An essential element of running a small business is keeping track of your finances, both in terms of outgoing expenditure and your income from sales. When starting out in business, it can be all too easy to concentrate on the main part of the business, building up contacts and growing your client base. However, it's equally important to keep a track of your finances. Keeping a handle on your money situation, not only helps you understand which activities and sales really earn you income, but it can also help you predict future cashflow and understand when you can or cannot afford to make a purchase or invest in new equipment.
In the age of the internet, finding software that can help you run a business is easy. All you need do is fire up a web browser, go to google.com and search for relevant software packages. One of the most obvious software purchases that can help manage a business is an accounting package such as QuickBooks or Quicken. At a push you can even keep track of income and expenditure using a spreadsheet provided by Microsoft Office or the free Open Office.
If your business is a little larger, and you have many customers or clients with whom you have ongoing relationships, e.g. you run a courier business with a lot of repeat sales, customer relationship management software can be a great benefit in terms of managing relationships, recording conversations and emails and making notes of special agreements or service offerings for specific customers.
Of course, one of the main decisions you need to make when purchasing software is whether to purchase a desktop software application or to purchase an online software offering. A number of factors affect which kind of package - offline or web-based software - is appropriate for a business. The initial costs associated with desktop software are usually less. Often for a single fee you can use the package for a lifetime. However, be prepared to upgrade a desktop application in 3 or 4 years time - eventually the package will not be viable, e.g. because a new Microsoft Operating System is released making it difficult for the software vendor to support the package. With an online software application, the initial cost is often less but there will almost always be an ongoing monthly fee. It won't take many months before the cost of an online package begins to exceed that of a desktop application.
Cost aside, a number of other factors will affect whether you decide on an online or desktop software package. Despite rapid advances in internet and software development technologies, the capabilities of a desktop package still exceed those of the majority of online applications.
Yet another consideration is whether you want to share your data with other people, e.g. your employees. If you do want to share your business data, an online package can often meet your needs since it is automatically accessible from a number of locations and won't require you to set up a business network which can often be problematic if you have PCs running different operating systems.
Author Resource:
SliQTools supply a range of accounting software for small to medium-sized businesses.
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