Screenshots: Get your business off the ground with the help of these five apps

Small Business Inventory Control Pro

Small Business Inventory Control Pro is a handy tool for product-based businesses. It allows companies to keep track of things like product inventories and payments to vendors. It can also report on inventory cost, the retail value of the inventory, and the 30-day turnover ratio.

Small Business Inventory Control Pro

A couple of the tool’s more notable features are its ability to create purchase orders and invoices and its capacity for dealing with bundles, not just individual products.

Small Business Inventory Control Pro sells for $259, but a free trial is available for download.

KBilling

KBilling is the invoicing system I‘ve been using for the last few years. I evaluated numerous invoicing tools and chose KBilling because it was highly customizable and modestly priced. The software allows you to build a customer database, issue quotes, and manage invoices. In addition, invoices can be billed to credit cards, and it’s easy to add late fees to overdue invoices. The software can even handle shipping costs.

KBilling

As if that weren’t enough, KBilling contains dozens of built-in reports that can help you to better understand your organization’s cash flow.

KBilling sells for $149, but a free trial version is available for download.

Publish-iT

Publish-iT can help your organization create its own advertisements, brochures, and other printed media. It has many of the same features found in high-end desktop publishing applications but at a fraction of the cost. For instance, it includes drawing tools, photo editing tools, and the ability to interact with TWAIN scanners.

Publish-iT

Publish-iT also includes countless text and image formatting options. This tool probably won’t meet the needs of professional graphic designers, but it will work fine for most other people.

Publish-iT sells for $24, but a free trial is available for download.

Advertising Manager

Advertising Manager is designed to help businesses make the most of their advertising budget. The tool reminds me a lot of a business plan template because of some of the questions it asks. Advertising Manager requires you to enter some basic information about your business and then helps you brainstorm by asking you questions about things like market share and public perception.

Advertising Manager

Advertising Manager also lets you follow ad campaigns by attaching media files and tracking the campaign’s duration, dates, and price.

Advertising Manager sells for $199, but a free trial version is available for download.

Ultimate Business Plan Starter

Ultimate Business Plan Starter is a free tool that can help you create a business plan. It’s structured similarly to Advertising Manager, guiding you through the process of entering various types of information. For example, you can enter information about your competitive advantage, pricing, and promotional plan.

Ultimate Business Plan Starter

Ultimate Business Plan Starter uses a tree-like interface that makes it easy to move between parts of the plan. The plan’s elements are cleanly organized into categories, such as Executive Summary, Operating Plan, and Financial Assumptions.