Business Management Software

Each operational sector of a business comes with its own set of data and workflows. For growing businesses, it can be difficult to monitor and manage these various sectors successfully when each sector uses a different software system.

With business management software, companies can effectively manage the data and automate the workflows of each department within their business on a single platform.

This guide will cover what business management software is, the different types of business management software, the benefits of business management software, and more.

What is business management software?

Business management software combines the capabilities of multiple software products into one application to streamline the daily operations of an organization. Business management systems automate administrative activities such as accounting, contact management, customer relationship management, enterprise resource planning, and human resource management.

Business management systems also give companies the ability to effectively and efficiently monitor, manage, and measure the overall performance of their organization.

What are the different types of business management software?

To select the right solution for your small business, you need to understand the types of business management software:

• Dedicated, stand-alone business management software: This software addresses a specific, single aspect of your business operations such as accounting, human resources (HR), or customer relationship management (CRM). Each standalone tool delivers focused and in-depth reporting capabilities to address a specific business function.

• Single, integrated business management software: This software stores the data from all your departments on a single platform. It’s designed to integrate and work seamlessly with other software solutions, including with add-ons and plugins. Integrated business management software makes it easier to generate different reports about the workings of your entire business.

What are the benefits of business management software?

• Improves employee productivity: Organizations need to give their employees quality tools if they expect their workforce to be productive. Business management software streamlines key workflows, such as billing and invoicing, helping employees effectively complete tasks in a timely manner.

• Enables regulatory compliance: Since most growing businesses have a multitude of daily operations to attend to, it can be easy to overlook certification renewals and other compliance regulations. Some business management solutions come with built-in compliance features that send out alerts and reminders regarding compliance requirements to help organizations avoid noncompliance penalties.

• Enhances scalability: Small to midsize businesses often have trouble enabling their various internal departments to scale as business grows. By managing all daily operations from one centralized system, each department within the organization will be able to efficiently  communicate, collaborate, and support each other as the company demands increase.

• Saves money: Businesses can automate daily operations, saving resources and revenue. For instance, with a business management system, companies can incorporate electronic billing and invoicing, which eliminates the cost of printing and mailing paper invoices.

• Provides valuable data insights: Organizations must be able to properly collect data and draw insights from their databases to make good data-informed business decisions. Business management systems allow companies to track key processes, such as inventory management, to draw valuable insights that help inform everyday business decision-making.

What are common features of business management software?

Here are the most common features of business management software:

• Customer relationship management (CRM): Seamlessly integrate with your current CRM software to better manage customer-centric tasks such as customer service, support, feedback, and more.

• Employee management: Manage core HR functions such as payroll, personnel tracking, benefits administration, learning management, employee scheduling, employee time and attendance, talent management, performance review, and applicant tracking.

• Financial management: Access a comprehensive overview of company finances. Receive a more accurate understanding of a company’s financial health.

• Billing and invoicing: Create and manage monetary interactions between parties (i.e., bills and invoices).

• Inventory management: Track and manage the quantity of resources on hand to maintain proper supply. Optimize company inventory levels and increase inventory returns.

• Marketing automation: Plan, track, and evaluate marketing activities including promotions, customer outreach, and branding.

• Order management: Organize, track, monitor, and execute customer orders for goods, investments, or any other purchases.

• Performance metrics: Access a set of indicators that track how well an organization, a division, or a particular project is performing.

• Time and expense tracking: Allow employees to log and record hours worked and costs spent to assist with billing and invoicing.

• Vendor management: Track and store all vendor-related information such as contacts, services offered, terms, etc.

How do small and midsize businesses use business management software?

It can be difficult for small and midsize businesses (SMBs) to effectively juggle the requirements of various departments while attempting to grow their business. Internal departments must be able to operate and communicate with each other seamlessly to maintain a good relationship with stakeholders and stay competitive in the marketplace as business scales up.

Unlike large enterprises, SMBs have constrained budgets, fewer resources, and a smaller risk tolerance—making it imperative to find solutions that enable employees and management to be more productive and less error-prone. To solve this dilemma, innovative SMBs can make use of business management systems to merge various types of business software that help automate administrative tasks and manage key departmental processes, ultimately helping them build their reputation as their business grows.

What are some important business management software integrations?

When searching for a business management software solution, make sure your solution of choice includes these important software integrations:

• Accounting software: This type of software, also known as bookkeeping software, records and processes all business transactions. Accounting software helps businesses send invoices, produce pay stubs, keep track of accounts payable and receivable, and deal with all other monetary transactions.

• Communication software: Communication software enables businesses to communicate with internal and external stakeholders. Most organizations choose communications software solutions that are cloud-based to allow for seamless communication with other departments regardless of the users’ locations.

• CRM software: Customer relationship management software connects multiple departments, from marketing to customer service, so that employees and managers can directly access customer information when needed.

• Data analytics software: Data analytics platforms run mathematical processes on large datasets to identify patterns and generate valuable insights that can be used to make better data-informed decisions.

• Human resource (HR) management software: HR software assists businesses with the management of all employee recruitment and onboarding, payroll, performance, and retention efforts.

• Inventory management software: This type of software equips companies to better track, manage, and organize product/service sales and inventory levels to avoid product overstock or outages.

• Marketing software: Marketing software solutions help businesses execute marketing campaigns successfully by providing social media promotion tools, email marketing templates, search engine optimization (SEO) tools, and other functionalities that track the customer journey to inform campaigns.

• Project management software: Project management solutions assist businesses with the project planning, scheduling, budgeting, and other key project management processes.

Depending on the needs of your organization, you may need to look for a business management software solution that integrates with other tools such as desktop publishing programs or on-demand forecasting software.