• Technology

iPhone, Android or BlackBerry? Whatever you use, we have one free app each that your small business cannot do without.

Cashbook for Android
How bad are you keeping track of your expenses? How do you manage them on the road? Do you still call your office assistant and update her on what you have spent and what you haven’t spent?

Enter the simply-named Cashbook–an app that makes it easy for a small business owner to keep track of earnings, daily expenses, bank and credit card statements and other regular small business expenses. This app will let you keep a record of all your expenses so that you may keep them handy for tax and reimbursement reasons. You can even categorize your expenses and income and delete or add as per convenience. The best thing about this app is that it lets you save and then export your records by e-mail in CSV format that can then be opened in Excel. And you know how the taxman loves Excel.

Dropbox for iPhone
That Dropbox was one of the most awaited iPhone apps would be an understatement. What is it? It is a cool service that lets you store and sync files online and makes it accessible from multiple computers. And about half a year ago, you could access them on the go on your iPhone, thanks to the Dropbox app.

If you haven’t ever used Dropbox, this is how it works–a Dropbox folder sits on your desktop and you can upload files to this folder up to 2GB free. And when you are connected to the Internet, it will sync these files automatically to other computers you may have Dropbox installed as well as the iPhone app.

What all can it hold? Word, PowerPoint, Excel, images, pages and numbers docs, PDFs, HTML pages, Keynote presentations, txt files and vcards. It can even stream music and movies directly off the app. As a bonus, you can upload photos from your iPhone’s photos or upload a new one. This one, ladies and gentlemen, is a winner.

ReQall for Blackberry
The BlackBerry as a phone does as much for the small business owner as perhaps any app. My guess is most business owners keep a BlackBerry even if they have another handset. But even the BlackBerry can do with some primping. I am a big fan of any app that can help you do lists. My only problem is that you mostly have to key them in and that does not work well for the lazies amongst us.

ReQall solves that issue well. Essentially, ReQall helps to remind you of things you need to do. The difference lies in the entry method. You could type in “Smack Ankush at 5” and ReQall will recognize who Ankush is off your contact list and turn that entry into an appointment. But if you are on of the lazies, you can also add items by calling ReQall using the phone following the voice prompts. You could also use the voice recognition from your phone that will help you make an entry without making a call. The best bit about ReQall is it recognizes the difference between certain keywords and categorizes accordingly. No way will you get a “Shopping with VC” entry unless you do go shopping with your VC.

©Entrepreneur June 2010

Tags:
Android, app, BlackBerry, Cashbook, Dropbox, iPhone, ReQall