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by Scott Frangos, Managing Editor WebHelperMagazine.com

An overview of essential services for efficient business operation online

When you’re starting your online business you need to stay efficient as you manage the books, make contacts, and stay on top of projects. So, what’s out that that can help you meet your business mission and goals online?

Let’s take a look:

Bookkeeping Services - Unless you love accounting, it will be good to find ways to automate the task, and get it done quicker online.

Freshbooks offers integration with PayPal, and a less stodgy interface than the venerable QuickBooks. If your bookkeeper can work with it, it might be a good choice.

Check out:

• QuickBooks Online - The venerable accounting software provider now offers an online solution for small and medium sized businesses.
• LessAccounting.com - send, track and manage invoices and customers. Expense and mileage tracking too. Assign expenses to tax categories. Import your banking data from Wesabe.com.
• FreshBooks.com - an online invoicing and time tracking service that integrates with PayPal

Communication Services - Use these services to help you keep in touch with business contacts and customers more efficiently. Skype.com allows calls right over your PC, or to conventional phones, and also features a business level of service to manage several employee accounts. Here are a couple more interesting communication services:

Comparison shopping? BestRatePlans.com offers a good way to get real-time quotes, compare services, and find affordable rates.

• bOKnow - offers cheap extended minutes on your cell phone when you’re out of allotted minutes for the month.
• CallWave - www.callwave.com Read your voicemail from any phone in your email. Store, search and archive phone calls. Fax online.
• BestRatePlans.com - a directory of communication and business services with good rate calculators so you can compare plans and rates. Includes phone, fax, T1, DSL, Cable, Internet and more.
• Skype.com - A service owned by eBay (who also owns PayPal), it offers inexpensive internet calling (free from Skype to Skype user), and is good to keep an eye on for consultants — the service is adding an automatic pay per phone consultation feature facilitated through PayPal.

Project Management Online - There seems to be quite a run of providers in this arena, so it will be to your advantage to compare some:

BaseCamp has some important endorsements, and offers a streamlined interface.

• Project Spaces - Offers a free 30-day trial
• BaseCamp - Several levels of service including a no-frills free level
• Actionize - an integrated way to manage business contacts and manage projects, initially it’s free
• Intervals - Another contender with a range of options including a fee plan

Sales Lead Management Online - Every business needs sales leads, a good list, and management tools. Compare:

SalesForce.com offers a robust userbase with online training and business applications for: sales, marketing, customer service, channels, and more.

• SalesForce.com - The leading sales process management provider online
• LeadManagement.com - Lead management online for making sales calls including lead distribution, autodialing, and call recording.
• Leads360.com - a suite of lead tracking and sales force automation solutions online.

Social Media Services - If you use Social Media (chat, email, MySpace, FaceBook, RSS) like a smart Web 2.0 marketer, then you’ll appreciate the following services:

CoComment offers a service so you can track all of your comments across the internet, and those of other key commenters you follow.

• Digsby - One account, multiple functions. Combine all your email accounts, six chat and IM accounts, and alerts from MySpace and Facebook and you get… well, Digsby.
• CoComment - coComment collects all of your conversations you have in comment sections on blogs in one place for you. See more articles about CoComment.
• Plaxo - Plaxo provides a free service that securely updates and maintains the information in your address book.
• LinkedIn - An online business networking hub that facilitates display of your resume, recommendations, colleague contacts from recent and old jobs, college contacts, job hunting, and consultant resources.

Word Processing and Spreadsheets - Forget about software in a box (that was the ’90’s), try out Google’s Online Applications (a good word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation application), and compare these:

It’s called “Write to my Blog,” but you can use it as a quick and dirty word processor online. Where to you store the documents? That’s where your blog comes in. If you want a full featured word processor that rivals Microsoft (without some bells and whistles), and that stores your documents for you… use Google Docs.

• WriteToMyBlog - a free wordprocessor online that posts to your blog direct.
• Zoho - word processor, presentation software, spreadsheet, project management and more — all online.