For entrepreneurs, even small operational tweaks can save a surprising amount of time and money. If there’s a chance to reduce manual work and run things more efficiently, it’s usually worth exploring.

Adding the right tools at the right points in your process can make a real difference. You get more done in less time, with less friction and hopefully higher profit margins. 

I’ve leaned heavily on software to make my own work easier and more efficient, and the same is true for everyone here at The Mobile First Company.

In this article, I’ll walk through how we choose the tools that support our business. I’ll also share a list of The 11 best small Business Tools every SMB needs Daily that my colleagues and I have personally found valuable on our entrepreneurial journeys.

Here is the Best small Business Tools every SMB needs Daily:

1. Best accounting tool: Sage

Accounting has always been a struggle for SMB owners. But technology has come a long way, and good cloud accounting software has changed the equation.

Sage  was designed for small businesses. It helps you manage your finances and automate tasks such as invoicing, tracking sales, monitoring expenses, preparing taxes, and generating reports. 

It’s also the tool of choice for many external accountants. So as you grow and need help, you’ll have no trouble finding experts who are familiar and comfortable with it.

Sage Review: Features,Affordable Pricing And Real Pros & Cons

Sage

Sage provides accounting, payroll, and financial management software for small and medium-sized businesses.

Features

• Accounting and bookkeeping
• Payroll and tax compliance
• Financial reporting

Pricing

Subscription-based pricing varies by product and business size.

Pros & Cons

• Pros: Reliable, scalable, compliant with regulations
• Cons: Interface feels dated, setup can be complex

Extras

Strong ecosystem of integrations and certified partners.

Sage Real Pros & Cons

• User-friendly interface: Designed with non-accountants in mind, it’s accessible to users with varying levels of accounting knowledge.
• Cloud and desktop: All good accounting platforms today must be cloud-based. Sage 50 is, but with a great desktop platform for users who prefer this.
• Automation: It automates tasks like invoicing, payment reminders, and tax calculations, saving you time.
• Integration: Integrates with many other business tools like PayPal, Shopify, and various banking systems.
  

Cons:

• Steep learning curve for the most advanced features: While the basic functions are easy to use, more complex features may require a learning period or assistance from accountants.
• Lack of free tier: Sage 50 doesn’t have a free tier, and it’s more expensive than some other very small business tools. But it’s built to grow with you, and will easily become worth the cost as your revenue rises.

Global Reviews: Sage 50 has a 4/5 score on Capterra.

2. Best HR and payroll tool:

Payfit

Sage also has payroll, and that might be plenty for smaller businesses. But if you’ve outgrown that or your needs are more complex, is one of the best-rated options.

Payfit lets you keep track of employee salaries, paid time off, benefits, performance reviews, and much more. It’s very comprehensive, with very few HR tasks it can’t enhance.

Payfit Review: Features,Affordable Pricing And Real Pros & Cons

PayFit

PayFit automates payroll and employee management for growing companies.

Features

• Automated payroll processing
• Employee self-service portal
• Compliance and reporting

Pricing

Monthly subscription based on number of employees.

Pros & Cons

• Pros: Easy to use, strong compliance focus
• Cons: Can be expensive for small teams

Extras

Helpful onboarding and payroll automation updates.

 

Pros:

• User-friendly interface: Simple, intuitive interface that is easy to navigate for HR professionals and small business owners alike.
• Easy payroll processing: Streamlines payroll with features like leave management, automatically generate payslips, and reminder notifications.
• Friendly support: The team are easy to get in touch with and very responsive to any issues.

Cons:

• Cost can be high for smaller businesses – PayFit’s subscription fees may be a concern if you’re on a tight budget, as costs can add up over time.
• Initial learning curve & setup effort – While generally user-friendly, many users report that getting up to speed with all features takes time and effort, especially during initial setup.
• Limited customization and advanced features – Businesses with complex payroll or HR needs can find PayFit lacks deep customization, advanced analytics, or features like benefits administration.

Reviews: Payfit’s score on Capterra: 4.5 out of 5.

3. Best working capital tool: Defacto

25% of small businesses say that cash flow is a serious concern for their futures. You need the necessary capital to invest in initiatives and stimulate growth—and you need it fast. 

