Apps for entrepreneurs and self-employed people who are always online

Apps for entrepreneurs

For an entrepreneur/self-employed person, the work always continues. If you are someone who often has to work on the road, who still works during the weekend and who even keeps an eye on the pulse while on holiday, there are all kinds of apps that can help you with this. The laptop does not have to be open all the time, because apps keep you online all the time. In this list we won’t discuss the most obvious apps, such as the standard Calendar and Mail apps – because you already know them.

All peripheral matters under control with Nozbe

As an entrepreneur there is always something to do and work and private life sometimes get mixed up. You could probably use some help with this. While you have special business software for business planning, you can use Nozbe for your personal time management. With this app you can easily keep track of your own to-do list, see which tasks you still have to do, but also which tasks you have outsourced. In addition, Nozbe also offers more extensive functions for project management, for example. The big advantage of Nozbe is that it works with all kinds of other apps and services such as X, Evernote, Dropbox and Google Calendar. You can find more to-do list apps in our overview.

Create work planning with Trello

A to-do list can go a long way, but sometimes you get overwhelmed by tasks and need a more comprehensive tool to plan your activities. Trello makes it easy to coordinate activities for an entire team, but it can also be useful for self-employed people who work for different clients or projects. The app is based on the Japanese kanban method, an approach for planning logistics projects.

You create different projects, which you organize in a way of your choosing (for example per day or per customer). You can link task lists to each project. You can further detail this with more specific tasks, which look like cards. This makes it very clear, also because you can easily move the cards to another list. You can share the lists and assign tasks to others. You always have access to your tasks via the mobile apps.

Send newsletters with Mailchimp

As a small business owner, you no longer need an advertisement in the regional newspaper. Working online allows you to appeal to a much larger target group and you can reach them in other ways. Social media, for example, but newsletters are still very popular. Especially if you are in a niche, a newsletter for like-minded people can be very effective. You can use it to generate extra turnover or to strengthen customer loyalty. With Mailchimp you can create newsletters that look contemporary and stylish. You also gain insight into how many people have read and opened the email. You don’t even have to open your MacBook for this: via the mobile app you can easily create and send a newsletter at any location in the world and in any situation.

Create budgets in Mint

Mint is a lot like the traditional household budget, with which you can plan (large) expenses. Are you going to invest money in an advertising campaign on Facebook? Or is it better to spend your money on advertisements in bus shelters? With Mint you can set a budget and then see in a clear diagram where the money goes. You can also use Mint for more personal expenses, such as if you have a business trip planned and want to keep an eye on the costs. Can you afford a more expensive hotel or a better plane ticket, or do you have to watch your money and should you not eat out expensively in the evening? You get a better grip on your expenses and know where the budget went.

Jot down ideas with Braintoss

As an entrepreneur you always have new ideas. But if you don’t write them down, you can easily forget them. Are you unable to write down your idea quickly, for example because you are in the car? Then you can quickly make a sound recording with this app. You will receive the written message in your mailbox. Clear your head and forget nothing! You can of course also use other apps such as Just Press Record or Apple’s standard Dictaphone app for this, but Braintoss is completely focused on one function. Moreover, the bright yellow color appeals to us.

Pass4Wallet for all your cards

As an entrepreneur and self-employed person, you have to deal with a lot of loyalty cards and passes. You have several bank cards for business and private, loyalty cards for Makro, Hanos and other wholesalers and fuel cards for the lease car (if you have one). To keep everything under control, it is best to put these cards in the Apple Wallet app. Pass4Wallet comes in handy here, especially for cards that do not have Wallet support. You can convert any conceivable card with a barcode or QR code into a Wallet card with this app. This way you can be sure that you always have that one fuel card at hand. Another option is Stocard, an app that immediately recognizes many cards from Dutch and foreign stores. Pass4Wallet and Stocard are in our list of the best apps to digitize loyalty cards. We have many more tips for putting passes, tickets and the like in Wallet.

Scanner Pro for digitizing receipts

You always lose receipts. Therefore, scan them as soon as you get one at the cash register. You can then quickly find the digital version when you start doing your accounting. Scanner Pro is also useful for larger documents, such as contracts that you want to share with your legal advisor. The app optimizes scanned documents to make them easier to read. There are many more apps for scanning documents, but Scanner Pro is one of the best.

