Small business tools: 9 tools I use to run my business

I’m often asked what small business tools I use, so I figured I’d write a post about it in case the information is useful to others. There are links in each description in case you’d like to check them out for yourself.

But first, a disclaimer: I really use these tools to run my business. No one has paid me to write this article, and I’m not an affiliate of any of these companies. Any prices listed are current as of March 2024.

Alright, let’s go!

Moxie (formerly Hectic)

Moxie homepage

Moxie's homepage with an illustration of a freelancer sitting cross-legged with an open laptop on their knees

There’s no shortage of small business tools out there. The amount of choice available can be overwhelming, particularly when you consider the myriad variation within each category of tool. (If you’ve ever taken what was supposed to be a quick trip to the pharmacy for cold medicine, only to spend 30 minutes puzzling over which of the roughly 736 choices would be best for you, then you know precisely the kind of overwhelm and analysis paralysis I’m talking about.)

To combat that, I asked myself this starting question: what tools out there offer the functionality I’m looking for—or, at least, a lot of it—in one package? Meaning, what tools combine time tracking, invoicing (with integrated online payments), project management, meeting schedulers, proposals and contracts (with electronic signature capability), and client management in a way that works and won’t break the bank? A tall ask, I know.

But you know what? I wasn’t the only person asking that question. And it turns out the folks behind Moxie were already busily iterating and building just such a product. I remember running across it and thinking, “Is this for real? Seems too good to be true.” Not only does it have all the features I listed in the prior paragraph, but it also includes:

A sales pipeline
A form builder, which allows you to build and integrate forms into your website or meeting scheduler
A client portal, where your clients can see their agreements, invoices, the time you’ve worked on their project, see task and project progress, and much more
A communicator, which not only has a universal inbox for emails, but also allows folks in the US and Canada to sign up for a business phone number
Automations, which allow you to set up and run processes triggered by an opportunity’s stage in your sales pipeline
Integrations with other software like Stripe, PayPal, QuickBooks, Zapier, Zoom, Google Calendar, Microsoft 365, and others

One of the best things, though, is their customer service. I’ve always had great interactions with their support folks. And they have a user feedback system where they collect suggestions for additional feature requests and information about usability issues and bugs they need to fix. You can see both in-progress and planned updates on the feedback system.

Oh, and did I mention you can get all this for $192/year if you pay annually? (That jumps to $240/year if you pay monthly.) You read that correctly. I think that’s a pretty sweet deal for so much functionality in one software platform.

Now, no system is perfect. And Moxie is still a relatively young company (started in 2019), although many of the founders have started, built, and sold other businesses. The software isn’t yet quite as advanced as what’s offered by some of its competitors who’ve been in the game longer (e.g., Asana, Dubsado, HoneyBook, Bonsai, etc.).

But the folks behind Moxie clearly have a vision for their business, and most (if not all) of them have been freelancers themselves for a long time. It’s kind of cool to watch Moxie grow and evolve in real time, and I’m happy to support that evolution since I think their tool is pretty amazing.

ClickUp

ClickUp homepage

Project management tools aren’t just for large businesses–they’re tools for small businesses, too! As I was planning and working through my business’s creation, a free Asana account was the first small business tool I signed up for. I used it to help me organize my thoughts, plan my timelines, and set deadlines for important tasks related to my business. And I continued to use it up until a few months ago, when I made the switch to ClickUp.

I still like Asana and think it’s a great tool. But the limitations of the free plan, and its lack of a paid plan for solopreneurs, were finally what caused me to switch. (To use automation and workflows in Asana, you must have a paid subscription plan; however, the smallest subscription plan they have is for two users.)

You might be wondering why I use ClickUp when Moxie has a project management component. Wouldn’t it be easier to have everything project-related, whether for clients or my business, in one place?

