“I couldn’t work as efficiently as I do without my smart phone,” says Yaritza Delorenzo, co-founder of BusySuperVA, a Florida-based virtual assistant firm. Delorenzo relies heavily on specific smart phone apps that keep her hectic schedule and bevy of responsibilities organized. For example, Delorenzo accesses her company’s Client Services program on her smart phone so she can add tasks for her staff and comment or reply to questions they have posed to her. She also utilizes a payroll processing app, one for billing and yet another for her personal finances. Her banking app makes paying her staff of virtual assistants virtually and the app for her cloud-based filing system makes it easy for her to tap into client files and reports.
“More importantly, I have our chat app and text to contact my staff in seconds,” she says. Delorenzo does this often, as when a client contacts her with an inquiry and she needs to communicate with her team for the answer.
In order for a smart phone to be a trusted business partner, the user “must have the right technology in place,” says Delorenzo, who owns her company with her sister. She says she often sees “business owners not utilizing the right technology and if they do use it, they use it incorrectly.” When that happens, people aren’t reaping the benefits of technology. That situation can cause frustration and hamper the success of a business entity, she says.
Dashburst.com says there are 13 apps entrepreneurs seeking to run their businesses via their smart phones should tap into. Some are free while others charge a monthly fee, but all are designed to simplify the business of running a small business.
Among the apps suggested by Dashboard include:
- Quickbooks (www.quickbooks.com), a cloud-based accounting app for iPhone and Android models used by 1.3 million customers worldwide;
- Dropbox (www.dropbox.com) is a popular cloud-storage system for files and photos. The free version offers 18GB of storage; additional space is available for a fee;
- Evernote (www.evernote.com) is a note-taking and bookmarking app compatible with nearly every PC, phone and mobile device;
- Documents to Go (www.dataviz.com) is an all-inclusive app that supports Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint, PDFs and other files and attachments. It is available for Mac, Windows, iPhone, iPad and Android devices.
- Webex (www.webex.com) allows users to schedule attend and host virtual meetings in HD video anywhere in the world. It’s also useful for webinars and file-sharing; and
- Google Wallet (www.google.com/wallet) is a fast, secure way for customers to make payments online.
Tami Kamin Meyer is an Ohio attorney and oft-published freelance writer about law, business, marketing and technology. Her profile of famed civil rights lawyer Gloria Allred is in the Spring 2014 issue of the National Trial Lawyer’s magazine. Email her at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