Defacto offers fast, flexible financing to SMEs. Just upload outstanding accounts payable or receivable invoices, and Defacto crafts the perfect credit option for your business. 

You’ll receive capital faster than any bank loan, so you can react to seasonal peaks or unexpected down times, and optimize working capital.

Defacto Review: Features,Affordable Pricing And Real Pros & Cons

Defacto

Defacto simplifies HR administration and employee lifecycle management.

Features

• Employee records management
• HR workflows and documentation
• Compliance tracking

Pricing

Custom pricing depending on company size.

Pros & Cons

• Pros: Centralized HR data, intuitive interface
• Cons: Limited advanced reporting

Extras

Designed specifically for European HR compliance.

Pros: 

• Incredibly fast financing: It takes on average 27 seconds to apply and have your loan approved. 
• More flexible than banks or factoring: You choose the receivables or payables you want to involve in each agreement. 
• No paperwork at all: Simply connect your bank and your accounting tools, and Defacto instantly determines your eligibility and builds a credit offer. 
• Use credit as you need: Dip into your open credit line whenever you need it. You’re not obliged to use the full amount, and can end your loan any time. 
• You can also borrow through your Qonto, Malt, or Pennylane profiles.

Cons: 

• Defacto’s fees are among the lowest you’ll find, but there’s always a cost associated with borrowing. 
• Larger businesses may prefer a bank loan or overdraft.

Reviews: 

Read why small businesses choose Defacto.

4. Best expense management tool: Spendesk

Just like payroll or accounting, expense management is a hassle for most small business owners.Spendesk found a way to simplify this. 

It offers virtual or physical cards for employees to spend safely, and built a whole software suite to help you track expenses and streamline financial operations. 

For SMB owners, you get control and visibility over company spend. And as an SMB employee, their product has saved me a lot of trouble when I needed to purchase train tickets or software for work.

Spendesk Review: Features,Affordable Pricing And Real Pros & Cons

Spendesk

Spendesk helps teams control company spending and expenses in real time.

Features

• Expense tracking
• Virtual and physical cards
• Approval workflows

Pricing

Subscription pricing based on features and users.

Pros & Cons

• Pros: Strong spend visibility, modern UX
• Cons: Pricing may be high for small teams

Extras

Integrates well with accounting tools.

Pros:

• Comprehensive solution: Spendesk provides tools to manage all aspects of company spending, including corporate cards, invoice payments, and employee reimbursements.
• Real-time: Gives real-time visibility into company expenses with instant notifications, approvals, and customizable spending limits to prevent overspending.

Cons:

• Cost: Pricing can be high, especially for small businesses or startups. But it’s ideal if you know that your company is going to grow.
• Learning curve: Setting up and learning the platform’s full functionality can take time, especially when implementing complex approval workflows or multiple cards.

Reviews:

Spendesk has an average score of 4.5/5 on G2.

See how Spendesk handles employee expenses.

5. Best project management tool: Notion

We put Notion under “project management tool,” but the truth is that you can use it as a lightweight CRM, a collaboration tool, for planning, and much more. You can even use it to create and publish a simple website.

Because it brings so many features together, it’s great to manage projects. You don’t need to jump from platform to platform—calendars, status updates, and communication are all in one place.

Notion Review: Features,Affordable Pricing And Real Pros & Cons

Notion

Notion is an all-in-one workspace for notes, docs, databases, and collaboration.

Features

• Customizable pages and databases
• Team collaboration
• Templates for workflows

Pricing

Free plan available, paid plans per user.

Pros & Cons

• Pros: Extremely flexible, great for teams
• Cons: Can feel overwhelming initially

Extras

Large template library and community.

Pros:

• Generous free plan: the free plan should be enough, unless your company grows very fast. As a user, I’ve been pleasantly surprised that they don’t push upgrades more aggressively.
• All-in-one: Notion is great for project management as it lets you set deadlines, organize your data, assign tasks, etc. But it can do much more.
• Broad community: Notion has attracted a large community of users. They share templates, tutorials and tips that can make your life easier.

Cons:

• Learning curve: Notion is such a versatile product that it can take time to understand how much you can do with it. Take the time to watch a few tutorials before diving into it.

