Gadgets and PDAs

iPhone Apps for Small Business Leaders

You love your iPhone. Now here are several cost-effective apps you can use to transition your iPhone into a small business productivity machine.

When you bought your iPhone, you rationalized the purchase by convincing yourself that it would revolutionize the way you lead your company.

Now, six months or more later, you can't live without it - you have chest pains when it's out of reach for more than a few seconds. But you still haven't lived up to the commitment you made to turn it into a mobile-powered, business wonder-machine.

The mobile app superstore, Appitalism.com, suggests that iPhones do indeed have the capability to serve as must-have productivity devices for CEOs and small business leaders. All it takes is an awareness of some affordable (or free) apps that are tailor-made for the on-the-go business executive.

• ThinkFree Office Mobile. ThinkFree is a document management and sharing application designed for mobile SMB owners and business professionals. It allows groups of users to edit and revise documents on a shared platform that leverages MS Office compatible word processing, spreadsheet and presentation solutions.
• Scanner Pro. Tired of dragging around receipts, notes and assorted documents for business purposes? Scanner Pro employs advanced image processing to transform iPhone pics into high quality, multi-page scans. Integration with Dropbox, Google Docs and other solutions makes scan storage and retrieval easy for busy execs.
• Evernote. Considered by some to be the granddaddy of SMB iPhone productivity apps, Evernote allows users to create geotagged voice, photo and text notes with anytime, anywhere access via your iPhone, computer or other web interface. This app's popularity alone makes it a worthy candidate for inclusion on your device.
• NetworthIQ. If tracking your personal net worth and company finances are important to you, NetWorthIQ may be your new favorite iPhone app. With visibility at both the account balance and transaction level, NetworthIQ offers security-encrypted connections to your investment, bank and credit card accounts - with charts that display your net worth over time.
• BizExpense. If you're not using your iPhone to track business expenses yet, you are definitely behind the eight ball. Get back on track with BizExpense, an app that tracks expenses and scans receipts so your expense report is always up-to-date. Since expense reports can be exported to an Excel file, you can do one sync at the end of your next business trip rather than trying to update your report on a day-to-day basis.

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