Tag Archives: Freelance

Top 3 Project Management Software Options for the Small Business

Small business owners, freelancers, and entrepreneurs are probably one of the most overlooked group when it comes to marketing, software management and more. In fact, not many companies aim their customer service or work efficiency products and software towards them because the consensus is that this sector of the private industry cannot pay much. Neither do they have a lot of requirements like big businesses either so there’s no multi-million-dollar business contract to be signed.

Just because this sector cannot throw millions of dollars for software development does not mean that they should not enjoy the benefits of doing business in the twenty-first century. Below you will find a list of of the top software packages that I think you can use if you are in the SMB sector.

Wrike

First on our list is Wrike. This is because it’s a very robust project management software which helps you keep track of your projects from start to finish, allowing you to manage multiple projects at the same time. It will make multi-tasking much simpler for you and your team.

This software is designed with small teams in mind and is made up of very good features which will aid you in your journey to create the best project solutions. This software is built in a manner that will allow you to grow your business. It includes a very flexible feature on managing multiple teams, so you can assign more people to different projects. This is actually very helpful as it will help you divide work between your workers so that you can distribute the workload in a way which will benefit your business and cause your staff to hone their best skills.

The software also allows you to keep track of individual contribution to a project so that you can keep track of all your employees, which will make it easier for you to decide on things like bonuses and help you identify each staff’s strengths and weaknesses.

The only downside of this software is that you can only have up to five employees on the software and you will find that the user interface is not very interesting, making it more difficult for those who are not very tech-savvy to operate.

MeisterTask

Next up on our list is MeisterTask. This is a cloud-based project management software. Freelancers will find this more useful than small business owners because it helps to keep track of individual tasks and keeps you updated with your progress. It does not offer individual progress but it’s fine because you can keep track of how your team is performing.

In addition to that, the features of this software include giving the administrator full control of the direction and tasks of the project so if your staff is untrained or newly appointed, it might be useful to use this software to help them understand how to do work. The software also allows you and your team to communicate in real time via a feature called MindMeister.

MeisterTask also allows you to classify tasks according to your staff. This means that each staff on your team will only be seeing their part of the project and not the task assigned to others. This may come in handy if your team works in the systems security service or simply if the task requires discretion. Furthermore, MeisterTask will easily connect to third-party apps like Zendesk and Slack.

The downside of this software is the limited functions when it comes to team tasks and listing. As we mentioned earlier, it will be quite difficult for you to keep track of each individual and may be problematic if you’re trying to keep track of each individual’s performance.

Paymo

Last, but not the least, is Paymo. Like MeisterTask, Paymo is a cloud-based project management solution but, unlike MeisterTask, it specifically caters to small business owners. Of course, freelancers can also use this software, but it does not leave businesses out. This is why out of the three we’ve mentioned so far. We personally recommend Paymo because it’s the best one around.

Paymo offers not only just project management features but also allows the users to create, divide and assign projects to their teams. It also allows team members to engage in discussions related to the project(s) they’re working on and helps them stay updated with the progress of the project.

What makes Paymo stand out though, is its key feature: The Visual Kanban Board which allows all the users working on a project to see the progress of every task and track the estimated time it will take for their project to finish. Furthermore, you can customize time and work reports for things like auditing, billing and reporting purposes.

It also includes an accounting function which allows you to keep track of expenses, invoices and estimate profits. In fact, users can even manage and customize each project’s accounting and budgeting requirements. Unlike the two mentioned above, Paymo has a per-user-per-month subscription plan so you don’t have to pay for a whole year in advance and can add members each month as your business flourishes.

Conclusion

As you can see, each of these packages has a specific audience in mind and it’s not just focused on big businesses. Wrike is aimed mostly at small business owners and entrepreneurs while MeisterTask is better for freelancers than anyone else. However, as we mentioned, Paymo is our favourite software because it’s great for all three.