Reviews:

Notion has an average score of 4.7/5 on G2.

Watch this great video guide to using Notion.

6. Best phone management system: Allô

Answering the phone can feel like an unnecessary distraction when you’re building products, serving customers, and otherwise running your company. But it’s also a fundamental part of doing business, and needs to be done with care. 

Allô is a mobile app that uses AI to lower the burden of handling phone calls. Their tool can answer your calls for you, send you transcripts, let your people book a meeting with you, and more. It’s really a world-class AI answering service.

Pros:

• Reliability: I was a bit afraid to let an AI handle my calls. But a few weeks in, I can tell you it works perfectly.
• Versatility: it seems the app can handle all kinds of calls. And when it doesn’t know what to do, it prompts the user to get in touch with you directly.

Cons:

• Currently, the app doesn’t offer a free plan or a free trial.
• The app is only available in France, UK and the United States at the moment.

Here’s a nice Âllo introductory video.

7. Best internal communication tool: Slack

If you’re a Microsoft fan, chances are you’re using Teams internally. If you’re not, I recommend checking out Slack.

The internal chat is easy to use, integrates with tons of features and works very well on the go. You can create team channels, have private conversations, and build your own bots on top of it. It will quickly become the hub of your company’s internal communications—where everything important happens.

 

Slack – Modern Team Communication

Slack centralizes team communication with channels, integrations, and real-time collaboration.

Features

• Public and private channels
• Instant messaging and file sharing
• Workflow automation
• Thousands of app integrations

Pros

• Excellent collaboration experience
• Strong integration ecosystem
• Highly scalable

Cons

• Message history limits on free plan
• Can be distracting for large teams

Pricing

Free | Pro: $7.25/user/month | Business+: $12.50/user/month

Pros:

• User-friendly: Slack’s interface is clear, and their mobile app is very easy to use.
• Integrations: Slack’s superpower lies in its integrations. Connect it to your live chat, your Calendar, project management tools, and more.
• Generous free plan: if you’re on the free plan, you have access to pretty much everything. The main limit will concern how long you can store your conversation history.

Cons:

• Annoying upgrade prompts: Slack has started to push for upgrades more aggressively. This results in more “we’ve activated your free Pro trial” in-app messages.

Reviews:

Slack boasts a 4.5/5 score on G2.

8. Best CRM: HubSpot

Small businesses, like all businesses, need fresh leads to build a sustainable business. HubSpot will help you with just that. It stores and organizes contacts, keeps a log of interactions, and helps you build out your customer “funnel” in practical terms.

Use it to build your marketing pages, capture leads on your website, send email newsletters, and more. It’s built to be the only marketing tool most small businesses need, and it delivers on that goal.

 

HubSpot – All-in-One CRM Platform

HubSpot helps businesses manage CRM, marketing, sales, and customer support in one platform.

Features

• CRM with contact management
• Email marketing & automation
• Sales pipeline tracking
• Analytics and reporting

Pros

• Powerful free CRM
• User-friendly interface
• Scales with business growth

Cons

• Advanced plans can be expensive
• Customization limits on lower tiers

Pricing

Free CRM | Starter: €20/month | Professional: €890/month

Pros:

• Ease-of-use: if you’ve ever tested Salesforce, you know how difficult a CRM can be. With HubSpot, everything is easy.
• All-in-one: they offer a CRM, but also a content management system (CMS), an email marketing platform, a booking page, etc.
• Generous free plan: most SMBs can stay on the free plan.

Cons:

• Basic: HubSpot is an all-in-one tool. As such, it’s not built to be easily customizable. I struggled to implement my company’s branding in emails at first, and couldn’t get my meeting booking page exactly like I wanted.
• Expensive pricing: if you ever have to upgrade, their plans are quite expensive and might require a mandatory paid training call.

Reviews: 

HubSpot has an average score of 4.4/5 on G2. 

Watch this HubSpot CRM introductory tutorial. 

9. Best design tool: Canva

Have you ever needed to design an illustration for your company’s Instagram account? To prepare an eye-catching presentation? To design a flyer?

If so, you probably found it harder than you’d like. You should have used Canva, the only design tool that doesn’t require you to watch dozens of hours of tutorials to know how to use it (Photoshop users, you know what we’re talking about).

