As a small business owner, you don’t have time to manually run every task — big or small — by yourself. It’s 2024, and business statistics show that it’s time to enlist technology for support.
In this guide, we’ve listed the best software solutions for small business management, like Cin7 as the best inventory management software and Rippling for human resource services — many of which integrate for a comprehensive experience.
This guide unpacks each solution’s use cases, pricing, and key features. Read on to see the software you need for your small business.
Methodology: To compile our list of the best software for small business management, we evaluated solutions across key areas critical to the success of small businesses. For our recommendations, we weighed factors such as pricing, ease of use, integrations, and customer reviews.
Table of contents:
Our pick for: Inventory management
Awarded best inventory management software by Forbes and U.S. News, Cin7 offers two solutions — Core and Omni — to support the needs of small to midsize businesses across industries and market shares. Cin7 allows business owners to manage sales across devices, track inventory levels, and communicate with customers.
With Cin7, business owners move away from manual spreadsheet tracking to connected inventory performance for a real-time look at inventory levels. With this insight at your fingertips, you can make quick, data-driven product decisions to strengthen your business’s efficiencies while saving you time and money.
Cin7 offers many features complementary to the other software solutions below and fosters connected integrations with third-party external tools.
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Our pick for: Customer relationship management
Salesforce’s customer relationship management (CRM) software allows businesses to build, store, track, and manage customer details in one centralized location. It also offers marketing, sales, commerce, and service solutions to support growing businesses. Developed for service teams, Salesforce assists small to enterprise businesses across all industries, with no limits on location.
As a bonus, Salesforce integrates with Cin7 to provide customers with real-time product information, stock levels, and purchase statuses. In addition, quotes generated within Salesforce transfer contact details to Cin7.
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Our pick for: Sales forecasting
Inventoro is an AI-based sales forecasting tool for small businesses wishing to reduce inventory levels, avoid stockouts, and flag deadstock early. Inventoro claims its solution helps users accurately maintain product availability, increase revenue, and decrease inventory while freeing up several hours a week.
Inventoro integrates with Cin7 for an integrated view of sales forecasting and detailed reports. Cin7’s solutions also offer valuable insights to support inventory forecasting, making it the preferred option for small businesses looking for an all-encompassing solution to inventory management.
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Inventoro’s pricing model directly relates to your business’s annual turnover. Monthly rates start at $49, increase to $149 for accounts with a $500,000 annual turnover, and reach $699 for those exceeding $10 million. The rate continues to climb the higher your turnover rate.
Our pick for: Human resources management
Rippling’s Unity platform is an all-in-one human resources (HR) and workplace system that offers basic and advanced features, like bill pay and recruiting assistance, in addition to the typical day-to-day tasks of a business. It can support small businesses with a handful of employees as well as those with up to 2,000 members.
Anything you can think of related to human resources, Rippling can help — and U.S. News agrees by ranking Rippling the best HR software.
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Our pick for: Payroll services
Gusto is also a highly rated human resources platform with numerous offerings, but we like it best as a payroll servicer for small businesses, and so does U.S. News. It’s ranked as the best payroll software and best HR software for SMBs.
Gusto’s scalable payroll solution provides multiple options for direct deposit, automated tax filing and forms, brokered health insurance administration, and more. It appears to cost more than Rippling upfront; however, many features for which Rippling charges additional fees are already included in Gusto’s specified monthly rate.
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Our pick for: Budgeting and spend management
Spendesk is a seven-in-one spending solution striving to build confidence in budgeting and spending for business owners. Spendesk partners with business owners to create healthy workplace cultures around spending, fostering trust and autonomy among team members.
Spendesk offers a larger enterprise system, but its free Collaborative Budgets tool is best for small businesses. Business owners and managers control spending by setting budgets and allowing employees to submit simple purchase orders. The centralized aspect allows for real-time visibility and budget reporting.
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Spendesk offers flexible, custom pricing based on company needs. Inquiring customers must contact the Spendesk team to receive a quote. You can also try Spendesk for free with a demo or trial to test the tool before you commit.
Our pick for: Project management
Trello is a project management tool designed to keep projects progressing and micro-tasks organized. Managers can easily keep track of their team’s workload, identify roadblocks, customize notifications, and collaborate with team members at ground level.