Buffer for your social media

As a small business owner, you are not only a manager, but also a one-person marketing department. Being present on social media is also part of this. There are all kinds of tools that can help you with this, such as Buffer. With Buffer you have everything in one place and you only have to log in once. You can use Buffer for Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, X and much more. For small entrepreneurs, the cheapest bundle is sufficient. The great thing is that you can schedule messages and view a calendar with your schedule. This way you only have to worry about social media once or twice a day and you can continue working the rest of the time.

Stress-free parking: ANWB Onderweg

If you often have to visit customers in the big cities, ANWB Onderweg avoids the hassle with parking meters and estimating in advance how long the appointment will take. At ANWB you switch on the counter and log out as soon as the appointment is over. So you never pay too much. You can also use this app to park in all Q-Park parking garages. There are more apps that help you with parking.

Slack: contact with employees and clients

As a self-employed person, you may be in your second home in France, but you do want to keep in touch with your clients in the Netherlands. Slack is then one of the most useful apps for keeping in touch. You can create multiple channels, for each client. You can also create groups within such a channel. You can automate all kinds of tasks and ensure that you are only warned when your name is mentioned. This way you can still enjoy your free time between assignments and intervene in time if something is really wrong.

Toggl Track to track your hours

As a self-employed person you are often paid by the hour. That is why it is important to record your hours properly. But we all know how that goes: after a while things get messy and you have to recalculate how you spent your time. You can avoid this with Toggl Track. You simply turn on the timer, enter projects and can easily keep track of how much time you have spent on which project. You can also enter your hours afterwards, which is extra useful when you regularly work for multiple clients at the same time. The app converts all entered hours into useful graphs. We have even more useful ones

Forms under control with InControl

Do you want to work more structured? Then it can help to create apps for your most important work processes. This is often too expensive and complicated for SMEs, but by creating (digital) forms for smartphones, tablets and desktops you can already make a big step. Convert all important data that needs to be recorded into forms and you can be sure that employees will provide everything much clearer from now on and make fewer mistakes. Changing and sending other digital forms is also possible via this app. InControl has a series of templates to get you started quickly and to adapt the forms to your own corporate identity.

Check time zones with World Clock

Would you like to call your business partner who is in China to view product samples? Or are you in Silicon Valley and have to consult with the crew in the Netherlands? With the World Clock app you can see the current times in hundreds of cities worldwide. Naturally, summer and winter time on site are also taken into account. This app from timeanddate.com has been downloaded more than a million times and can be customized to your liking. There are multiple clocks, you can create favorite cities and you can calculate the time difference between two cities. But you can also use Apple’s standard Clock app, which supports world clocks. Or use Apple’s Weather app! This not only shows the current time, but also what the weather is like. You immediately have a starting point for a chat.

More apps for entrepreneurs and self-employed people

There are of course many more apps that you can benefit from as an entrepreneur or self-employed person. We would like to mention these more obvious apps:

• Flitsmeister (Free, iPhone+ IAP, iOS 16.0+) – Nothing is more frustrating than an envelope from Justice on your doorstep. Fines are not deductible for entrepreneurs. Avoid a picture with this app, which has gradually built in more and more useful functions for motorists.
• PDF Expert: Read, Edit, & Sign (Free, iPhone/iPad+ IAP, iOS 15.0+) – Avoid having to carry all kinds of paper to an appointment and convert everything to PDF. This app also allows you to sign contracts and other important documents.
• WhatsApp Business (Free, iPhone+ IAP, iOS 12.0+) – WhatsApp is also becoming increasingly important for entrepreneurs. Stay in touch with your customers and quickly respond to frequently asked questions with Quick Replies.
• Dropbox: Drive Storage and Cloud (Free, iPhone/iPad+ IAP, iOS 14.0+) – Dropbox and similar online storage services are ideal if you always want access to your important documents. On the way to an important appointment, you don’t want to give the excuse “that you forgot the USB stick” do you?
• Google Analytics (Free, iPhone/iPad, iOS 14.0+) – Google Analytics provides insight into the visitors to your website, their behavior, which keywords your website is found for and what the most important call-to-actions on your website result in. .
• LinkedIn: Find a Job (Free, iPhone/iPad+ IAPiOS 15.0+) – Even if you are not looking for a job, LinkedIn can be a great way to make contacts and strengthen your image as an expert.