Small Business Shared Interest Group

Gold Standard Items:

1. The Basic: Excel  (I'm sorry, Google Sheets).

2. Record Keeping: QuickBooks Online (QBO). It's straightforward and sufficient for basic record keeping needs.

3. Consolidation and Data Analysis: Datarails. A step up from Excel with powerful data drill-down capabilities and automated data queries across multiple platforms. This tool saved our FP&A department days of work when producing monthly reporting packages.

4. Receipt Management: Expensify. This is my personal favorite among receipt management systems. It's lightweight, user-friendly, and integrates seamlessly with QBO.

5. Payroll: Rippling. Excellent for automating payroll across various states, managing both hourly and salaried employees, and providing HR compensation analysis reporting. The payroll/compensation change approval workflow is a standout feature, streamlining operational paperwork.

6. Credit Cards: Float (for Canadian companies) and Brex (for US companies). Both tools simplify credit card expense management with features like virtual card management and automatic GL matching, saving our accounting department valuable time during month-end closes.

7. Banking: Mercury. A non-traditional banking platform perfect for everyday finances, raising debt, and maximizing yield. It offers transparency on fund locations, unlike traditional big banks.

8. Procurement: Tropic. Much easier to use compared to traditional procurement tools like Ariba. It's a single platform for managing supplier and pricing data, and it doesn't charge suppliers extra when issuing POs through the platform.

9. Documentation Tools: Notion. Ideal for creating company wikis, accounting handbooks, and "How-Tos."

10. Issue and Project Tracking: Jira. The go-to tool for tracking issues and managing projects effectively.

Good Tools for Specific Needs:

1. Analytics & BI with AI Forecasting: Causal. This tool integrates with accounting software, HRIS, CRM, and other data sources directly into financial models without needing multiple subscriptions. It also integrates into Notion, Google Slides, and websites. The best part? Their free plan is genuinely useful for tech startups before upgrading to a subscription!

2. Modular Business Operation Platform: Odoo. Open-source with many basic modules that are perfect for startups. It's highly customizable and brings all business functions into one platform. The best platform I've found that integrates CRM with post-sale operations, PM, development, and finance.