Yes, absolutely. But remember my comment in the Moxie section about no system being perfect? A lot of the tasks I keep in ClickUp are repeating, admin-related ones (e.g., reminders to pay my quarterly taxes, check for upcoming Stripe payouts, etc.). If there’s one thing I need that Moxie doesn’t yet do well, it’s recurring tasks. You can set them up, but I find the process fiddly and unintuitive.

ClickUp’s workflow automations are also more robust than Moxie’s are right now. In Moxie, most automations are tied to opportunities moving through a pipeline stage. I need my automations to fire based on a workflow stage or things that happen within those stages.

So, until those functionalities in Moxie improve, it’s worth it to me to have a ClickUp account.

QuickBooks

Quickbooks homepage

Arguably one of the most important small business tools is good accounting software. There are certainly a lot of them out there. I use QuickBooks Online (the Simple Start tier) as my accounting software for several reasons.

Firstly, QuickBooks Simple Start integrates with Moxie. There’s an option for sole proprietors and single-member LLCs—currently QuickBooks Self-Employed but transitioning to QuickBooks Solopreneur at some point—but you can’t connect third-party apps to it. I track my time and send invoices using Moxie, and the last thing I want to do is spend time recreating invoice information in an accounting software. Moxie’s integration with QuickBooks means I don’t have to—invoice information and payments recorded in Moxie automatically transfer into QuickBooks. Easy peasy!

Secondly, QuickBooks Simple Start allows me to run a wide array of financial reports that I find useful, particularly a profit & loss statement, a cash flow statement, and a balance sheet. You can run a P&L statement in Moxie, but you can’t run the other two reports. And you can’t run a balance sheet report in QuickBooks Self-Employed.

Why does that matter? Here I’ll defer to the wisdom of one of my former colleagues—we’ll call him My Favorite Grumpy Accountant because he truly is that—who once told me that those three reports are crucial to understanding the health of a business. And when someone on a team of CPAs and accountants, who together have over 100 years of experience handling millions of dollars every year, tells you something, you tend to listen to what they’re saying. Particularly if they’re then kind enough to explain to you how those reports work together and why they’re so important.

So yeah, I got the version with those three reports.

Thirdly, QuickBooks Online allows you to invite your accountant so they work directly within your books. This comes in handy when you’d like someone to review or manage your books and help with your tax preparation. At the time I’m writing this article, I’m doing my own accounting. But maybe one day my business will have grown enough that I can hire someone to do it for me.

Finally, the QuickBooks mobile app allows me to track my mileage when I’m running business errands or traveling to and from client meetings. Don’t want to miss out on the mileage deduction come tax time! I used MileIQ in the past for the same purpose, before I was using QuickBooks for accounting, and I liked it a great deal. I made the switch to using the QuickBooks app simply because it eliminated my having to import information from MileIQ into QuickBooks.

Stripe

Stripe homepage

As I mentioned earlier, I use Moxie for my invoicing. Unlike other invoicing platforms like QuickBooks or HoneyBook, Moxie doesn’t process payments. But it has a Stripe integration, which was a breeze to set up and works seamlessly for online invoice payments. Signing up for Stripe is free; they simply take a percentage of each payment they process.

Bitwarden

Bitwarden homepage

I don’t know where I’d be without this tool. Probably buried under a mountain of hastily scribbled and completely disorganized Post-it notes, perpetually confused about which one contains the password I need.

Okay, so that’s a little bit of hyperbole. But keeping track of all the passwords I have, and trying to come up with new ones each time they need to be changed, would be exponentially harder if I didn’t use Bitwarden. It’s an open-source password manager that allows me to store and organize my passwords. The browser extension is available on multiple platforms and makes it easy to fill in my credentials for any website. I can also automatically generate and save a new password when I need to. And the handy-dandy mobile app allows the same functionality if I’m using a cell phone or tablet.

