When you run your own business, you don’t have time to manage payroll, employee schedules, and deliveries all by yourself. Quite simply, there’s an application for just about everything! You can use any number of apps to streamline your workflow and productivity. If you aren’t sure where to get started, don’t worry, we’re going to cover the essential apps for coffee shop owners in this article.
What are the six essential apps for coffee shop owners?
The six most essential apps for coffee shop owners are:
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Gusto
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Xero
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Deputy
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RescueTime
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Square
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Asana
If you aren’t sure which apps are right for you, please keep reading. We are going to discuss each app in a bit more depth. We’ll note the app’s key features, as well as its pros and cons.
Gusto
Gusto is a well-known, popular app for doing payroll. PCMag rates Gusto at a 4.5 out of 5 stars because of its usability and excellent support. Gusto is lower-priced compared to many of its competitors and is suitable for anywhere from the smallest business to a larger business.
Key Features:
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- Free Trial
- Submits all relevant taxes
- Works for both W-2s and 1099s
- Has time tracking
- Additional HR add-ons available
Pros
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- Excellent customer service
- Intuitive making it a great choice for a new business
- Variety of plans to suit your needs
Cons
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- The core plan doesn’t include time-tracking
Our Thoughts
Gusto gives you the ability to do your payroll intuitively, from the first time you use the app to the last. You can create digital pay stubs for your employees, manage your employee’s taxes, establish direct deposits or checks, and a variety of other easy-to-use features that will make payroll simple and cost-effective. What you save is time, and as you no doubt know, time is money. Additionally, Gusto boasts software integrations with other software you might be using, including Xero.
Xero
If you don’t already have accounting management software, you should take a look at Xero. Xero is a cost-effective solution for small businesses, and it offers many software integrations making it easy to use and manage. Xero is user-friendly and boasts many features, including expense tracking and management of multiple accounts.
Key Features
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- Easy to create custom invoices
- Keep track of inventory
- Create expense reports
- View your sales, expenses, and accounts
Pros
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- Full accounting software
- Software integration such as Gusto or Square
- User-friendly
- Cloud-based service
Cons
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- Inventory tracking restricted to larger versions of the software
- No notification for paid invoices
Our Thoughts
For a small business, a large accounting software program may have too many features and be too expensive. Choosing a software program that is tailored to you is the best way to go. Xero offers everything a small business needs in an accounting program without being overly expensive or difficult to use. Because Xero can integrate with other apps like Square or Gusto, it’s incredibly user-friendly.
Deputy
Deputy is a shift scheduling tool that also doubles as an entry-level HR management tool. It gets a 4.5 rating on PCmag for its usability and features. Deputy allows you to schedule your shifts, track your employee’s time, and see employee productivity. Additionally, you can manage time off, and the app boasts integration with Quickbooks Payroll if you happen to use that service.
Key Features
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- Time tracking
- Attendance tracking
- Shift scheduling
- Software integration
Pros
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- Offers employees open shifts and shift-swapping
- Tracks time and attendance
- Has an employee portal
- Offers multiple levels to customize usage
Cons
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- No options to manage payroll or 401k
Our Thoughts
It’s a smart choice to choose an app that allows your employees to note when they want time off, switch shifts and select open shifts. This makes scheduling easier on you and gives your employees the freedom to manage their schedules more easily. While it isn’t a free service, Deputy offers multiple levels of features to choose from, making the app more customizable to your needs.
RescueTime
RescueTime is a time management app for even the busiest of managers. PCMag rates RescueTime as a 5-star app citing its insightful data collection as one of its best features. The app isn’t a tool for tracking your employee’s time; rather, it’s a tool for you to see where you are spending most of your time on your phone. It tracks your app usage, website usage, and more to determine what is taking up most of your time.
Key Features
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- Tracks time spent in apps and websites
- Labels the time spent as productive or distracting
- Generates reports based on time spent
Pros
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- Allows you to see where you’re spending your time at
- Free version available
- Privacy features mean only you can see your data
Cons
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- Must upgrade to paid version for longer history reporting
- UI design is outdated
Our Thoughts
Everyone gets distracted looking at their favorite website, messing around on their favorite app, or looking up questions and browsing through answers. When you are a business owner, you can’t afford to waste time doing things that aren’t productive unless it’s your time off. You need to be resourceful with your time. Using an app like RescueTime will allow you to see where you are spending your time, over weeks or months, and allow you to fine-tune your time management to better suit your needs.
Check out more must haves HERE.
