The logistics surrounding the process of running a business can be challenging. Handling an endless list of things at once will take a toll on your sanity. To provide yourself with the much-deserved rest and boost your mental health, use software to help out many of the daily operations. Not only is this good for automating or organizing things, but you can spend your days worry-free because the errors will be reduced, and everything will run more smoothly.
Software is there not only to help you organize the business, but also to improve your well-being. A lot of the things that you can achieve with the help of software are otherwise causing you headaches and stress. That’s surely not good for anyone, and today, it’s absolutely unnecessary.
The 5 Types of Management Software Every Business Needs Today
Before we jump into the reasons why you need management software, let’s have a look at the 5 most important kinds that you and your business needs today.
1. Inventory management software
Any business that manufactures, moves around or manages some kinds of products needs a quality inventory management system. This makes for a wide variety of companies and organizations. With the right system, you can manage your stock more effectively, minimize unnecessary expenses, and keep your sales running without disappointing your customers.
Not to mention, this will rid you of many worries over missing items, whether you should order things or not, and headaches that we all get when our clients are being let down.
Thanks to software solutions like Lightspeed, companies today can keep track of what they have in their company. You can use the system to create all sorts of product variations based on color, size, and materials; bundle things to be sold as packages, and process work orders from a single system.
It’s not just fun, but it makes everything simpler for you and people in your company.
This eliminates many problems for your company. Most importantly, it eliminates these three scenarios:
1. A customer wants a product that you no longer have. You might have forgotten about it, miscalculated, or didn’t think you’ll need it. Regardless of the reason, you lose that customer – maybe even forever.
2. You have too much of a product in stock and no one seems to be buying that thing. That’s called overstocking and is an unnecessary expense for your business (often even a big one).
3. You’re constantly frustrated over what to order, what you have in stock, where things are, and how to organize them. This is definitely not good for your well-being. Having something that organizes it all without errors is an amazing tool.
Luckily, this type of software can help you do everything with little effort. You can use it to learn what you need and have at your disposal, order the products you lack and consolidate every purchase into a single order. You can use preloaded catalogs to make your purchases, automate the processes, and not worry about missing products ever again.
Need to move your inventory around? With inventory management software, you can change prices in bulk, automate discounts, allow donations and giveaways, create promotions and coupons, and set up pricing rules for each product.
Based on the accurate data you always have at your disposal, you can make smart and informed decisions for your business. Everything is simpler when you have all the data in front of you. Some of the opportunities that this type of data provides you with include:
· Track unit margins and costs
· Detect when your inventory level is diminishing and needs restocking
· Set notifications for reorder points
· Anticipate the current and near-future shopping trends
· Reduce inventory costs
2. Accounting software
It doesn’t matter how old, new, big or small your business is – you still need accurate and consistent accounting. With the right software, this can be a thousand times easier for you. The market today is full of choices when it comes to accounting software, so chances are you will find one that meets your particular needs.
Finances are overwhelming even for those who are great at math and have a lot of experience with this. Instead of spending a fortune on accountant firms or spending your nights over the books cramming numbers, you can use software to take things over altogether.
Developers like Quickbooks and Xero have come a long way in providing businesses with the accounting services they need. They can assist you with:
· Monitoring the cash flow
· Monitoring expenditure
· Keeping your books accurate
· Tax filing, etc.
Not only that, but such tools are also a great way to handle the payroll. For example, Xero can be used to efficiently track and process payslips, payroll, year-end bonuses, superannuation payments, etc. With the help of software like Quickbooks, you can hassle out the most complicated, frequently debilitating processes for a company.
Making sure that everyone gets paid correctly and in time is essential for the survival of your business – both financially and productively speaking. If people are unhappy with your payment system, you’ll struggle with employee retention. According to Roubler, 54% of employees have experienced errors with their pay. Out of the surveyed participants, 26% have been underpaid at some point, 6% have been paid too much, and 15% have been receiving late payments.
Errors like these are common and they can be grave – both for your employees and your business. With the right payroll and accounting software, you can avoid such errors.
