Every few months someone asks me what software I use to run operations. The honest answer is less than you’d expect. Most small business owners are over-tooled and under-disciplined. They have 14 subscriptions and use three of them.
Here’s what’s actually running in the background when the work gets done.
Accounting: QuickBooks Online
Not because it’s the best software ever built. Because every accountant, every bookkeeper, and every CPA in the country knows how to open a QuickBooks file. When tax season comes, when you need a bank loan, when you bring in outside help — they can pick it up immediately. Switching costs are real. QuickBooks is the standard and the standard exists for a reason.
The key is keeping it current. Reconcile weekly, not quarterly. The businesses that get into trouble with their books are almost always the ones that let it pile up.
Communication: Keep it simple
Phone calls for anything that matters. Email for anything that needs a paper trail. Text for scheduling and quick confirmations. That’s it. I’ve watched small operations collapse into chaos because they added Slack and Teams and project management boards and suddenly nobody knew where anything lived.
For a small operation, the communication stack should fit on one screen.
Document management: Google Drive with a strict folder structure
Contracts, proposals, certificates of insurance, licenses, photos from jobs — all of it organized by client and year. The folder structure never changes. Anyone who needs to find something can find it in under two minutes without asking me.
Backups run automatically. Physical drive backup weekly for anything critical.
Estimating and invoicing: QuickBooks again
Quote in QuickBooks, convert to invoice when the job closes. No separate estimating software. The simpler the pipeline, the less falls through the cracks.
What I don’t use
CRM software — for the size of operation I run, a well-maintained spreadsheet does the same job without the subscription and the onboarding time. Enterprise project management platforms — same reason. Any tool that requires more than 30 minutes of training to use productively is a tool that will stop getting used.
The principle
Every tool you add costs you time — time to learn it, time to maintain it, time to troubleshoot it when it breaks. The question to ask before adding any software is: what specific problem does this solve that I currently can’t solve with what I have?
If the answer isn’t specific, you don’t need the tool.