Small Business Secret Weapons

If you manage a small office, you're lucky because you have the flexibility to run it with cool web tools. Our favorites streamline everything from billing to backup.

Online Backup: Mozy

If you work from home, you know you need a secure way to backup your files. Mozy offers unlimited, automatic online backup for music, photos, videos, and the other files on your computer. MozyHome is $4.95/month, while the more advanced MozyPro is aimed at small businesses.

Calling Made Easier: Fonolo

Fonolo makes it a lot easier to call big companies (over 200 so far) by mapping out their phone menus and letting you find the spot you need to call in advance. The service is free.

Timecards 2.0: iPunchclock (iPhone app)

iPunchclock ($4.99) allows you to track the time you spend on different tasks, so it's super-useful if you bill clients by the hour. The iPhone app is also location-aware so it can optionally store the latitude, longitude, and even altitude at which you're completing a task.

Organized Office Online: Backpack

The web-based Backpack helps you organize your business by keeping documents, employee manuals and guides, business trip details, and other important stuff in one (online) place. It also has a group calendar. Plus, you can e-mail documents to Backpack and they'll appear on your company's pages. Backpack is secure and backed up daily. Plans start at $24/month for 6 users.

Easy Billing: FreshBooks

FreshBooks is a great web-based solution for billing clients and tracking payments and time spent. The most basic option, which lets you manage 3 clients, is free; paid accounts start at $19.95/month for one user and 25 clients.