09/23/2009

Create Your Own iPhone App

You don't need to be a web guru to design your own iPhone "app" (that's apple-speak for "application"). The newly launched Sweb Apps creates well-designed, customizable apps for a myriad of businesses, from restaurants to non-profits to retail stores. Through your app, customers can make purchases, contact you by phone or email, read your blog, and much more. Sweb Apps charges a one-time setup fee of $200-400, plus a hosting fee of $25/month. --Brian Luskey, Associate Editor

06/23/2009

Free Online Sales and Customer Relationship Management Software

Free CRM is a web-based software solution for sales force automation and customer relationship management. Made by San Francisco-based CRM ASP, Inc., the software is a great tool for small business contact and lead tracking, sales and contact management, sales forecasting, customer service and business management. With over 103,000 customers, CRM ASP is one of the leading on-demand CRM providers. The free version is self-service, allows unlimited users and provides up to 10 MB of storage. If your customer base is not particularly large, it can be a quick and easy way to automate your sales, do a better job of tracking leads and even manage e-mail and call campaigns. You can also pay for the ?Professional Edition,? which offers live support, unlimited storage and enhanced features. --Brian Luskey, Associate Editor

04/14/2009

Salesforce.com for Free on Your Phone

Salesforce.com, the powerhouse in customer relationship management (CRM) software, is offering its customers a free, slimmed down version of the program for BlackBerry smartphones running Windows, as well as the iPhone, PCWorld reports. Users will be able to view customer data and respond to their queries, but not have access to more customized features. Salesforce.com charges $50 a month for a more robust version of the mobile software. Analysts see the offer as a beachhead for Salesforce.com in the world of mobile apps, with a view toward monetization later. A version for Google's Android mobile phone operating system is in the works. --Jeff B. Copeland, Content Product Manager

03/16/2009

Sales Tax Savers

Sales tax -- what an accounting headache for small businesses that operate across multiple states. Internet retailers in particular could have to file hundreds of forms to different jurisdictions and track a multitude of changing tax rates. Tax season is a great time to look into the Software as a Service vendors that handle your sales tax and use tax reporting, like SpeedTax, ADP Sales Tax Service, Avalara, and Exactor. They take on the burden of automatically updating sales tax rates from all over, and typically integrate with the major retailer financial systems like QuickBooks. For a quick look at your company's risk from sales tax regulations, take the questionnaire from SpeedTax. -- Jeff B. Copeland, Content Product Manager

CALL CENTER SOFTWARE

Buying Call Center Software

Call Center Software News and Trends

FEATURED COMPANIES

POS SOFTWARE

Point-of-Sale (POS) Software and Systems

POS Software Basics

FEATURED COMPANIES

RETAIL SOFTWARE

Finding Industry-Specific Software

Using Retail Software

FEATURED COMPANIES

Retail Software News and Views

Create Your Own iPhone App

Free Online Sales and Customer Relationship Management Software

Salesforce.com for Free on Your Phone

Sales Tax Savers

FEATURED LISTINGS