5 IT Software that Every Medium to Large Business Absolutely Needs!

Donald Knapp 06/10/2020

If you have entered the category of medium to large sized business then you have achieved something that only a few startup companies do.

But with all of that growth comes the need to have solid software infrastructures in place to keep the organization working efficiently and continuing to scale, including the use of Network Monitoring Software, Enterprise Management and Log management tools according to WebServerTalk.com.

In other words, having adequate technological resources is essential to building the structure of the company.

In this article we are going to discuss the top technological resources any medium to large size company needs to have implemented to continue to succeed.

Here are 5 IT Software that Every Medium to Large Business Absolutely Needs:

Accounting and Invoicing Software

Every single business, both big and small, require an accounting and invoicing system.

With it, you’ll create invoices, record incoming and outgoing payments, identify and follow up on past due receivables, and run reports that help you analyze your financial health and various aspects of your business.

A good accounting information system helps management answer such questions as:

What assets do we have?
How much and what kind of debt is outstanding?
Were the sales higher this period than last?
Did we make a profit last period?
Are any of product lines or divisions operating at a loss?
Is the rate of return on net assets increasing?
What were cash inflows and outflows?
Is the cash flow enough to pay back debt?
Can we safely increase our dividends to stockholders?

Accounting systems now-a-days are advanced and have some pretty awesome features including:

Automated bank feeds
Automatic payment reminders
Online invoicing and payment acceptance
Comprehensive, customizable, real-time financial reporting
Integrations with CRM Systems
Time and Expense Tracking
Purchase Order Modules
Complex Cost Accounting features
Inventory tracking
Asset Tracking
Depreciation Tracking

Having a good accounting and Invoicing system in place will help filing taxes be a breeze and will protect you should you ever get audited.

Examples Include: Quickbooks, Sage, FreshBooks, Zoho Books

Customer Relationship Management Software (CRM)

Customer relationship management (CRM) is a business strategy that stresses good ongoing relationships with customers.

A good CRM system provides a unified face to the customer and provides a seamless customer experience.

CRM software is a central location to help synchronize customer communications with various business unites.

With CRM tools companies can track, automate, analyze, and optimize customer interactions and multiple departments can use the same CRM including sales, marketing, customer service, etc.

CRM software collects and organizes customer data. This includes contact information and interactions via email, phone, web chat and social media.

All of the customer information is stored in this central location making it easy to access and making it clear for all parties involved on the status and relationship with each customer.

CRM systems also track work history, special client requests, project statuses, trouble tickets, task tickets, and any contracts associated to the customer as well as customer support portals.

You can create quotes, order processing, emails, sales forecasts, evaluation of employee performance, and so much more.

Furthermore, many CRM products include marketing automation features such as email marketing, lead management, web forms, analytics, and more.

In short, some of the Key Benefits of using a CRM system include:

Create a single storehouse for customer data
Provide greater visibility into sales, marketing and customer service processes
Help optimize customer communications
Shorten sales cycles
Improve customer retention
Help companies understand and address the needs of customers
Increase customer satisfaction
Automate tasks
Increase operational efficiency
Free up employees to focus on customer interactions

Examples Include: Salesforce, Zoho CRM

Payment Software

The ultimate goal of any business is to generate revenue.

Customers make payments through various means, which might not always be secured.

Moreover, businesses also have to make payments to different vendors.

Thus, it is very important to have a reliable payment support software with various integration options in order to make the payment process smooth and secured.

Examples Include: PayPal, Stripe, Bill.com

File Backup and Recovery

Losing all of your data is a nightmare, and if you lose business data, it could potentially ruin your entire business.

Despite your IT staff’s best attempts to implement good policies and training, people can allow viruses into your business systems.

It can be as easy as one person opening an e-mail attachment that brings down your entire server.

They can even mistakenly delete files or whole directories of data such as customer information, archived files such as tax returns, customer contracts, HR documents, and other documents that are vital to the organization.

Restoring the corrupted files and deleted information is a major benefit of an effective backup strategy.

There are several ways to backup files but one of the best ways is via online backups for businesses.

This means your data is held off-site.

The remote storage of your data protects it from physical disasters on your site such as a fire or flooding.

Many file and backup recovery softwares have the option to setup automatic backups.

This way you don’t have to remember to manually do it, it just gets done every day or several times a day as you wish.

Examples include: SolarWinds Backup, StorageCraft, AWS

Communication and Collaboration Software

Every organization needs a way to communicate with internal and external stakeholders and the most popular way is via e-mail.

Team collaboration software aims to facilitate communication between team members by providing a convenient, informal space to directly message one another, talk as a group, and share relevant content.

Team collaboration tools are intended to be the go-to for users to quickly address questions, check their tasks, and access shared knowledge and files.

Most e-mail communication packages include team collaboration features such as chat rooms, group chats, activity boards, and more.

However, they may be limited which is wearing adding a separate team collaboration tool can really help with the overall communication and efficiently of your team and organization.