3. Time tracking software
Time is a vital resource in a business. This is a very precious commodity, something that you need to get as much control over as you can. Ideally, you should use all the help you can get to maximize your rest and wellness time. With the right tools, you can organize everything into a tightly-packed schedule and spend the rest of your day resting, exercising, and doing whatever is part of your healthy routine.
How can you achieve this?
It’s easy – you just need the right time tracking software. Popular tools like Timecamp and Toggl will help you understand how your employees spend their time when they should be working, and give you better control in your company’s day-to-day operations.
Not only does this give you access to comprehensive and accurate data regarding time management, but it also allows your team to better organize their time – and their workload. With such tools, you can achieve the following – and more:
· Know what your employees are doing when they should be working
· Record time spent on projects and tasks to detect problems that your staff might have
· Record time by groups of workers and individuals
· Document the effort and time spent on individual clients or customers
· Better understand where your business needs improvements or changes
· Better manage your charging of customers
4. Project management software
Do you create projects for your teams to complete? If you do, you need quality management software. Such a program is an invaluable asset to business operations. It provides you with the ability to organize big, complicated projects, break them down into smaller tasks and segments, and get instant access to organized data related to that same project.
Breaking big tasks apart is a great way to keep yourself and others motivated, as well as reduce the pressure that each important project brings on people. It’s good for the business, and it’s good for the people.
Systems like Trello will help you run the organization’s projects without a hitch. You’d be amazed at how many unexpected issues can come along the way if you have no control over the project’s progress, its data and if you don’t organize the tasks in it. Broadly speaking, good project management software will help you learn where, how, and why you’re spending and allocating resources to complete a given project.
5. Customer relationship management software
Your customers are the people that make your business thrive – and allow it to survive. Employees assist you in getting there – reaching customers and offering your products to them. Building strong relationships with customers is key to high retention and returning clients. That’s how a business can thrive – when people know about it and love it.
But, what happens when they actually show interest in your offerings?
The relationship you build with customers, whether they are new or existing ones, is key to the survival of your business. Did you know that 84% of consumers consider this to be a key factor when they decide whether to buy from you?
If you want to get control over how your business interacts with customers and improve their satisfaction levels, you need good customer relationship management software. Developers like Zoho have managed to provide users with a solution – a way to gather data that can be used to better understand and communicate with the audience.
The right CRM software gives you a better understanding of all interactions between your business and its customers. You can use this data to keep up with the trends, improve your marketing strategies, boost your customer support, and build a rapport with your client database.
Reasons why you need business management software
If you still have some doubts about using such tools or other types of business management software, here are the reasons why you should opt for it right away.
Business management software will:
- Make your life easier
If you’re a busy person who runs around all the time trying to handle everything at once, you’re not really living your best life. It can be stressful to think about everything, struggle not to make mistakes, and deal with unexpected problems. Software products like the ones above can truly help your wellbeing. Imagine having most of your problems taken away – all those headaches that you’ll miss out on!
- Improve employee productivity/ efficiency
To keep your employees happy and productive, you need to provide them with the right tools and keep track of their progress. That’s why you need inventory software to give them access to key data to operate, time-tracking software to help them organize, and accounting software to give them accurate payments on schedule.
- · Minimize errors
Many errors happen because of poor organization, poorly tracked inventory, bad time assignment across employees, etc. You cannot do everything alone. With the right tools and some automation, you can minimize human errors and maximize profit for your company.
- · Boost the communication
If you always have accurate and timely data at your disposal, you can use it to better communicate with both your team and your clients.
- · Prevent you from breaking laws and regulations
Laws and regulations change every day. Businesses always fail to meet the expectations and break laws unintentionally. Some regulations can sneak up no matter how astute you are about this matter. They can be forgotten or overlooked – but not if you use the right software with built-in compliance features and automated alerts.
Wrapping up: how to decide on which software your business needs
Before you make investments in software, you need to figure out which type your business needs – and which particular software is the right fit. The five types in this list are commonly used by companies of all sizes and in all industries. But, there’s a lot more where this comes from.
When you’re choosing software to use, consider your personal needs, also. What is it in your daily tasks that causes you the most stress and frustration? Which part takes most of your time and prevents you from having the rest you need?
Based on all this, make the decision on which software to invest in.