Useful tools for running a small business
Beyond your accounting software, a handful of well-chosen tools can save hours a week.
| Tool | Cost to start |
|---|---|
| Invoicing & payments | |
| Stripe | No monthly fee; a percentage plus a small fixed fee per transaction |
| GoCardless | No monthly fee; a small percentage per collection |
| Team communication | |
| Slack | Free plan; paid tiers add longer message history and more integrations |
| WhatsApp Business | Free business profile |
| Project & task management | |
| Trello | Generous free plan |
| Asana | Free plan for smaller teams; paid tiers |
| Notion | — |
| Time tracking | |
| Toggl Track | Free plan covering the basics for a small team |
| Clockify | Free, with unlimited users on its free tier |
| CRM basics | |
| HubSpot (free CRM) | Free CRM; paid tiers add marketing automation |
| Pipedrive | Paid from the start |
Invoicing & payments
Stripe
Takes card payments online, with no monthly fee — you pay a percentage plus a small fixed fee per transaction. Good for businesses taking one-off or online card payments, and it also supports lower-cost Direct Debit-style bank payments for recurring invoices.
GoCardless
Collects recurring payments by Direct Debit rather than card, which is usually cheaper for regular invoices once the amount gets past a couple of hundred pounds. No monthly fee — just a small percentage per collection. Popular for subscriptions, retainers and membership billing.
Team communication
Slack
A messaging app for teams, organised into channels instead of one long email thread. Free plan is genuinely usable for small teams, with paid tiers adding longer message history and more integrations once you outgrow it. Worth it once email starts feeling too slow for day-to-day back-and-forth.
WhatsApp Business
For businesses that communicate with customers as much as colleagues, WhatsApp Business adds a free business profile, quick replies and basic automation on top of the app most UK customers already use — no separate account for them to sign up to.
Project & task management
Trello
Simple visual boards and cards for tracking tasks. The free plan is generous and easy for anyone to pick up, making it a solid starting point if you've never used a task tool before and don't want to overthink it.
Asana
More structured than Trello, with timelines and multiple ways to view the same project. Free plan works well for smaller teams; the paid tiers earn their keep once you're managing several projects with dependencies and deadlines.
Notion
Part task manager, part shared notebook, part simple database — flexible enough to become whatever your business needs it to be. That flexibility is also the trade-off: it takes a bit more setup than Trello to get real value from it.
Time tracking
Toggl Track
A straightforward timer for tracking hours against clients or projects, with a free plan that covers the basics for a small team. Useful if you bill by the hour, or simply want to know where your time is actually going before you decide what to change.
Clockify
A free time-tracking alternative with unlimited users on its free tier, which makes it a reasonable starting point for teams who want everyone logging time without paying per seat straight away.
CRM basics
HubSpot (free CRM)
A genuinely usable free CRM for tracking contacts, deals and basic email activity — a sensible first step up from a spreadsheet of leads. Paid tiers add marketing automation, but plenty of small businesses never need to leave the free plan.
Pipedrive
A paid-from-the-start CRM built around a visual sales pipeline — simple to set up and aimed squarely at businesses that want a clean view of deals moving through stages, without the wider marketing features that come with some competitors.
Choosing tools
Free plans and pricing on all of the above change fairly often, so treat the notes here as a starting point and check current details before signing up. Start with one project tool and one communication tool, and add others once the team is using those.
Accounts and bookkeeping with Buzz
Whatever tools you run the rest of the business on, we'll make sure the numbers side is solid underneath it.
Accreditations and partnerships
