With a variety of business software becoming more and more vital to the business world, it’s essential for a business to use efficient software—because inefficient software has its drawbacks. From a user’s perspective, sub-optimal software hampers workflow and may generate a flawed output; and, from a business’ perspective, it increases operating costs because employees are less productive.

A business may end up using inefficient software for any number of reasons; however, it’s often due to an attempt to save money or due to an error in judgment. However, it’s not at all necessary to use a free or low-cost software because it’s easy to get top-of-the-line software through affordable monthly or yearly subscriptions. And, in those instances when the price isn’t the issue, but due to an unwise purchasing decision. this error, too, is easy to correct. Selecting the right software is simply a matter of taking the time to read software reviews or talking to software vendors. Additionally, it’s easy to find out how well a software performs because many manufacturers offer a free trial period to test out the software.

In the worst case scenario, a company may not even be using any software at all, relying on a manual process to manage boring, tedious, time-consuming work that could have been done faster and better through automation.

Here are 7 examples of business software that can increase productivity, decrease costs, and deliver high-quality results:

1. Training Software.

Properly training new employees helps a company reduce its hiring costs, develops a more productive workforce, and helps align personal goals with team objectives and the business’s overall ambitions. This is why you need employee training tools to help facilitate the onboarding process. Generally speaking, training software is used to keep track of a new employee’s progress, helps them manage their own performance, and makes it easier for instructors to provide quick, relevant feedback.

2. Warehouse management software.

Since warehouses often tend to be busy places, it’s fairly easy for inventory to get increasingly disorganized over time. Warehouse management software makes it easier to manage day-to-day operations, such as staying on top of inventory levels.

3. Accounting software.

Web-based accounting software integrates a variety of features to track expenses, manage receipts, direct imported bank data, handle recurring invoices, and process credit cards. In short, the software makes it easy to manage finances, payments, and payrolls.

4. Customer relationship management (CRM) software.

It’s essential for every business to keep track of its interactions with prospects and customers. With CRM, it’s fairly simple to organize leads, accounts, and contacts, as well as set up tasks and get insight on opportunities. The software also offers features like direct messages, follow up, and status updates to streamline team collaboration. 

5. Email marketing software.

The smartest way to manage emails marketing campaigns is to use an email marketing service that makes it fairly straightforward to collect subscribers and schedule regular emails to a mailing list. An email marketing service provides features like autoresponders, custom forms, A/B testing, segmentation, and reports on open rates and click-through rates.

6. Collaboration software.

Project management becomes far more manageable if a team uses collaboration software. Many versions playfully mock-up familiar office-based project management paraphernalia; for instance, users can access a virtual billboard and contribute sticky notes. Collaboration software makes it easy for team members, whether they are telecommuters or outsourced independent contractors, to add notes for each other and provide a snapshot of their own progress.

7. Time tracking software

In some businesses, it’s important for managers to know how long someone takes to do a specific task. This can be useful for billing purposes or to simply figure out how to create a more realistic schedule. While, of course, it’s possible to keep track of projects by starting or stopping an analog or digital clock, it disrupts workflow when switching from one task, project, or customer to the next. Consequently, passive time tracking software makes it easy to record all computer-based work. If the work needs to be interrupted, say, to attend an office meeting, a user can record the time they were away when they get back to their computer.

After reviewing the broad range of software available to make it easier to do any task, large or small, it’s difficult to imagine how time-consuming and tedious manual methods must have been before business software became commonplace.