So you’ve started your small business and now you need the right tools to make your life as a sole proprietor a little easier. We’ve got you covered with our Top Five Digital Tools for Sole Proprietors!
- Airtable. The database you never knew you needed.
Still using those Google sheets? Time to enhance your experience, and the experience you provide your customers, through Airtable. Planning a marketing campaign for a client? Airtable has a template for you. Looking to build out your fundraising research? Airtable can optimize views for each funding opportunity, highlighting the information you want to share with your clients right away. It’s collaborative. It’s visual. It’s totally worth the $12/month. - Calendly. Lets you set your scheduling parameters without the cost of the virtual assistant.
Use Calendly to brand your scheduling link and page, set up all of the meeting parameters (duration, place – video/phone/in-person, etc.) and link it directly with your personal calendar. You can also check other people’s Calendly accounts with a view that only shows the times you’re available, and collect payment information as an add-on. - Squarespace. Sitehosting made easy.
With Squarespace you can easily host as many sites as you need, purchase and link to Google Workspace tools, and embed original coding and content. Squarespace has easy-to-use templates that can be adjusted to reflect your brand’s aesthetic, and you can add your scheduler and easily link to other tools (for instance Dropbox) for hosting sample materials that aren’t ready for public viewing or visuals that might take up too much bandwidth on your site. - Typeform. Create visual, easy-to-use surveys.
Typeform is a valuable form tool if you are regularly seeking out customer feedback and need something that is a big step above a medical intake form. You can add your own visuals or search from the company’s existing image bank. You can also make quizzes, polls, order forms, and tests and embed the final product directly into your website. Win-win. - Wave. Simple invoice customization and tracking.
Wave is an accounting tool that lets you customize your invoices to reflect your brand. It also tracks invoices and payments, and lets you run reports by customer, month, or almost any other way you would like to take a look at your finances. Additional services, like payroll, are available for a fee. For sole proprietors, being able to create, send, and manage invoices and receipts is likely more than enough to get you started. Bonus for the reporting features that allow you to capture average time for payment, accrual vs cash basis records, and profit and loss statements!
