If you are a web designer there are good chances an eagerness of managing things on the go has probably crept up as the technology evolves. Whether you would like to perform specific tasks or manage your finances, in advance mobile developers have thought of filling in this huge crater.

While a ton of sites claim to provide more than 50 apps to manage your web design business, this post will merely stick to 10 (essential). The list below isn’t made of just generic apps that you’ve certainly heard of, it is a list of apps that overlap in business and web design fields.

Web Design & Development

It is always great to have tools installed on your smartphone that are directly related to business management affairs. Nonetheless, they shouldn’t be detached from your business purposes. Web design tools are important as well for including on your workflow. When you are away from your office, these sorts of tools can save your life sanity.

1. Launchlist

Lauchlist is a very simple tool that can save you a ton of money and protect your reputation in different angles. Before you think about publishing your most recent designed website, you must always check if it ticks all the boxes by using lauchlist. On launchlist, you can create a template of checklist for a variety of projects aiming at testingyour websites with flexibility. If you are working on a team, you can test your web projects with simplicity despite the number of coworkers involved on it. The plans start from $5 up to $30 per month.

Time Tracking

There are many ways of staying productive while on the go. One of them is to keep track of your time. Time tracking is very helpful for managing your projects no matter if you are working on a team or alone. By tracking your time, you will be able to determine how long a task takes to be accomplished. Thisdata might be needed in order to quote your next project according to the time you estimate to spend on it. Here is a tool worth an install:

2. Paydirt

Paydirt is an essential app that allows managing a sheer amount of tasks on the go. The list of features includes time tracking, team management and online quoting. Moreover, if invoicing clients was always a brainteaser for you to handle, paydirt will clean all your difficulties. The online quoting feature is worth an in-depth and detailed description. With it, you are provided with robust tools to help you create and manage your quotes easily. Thoughits price may discourage you a bit, having all these features included on a single app is worthier than $40 per month for the team plan and $8 per month for the starter plan.

Invoicing

As I mentioned earlier, there are tons of ways for enhancing your productivity with your smartphone. Besides time tracking, invoicing comes in handy for the matter. However, the benefits that invoicing can bring to your business are extended to increase your revenue,improve relationships with clients and business efficiency. For invoicing matter, please meet Quickbooks.

3. QuickBooks

If Paydirt isn’t playing a clean game, you can opt for Quickbooks. Though mentioning “option” would devalue Quickbrooks, it comes with a plethora of features that will lead you choose it over the other account management tools. Quickbooks is more focused on ramping up productivity. It allows the users to manage time and organize finances in a much more convenient interface. Infiltrating the marketing of apps with helpful time tracking tools, web designers can also enjoy the tool for invoicing clients and bookkeeping. You can give it a go for free and all you are going to waste is your precious time.

Freelance Collaboration

Managing a team of web designers can be really painful especially if you are away from your workstation set-up. A comfortable partner in your mobile is extremely needed with functionalities from assigning tasks to certain members to monitoring the progress of projects within a certain timeframe. Here is a tool you will find helpful for freelance collaboration:

4. Trello

Web designers are aware of how collaborating can help leverage their freelance businesses. However, the real discomfort stands on its feasibility to do so in a single place. While there are plenty of tools that promise a variety of features to help you collaborate with other freelancers, Trello absolutely cooks the competitors’ goose. Being it very simple doesn’t sacrifice its ability to keep your team tasks organized. In which, it’s done by using cards. These cards allow you to jot down sorts of information, messages, comments and tasks. The business plan isn’t a deal breaker due to advanced integration with Google Apps for $25 a month.

Financial Management

One of the most confronted issues in the web design world is income fluctuation. In the first month you can luckily land some high profitable projects, but the next one, things may not eventuate as you expected. In order to manage your money, so that you don’t struggle with irregularity of income flow you may consider polishing your financial management skills with this tool below.

5. Mint

When we talk about tools for managing finances, it’s a huge mistake not mentioning Mint. It is one of the most popular tools that you can use to track your money, set your budget and craft plans while on the go in a single placed interface. Its interface is very clean and user friendly, it gives the user a full visibility of all your accounts details, such as, investments, goals and checking. Since it’s your valuable information you put at stake, mint has done the safety homework. The 128-bit SSL encryption will attenuate the fear of being hacked.

