With lots of of us endeavoring to keep up with the frenetic tempo at which business is changing it might seem rather unjust that the accounting occupation is becoming so absolutely tied to technology. For the people that can keep up, however, there are huge rewards to be won.

Check out a few significant productivity apps that might just help keep your accounting practice up-to-date and still not cost your firm much money.

Launchy: Without a doubt, a must have and my most used application. I still can’t believe this feature doesn’t come standard with every PC. With the brief press of alt and space, Launchy pops up, front and center, eagerly awaiting your input. To quickly open a program, just start typing its name and Launchy will complete the search for you by providing suggestions. I would then highlight photoshop, or whatever program I was looking for, and the application will immediately launch. As if that wasn’t easy enough, Launchy will start to learn which programs you use most often. Soon, you’ll only have to type “F” to open Firefox. Any productivity tools that grant you more time to work on your accounting website will certainly be beneficial.  Launchy also has add-on tools that you can explore. Soon enough you’ll be trying to use “alt + space” on someone else’s computer and cursing them out for not having Launchy installed!

WinSplit Revolution: The best window organization utility going. Quickly organize your workspace in a nice highly visible grid without anything overlapping. WinSplit Revolution is like the windows 7 feature of being able to dock windows left and right, only taken to the extreme. This can be useful when working on client files, reading up on the latest marketing tool, working on your accountant website, viewing competitors’ sites, and emailing clients all at the same time. If you spend too much time dragging windows around in order to view everything on your monitor(s) without having any windows hiding, then this app is certainly for you.

UltraMon: This app is great for those of us who use multiple monitors but still need ten more! It can be frustrating to have multiple monitors but to have a cramped taskbar that is confined to one monitor.  An expanded task bar would be ideal simply for organizational purposes. This app will expand your taskbar across all of your monitors, while also providing additional tools for use with extra monitors. One of my favorite features (probably bad for productivity, but great for aesthetics) would be the wallpaper options. You have the ability to choose different backgrounds for each monitor, as well as one background that spans across all of your monitors. It will even allow you to set custom screen savers and even custom icons.

TeamViewer: This one is key for streamlining remote support. This application is very lightweight, doesn’t install a pesky display driver, and best of all its free! Instead of having to remember all of your machines or recording them elsewhere, you can create an account in Team Viewer to store all of that information. Simply select from Remote control, file transfer or VPN and connect. Of course, if you work with multiple clients, not all of them will have TeamViewer installed.  This would normally make remote support a difficult and lengthy option, but with TeamViewer, you can ask clients to download the quick installer, which will very quickly generate a user ID and password.

Dropbox: Nowadays everyone is or should be using online storage solutions. With Dropbox, you can sync your application across multiple devices, making it extremely accessible.  You can also share files and folders with others. While you may have a really great cpa website design that already has a file sharing feature, Dropbox is a very valuable tool for the many firms struggling along without access to this technology. Free accounts furnish you with 2 Gigabytes of space, but you can easily accumulate up to  eight Gigabytes when you refer Dropbox to friends and family members. When you could do with more than eight Gigabytes, you can get added room for about $200.

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