One of the key problems all home-based business owners face is how to manage with minimum capital. Most entrepreneurs who want to open a home-based business are usually not willing to take out a large loan and risk losing their savings or even their house if the business is not as successful as they thought, and are unable to repay the loan.
However, they soon find out that even a small business which they are running from their home office needs lots of supplies and services – and all of these cost money. Hiring various experts or subscribing to an online platform to solve various issues, from marketing automation to time management and billing, will eat away at the available capital and leave the entrepreneurs running on empty before they can start generating revenues.
Thankfully, there are lots of free resources available for startups and small businesses, which do not need the same level and complexity of services as large companies do. These tools and resources are like a breath of oxygen for all entrepreneurs and, later, as their business grows, they resort to paid premium subscriptions of the same resources as a form of thank you for the initial free access.
Without any further introduction, these are some of the most useful free online tools to help you run and manage your home-based business:
1. Accounting: Wave
Wave is the best free bookkeeping online tool you will find. The reasons for this are that Wave offers an intuitive, easy-to-use interface, full mobile integration and a comprehensive range of services completely free of charge. These services include invoice generation, receipt scanning, and accounting reports generation. There is no limit to the daily or monthly usage of this service.
If you want to add credit card processing for online payments, this service is fairly priced as a percentage of the transaction amount. Also, as your business grows, you can also include the payroll service for as little as $4 per employee.
2. Project Management: Trello
Even as a home-based business owner, you still need to be able to plan, schedule and keep track of various projects at the same time or over a certain period of time. It is easy to lose sight of something to do, to miss a deadline for delivering your products or services to a client and this would cost you both in money and lost reputation.
Such situations will never occur if you use Trello, a free online tool which allows you to prioritize projects, assign tasks and deadlines, and visualize all your projects in their current states: started, ongoing, completed. Thus, you can avoid time conflicts and keep all your projects correctly prioritized and follow through with them until you can move them in the completed section.
3. Email Marketing: MailChimp
Here’s something worth knowing: social media did not kill off email as an effective marketing tool. Newsletters are still great tools for keeping your subscribers interested in your business, sending out promotions and special offers and even reaching out to larger audiences by enabling people to share your email content with their friends.
MailChimp is thus one of the must-have tools for your home-based business. It offers a simple drag-and-drop interface, with many templates to choose from and personalize for your newsletter, and it allows you to schedule hundreds of emails to be sent out at specific times to your subscribers. Although the service is only free for up to 2000 subscribers, it is still a great tool to use when you are just starting out.
4. Social Media Marketing: Hootsuite or Buffer
We hesitated between Hootsuite and Buffer and decided to include both of them. Buffer is great because it allows you to schedule posts on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Instagram and Pinterest for free. However, their social media monitoring and analytics panel is quite basic for the free version.
On the other hand, if you choose Hootsuite you have a very detailed social media monitoring panel, rich with information on conversation mentioning your business or brand name. However, you can automate posts for a maximum of three social media platforms as a free user.
5. Graphic Design: Canva
Most of your marketing activities will need various graphic images: your social media profile and cover photos, Facebook and Twitter ads, photos for your Instagram and Pinterest accounts, and so on. Paying a graphic designer is not feasible at the beginning of your activity as a home-based business owner.
However, Canva is here to help you – a user-friendly and feature-rich free online tool which allows you to create or edit images with a professional finish without having any kind of knowledge of how to use graphic design software. The drag-and-drop menu with intuitive icons will show you exactly what you need to do.