calc (spreadsheets), Impress (presentations), Draw (vector graphics and flowcharts), Base (databases), and Math (formula editing).
Email Apps
The office suites already mentioned have their own email clients (that are all very good) but here we list out some of the best apps from other providers that will run well as a dedicated service on the most popular devices.
Thunderbird
Thunderbird is open source and is funded by user donations. It doesn’t collect personal data, sell ads in your inbox, or secretly train AI with your private conversations. It is part of the Mozilla family of tech products (the same people who make the Firefox browser). Manage your messages, calendars, and contacts in any Windows, Linux, Apple or Android device.
Edison
The core Edison Mail is app is free to use and has a bunch of useful features, such as colour coding, one tap unsubscribes, multiple signatures etc. It has won multiple awards and is consistently one of the most popular mail apps in the Android and Apple stores. The paid for version (Edison Mail +) has lots of built in security features, so if staying safe is a priority for your business then that is the way to go.
Mailbird
A desktop email client for Windows and MacOS, with a UX design that has been widely praised as being modern and sleek. Unfortunately, the free version is severely limited – you can only use it with one email account, and several of its most useful features (such as ChatGPT integration) are not available. The full version is just under £5.00 per month per user.
Accounting
Pandle
Pandle has been developed from the get-go with British small businesses in mind. It has easy to understand drop-down menus allowing you to enter transactions and suppliers, create quotes and customisable invoices and export figures to Excel. The platform also allows you handle multiple currencies, to create profit-and-loss and balance sheets, file VAT returns to HMRC through its Making Tax Digital initiative, and lots more. There is a mobile app version too.
The free version is not designed for large volumes of transactions and the bank import/explaining process is not that sophisticated. However, there is a Pro version at £5 per month (+VAT) which adds a lot of extra functionality.
Quickfile
QuickFile Accounting Software is free for small to medium sized accounts if the nominal ledger count remains under 1,000 in any 12 month period. It is MTD compliant, can handle multiple currencies, bank feeds, VAT and invoicing. It connects to many popular payment solutions (e.g. Stripe, Square, PayPal and others) and there is an API option to integrate with back office systems.
Collaboration and Project Management
nTask
nTask Basic Plan is free for up to 5 team members with unlimited workspaces. It’s a task management tool with an online calendar-based platform that enables you to create tasks, bundle those tasks into projects, convene meetings, flag issues and create timesheets. Nifty features include seeing what percentage of each task or project has been completed and integrations with many important apps like Google or Outlook calendars, Zoom and Teams, Zapier, and Slack.
Overall, nTask keeps abreast of the functionality of other, more expensive and complicated workflow management platforms.
Agantty
Agantty is from Germany. It is calendar-based, enabling you to add tasks, projects and assign team members, adding to a use-flow Gantt workflow chart. You can toggle between what needs to be done today, this week or this month. And it interfaces with popular cloud storage sites such as Dropbox and Google Drive.
The free version is for a maximum of one project (unless you are a non-profit, teacher or student). The paid-for version has no limits on projects, teams or tasks and also offers tech support.
Workplace Communication
Slack
Slack is a simple to use instant messaging system that enables much faster communication than interoffice emails. It enables you to group messages into theme-related “channels” such as “new project” or “export plan” – anything you want – keeping workplace conversations organised. It interfaces with cloud storage solutions including Google Drive, Dropbox and Microsoft 365. And it also feeds into project management systems such as Asana and Trello. British companies that use Slack include the BBC, Ocado and News UK. The free version is quite extensive but naturally there are limitations compared to the paid-for version – a list of which you can see here.
Flock
Flock’s simple, colourful interface allows you to have private or public conversations with workplace colleagues, upload files and create opinion polls with colleagues. It also connects with other commonplace apps such as Google Drive, Twitter and Trello and also has a nifty video conferencing feature. The free version is aimed at small teams getting started, offers 10 public channels, stores up to 10,000 messages, and has 5GB of storage per team. The Pro paid-for version offers more functionality and comes in at around US$4.50 per user per month.
Social Media Management
Buffer
Buffer is a good solution for small businesses and covers all the key tasks associated with managing social media channels. Its free package enables 1 user account to connect up to 3 channels with 10 schedules posts per channel, with a basic analytics package and AI assistant. The Essentials paid-for version offers more functionality at US$5.00 per account per month.
Crowdfire
Boasting a clean, easy-to-use interface, the free version of Crowdfire is quite limited at only 10 scheduled posts per account (3 max), but it does give you a chance to test Crowdfire’s core capabilities across Facebook, Linkedin, X, and Instagram, plus offering hashtag recommendations and unlimited article and image curation.
AI Tools
Copy.ai
Copy.ai is a ‘GTM (Go-To-Market)’ platform built to help sales and marketing teams automate content creation and other ‘go-to-market’ processes using AI, offering tools for content generation, prospecting, CRM enrichment, and more. The free version offers: 1 Seat, 2,000 Words in Chat, connectors to ChatGPT 3.5 and Claude 3, the Copy.ai Brand Voice and Copy.ai Infobase.
ChatGPT
The most famous of the initial wave of AI LLM chatbots, ChatGPT still offers a free package for everyday, content-related tasks: Access to GPT‑4o mini and limited access to GPT‑4o and o3‑mini, real-time data from the web with search, limited access to file uploads, data analysis, image generation, and voice mode, and you can create custom GPTs.
Pixlr
On the Move – Apps for the mobile business
Evernote
At its most basic, Evernote allows you to create notes, to-do lists and share them. It works across iPhones, Windows, Android and Mac. The free version is limited to 50 Notes and 1 Notebook, 1 device connection and 250MB of monthly uploads at 200MB maximum Note size. The Evernote Professional version costs £8.74 a month and enables up to 150,000 Notes, 2,000 Notebooks, 20GB of monthly uoloads
Doodle
If you’re on the road and juggling client meetings, Doodle – available on iOS and Android – is a fast way to check participant availability and fix times and dates. It also integrates with your favourite calendar, whether it’s iCalendar, Outlook or Google.
The free option offers basic scheduling, suggests times, lets you invite participants, pick the best option and lock the meeting, connect calendars, plus some add-ons like group polls.
The ‘Pro’ version costs US$6.95 per user per month and allows you to send reminders, send calendar invites, add your company logo, scrape participants’ contact information, collect payments with Stripe and more.
Further reading
Best payment apps for small businesses
Top nine business apps for busy business owners
How to improve productivity by investing in the right office furniture
The post 20 free apps to improve your business productivity appeared first on Small Business UK.
