Maximising productivity is key to growing a successful business. There are thousands of different productivity apps you can use to automate processes, optimise your workflow, and streamline your business. But what are the best productivity apps on the market? 

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Whether they're designed to improve communication and collaboration or specifically focus on aspects of your business like project management, accounting, or sales, these apps are all focused on making businesses more productive so that they can achieve more with the same time and human resource.

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In this guide, we take a look at the best productivity apps to make your business more profitable and efficient, focusing specifically on:

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• Workflow and project management
• Teams and communication
• Sales and marketing
• Accounting

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Workflow and project management apps 

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Project management ensures that you complete work in an organised manner, on time and to a high standard, which is key to business growth and increasing profitability. These productivity tools will help you to improve team workflow, break projects into tasks, and monitor progress. 

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Workiro

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Workiro is a straightforward task management app that seamlessly integrates with other popular productivity apps to help streamline workloads and increase output. 

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Projects are broken down into smaller, individual tasks that make completing the project more manageable. These tasks can be assigned to different team members with specific due dates, with your team receiving automated reminders to complete the task, so that you don’t have to.

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It’s ideal for team management when looking to plan out and distribute work. Each task has one clear objective and one owner, so it’s easy for everyone to understand what they’re working on. Team members are able to comment and update tasks, whilst sharing files across the platform in a safe & secure way through Workiro’s encrypted file sharing capability. 

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Because Workiro integrates with so many other tools it’s easy to get started and fits into your existing setup. Any tasks or actions mentioned across other communication platforms including email, instant messaging, or other tools, can be automatically set up as an unmissable task in GetBusy, ensuring that nothing gets missed or forgotten about. Workiro keeps everyone focused, ensuring that all deadlines are met, increasing the overall productivity of your business. 

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Trello

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Trello is a project management app that allows you to plan out your workload in a highly visual kanban board style. You can create different boards for projects, teams, or departments and then add cards for each piece of work, action, or task, arranging them into columns so that they can be moved across as the work progresses. 

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It’s a great app for increasing productivity because it’s so versatile and can be used to organise or manage anything from project work to content calendars. Users can comment on cards, attach documents and images, add a checklist, label them, and set deadlines. With everything clearly laid out, it simplifies organising workloads and sharing work. 

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Asana

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Another useful app for business productivity is Asana. It’s a flexible project management tool that allows you to organise and prioritise work. It focuses on optimising workflows and ensures the successful coordination of multiple projects, completing everything on time. Assign work with deadlines, and set up rules to automate routine tasks so that your projects run like clockwork.

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Asana also enables you to visualise your team's workload. Users have the choice of a list view to see prioritised tasks and a Timeline that demonstrates how individual tasks fit into the overall plan, helping to monitor progress.

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Teams and communication apps

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Clear communication is essential to increasing your business’s output. Below we have identified some of the best communication apps that make it easier for your team to chat and collaborate on important tasks. 

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Microsoft Office 365

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Microsoft Office 365 provides a whole suite of tools to optimise your business and increase productivity. It includes online access to the Microsoft Office apps, like Word and Excel, and cloud storage so you can easily share and collaborate on documents within your business. 

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You can also use Outlook email and Exchange calendar, as well as Microsoft Teams for instant messaging and video conferencing. 

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Setting up your business with Microsoft Office 365 ensures that all of your favourite Microsoft tools will work together to optimise your scheduling, communication, and teamwork.

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Slack

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Slack is a communication tool that helps teams to quickly coordinate and collaborate, cutting out the numerous emails flying back and forth. Slack allows you to create different channels based on projects, teams, departments, or clients so that everyone is kept in the loop about everything that’s relevant to them. It keeps conversations organised and in one place, meaning that you can find a previous message quickly.

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It’s not just a way of instant messaging, Slack ensures that everyone is up to date and that all communications are secure and easily accessible.

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Evernote

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Productivity is about streamlining processes and increasing the speed at which work is completed to a high standard. So instead of using a pen and paper to note things down, one of the best apps for increasing productivity is Evernote. It’s a notes organiser and planning app that allows you to take notes, copy and paste text, add in photos, PDFs and audio; collating your ideas into one space. 

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Your notes are instantly searchable so you don’t have to flick through pages of illegible handwriting or go trawling through your online search history for the useful article you found last week. Plus, all notes are synced across all devices for easy access anywhere, making it it easy to share them with colleagues and team members. 

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Using Evernote will reduce wasted time, a key part of improving productivity and making your business more profitable.

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Google Calendar

A reliable calendar app is essential for productivity with Google Calendar one of the easiest and most effective available. It’s full of useful scheduling features that make planning out days and workloads simple. You can set up appointments, reminders, tasks, and use different calendars based on your requirements - for example, you could have a team or department calendar, a client calendar, individual calendars and a company-wide calendar. 

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Being a Google product, it seamlessly links with Gmail, G Suite, and other tools like Workiro to ensure communications and updates are synced with your schedule.

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By keeping on top of daily schedules across the business, you’ll be able to ensure that everyone is working efficiently, minimising time wasted on missed or rescheduled meetings. 

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Sales and marketing productivity apps 

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Sales and marketing are essential when developing and growing a successful business, so you should find productivity apps that can help automate repetitive tasks and provide insights to inform your future plans. 

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Hubspot

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Hubspot is an intuitive customer relationship management app that simplifies all aspects of developing connections with customers. It makes it easy to record and manage emails, phone calls, and customer details in one place so that you can monitor your pipeline and focus on moving leads through your sales funnel. 

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Hubspot’s main features include pipeline management, email marketing with templates, email tracking, live chat, and a reporting dashboard so you can monitor progress. 

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By improving your customer pipeline and tracking communications, Hubspot will help your sales team develop better relationships with customers and leads. 

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Zoho CRM

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Zoho CRM is a business management platform that includes a range of different features such as sales and marketing automation tools, helpdesk and customer support, and analytics. It's designed to help businesses convert leads, automate their sales processes, and monitor interactions across a range of channels. By automating some of the time-consuming repetitive tasks associated with sales, it allows you to focus on converting leads into customers.

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The real-time reporting and analytics features also help keep track of sales performance, current trends, and future predictions. For businesses that are looking to improve their sales process to increase conversions, profitability, and growth, Zoho CRM has got to be one of the better products out there.

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Accounting productivity apps

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Accounting typically involves a lot of admin and repetitive tasks, so finding a productivity app that can streamline your accounting processes is crucial.

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QuickBooks

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QuickBooks is an accounting app designed to simplify everything from cash flow and taxes to invoices and payroll. It gives you a clear overview of your business's finances with a 90-day cash flow forecast, provides support for VAT submissions, and allows you to send out customised invoices with automated reminders to ensure bills are paid on time.

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Quickbooks integrates with Workiro so that you can create unmissable tasks such as sending an invoice or chasing a bill straight from QuickBooks. 

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Choosing the best productivity apps for your business 

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When you're looking to increase productivity, you need to consider how you can improve your existing processes and the areas of your business that take up most of your time. 

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Productivity apps like Workiro, offer a quick and easy solution when looking for a tool that integrates with 100’s of existing business tools, ensuring as little downtime as possible. A combination of the tools above is sure to improve productivity within your organisation, freeing up more time to focus on other tasks.

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For more tips on how to reduce wasted time and increase productivity, check out this webinar on how to take back control of your email.