The Ultimate List of Tech, Tools, and Resources for Online Business Owners
Psst…this list includes affiliate links. We only recommend stuff we actually love, but if you purchase using our link, we may also receive a commission.
As business owners, there’s just so many decisions to make. Luckily, we’ve been doing this online biz thing for long enough that we can wholeheartedly recommend a few time (and sanity) saving tools, apps, books, and more!
The most important thing to remember here is that you don’t need EVERYTHING on the list in order to run your business. And if something’s already working for you, don’t fix what isn’t broken!
But if you’re looking to make a switch for more efficiency and streamlined financial systems, these are the resources we highly recommend 👇
Software and Apps
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Also known as QBO, this is the best cloud accounting software for business owners. It’s easy to get started and import your data from a spreadsheet. It links to your bank account. It even integrates with other tech to further streamline your financial processes. This is the only accounting software we use when working with our clients because we believe it’s the BEST!
Pro tip: If you sign up for an account yourself, choose the Simple Start or Essentials plan (NOT the Self-Employed plan) so you get access to all the right features!
We’d be MORE than happy to consult with you on which plan is right for you, or just take over your bookkeeping so you can focus on what you actually love doing in your business!
*The link above will give you 30% off for the first 6 month
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OMG, Content Snare is an absolute game changer for onboarding clients. This is the best thing we’ve found to collect information and documents from clients during the onboarding phase. You have the option to set up questionnaires for clients with conditional formatting (aka - they only see the questions that are actually relevant to them).
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Miro is a virtual whiteboard that you and your team can use to collaborate and plan. This tool is perfect for anyone who wants to plan out a complicated process, help teams make cohesive decisions, and sooo much more!
We use Miro to create decision trees that help us outsource certain tasks that are not as black and white as others. This user-friendly software is essential to how we map out our processes before bringing them into our project management system. It's so helpful to see the whole process in one place so we can make sure nothing gets left out.
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Loom is one of THE most effective ways to communicate with others, especially when you have to explain something complex. We use Loom internally when we need to show another team member something via screen share, record a new process, or even just send them an encouraging message!
For clients, we use Loom to give them video updates on their financial reports or to explain the difference between each package in their proposal. The possibilities are endless with this app and it’s definitely a MUST!
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Hubdoc is 100% something you need to make your life as a business owner SO much easier. We cover the cost of Hubdoc for our monthly bookkeeping clients because we require them to use it when they work with us. That’s how strongly we believe in the power of using it!
If you’re not familiar with Hubdoc, it’s a receipt management software that allows biz owners to capture their paper receipts using the app or forward their e-receipts to a dedicated email address. It’s absolutely genius!
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STOP running ACH payments through QuickBooks Online! Seriously — it’s costing you way more money than it needs to. Plooto is your answer to processing automatic payments without losing so much money to transaction fees. This app has helped us streamline ACH transactions and give our clients a better experience.
Your clients don’t have to worry about remembering to pay their invoice every month, and WE don’t have to worry about creating/sending a bill.
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Upgrade to the paid version. It’s well worth the cost (which isn’t much to begin with) and it’s sooo much more professional to have unlimited meeting time and participants. Your clients don’t want to jump off the call and jump back on at the 40 minute mark. And if you’re working with team members or need more than one person on the call, you’ll need to have the extra capabilities Zoom Pro has to offer!
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If you have a team (employees or contractors - even international!), I highly recommend using Gusto for payroll. If you’re a business owner DIY-ing your payroll, you know how frustrating it can be to run payroll and ensure all allocations are correct. Luckily, Gusto makes running payroll ridiculously simple! It is extremely user-friendly, aesthetically pleasing, and provides great customer service if a problem ever comes up.
You have the ability to run so many different types of reports, pull journal entries whenever you want, and take advantage of so many other capabilities. This is not your average payroll software - it's so much better!