Foxit

Foxit homepage

I had no idea Foxit existed until I stumbled across it while researching Adobe Acrobat alternatives. Although most of the editing and proofreading I do is in Microsoft Word documents, I am occasionally asked to proofread a typeset document in a PDF. To do this effectively, I need a tool that allows me to annotate the file (e.g., comment, strike through and replace text, add missing text, etc.). Adobe Acrobat has those capabilities, and nine times out of ten the free version would be all I’d need.

But it’s that tenth time—the time that you need to, say, combine separate PDFs into one or send a document for e-signature—that the free version of Acrobat just doesn’t cut it. And while Adobe Acrobat may be an industry standard in many respects, once you need to upgrade from the free version, those industry-standard prices can be steep.

Foxit’s PDF Editor Suite for Individuals does everything I need at a lower price point than Adobe Acrobat Standard.

Canva

Canva homepage

I wish I had an aptitude for art or graphic design. Alas, I do not. Have you ever seen representations of St. Stephen where he has stones perched—sometimes jauntily, always defying the laws of gravity and, occasionally, perspective—on his head and shoulders? (If not, check out this painting in the National Gallery in London.)

It’s a little odd, right? You get the sense that the artist was trying to get something across, but he just didn’t know quite how to pull it off.

That’s the story of my life when it comes to making art. If you replaced Carlo Crivelli’s beautifully rendered St. Stephen with a sad little stick figure who’s surrounded by vaguely roundish things, that’s what you’d get if I tried to depict St. Stephen and the instrument of his martyrdom.

So, because I can’t make art, I studied the people who can. (And hired Estland Design to do my logo and website design. They’re amazing. Check ‘em out.)

Thankfully there’s a user-friendly tool out there for non-artists like me: Canva. I don’t know if using it would improve my try at depicting St. Stephen’s martyrdom, but its templates are great for just about everything else, and the free version is fairly robust.

Termageddon

Termageddon homepage

I have a degree in medieval art history and the focus of my thesis was images of St. Michael the Archangel. Do you really think I’d pass up the opportunity to use anything named Termageddon?

Despite the tongue-in-cheek nature of its name, Termageddon has a serious business: it generates privacy policies, cookie policies, terms and conditions, and other crucial disclosures for websites. Most small business owners don’t have an army of lawyers at their disposal to help comply with new or updated privacy laws governing websites.

But if you have a license with Termageddon, all the policies and disclosures you make using it are automatically updated when changes to the relevant laws occur (although you might need to answer some additional questions about your business). Generating what you need is easy: you answer some questions and then copy and paste the code to embed it in your website. And the annual cost for a license is less than you’d pay a lawyer for an hour’s work.

Microsoft 365

Not much to say here since many of you are already familiar with Microsoft’s Office products. But why did I choose Microsoft over something like Google Workspace? The answer’s simple: some of the tools I use aren’t compatible with Google’s programs.

PerfectIt

For example, I use a software called PerfectIt, which helps me enforce style and consistency across a document. I can customize style sheets to fit client preferences, which is perfect for repeat clients with in-house style sheets I must follow.

When I run PerfectIt, it quickly finds errors and variations, flagging them for easy review and correction. Less time spent finding and correcting mechanical errors means more time and attention on things like word choice, pacing, and mood. PerfectIt works only with Microsoft Word.

The Editor’s Affairs (TEA)

I also use a spreadsheet called The Editor’s Affairs (TEA), which is a fantastic small business tool for editors developed by Maya Berger. It’s available only as a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet.

TEA allows editors to track all manner of business-related data in one central location. I primarily use it for recording and calculating my words-per-hour speed on the projects I complete. Doing so gives me the data I need to quote jobs more accurately.

It also features formulas to help me estimate how long a project will take to complete. I just plug in information like a project’s word count and my estimated editing speed, and violà! TEA calculates the number of hours I’ll need to set in my schedule for the project.

Wrapping Up

Finding the right small business tools for your needs can be a long, and sometimes overwhelming, process. I hope this has given you some ideas or a place to start. Good luck!