Month: May 2016

What are some of the best software programs to download when you want to improve business productivity in 2016?

With so many software products it can be hard to sort through the many choices and find the right tools to improve the way you work. With this helpful guide, you’ll be able to identify the right software to download and use to boost your business.

Avast for Business Free: Protect all your devices with this cloud-based program from malware, viruses, hackers, spam, and phishing. You can add, adjust, and remove protections in real time in minutes.

Blitzdocs: Day-to-day business runs on forms. Use custom templates from Blitzdocs to create legal and business office forms, including invoices, agreements, business letters, and memos. Complete evaluations and calculations and create customized dialogs to gain user input while creating a document.

Business Letter Professional: Save time with more than 1,500 business letter templates. If you’ve ever struggled to find ready-to-go templates for a business letter, this collection has what you need. It has templates for everything from accounting and finance to complaint and apology letters. The program features an embedded text editor for in-app editing and customizing. Of course, you can also copy and paste your letters into Microsoft Word or any other document editor.

Diagram Studio: Need to create professional charts, diagrams, engineering schematics, floor plans, flow charts, organizational charts, business presentations, and technical drawings? With Diagram Studio, you can develop ready-to-use documents that dazzle. This program emphasizes ease of use and speed over detailed features, making it ideal for business professionals who need to create straightforward diagrams quickly.

EROL Business Edition: When you want to sell online, this product lets you import product data from a spreadsheet, create customer specials, and allow wholesale customers to see different prices.

EximiousSoft Business Card Designer: Reduce the expenses associated with hiring or promoting employees by creating your own business cards using helpful templates.

Express Accounts Free for Mac: For small businesses, this accounting software runs the gamut. It lets you track and manage cash flow, create journal entries, generate profit-and-loss statements and balance sheets. You can email or fax directly from the application for additional flexibility.

Express Project Business Project Manager: A great deal of business comes down to effective project management. Express Project is a feature-packed project management application with a very attractive price–free. It includes everything you’d expect in a full-featured project management package, including Gantt charts, critical path analysis, and the ability to set task dependencies and constraints. It may not be as robust as heavyweights like Microsoft Project, but with a price that can’t be beat, it’s a serious low-cost alternative.

Google My Business for Android: This program lets you interact with customers easily and track your business performance online. It provides information on audience, engagement and visibility. It also lets you edit business information on Google Maps, Search, and Google+.

KPress – Economy: Gain valuable business intelligence for business analysis with this tool. This software lets users design smart storage solutions for accounting and non-accounting data. You can compare budgets, forecasts and objectives over different periods, do predictive analysis and scenario simulation, and generate reports.

MIETrak ERP Software: This application covers all your enterprise resource planning needs. It’s a robust package that features modules for several components of the process. They include accounting, data collection, inventory control, invoicing, order entry, purchasing, quoting, routing, scheduling, and work orders.

nuiSense Business: Turn your videos, pictures, and documents into interactive presentations with ease. Nuisense Business uses touch controls to send an image or document to a TV or video wall.

Looking for even more business tips and advice? Take a peek at some secrets about the ubiquitous Adobe PDF format: 5 Things You Didn’t Know About PDF Files. 

Are you looking for some inexpensive ways to improve business operations, boost productivity, and give your business the professional tools it needs to succeed?

With these free software packages, you will be able to access some of the best and most powerful applications to drive you and your employees to more profits and better cash flow. Below are some of the best free software titles for business on the market today.

Note: if you’re looking for robust web app solutions for your business, be sure to take a peek at our new Softonic for Business directory.

Adobe Reader

The top software tool for viewing PDF documents, Adobe Reader gives you access to the gold standard in PDF management. This plugin, compatible with nearly every major web browser, allows you to print, read, and share documents in PDF format with ease.

It combines increased security, sticky notes and highlight options, full screen reading options, and enhanced accessibility, to make reading and working with PDFs a breeze. There are lots of PDF file readers available, but why not go with the best?

Check out these videos to get more information.

Microsoft Office 2013 Professional Plus

This free 30-day trial gives you access to the suite of Office products including Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, OneNote, Publisher, Access and the Lync messaging program. The 2013 edition is optimized for touch-enabled devices.

PDF To Word Converter Free

When you want to take that PDF document and convert it into an editable Microsoft Word document, whether the PDF has embedded images or not, this is the program for you.

Similarly, the Free Word to PDF Converter is a one-step tool that converts .doc and .docx files into pdf documents. Columns, images and formatted text convert easily, freeing you from frustrating layout issues.

IBM SPSS Statistics

To collect, analyze, and report on your data, SPSS is the program to use. SPSS lets you solve problems, analyze very large data sets, and share files. Note: IBM SPSS is compatible with Windows 7 Enterprise, Windows 7 Professional, Windows XP Professional, Windows Vista Enterprise, or Windows Vista Business.

