Technology has made the world more accessible, even for small businesses who used to be limited by their capped resources. Now, small businesses have the tools available to be successful and even evolve into large businesses.
It’s fair to say that technology has brought with it many challenges in addition to benefits, but most small business owners would argue that the trade-offs have been worth it. Here are four tech advancements that are changing small businesses for the better.
Employee Scheduling Software
Employee scheduling can be a nightmare, both for the manager in charge of putting it together and the employee on the receiving end. There are a lot of factors to be taken into consideration: how many employees are required on any given day, busy times throughout the day, week, and year, vacation considerations, shift changes, etc. Employee scheduling software can change all of that.
Business owners can use employee scheduling software for multiple locations, so they don’t have to be in three places at once. Additionally, they can use analytics to determine fluctuations and seasonality as they pertain to scheduling. Another impressive feature is handing over the reigns to employees to handle their shift changes in a centralized location, so everyone knows what’s happening.
Cloud Sharing
Cloud sharing is just one of the many things affecting how small businesses operate. It’s responsible for limiting hours of back and forth via email and searching for a lost attachment. Cloud sharing is also one of the foundations for remote work, which opens doors for both the small business owner and the employees.
Depending on the industry, employees are able to take work home with them and find balance between their home and work existence. Alternatively, small business owners have more options regarding hiring capabilities, and can easily outsource to a contractor rather than hiring in-house staff or attempting to juggle everything themselves.
All Things Google
Even the most devout Mac users and IOS fanatics can’t argue that Google has it all figured out. Between G Suite and Google Analytics, a small business owner can run their business from anywhere in the world. An editor might be able to do his or her work while on the beach in Mexico. A nutrition coach might be updating client files from an airplane thousands of feet in the air.
Google has not only made this freedom possible, it has made it easy. The Google Drive (cloud technology) makes it possible to access files from anywhere. Gmail is easily integrated with domain-centric email addresses to create a streamlined, professional platform. Google Analytics can show you not only who is on your website, but where they are, when they’re online, how they’re accessing your page, and what they’re interested in.
Integrated Invoicing and Payment Systems
PayPal has become a household name in recent years and is commonly used for conducting secure transactions online. It’s also simple to set up and use for payroll and revenue. Quickbooks has created a platform that can integrate not only with PayPal, but plenty of other business-related technology to create a simple, streamlined accounting process. It may pull expenses from PayPal, hours from Harvest, and Kounta POS to track everything going on in the business.
How does this feature help? Small businesses are able to correctly manage their bookkeeping without outsourcing to an expensive accountant. If they do need to outsource at tax time, everything is kept in a central location, reducing the hours of work for which they’ll have to pay. This level of integration and organization makes it possible to receive more tax credits and avoid costly audits.
Technology will never completely replace the human element. It can, however, make small business ownership easier so that more people succeed in the long run.