Square Point of Sale
Square point-of-sale works for many small businesses as a credit card processing service, a point-of-sale app, and even an online store. Coffee shops can take advantage of Square’s versatility by using it as a point-of-sale system and by offering merchandise or whole bean coffee through a website, using Square’s online ordering system.
Key Features
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- Built-in payment processing
- Android and iOS compatible
Pros
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- Pricing is straightforward and easy to find
- It runs in an offline mode
- Accepts mobile payments
- Built-in email campaigns
Cons
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- No 24/7 help available
- Lacks inventory management modules
Our Thoughts
Square offers everything a new coffee shop needs to run its business, from the app that works to process payments to an online ordering system. It’s easy to set up, and customer support is available to help new users. We recommend using an app or system like Square because it’s convenient, and the pricing structure is easy to find and simple, leaving you with no surprise costs.
Asana
If you’re looking for a way for your team to track projects and work on them together, you should choose an app like Asana. Asana will allow you to create a project and manage workflow. In a recent update, Asana added a feature that allows you to add video instructions to a project. This is ideal for coffee shop owners that want to teach their teams how to do specific tasks.
Key Features
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- Customizable projects and boards
- Task Tracking
Pros
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- Can add specific designees to a task
- Can add due dates to each task
- Can add video instructions
- Custom templates
Cons
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- It can be expensive compared to competing apps
Our Thoughts
Asana is a great app for organizing projects and workflow for your teams. Your teams can check off subtasks on a project to be sure that they’ve completed everything required. An example of how this could be used is for closing at the coffee shop. You can create a project for closing time with a list of subtasks that need to be completed before the shop is shut down for the night. Each employee can be assigned certain tasks with a deadline. As they work throughout the evening, they can check off the subtasks to show that they’ve been completed.
We think this app is a great resource for maximizing productivity and keeping teams on task. The cost is a bit pricey compared to other apps in the same genre, but it boasts a large number of customizable features and gets a 4.5-star rating from PCmag.
Frequently Asked Questions
The price of a point-of-sale application varies depending on the app. However, some apps start at $0 and can run up to as high as $300 per month. One of the apps that are considered best overall is Square, and its price per month varies based on the number of sales you do, as well as the number of registers Square is used on.
While there are a number of reasons coffee shops can fail, poor management, poor time management, and debt mismanagement can all lead to a coffee shop’s demise. Utilizing apps that help with these issues can improve your coffee shop’s chance of success. Use a time-management app to ensure you are spending the right amount of time on the right projects and an accounting app to manage your business’ money. The organization is a key facet to keeping a business running.
If you want to allow your customers to purchase directly from an app with your branding, you could create a custom app for your shop. However, if you are just getting started, there are many apps that will give you a storefront for a much smaller investment. You can choose apps like Square for online ordering to give you that extra edge without the higher cost.
To learn more on how to start your own coffee shop checkout my startup documents here
Please note: This blog post is for educational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Please consult a legal expert to address your specific needs.
Hi! I’m Shawn Chun
My adventure in coffee began when I first launched my first coffee shop back in the early 2000s. I had to figure out so many things on my own and to make it worse within 2 years of opening two large corporate coffee chains moved in just blocks away from me!
As I saw smaller and even some larger coffee shops in the neighborhood slowly lose customers to these giant coffee chains and slowly close up shop, I knew that I had to start getting creative…or go out of business.
I (like you may be) knew the coffee industry well. I could make the best latte art around and the foam on my caps was the fluffiest you have ever seen. I even had the best state-of-the-art 2 group digital Nuova Simonelli machine money could buy. But I knew that these things alone would not be enough to lure customers away from the name brand established coffee shops.
Eventually, through lots of trial and error as well as perseverance and creativity I did find a way to not only survive but also thrive in the coffee/espresso industry even while those corporate coffee chains stayed put. During those years I learned to adapt and always faced new challenges. It was not always easy, however, in the end, I was the sole survivor independent coffee shop within a 10-mile radius of my location. Just two corporate coffee chains and I were left after that year. All told the corporate coffee chains took down over 15 small independent coffee shops and kiosks and I was the last one standing and thriving.
Along the years I meet others with the same passion for coffee and I quickly learned that it is not only “how good a barista is” that makes a coffee shop successful, but the business side of coffee as well.
Hence why I started this website you are on now. To provide the tools and resources for up and coming coffee shop owners to gain that vital insight and knowledge on how to start a coffee shop successfully.
Stick around, browse through my helpful blog and resources and enjoy your stay! With lots of LATTE LOVE!
Shawn
