Business management software empowers you to streamline your internal processes into workflows that garner results. The trick is finding software that can work with your business to help eliminate errors, gather data, and equip you with useful automations.
Today, we’re looking at the top business management platforms you can use to improve your business across the board. Let’s dive in.
The Top 5 Best Business Management Software
- Zoho One – Best for big businesses that need high customization
- Salesforce – Best all-in-one software
- Wrike – Best for work and project management
- QuickBooks – Best for freelancers
- Scoro – Best for service businesses
Below we take a closer look at what each business management system has to offer and whether it’s right for your business.
#1 – Zoho One — Best For Big Businesses That Need High Customization
- Hyper-detailed platform for large teams
- Robust automation capabilities
- Exceptional customization levels
- GDPR compliance built-in
If you’re managing large teams with enterprise-level needs, Zoho One offers comprehensive bespoke solutions for businesses that need a wide array of tools that are highly customizable.
Let’s face it, big teams can have a harder time staying nimble as they cater to customer’s needs and manage a growing audience. Zoho One offers everything from sales and marketing solutions, productivity and collaboration tools, HR and customer experience tools, finance and accounting, and even a low-code developer platform all at a granular level of customization.
It lets you automate daily tasks, set SOPs, streamline data management, and create workflows exactly how you need them. Not only that, Zoho One leads you through the onboarding process by taking care of migration needs, equipping you with in-depth product knowledge, and helping you set your unique technical needs.
For enterprise-level needs, security and privacy are of utmost importance. With Zoho One, you can be sure you’re GDPR compliant as you execute operations globally. Data gathered through Zoho isn’t sold to third parties, as they manage data security issues with great care.
Here’s a look at Zoho One’s two pricing plans:
- All Employee – $37 per user per month
- Flexible User – $90 per user per month
In the All Employee plan, you must purchase licenses for all of your employees and with Flexible User, you can purchase a license for any number of users. Both prices above are billed annually.
To learn more about Zoho One’s enterprise-level plans that include customization, you’ll have to get in contact with its sales team.
Get started by reaching out to Zoho today.
#2 – Salesforce — Best All-In-One Software
- All-in-one customer-facing platform
- Built-in AI feature for flawless automation
- Free employee training included
- Flexible pricing
Salesforce stands out as the all-in-one solution option for businesses that need streamlined management across every department. Its Customer 360 option, for instance, is designed to unite all your teams around one thing: your customer.
Salesforce does this by uniting sales, marketing, IT, service, commerce, and analytics into a customized solution that caters to your specific needs. Salesforce’s Einstein AI feature makes sure you can automate repetitive tasks and time-consuming tasks, even if you manage teams that are working far apart from each other.
What’s more, Salesforce also offers free training through its Reskilling hub, where your employees, old and new alike, can sharpen their skills while they learn the ins and outs of every tool Salesforce’s software has to offer.
Salesforce’s Customer 360 approach also makes sure all your team members have access to crucial data to be able to make smarter and quicker decisions.
It’s not an exaggeration to say Salesforce is a truly feature-rich business management tool. So if you want to get familiar with its prices, it’s best if you navigate to its extensive pricing page where it breaks down plans by either need, business size, or industry.
For instance, its small business management software plans break down as follows:
- Essentials – $25 per user per month
- Sales Professional – $75 per user per month
- Service Professional – $75 per user per month
- Pardot Growth – $1,250 per user per month
If you don’t yet want to commit, Salesforce also lets you try any plan for free for 30 days once you answer a few questions about your business.
Ready to dive in? Get started with Salesforce here.
#3 – Wrike — Best For Work and Project Management
- Unify your team in one dashboard
- Ready-to-use workflow templates
- Extensive library for employee training
- Three plans under $25 per user per month
Sometimes, your business needs software that simplifies work and projects without bringing too much complexity. That’s where a tool like Wrike can be an optimal solution.
Wrike offers dashboards, processes, and automation tools for seemingly every business team. It can take care of anything from:
- Marketing
- Project management
- Professional services
- Business operations
- Product Management
- IT teams
- Digital marketing teams
Wrike enables you to break down silos and connect all your teams through an easy-to-configure platform and secure cloud collaboration. Moreover, its customizable status reports help you keep everyone in the loop. With its out-of-the-box templates you can plan objectives and KPIs with actionable items that teams can organize on kanban boards with plenty of integrations.
One of Wrike’s standout features is its library of Wrike courses. They educate you on all things Wrike, including modules on building teams, managing processes, and increasing productivity all through the Wrike platform. In fact, Wrike won an award for the best customer training program in 2020. This all sounds great, but how do its prices break down?
