Business Insider’s 5 Best Business Apps

Last year the Business Insider, a US business and technology news site based in New York, published “The App 100”. It is an executive list and the ultimate guide to 100 of the world’s greatest mobile apps. The App 100 covers apps for all platforms—smartphones, tablets, desktops, and the web.

There are hundreds of thousands of apps for mobile gadgets. Including apps engineered for desktops and the web, there must be over millions. Apple iTunes and Google Play, for instance, tie at more than 700,000 apps on their app stores.

Three years ago, more than 300,000 apps were downloaded 10.9 billion times, says International Data Corporation. They predict that app downloads worldwide might reach 76.9 billion next year. These figures clearly speak of today’s “there’s an app for that!” phenomenon, which includes both our business and personal lives.

Heads up, serious business professionals! The Business Insider has listed in no particular order five of the world’s best Finance or Business apps for your gadgets running on the Apple, Android and Blackberry operating systems.

• Mint

Most small businesses don’t or can’t afford to have an expensive, full-time accounting staff to keep track of their business’ finances. This does not, however, exempt you from carrying out bookkeeping practices like other businesses do. Take 8 million people who use Mint to track down their cash flow as an example.

Mint is a free app available for Android and iOS that has built-in alerts to help businesses stay on their budget. You only need to encode info on your credit card, bank account, loans, and 401K.

• Bank Apps

By now, most banks in America should’ve had a mobile app that can let you check your balance, make money transfers, pay bills, and even deposit checks. These usually come for free from your OS’ app store.

• Bloomberg

Get the latest low down on financial news with the Bloomberg app for iOS, Android, Blackberry OS, and Nokia. This app that is for free downloading can get you business and finance news and trends at the touch of your fingers. It also has features like market data and portfolio tracking tools for the well-informed business professional.

• Salesforce

The Salesforce mobile app for Android and iOS is a sales platform on-the-go. It contains business software and solutions a mobile worker or globe-trotting business professional needs to accomplish mission-critical tasks while spending less time on their office desks and more time in the field.

• Square Card Reader

“Incredible” is the word for this “game-changing” mobile app. As soon as you register for Square, you will be mailed with a free credit card swiper that you can plug into your phone or tablet. Then you can take credit card payments from anywhere in the world with a small surcharge fee of 2.75% of the total transaction for Visa, American Express, MasterCard and Discover. What’s more incredible than this? Square comes in free on Google Play and the iTunes App Store.

One of the leading VoIP providers in the US polled 300 small and mid-sized business owners from across all major industries in the country to track mobile gadget adoption and cloud service usage among small businesses. It was found out that 57%, a majority of business owners rely on cloud apps to perform business-critical tasks for their companies, says RingCentral.