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Perfect for when you need to create marketing materials, slide presentations, social media graphics, and more - Canva is a great go-to! Even if you’re not a professional graphic designer, but Canva makes it super easy to create branded graphics no matter your skill level.
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This is the platform that hosts our website. It’s easy to use on the backend, and helps us attract amazing clients to our services. The goal of a website is to let the view know EXACTLY who you are and how you help your clients, and we love that Squarespace helps us do just that!
Free Resources
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Asana is perfect for those who want a simple, colorful, and easy to use project management system. It has a totally robust free plan that lets you add up to 15 team members, and you can view your tasks in a variety of ways (depending on the needs of the project). We absolutely LOVE using Asana to maintain all of our tasks and projects to make sure we’re hitting deadlines and executing our client work efficiently!
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One thing we consistently recommend to our clients (and practice ourselves) is time tracking everything we do. With this simple Chrome extension, we can keep track of how long it takes us to do every task throughout the day! Then, we can run reports on the data to learn how we can be more efficient.
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Although Relay is not technically an app or software, it IS an essential online tool that we couldn't live without! Relay is a bank that only works with business owners, no personal accounts allowed.
We switched to Relay because they offer multiple checking accounts with absolutely ZERO fees. Depending on the structure of your business (Sole Proprietor, LLC, S Corp...) you can open several accounts as needed. This is perfect for business owners who use the Profit First method and require a lot of checking accounts, but do not want to pay monthly fees. I can't tell you how happy we are with the customer service and products that Relay provides!
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OMG – can't say enough about how much we love Notion. This software acts as a central information hub for everything we need in order to run our business. The capabilities are truly endless, and the functionality is unmatched. Be aware that it is a bit overwhelming at first, but once you learn how to navigate it and use all the functions, it will change your life!
You may be wondering if Notion is meant to replace Asana (or whatever you use for project management). The answer is no! You would still use Asana to tell you what to do, where as Notion tells you how to do it. For the most part, Notion has replaced Google Drive for us.
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We love Slack for communicating with our virtual team, but some business owners also enjoy using it to communicate with clients! Slack makes it super easy to keep conversations organized by allowing you to create specific channels per client, department, or topic. We like to make sure we have a channel dedicated to fun, non-work chat so that our team can bond on a personal level.
Our favorite part about Slack is the ability to use the search function to recall information. This way, if you know you spoke about a change in procedure or a client detail, it's super easy to reference the conversation thread.
Slack also integrates with many other apps like Loom, Asana, and Google Drive!
Other Business Resources
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Karima Creative is the team behind creating our beautiful website, our logo and all design assets. Karima and her team are absolute creative geniuses and anytime we need a new design, they’re there to help us!
I HIGHLY recommend reaching out to Karima Creative for all your design neesds.
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When your team starts growing, an HR company is able to help you handle all the legal stuff that comes with employing multiple people. But honestly, they do a LOT more than that!
Why HR can help you:
Stay in line with salary compliance
Create job descriptions
Create official job offers
Gain confidence as an employer
Why HR has so much knowledge they are willing to share through their top notch customer service. I am beyond impressed with their service!
If you want more information about Why HR, contact Matt at matt@whyhr.guru.
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This book has been a game-changer for my business. It’s simple, it isn’t fancy and it gets straight to the point. It’s about Gino’s personal entrepreneurship journey but it’s also packed with tools and systems that every business owner can implement as they scale their business.
Inside Traction, Gino walks you through how to run and manage your business, including how to build your team on a larger scale.
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If you’re struggling with your business finances or not sure where your money goes, you need this book! Mike walks you through how to manage your finances for your business so you can start making a profit from day one. This is also the method we use for each of our monthly bookkeeping clients to make sure they’re using their money wisely!
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This book is the only one on the list that is more on the personal development side, but you can easily apply some of the lessons to your business, too. Essentialism helps you rationally think about and break down all the activities you do in life, uncover which activity is most important and serves you best, so you can make massive progress in that direction. It really helps you adopt a mindset that sometimes less is better.