- Free
- Professional – $9.80 per user per month
- Business – $24.80 per user per month
- Enterprise – Contact them for more information
For small businesses, Wrike can be a free tool worth using to streamline and scale processes. From there, its most popular Business tier at $24.80 per user per month offers more robust work management tools with plenty of reporting features and access to additional customization options.
If you haven’t made up your mind yet but think Wrike might be a tool you’re interested in, you can start a 14-day free trial for any plan you’d like to get a real feel for how the software operates.
#4 – QuickBooks — Best for Freelancers
- Accounting and time tracking
- Payroll add-on available
- Great for solopreneurs
- All plans under $75 per month
Business management software isn’t just for big businesses with large teams. Solopreneurs and freelancers need processes and automations to streamline their operations too. QuickBooks can be a solid option for freelancers and one-man businesses that need to get a handle on their accounting and time tracking needs.
With QuickBooks, you’ll have an easier time getting paid and sending invoices, keeping track of income and expenses for tax purposes, and you’re able to gain clarity on how many hours you’re actually working.
QuickBooks lets you ditch limiting spreadsheets and replace them with powerful cash flow management, as well as reporting features that’ll help you keep cash flowing. Need payroll? You can easily add that to your plan.
Its time tracking feature, a crucial part of keeping a well-oiled freelance workflow, takes note of hours worked for an easier time calculating payroll and billable hours. Thankfully, QuickBooks isn’t only built for efficiency, it’s also an affordable solution.
- Simple Start – $12.50 a month
- Essentials – $20 a month
- Plus – $35 a month
- Advanced – $75 a month
For only $12.50 a month the Simple Start plan gives you access to income and expense tracking, invoicing, general reports, cash flow, and contract management. However, for more advanced features its most popular Plus plan can run comprehensive reports, capture and organize receipts, manage and pay bills, and even includes access for up to five users.
Ready to get started with QuickBooks? Start here.
#5 – Scoro — Best for Service Businesses
- Centralized dashboard to track all KPIs
- Track progress in real-time Gantt charts
- Robust automation capabilities
- 3 plans under $40/user per month
Managing a service-based business? Scoro has the tools you need to quicken your business processes through automation and data management. With Scoro’s real-time Gantt charts, your team can track progress in real time and lets you set tasks, dependencies, and events.
Scoro lets you create customer pipelines, automate billing and recurring invoices, and even automates the process of sending late invoice reminders. As far as data goes, it lets you automatically compile reports, and track KPIs through its data-rich dashboard. All of these tools and more help you manage the entire project life cycle on an intuitive and easy-to-use dashboard.
Built-in calendars, task lists, and time trackers make sure you’re keeping a finger on the pulse of all your service projects for higher rates of success. One of the best parts? Scoro can be pretty affordable for businesses that want a service management tool that can scale with them as they grow.
- Essential – $26 per user per month with a minimum of five users
- Work Hub – $37 per user per month
- Sales Hub – $37 per user per month
- Ultimate – Contact the sales team for pricing
Scoro offers a demo and a free trial if you’d like to try it out first.
How to Find The Best Business Management Software For You
Finding a fitting business management system isn’t a situation where you can just eye some features to find out if any given tool will work for you.
While it’s pretty straightforward that you’ll want your budget constraints, the size of your team, and your overall business goals to dictate which tool to onboard, there are additional criteria you can think through to maximize the chances of finding the right one.
Customer Management
Before committing to any tool, it’s worth determining what customer management tools your business will make use of.
Tools that enable you to do things like create customer profiles, or to anticipate the needs of a customer through tracked data might not be necessary for young startups or freelancers. It doesn’t make sense to invest in a more robust software if your business won’t truly need it— since more complex business management software almost always means you’ll have to pay more each month.
On the other hand, if your business has hundreds of employees and/or thousands of customers, a heavier customer management software package might be worth investing in.
Training and Onboarding
The more complex your business management tool of choice, the more of a learning curve your team will have to deal with. Fortunately, the best business management software providers know this and make it easier for businesses to use their software by designing an onboarding process— or at the very least providing a library of knowledge.
This way, any downtime is minimal during the onboarding process, your team will feel supported as they’re introduced to a new tool, and the transition to new software can be as smooth as possible. Some software providers come with customer support forums, an extensive knowledge library, and even on-demand training webinars and videos.
Knowing there’s a library of material they can refer to can save your team a lot of time and avoid miscommunication.
Summary
Without a doubt, the right business management software can transform the way you work. But first, you have to find one that works with your team’s needs and business goals. Here’s the complete list of software we went through as a quick refresher:
- Zoho One – Best for big businesses that need high customization
- Salesforce – Best all-in-one software
- Wrike – Best for work and project management
- QuickBooks – Best for freelancers
- Scoro – Best for service businesses
Once you’ve carefully read through the guide and considered your options, you can take advantage of the free trials and demos each tool offers before making a full commitment.