Skype for Business

When you want to communicate with someone across town or around the world, Skype allows for audio or video chatting, instant messaging and file sharing. Skype for Business is integrated with the Microsoft Office 365 suite of programs.

Google Chrome for Business

This special edition of Google’s popular web browser gives you special functionality. With Chrome for Business, a system administrator can manage policies, control usage, coordinate updates and manage while offline. For end users, there’s no noticeable difference in functionality.

Apache OpenOffice

Do you want an alternative to the Microsoft Office suite of programs. With OpenOffice, you have word processing, spreadsheet, presentation creation, drawing, and database management tools. These programs are fully integrated and support all the popular document formats.

IQUALIF France White

This software program lets you extract data from online directories. Create and contact lists (including name, address, multiple phone numbers and email addresses), update automatically, and pause or restart downloads.

Robust software is the first step towards having your business run more efficiently. There are a number of free options to cut down on operating costs, test out programs before you buy, and compare features. With Softonic, you have access to hundreds of free software programs that will have you humming in a matter of minutes.

Check out 5 Things You Didn’t Know About PDF Files to learn more about this important file type and all the things you can accomplish with it.

Do you dream of owning your own business? There are many things to take under consideration. You need a business plan, a market analysis, start-up capital, space, and customers.

While the process of starting a small business might seem daunting, there are a number of software programs available that will give your business a leg up on the competition.

Below is a closer look at some of those programs and why they’re essential for any small business:

Gumroad: Need to sell digital products? This shopping cart software is easy to install on a website, encourages checkout, and can automate delivery of purchased digital products. The software also supports pay-what-you-want functionality.

Shopify: For more comprehensive online storefronts, Shopify overlays a shopping platform on top of a website. Shopify manages orders, payment processing, and inventory management.

ScheduleOnce: When you want to manage scheduling online, sync with Google Calendar, block off time for meetings and send meeting reminder emails, this software is a great choice.

Skype: Microsoft now owns Skype and has integrated the free voice and video conferencing feature with its other office programs. This tool includes instant messaging, making it an ideal way to stay in contact with customers, suppliers, investors, and fellow entrepreneurs.

Youneedabudget.com: With this software program, small businesses as well as individuals can track debt, expenses and income in an intuitive interface.

Infusionsoft: There are a number of customer relationship management (CRM) products out there. This product helps small businesses manage emails, automate marketing processes, organize, and sell online.

PicMonkey: When you need to edit images and graphics for blogs, social media or publications, this free online tool is the way to go.

Scrivener: If your small business involves news or creative writing, this tool helps you map projects, conduct research, build outlines, write, and edit longer projects. Scrivener understands that inspiration occurs at odd moments and writing chronologically is not always the way to go.

Gratitude Journal: Studies show that people who reflect on a point of gratitude every day are happier. For a few minutes of reflection, your mind will be sharper, you’ll feel better, and that attitude will show in your business.

Moz: Formerly SEOmoz, this suite of tools helps small businesses manage online content and marketing and improve search results.

Rapportive: Do you want to add a boost to your email program. This free Gmail plug-in shows social media connections and contact details within your inbox. The plug-in shows photos, social media links, locations, and past email conversations.

Meetup: Running your own business can be lonely. At meetup.com, you can find social and networking events both formal and casual to meet like-minded entrepreneurs in your area.

Evernote: With Evernote, you can track notes, pictures, files and to-do lists in one place that syncs across devices, lets you share files and send yourself reminders.

For greater success, check out: 5 Things You Didn’t Know About PDF Files!

There are so many options for software tools to improve your life, from health and fitness apps to entertainment tools to social networking, but let’s take a closer look at some of the best business management tools:

Asana

Asana is a problem management product that lives online. With Asana, users can assign tasks to team members or themselves. All team members can access the tasks, comment on them, and update progress.

Blaze Desk

Take core management functions, integrate them in one module-based platform, and you’ll end up with Blaze Desk. In one place, your business can coordinate customer relationship management, inventory management, project management, customer support, vendor and client extranet access, invoicing, and cloud file management.

Brightpearl

For wholesalers and retailers of completed goods, Brightpearl is cloud-based software that lets these companies manage the core of their businesses. With Brightpearl, inventory, customer data, accounting, ordering, and reporting are in one comprehensive retail management system.. Available features allow for realtime cash flow, inventory integration, profitability tracking, and customer analytics.

Fiverr

Need a freelancer for graphic design, WordPress page building, ebooks, writing, or other projects best done by a freelancer? With Fiverr, small-business owners can find talent for goods and services that start at $5.

Front Desk

This client management system is mobile-enabled and simple to install and use. Manage attendance, billing, scheduling, and more while you’re on the go.

Logicbox

Front-end operations, including sales, order placement, services, and project management are all in one place with Logicbox, which can be tailored to automate crucial functions.

MINDBODY

Whether you have 10 or 100 employees, MINDBODY helps with employee scheduling, managing staff and students, creating e-commerce sites, and creating and deploying marketing campaigns.

