One of the best ways to run a small business is to always look out for the bottom line. This means making a point of keeping your company expenses low until you have a business loan in place to make a major expansion. Through the use of "apps" or applications for your company smart-phones, employees can help to keep the cost of running a company at serviceable levels. Applications are available for the iPhone, as well as for Android and Windows formats. While many of these are absolutely free, some of them may cost up to three dollars to download to each mobile phone. Best of all, many of these applications are also available for download to other mobile devices. This means that employees that work from an iPad or tablet can take advantage of them as well.

Using these apps is a great way to gain useful information fast. Access your company bank account immediately with an app from your bank. Use an app like DoubleDutch to make sure employees are on the same page with conferences, scheduling and meetings. Should a sales representative be at a trade show and want to sell a product, an app can process that transaction immediately too. All it takes is the Square app and accompanying phone attachment that processes credit card payments. With minimal time and expense, much of the work that used to take days can be accomplished within mere moments.

Corporate travel is another area where having these apps downloaded to mobile devices is a true money and time saver. When your representatives have to travel, popular travel apps can save your travel department money. Whether you are making flight, hotel or car reservations on the go, they are a money saving option. Should your sales person be stranded at an airport, there are even user-friendly apps like Hotel Tonight that can book a discounted hotel room in any major city or hear an airport.

The use of apps for mobile devices means that employees need not be on a desktop computer to perform company work. It makes it easier for staff members to take work home or incorporate their work load into other daily activities. If they are on a vacation or away from the business during a seasonal holiday, using business applications is a great way for staff members to briefly catch up with one another.

As with any mobile device or app, once a month take a good look at the costs and savings they provide. With a careful cost analysis, you should be able to ascertain which applications are most useful for future transactions. If you find that an application is not saving you as much as it should, deleting them is free. Best of all unlike services that are used on a contractual basis, you can chalk it up the cost of experience.