It makes design easy for those of us who aren’t trained designers. Which removes a serious bottleneck in marketing and promoting your business.

Canva – Simple Graphic Design for Everyone

Create professional designs easily with Canva’s drag-and-drop editor.

Features

• Thousands of templates
• Drag-and-drop editor
• Stock photos and videos
• Brand kits and collaboration

Pros

• No design skills required
• Fast content creation
• Cloud-based access

Cons

• Limited advanced design controls
• Some assets locked behind Pro

Pricing

Free | Pro: €12.99/month | Teams: €14.99/user/month

Pros:

• Powerful yet user friendly: Canva is powerful enough for an SMB user. And yet, you know instantly how to use it. It’s almost as complete as Photoshop, and as easy-to-use as Powerpoint.
• Templates: they provide tons of templates that work very well for small businesses.
• Supports video: on their paid plans, you can also edit videos. 

Cons:

• The free version can be a bit limiting. You might have to upgrade at some point. But don’t worry, plans start at $12/month.

Reviews:

Canva has an impressive 4.7/5 score on G2.

Watch this quick Canva tutorial video for beginners.

10. Best social media tool: Buffer

Managing social media has become increasingly difficult. While it was previously okay to just have a Facebook page, most small businesses now have to be on multiple social media like Instagram, Snapchat and Linkedin.

Buffer makes it easier to find ideas for good content (using AI) and schedule your posts across your different channels. You can set social media policies and arrange your promotion plan for weeks in advance, and anyone in the team can easily adjust or post when they need to. 

It’s a safer, more efficient way to post as a business.

Buffer – Social Media Scheduling Made Easy

Plan, schedule, and analyze your social media posts efficiently.

Features

• Post scheduling across platforms
• Analytics and performance tracking
• Team collaboration
• Content calendar

Pros

• Simple and intuitive interface
• Affordable pricing
• Reliable scheduling

Cons

• Limited analytics on lower plans
• No advanced automation

Pricing

Free | Essentials: $6/channel/month | Team: $12/channel/month

Pros:

• They offer a generous free plan.
• They support most social networks, including less popular ones like Mastodon.

Cons:

• I found their integration with LinkedIn underwhelming. But LinkedIn is known to be difficult for third-party developers like Buffer.
• A few recent reviews mentioned bugs, but we haven’t experienced them ourselves.

Reviews:

Buffer averages 4.3/5 on G2.

11. Best e-signature solution: Yousign

If you require clients to sign offers or contracts, you need an e-signature app. Ideally it’ll be easy, affordable, and efficient to use. Which describes Yousign exactly. 

It’s easier to use and cheaper than DocuSign, and it works just as well. What’s not to love?

Yousign – Secure Electronic Signatures

Yousign enables legally binding electronic signatures compliant with EU regulations.

Features

• Legally compliant e-signatures
• Document tracking and audit trails
• Team management
• API and integrations

Pros

• Strong legal compliance (eIDAS)
• Easy to use
• Ideal for European businesses

Cons

• Limited customization on basic plans
• Advanced API access costs extra

Pricing

Starter: €9/month | Plus: €25/month | Pro: Custom

Pros:

• User friendly: Yousign is very intuitive and well-designed.
• Team friendly: Collaborating on documents is easy.

Cons:

• Their free plan will let you collect only two signatures per month.
• Many reviews mention difficulties in canceling their paid plan. Make sure to check the cancellation terms.

Watch this tutorial video to see how to use Yousign.

Reviews:

Yousign has an average 4.1/5 score on Trustpilot.

Here’s a more natural, friendly version with a bit more warmth and flow:

Find the tools that empower your small business

I sincerely hope this list has been helpful. At the end of the day, the right platforms and software really depend on your specific business and the challenges you’re trying to solve.

As you evaluate tools, look for ones that:

• Genuinely save you time and energy, rather than just being shiny “nice-to-haves”
• Save you money—either because they’re affordable (or free), or because they clearly improve your margins
• Are easy and enjoyable to use. Even if you’re tech-savvy and quick to adapt, not everyone on your team will be

Most importantly, don’t be afraid to experiment. Try things out, see what sticks, and have fun with the process.