Trello is a great pick for small businesses because it’s a straightforward platform stocked with an endless supply of ready-to-use templates, so users can hit the ground running. Plus, businesses with fewer than 10 users can access Trello for free.
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There are also cost savings for plans billed annually.
Our pick for: Supply chain management
As an enterprise resource planning (ERP) software system, SYSPRO helps businesses streamline and automate their business processes. Its modular framework allows businesses to build the tool they need in the moment and add to it as they grow, making it an ideal ERP solution for smaller businesses.
SYSPRO offers a wide array of solutions but its supply chain management feature enables businesses to build and manage an efficient supply chain through real-time data for improved visibility and automations. Small business owners can use these insights to better evaluate supplier performance, optimize sourcing strategies, manage risks, and more.
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SYSPRO fully customizes pricing for each customer based on needs. The base price is determined by the licensing model a customer selects.
Add-on modules start at $5,000. Implementation services, extra consulting and training, and upgrades are available for an additional cost.
Our pick for: Free customer relationship management
While Salesforce is our preferred customer relationship management system, EngageBay is an excellent runner-up and may be more appealing to small business owners who may not be ready for such a grandiose CRM.
This free CRM software offers comprehensive solutions for items like automation, contact management, email templates, segmentation, site and SMS messaging, and much more. EngageBay even starts out free for companies with fewer than 15 users.
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Our pick for: Point-of-sale software
Square is an all-in-one payment platform that accepts payments in-store, online, manually, or via invoice with 15+ additional features and tools. Square offers the most accessible options when it comes to point-of-sale (POS) systems, making it an ideal POS software option for small businesses. Plus, there’s no need to worry about security thanks to the system’s end-to-end encrypted payments and fraud protection.
Square offers over 300 integrations within its system and easily integrates with external tools, including all of Cin7’s solutions. Square and Cin7 work together to efficiently manage stock and quickly fulfill online orders for small retailers.
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Although the basic plan has no setup or monthly fees, all plans are subject to additional processing fees per transaction. Processing fees vary by checkout experience, as detailed below.
The following features come standard with all plans:
Business management software covers a vast array of technology solutions, each serving a unique purpose. As a small business owner, you may feel overwhelmed not knowing where to start when choosing a software solution. That said, here are the main aspects to consider when comparing small business management software.
Besides the key aspects of business management software solutions, it’s important to take your business’s needs into account. Your business model influences which software solutions will be most valuable. For example, a retail business using a POS system doesn’t have the same technology needs as a service provider using field service management software.
As a small organization, you may find that you do not immediately need each type of software mentioned. Small businesses with a handful of employees also may not need as elaborate software solutions as those with 50 team members. Some micro businesses may also find that their needs are fully supported by free versions of these tools, whereas the dynamic needs of larger small businesses may require the additional features within paid plans.
In addition, two unique aspects of your business will influence your choice of business management software:
The options for software for small business management are endless, but Cin7 has your back to help you determine the best solution for your company.
Whether you’re looking for an alternative to NetSuite that targets small businesses to automate operations or a powerful inventory management system, let us show you our next-level organization, tracking, forecasting, and more to support your small business’s growth. Request a demo to learn more about Cin7’s inventory management solutions.
Small business management software encompasses any type of computerized tool that’s meant to support business operations. Its purpose is to streamline, automate, and support the day-to-day operations within an organization. This software provides services like inventory management, budgeting, marketing, and more.
The cost of software for small business management varies significantly depending on what type of system you’re looking for. Some software solutions charge flat monthly rates based on the number of features within a plan, while others charge by user or charge extra for additional services. Costs can range from free to a few dollars per user per month to several hundreds or thousands of dollars total.
Accounting software is the one software type all businesses must use. Regardless of business model, offerings, and size, all businesses need a solution to manage their daily financial operations like payroll, invoicing, and bookkeeping.
However, this doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the most used on a daily basis. The business management software used most by small businesses varies by type of business and services. Some small business teams may live in project management software all day, whereas another team may never close out of their CRM or inventory management tool.
Three of the main categories of business management software include:
