Top Android Apps for Small Business

When it comes to mobile phones, we no longer care for their fundamental use (make/answer phone calls), but we purchase them for the status quo that they carry, the beautiful user interfaces as well as the ever evolving user experience, and of course the addicting apps that they house. Lately, the omnipotent iPhone has had to share the spotlight with Android. Android is blowing up and with HTC’s Evo 4G, the only one of its kind now out on the market, it will only get bigger. So lets set aside the iPhone craze and now turn our attention to Android, more specifically the Android apps. Below is a list of my top Android apps for small businesses.

Expensify is a great Android app for storing as well as capturing your business expenses. You can keep a record of your expenses and take photos of your receipts. You can create an expense report and attach receipts to each entry. Another great feature is adding credit cards to the app in order to import your expenses directly into Expensify, which updates daily. This takes the pressure off of having to remember to record all your expenses. You can export to Quickbooks or Freshbooks, and it even has time and mileage tracking capabilities. The user interface is clean and simple with only 3 buttons you have to manage: expenses plus photo of receipt, photo of receipt only, or sign off. The interface is straight forward and with very few fields to fill in, the task of having to update your expenses becomes less tedious and annoying. Lastly, customer service is exceptional. The Expensify folks are prompt and very eager to get your opinion on the app. This tool is great for tax season making write-offs a piece of cake.
Note: You will need to set up an Expensify account. This app is also available on the iPhone and Blackberry.
Price: Free!

Google Maps works great on Android. Shocker! Aside from the features that you’re use to on the web, the navigate feature is its best selling point in my book. Yay! No more TomToms or Magellans and bad UX with hooking those GPS navigation systems to the windshields. With this Android app, you can set your mobile phone down and allow Google Maps to verbally direct you to your destination with its turn by turn navigation. Other features included in this app that are worth noting are options like layers and labs. Layers gives you practically all the features available on the web and Labs is another option that is offered where additional add-ons or plugins are being experimented with by Google to make the mobile app more effective. As a small business owner, you’re always going to find yourself going to new and unfamiliar places to meet colleagues, suppliers, and clients, thus make sure you have this mobile app with you during your many driving adventures into the unknown.
Price: Free!

Astrid is a simple to-do list Android app. The mobile app offers reminders, checklists, sorting and filters, tagging, synchronization to Remember the Milk (another free to-do list app), and you can backup your tasks to your SD card as well. With a gazillion things to do as a small business owner, it’s important to get organized and this app will help you complete your tasks so long as you remember to record them all.
Price: Free!

Google Voice is a voicemail service that allows you to keep your existing mobile number and have missed calls forwarded to your Google Voice number. You can also have your Google Voice forward calls to your existing mobile number if you don’t want to give out your personal number. Domestic calling and texting can be done through Google Voice as well. This Android app allows for missed calls to be viewed via your mobile phone, internet, or email. Another neat feature is that all voicemails are transcribed so you have a record of all your communication. This will really help with avoid communication issues of he said, she said, who said what. Also, this app will save you on those precious mobile minutes. The latest feature offered in the mobile app is the Inbox synchronization thus all incoming calls are in real time now.
Note: You will need to sign up for a Google Voice invite and then once an invitation is sent to you, you can set up an account. It is also available on the iPhone and Blackberry.
Price: Free! however to make international calls this will cost you a bit.

Qik on the 3G network allows you to stream live video straight to the internet. This is a great and easy way to set up video for your audience to view. You can also record a video and send it to your colleagues, associates, and clients. This Android app integrates with your Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube accounts as well. New upgrades are out for the 4G HTC Evo with video chatting.
Note: You will need to set up a Qik account.
Price: Free!

Mighty Meeting is a powerpoint presentation management tool for the Android platform. This mobile app syncs with your Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube accounts to make sharing nice and simple. You can tag your powerpoint presentations to make retrieval of the one that you’re searching for a snap. You can also deliver your presentation via your phone with no problems.
Note: You will need to sign up for an account. It is also available on the iPhone.
Price: Free!

Advanced Task Killer is a very useful and easy app killer on Android. Naturally the more apps you have on your mobile phone the slower your device will run so don’t be like me initially and download every darn app out there, especially the free ones. However with that said, even with a handful of apps on your mobile phone it’s still hard to keep track of what has been open thus this is why the Advanced Task Killer is a life saver. Not only does it show you what apps are running, but with the tap of a button you can easily end all apps. It also allows you to create an ignore list of apps that you want to always run such as your Astrid app for instance.
Price: Free!

Opera Mini, touted to offer the fastest search speed, is an Android app mobile browser. I’d have to say it is faster in rendering web content than using the web browser that comes with the mobile phone. Some features offered include bookmarking, saving pages, and a neat search button. Having your own business spares you very little idle time, therefore Opera Mini can grant you more time to get things done.
Price: Free!

Locale makes your phone truly a “smart phone” that can think for itself by relying on GPS, Wifi, and cellular signals. You can set up situation notices such as when you’re in a meeting and it’ll know to switch your setting to vibrate. This will save you from any embarrassment in the board room. Also, it’s smart enough to turn off the power draining applications on your mobile phone when it detects that your phone is running out of batteries. This Android app also comes with plug-ins made available by third party developers.
Price: $10.99, plug-ins are an additional $1.99 each

Twidroid is a twitter client for Android. It has a clean user interface, customizable options in the settings menu, and many options to choose from to make tweeting on your mobile phone as easy as doing it on your desktop or laptop. Other cool features included in this Android app are trends, search tool, edit your profile, manage your lists, url shorteners, and photo uploads.
Price: Free!