It’s true that smartphones and tablets are generally looked at as gaming and media devices. You’ll find most focus on games, music, video content, and social media but it’s also a fairly solid platform for businesses and business oriented use. It is quite difficult to run a business on mobile but you can augment systems already in place and create a more universal workflow using apps available on mobile today. Let’s take a look at the best business apps for Android.
Basecamp
[Price: Free]
Basecamp is a service that allows you to organize tasks and assign tasks to people. This is a great way to manage workflow, make sure everyone’s working on what they’re supposed to be working on, and keeping everyone communicating with one another. There are other options such as Asana but we’re talking about apps here and the Basecamp app is about as solid of a task management app as you can find right now. It is free to install and use on mobile so that’s also a plus.
Chrome Remote Desktop
[Price: Free]
Chrome Remote Desktop is a nifty application that allows you to access your computers from your mobile device. You’ll have to have Google Chrome web browser installed along with the Chrome Remote Desktop extension for the browser that you can find here. You can access your home computer from work and your work computer from home. The only downside is that you can’t really intensive tasks but grabbing files or doing light tasks is doable.
Evernote
[Price: Free with in app purchases]
Evernote is about the most powerful note taking application that you can find. You can create notebooks and work spaces to keep your notes and ideas organized. You can also share notes with other people for light collaboration, create to-do lists and task lists, and all kinds of other stuff. You can also download Evernote for your Mac, Windows, or Linux computer for cross platform support. It’s one of the best note taking apps available and has plenty of functionality for business use.
Google Drive
[Price: Free with in-app purchases]
Google Drive is Google’s cloud-based office and cloud storage ecosystem. Google Drive requires the use of three additional apps called Google Docs (word processing), Google Sheets (spreadsheet), and Google Slides (presentations). The service comes with 15GB of cloud storage but you can get much more for relatively cheap. The online nature of the system allows for real-time collaboration from multiple locations, easy sharing, and simple management of business files. You can even delegate which people have access to which files. It’s a great and solid option.
Google Hangouts or Skype
[Price: Free]
One of the most important things in any business is communication. Granted, it’s simple enough to stay in touch with email, phone calls, and text messages but it is easier than ever to have video and audio conference calls for free using apps like Hangouts or Skype. Both allow for multiple-party video calls (up to 10 participants) as well as voice conference calls. The apps both work very well and offer group chat (text) functionality to further help communication. They’re both free to use.
Microsoft Office and OneDrive
[Price: Free with in app purchases]
In order to keep pace with Google Drive, Microsoft has also released an office suite and cloud storage solution for Android. The cloud storage site is called One Drive and much like Google Drive, you get a little bit of free storage to start and you can buy more relatively easily. Everyone knows about Microsoft Office and the apps are free to use. Office Mobile is for phones and there are separate and far more powerful versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint for Android tablets. Businesses married into the Microsoft ecosystem can definitely be augmented further with their office suite.
MyStocks
[Price: Free with in app purchases]
MyStocks is a simple application that is great for keeping an eye on stocks. You can follow practically any stocks you want and get alerts, analysis, charts, and password protection. It’s more geared for personal use but these days investing is something practically everyone should be doing anyway. On top of its core functions, it also comes with DashClock support, Android Wear support, and news.
Slack
[Price: Free]
Slack is a team chat service to help people talk to one other. Moderators can create channels for various topics so others can stay on topic and the service supports the upload of practically any file type which means sending documents, presentations, and other business materials is fairly simple. You can integrate it with many other services including Hangouts, Asana, Dropbox, Twitter, ZenDesk, and others to create a more immersive experience and the application is available on the web, mobile, and PC/Mac/Linux.
Square Register
[Price: Free]
Square Register is a sales tracking app that allows you to track and view inventory numbers, sales figures, and much more. You can also send receipts if needed. Business owners in the U.S., Canada, and Japan can also pick up the Square Reader and use their smartphones as credit card readers. This comes in handy for small businesses that rely on a lot of frequent movement. It also connects to receipt printers if you need one of those.
Tax Code and Regs – TouchTax
[Price: $4.99]
It’s definitely not the most interesting app, but taxes are important for businesses. Especially small businesses that are just starting out. Knowing the tax code can help in a lot of ways and during tax season, it’s good to have an updated reference guide handy to help with those sticky tax questions. It’s not particularly useful for non-tax things, but for $5, you get all 7,700+ sections of the latest edition of the tax code. That’s not a bad investment.
Todoist
[Price: Free with in-app purchases]
Todoist is a task management and to-do app that helps you stay on top of your personal tasks. The app is available on computer, web, and mobile so you can manage your to-do lists cross-platform and you can set up various tags and categories so you know what you need to do, for whom, and why. You can add notes to tasks, reminders, due dates, and a lot more if you end up going the premium route ($29/year). It’s effective, quick, and efficient.
Wrap up
If we missed any great business apps for Android, let us know about them in the comments! All recommendations are welcome.
To see our complete list of Android apps and games lists, click here!