Social Networking

Web designers should thank the emergence of social media networks. On these sites, you can create a great online exposure for your brand and market your services to be seen by a large audience. While your busyness may interfere with your web design endeavor, the following tools certainly will not let you down.

6. Glassboard

Glassboard is a tool that has feasibly brought a new spin to social media networking. Unlike on Facebook or Twitter, alongside Glassboard you are allowed to share your media with your co-workers in private. Private content sharing is always needed especially if you are working in teams, however some web designers may need a more convenient environment to put sharing into action. That’s when Glassboard comes into handy displaying an interface without any ads that can lead distractions. The fees start at $5 per month, in which users may feel a little discouraged due to the app’s limitations.

7. HootSuite

Building a strong online presence is one of the most fundamental things web designers should do in order to grow their businesses. However, the problem is finding time to maintain a consistent presence online. While there are dozes on tools to manage social media account, Hootsuite comes equipped with a plethora of features for busy web designers. Hootsuite contains all the basic tools for you to manage multiple accounts from a single place and allows you to analyze the conversion of your messages. The scheduling tools may excite you. It allows you to schedule messages and tweets to be posted at a specific time. The pricing starts from $8.99 per month, including a 30-day free trial for you to test whether it’s worth a purchase.

Getting Things Done

One thing is for certain, web designers are tremendously talented at procrastinating. Though with procrastination you can develop some sense of creativity, it can sometimes kill your productivity. Distractions are everywhere; it’s your duty to avoid them all costs. Alongside the following tool, the process turns a bit simple.

8. Wunderlist

One of the major problems you are probably facing through your web design career is procrastination. The sad thing about it is that you know the problem but seemingly can’t find a way to overcome it. Wunderlist may be the solution that promotes the getting things done culture. It basically allows you stay organized using a beautiful and simple to-do list. Creating to-do list on Wunderlist is done with ease, its comfort doesn’t stop in there, and you can also share them with your team member or friends. This tool has the ability to help you delegate tasks or assign projects to individuals in a few taps. Wunderlist can be extremely important to add up in your workflow and leave you miles away from the syndrome of procrastination. You can sign-up for free, however if you want to benefit from the robust features you’ll have to spend $4.99 per month for the premium account.

Mind Mapping

It is not just your talent that will make you a successful web designer. With thousands of freelancers fighting for the same clients, the only trait that will allow you to stand out from the crowd is your creativity. Creativity is not something that can be taught; you should educate yourself and create conditions for it to develop. With tools like iThoughtsHD, your creativity instinct can be stimulated.

9. iThoughtsHD

You can’t think about getting things done if you absolutely have no ideas and plans on your to-do list. That’s when you should go for iThoughtsHD to generate wise ideas for your web design projects using the commonly known technique of mind mapping. The amount of apps for mind mapping is unbelievable, however the simplicity on the veins of iThoughsHD is marvelous and it’s certainly what sets them apart from the overcrowded market of applications.Creating maps and titles is easy and customizable. You can set your desired background colour, text size and image with iThoghtsHD. Moreover, you can access them in your Desktop or iPad. You can download it for $9.99.

File Storage

As web designers, it’s worth hosting your files on the cloud in secure platforms that allow sharing and collaborating with ease. The stress of unsafely carrying heavy hard disks with valuable data on it should be avoided at all costs. If you haven’t embraced new cloud storage services, you can start out with Box.

10. Box

There is surely an overabundance of tools that provide the users with cloud storage services, it turns hard to choose the best among them for you and your team of web designers as well. While a massive amount of people are more comfortable by using Dropbox, others reluctantly have found some great reasons to choose Box over the others. Box is a cloud storage apps that web designs can benefit from it to enhance collaboration and file sharing. The features aren’t that marvelous comparing relatively to its direct competitors. However, Box doesn’t pose any limitations in the ways you manipulate different sorts of media and access it anywhere and any moment. The tool provides an enticing 50 GB for free sign-up. For any additional features, a business account is available for $15 per month.

Final Thoughts

Depending on the routine of your web design career, adding up these tools to your workflow can be pretty helpful for your business. Working on the go allows you stay in touch with your assets and whatever projects you are working on while you are away from your office. Going mobile-only is the right solution. Nowadays, the technology covers up all the needs of a web designer in a few taps with the absence of a workstation set-up.