Business Tools and Apps a Social Entrepreneur Can’t Live Without

By Minna Salmesvuo | March 3, 2017

I often get asked about the tools that I use for keeping my office organised. After 6 years in my business I can finally say that I feel my office is organised and works for me.

However, it wasn’t always like that. I have shared the same frustrations my clients experience when asking about the tools that I use.

The setup I have in place is by no means everyone’s cup of tea, but it works for me. It’s taken years to develop, test and finetune and I won’t be changing it in a hurry.

This system allows me to show up to my meeting with my ipad only. I have all my client notes stored centrally, so I can access them on my phone, ipad and laptop and no one has to try to read my impossible handwriting ever again!

Evernote – My paperless notebook everything: client notes, ideas, business planning, articles found online that can be neatly saved in notebooks for later reference. These can then be emailed to my team members for further work.

Canva – Ah! The ultimate design tool for quick online images for someone of my level of patience (hovering just above zero!) Professional graphic designers take care all the branding and design stuff, but for a quick social media post that has a life span of a few days, Canva is fabulous! You can even get a graphic designer to create custom branded templates that make these simple images look amazing, but take no time at all because all the important stuff is already on the template!

Google Draw – Cheap and cheerful digital drawing tools for graphs and diagrams ( I have to admit that I don’t even use this myself. My assistant Susan mostly creates all graphs for me, but it is easy enough to use that I can login and change a colour if I needed to) for presentations and documents.

Google calendar – Syncs between all my devices and integrates with plugins and apps that can be shared with team members.

17hats – Project management, workflows and invoicing. My clients love my invoices that come from 17hats and link to online payments. Except those who use Xero but I’ll just attach the invoice as a pdf and even they are now smiling. I love the fact it sends plenty of invoice reminders so I get paid on time.

Xero – Talks with my bank, accountant and book keeper and is quick and easy enough to reconcile for me too so my business paperwork and finances are always up to date.