NetSuite

This software helps improve billing management. NetSuite creates invoices and integrates billing with other tools, helping to reduce billing errors and boost customer service and retention.

OfficeBooks

Want to manage core business functions in one place? Cloud-based OfficeBooks integrates critical business management areas, including purchasing, inventory control, and sales orders.

Windward System Five

When you want to track and report on store transactions, Windward System Five is a great solution. Use it to coordinate store sales, taxes, gross profit, label and bar code printing, and stock management, all in one platform.

PDF files are often critical pieces of the digital business landscape. Check out 5 Things You Didn’t Know About PDF Files to get the most out of PDF files and documents.

There’s not a business leader alive who doesn’t wish that she, and her employees, could be more productive. Wish so many distractions making concentration and focus challenging, every little bit helps.

Here’s a closer look at some great tools to keep you and your business driving forward:

ABBYY FineReader

Need to make sure text on documents is recognized and converted properly? ABBYY is powerful OCR software that automates these tasks and makes corrections go fast.

Any.do

This personal or collaborative task management app works on Android, Chrome, and iOS. It’s more than a to-do list with the Any.do Moment feature that nudges users to review daily tasks each morning.

Boxer

This email management tool helps you coordinate and customize inboxes. The program integrates with contacts and calendars, giving iPhone and Android users great value.

Brewster

Need to manage all those contacts better? Stop wasting time cleaning up your address books. Brewster finds all the places where contact data is located, bringing them into one place, combining duplicates and saving time.

Do.com

There’s very little that slows meeting productivity more than meetings that run poorly. With Do.com, users can centralize agendas, files, and follow-ups. It also provides helpful suggestions to improve meeting management.

Doodle.com

Trying to find the best time to get multiple attendees in the same place or on a conference call? With Doodle, you don’t have to waste time tracking replies and following up. Through simple online polls, you can find optimal times faster.

EasilyDo

Sometimes the small things matter most. With EasilyDo, you can use your mobile device to automate simple tasks, from texting to Facebook posts, that can eat up a lot of time.

Google Drive

There are plenty of cloud-based free file storage sites, but only one that’s free and effortlessly syncs with the suite of other Google products. Sync, share, and store documents, spreadsheets, videos, and presentations in one place.

HootSuite

Want to centralize management of social media platforms? With Hootsuite, you can manage posts, track replies, and have a top-level view of your social media portfolio. HootSuite supports Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube.

LibreOffice 5.0

Looking for an alternative to the Microsoft Office suite. This free desktop alternative includes word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, math formatting, and problem-solving and database programs all in one place.

MindView

Do you want help with innovation, brainstorming, and creativity? Looking for a place to track, manage, organize, and visualize all those great ideas? With MindView, your brilliant ideas will become reality more quickly, and the program easily imports and exports to Microsoft Office products.

Many business rely on PDF files daily, but they may not be getting the most out of this valuable file format. Check out some of the best information about PDF files with

(Business Software) 5 Things You Didn’t Know About PDF Files.

To create quality videos, you want powerful video editing software that’s easy to use, comes loaded with features, and delivers powerful results. While many such programs cost a lot, there are plenty of free alternatives that can deliver what you need. Here are several free, highly-rated video editing programs you can master in no time:

VideoPad Video Editor

A great tool for beginning editors, the VideoPad Video Editor has useful features, such as a double screen (one to preview clips and one to preview the full project), video and audio track timelines, and the ability to add still images or blank screens to your composition. The available effects include adjustments to light, color, text, and three transition options.

Aiseesoft Video Converter Ultimate

While known best as video conversion software, Aiseesoft Video Converter Ultimate gives you a wide range of editing tools. It has a feature that lets you create 3D videos in multiple formats. Other tools include crop, watermark, and audio functionality. The effects tool lets you alter brightness, contrast, and saturation. The clip function lets you cut down a video or split it into segments.

Movavi Video Suite

The Movavi Video Suite combines eight utilities into one product. The features are basic and ideal for beginners looking to edit, capture, convert, split, join, or burn videos. File format conversion, video capture from a digital video camera, and online video download and editing are all simple to do in this powerful program.

McFunSoft Video Capture/Convert/Burn Studio

Fun is part of the game with the McFunSoft Video Capture/Convert/Burn Studio. Video capture, editing, and conversion are easy, as are special features to extract audio and images and to batch process videos.

ArcSoft ShowBiz

With ArcSoft ShowBiz, a whole host of effects are at your fingertips. An anti-shaking tool smooths playback while the de-noise feature lowers the sound level. Rotate, flip, crop, and trim features let you focus on what’s important visually. A storyboard mode lets you add transitions, insert effects, and incorporate music into your creation. Other tools let you create and edit 3D images in multiple formats. Add voiceover narrations and create a soundtrack by inserting multiple audio tracks.

To learn more about what you can do with free video software, check out: Capture Every Moment: Transform VLC Player into a Screen Capture App