Apps that could boost business

As editor of Business.com and What Works for Business, I’m constantly on the lookout for the most helpful products, services and solutions for small business and startups. Many are brand new; others just have not been widely discovered yet. Here are a dozen of my latest favorites:
• Put your “receipt shoebox” online: Shoeboxed.com is one of those simple, super-practical solutions that can make a busy business owner’s life easier – and save money, too. Send Shoeboxed your receipts and business cards. They will scan and automatically categorize them so you can track spending, run reports and export data to accounting software. Great for tax organization, expense reports, returns and exchanges, insurance claims and more. Plans start at $9.95/month.
• Make your phone an office: QuickOffice is quickly becoming a “go-to” app for turning smart phones into complete office productivity devices that can view, create and edit Microsoft Office documents, conduct e-commerce transactions and more. See their full suite of apps at QuickOffice.com.
• Read your voicemail: Hate listening to voice messages? PhoneTag.com will convert your voicemails to text and send them to you by e-mail or text message so you can review them more quickly. Save time by reading your voicemail from your mobile, home and work phones, all in one place. Nothing to download, and there’s a free trial. Pay 35 cents per message; or $29.95 monthly for unlimited.
• Place ads easily on cable: Bid4Spots.com is a new online marketplace for cable TV advertising that organizes cable advertising down to neighborhood level and offers new ways to get local TV airtime at a discount.
• Try Web-based order fulfillment: Shipwire.com is an on-demand, Web-based, order-fulfillment service that can take some of the hassle out of shipping, transporting and logistics. Scale up or down easily, and maybe save money on shipping over your current methods.
• Get easy tax answers online: Need quick, expert answers to your specific business tax questions, 24/7? Try eTaxHotline.com, a Web-based service offering professional tax advice on a subscription basis at $29.95 monthly. Tax professionals will answer your toughest tax questions and offer money-saving tips.
• Guard your IP assets: ProtectedPDF Small Business Edition, just out from Vitrium Systems, is a terrific way to guard valuable information your business has in PDF form. ProtectedPDF.com is a Web-based app that lets you limit the number of computers a PDF can be viewed on, disable printing or set a variety of permissions. •


Daniel Kehrer can be reached at editor@business.com.

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