 Running a small business can seem like a plate-spinning exercise at times. You might be knee-deep in payroll issues one moment and quarterly taxes the next. As the final decision maker and primary business driver, you're constantly pulled in several directions at once, which can be both exhilarating and headache-inducing. Fortunately, there is one sure way to keep your business under control. Small business software that's geared for a specific segment can help you streamline your day-to-day business operations.
"Generic packages are often unable to efficiently handle market-specific business rules and require complicated workarounds in order to be functional," says Jon Jackson, a vice president at REMANAGE, where its rental management system is just one example of timesaving business niche software.
In this overview, we'll cover a few specific types of small businesses and suggest some useful programs for those market niches. With any of these custom programs, you'll enjoy more flexibility, more freedom, and more fun in your daily workflow—minus the frustrations.
One note about software costs: Typically, you'll need to contact the company to find out which packages are available to meet your business size. For example, a rental management system might cost $200 for a company that owns one townhome, or thousands more for a multibuilding apartment complex. There are usually standard, pro, and premium packages with added features, and these programs are not off-the-shelf products with one price tag, so feature customization is common. We've listed a ballpark price or range for these products, but you'll most likely need to ask for a custom quote.
 Convenience Stores
In a convenience store, time is money. A fast checkout, convenience items stocked in logical and intuitive locations, impulse purchases placed near the register—they all help feed your bottom line. It's a market segment that is difficult to manage, mostly because customer traffic is fast and constant. Management systems must be very responsive and easy-to-use or they will slow the business operation to a crawl.
If you're serious about managing your convenience store, Retalix (www.retalix.com) is one logical choice, especially if you also want to integrate the system with your "forecourt" services for product scanning and point-of-sale. A robust supply chain management module helps you determine how to get products off the back of the truck and into your customers' hands as quickly as possible. |
Dental practice software Mogo includes accounting, scheduling, and more in a user-friendly interface. | You can use a labor module for scheduling employees (with reminders about time-off and reviews), and even benefit from a "head office" mode that lets you make decisions that affect several stores in a chain.
While Retalix meets the needs of convenience stores (the company also makes grocery store software), most of the other packages available for retail are much broader in scope. Retek (www.retek.com), for example, is a general retail system that addresses such heady topics as merchandise optimization and market basket issues (such as which products are located next to each other for impulse purchases).
Dental Offices
Dental offices have one advantage over retail operations: Patients are in no hurry to speed through a check-out counter, so the management system can be a bit deeper and offer a few extra data-gathering functions. Of course, the system must be perfectly accurate so that a patient who needs a simple fitting is not confused with someone who needs extensive bridgework. More advanced than the convenience store and signmaking fields, dental office software meets the demanding standards of the health-care field.
AltaPoint Dental Practice Management system ($995 to $29,995; www.altapoint.com) is another all-in-one tool that combines appointment scheduling and reminders, accounting, and record keeping so that you don't have to use multiple packages to run your dental office. The system also includes a handy electronic claims processing system, lets you load photos (of your smiling dental clients), and even includes a notes-dictation feature for busy dentists who need to record patient notes on the fly.
Mogo ($2,995 to $3,995; www.mogo.com) is another innovative product that also combines accounting, scheduling, and dental records in one user-friendly package. The system includes an appointment book, check-in modules for speeding patients through the front desk, and an extensive clinic module for teeth charting and quick reports.
Rental Management
Managing rental property can be a complex undertaking, regardless of whether you are managing four island bungalows or an 800-unit apartment complex. Most managers look at the overall square footage, holiday travel issues, and frequency of use over a long period in order to generate their forecasts and rental rates. The best rental management systems take the legwork out of these tasks. Some use a visual approach similar to the pie charts in Microsoft Excel (with just as much color and pizzazz), while others take their cue from QuickBooks in terms of generating detailed reports.
REMANAGE 5.0 ($10,000; www.remanage.com) is designed for residential and commercial management including multifamily dwellings (town homes and condominiums), office buildings, subsidized housing, and single-family home rentals. The software uses a per-lease approach as opposed to the more common per-unit structure, which means you can manage each rental by the person rather than by the building. To this end, REMANAGE looks and functions more like a vast contact-management system with features such as "guest cards" (which tracks application fees and late payments), traffic overviews, and a colorful accounting workflow approach that's geared for busy rental managers. |
Does your signmaking business need a tool that can update project estimates as you make them? Give Cyrious Control a shot. | Rent-Right Property Management Software ($160 to $1,700; www.rent-right.com) is a robust package geared for complex situations where tight security and built-in credit fraud features are important to your daily business workflow. A reminder system helps you tag leases and view several rental scenarios: expired leases, upcoming renewals, and tenant incidents. Using to-do lists, you can manage both your leases and buildings using a reporting structure that uses a Quick-Books approach as opposed to a contact-management system.
Other property management systems include ACS Management Plus ($400 to $10,000 or more; www.acsoftware.com), which uses an intuitive step-by-step wizard approach to property management; Intuit MRI Real Estate Management ($20,000; www.intuit.com), the same company that makes QuickBooks and other accounting software; and Yardi Genesis Property Management ($600 per user per year; www.yardi.com), which is designed for complex multicompany and multi-unit rental management situations.
Signmaking
In signmaking, every second counts. The sooner you generate a sign for a customer, the sooner they can start selling their product or service. Although this market is not as saturated with management software niches that's customized to the signmaking industry as other business, there are noteworthy products that can save you time and energy.
Cyrious Control ($5,025; www.cyrious.net), for instance, is a powerful and customized tool for signmakers that understands not only your work environment, but also your business model. For example, the tool provides a quick way to provide a sign estimate and provides an estimate as you are making the quote, not just after you have inputted all the variables (such as size and materials). That way, if a customer is waiting and wants to know cost factors, you can provide better estimates as you discuss options.
You can also track parts and inventory, generate reports that study them later (after shop hours), and track employee labor and inventory usage.
Veterinary
Rental property managers have several options when it comes to business practice software, but veterinarians really only have a few standout choices. The software programs help veterinarians track animal care as efficiently as possible, helping them set fees more consistently rather than relying on memory or a fee sheet, which ultimately improves the bottom line of the clinic.
DVM Manager ($2,990 to $5995 per year; www.dvmmgr.com) from the Butler Company is a perfect example of why practice software makes sense. The SQL (Secure Query Language)-database program meets the needs of veterinarians with a simple call center module, tools for integrating with QuickBooks and Excel, a Field Manager that lets veterinarians get mobile and still track their house calls, and an Equine Breeding and Boarding module that just adds to the overall value. 
by John Brandon
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Running a small business can seem like a plate-spinning exercise at times. You might be knee-deep in payroll issues one moment and quarterly taxes the next. As the final decision maker and primary business driver, you're constantly pulled in several directions at once, which can be both exhilarating and headache-inducing. Fortunately, there is one sure way to keep your business under control. Small business software that's geared for a specific segment can help you streamline your day-to-day business operations. 
