The six best business apps you can have for your iPad that will make you work like a pro

Whether you are running a small business or big set up iPad is such a device which acts like a mini laptop and helps you in working efficiently to run your day to day business. Be it taking notes, designing your project, sharing the files, keeping updated with stock market there are lots of business apps these days for iPad which come handy when you need them. Here are the six best business apps of such kind that you can have on your iPad and will make you work like a pro.

1. iWork suite

This app is free and actually covers three different applications, Apple’s iOS versions of Keynote, Numbers and also Pages. If you’re already used to working in the Apple environment, these streamlined tablet versions of its desktop apps will be instantly familiar. While they’re not quite as well-equipped as their larger desktop counterparts, there’s enough here to keep you working on your essential documents without issues. You can create a spreadsheet with your fingers or generate charts on the fly, and while is you are not keen on typing large documents with the iOS keyboard, a Bluetooth keyboard is the perfect accompaniment to Pages.

Keynote could be particularly useful if you’re equipped with slightly more kit – pair it with an iPad VGA adapter and you’ll be able to hook your tablet straight up to a projector, and if you have an Apple Watch on your wrist its app is perfect for subtly advancing slides or activating animations.

2. Google Drive

Google Drive is the company’s online office suite which is well-suited to anyone already integrated with its ecosystem where everything you create is auto-saved to Google Drive’s cloud storage, and the iOS specific apps – Docs for word processing, Sheets for spreadsheets and Slides for presentations – support all the major formats. Once you’re finished with something, you can instantly share it with anyone just by sending them the appropriate link.

You will like the collaborative element of Google’s apps, which means several team members  in your business can access and work on the same document simultaneously, but the real key here is that you can also work offline, so if you’re travelling somewhere without an internet connection you won’t lose valuable work time. Everything’s automatically synchronised with Google’s servers when you next connect online.

Also you can store up to 15GB for free, but have to start paying after that with Google Drive pricing plans available up to a massive 10TB.

3. Genius Scan+ PDF Scanner

This app costs $12.99 and with it you can take  pictures of documents with your iPad’s camera, and Genius Scan will turn them into PDFs.  So after you have snapped a document, Genius Scan attempts to draw a frame around it, which you can tweak if it’s not quite bang on. Scan the document, and Genius Scan applies a transform to your photo, flattening it out and allowing you to export it as a PDF or JPG.

In business you need send signed contracts, particularly if you’re not near an actual hardware scanner, and it’s a great idea for cataloguing receipts for later expense claims without having to carry an overflowing wallet.

Also  if you’re looking to reduce any stacks of paper in your office, Genius Scan’s batch scanning function could be the perfect tool . All you need is to just import all that paper, process it as you go, and have it sent right to Dropbox or OneDrive. You can even protect your PDFs for extra security.

4. Evernote

Evernote is a god business app that helps you change the way you organize your personal and professional projects. Just dive in take notes, create to-do lists, and save things you find online into Evernote. Also get sync everything between your phone, tablet, and computer automatically.

If you go for Evernote Premium annual subscription option you’ll get 10GB of uploads per month as opposed to the free version’s paltry 60MB, synchronisation to unlimited devices, the ability to attach and search PDFs and Office documents, and PDF annotation tools which come in handy more often than you might think.

5. Penultimate

This free app saves paper that combines distraction-free, natural handwriting and sketching with the power of Evernote’s sync and search. Take class or meeting notes, journal your thoughts, or outline your next big idea—in the office or on the go. From the first stroke, Penultimate makes the experience of pen and paper more productive. It gives you access to beautifully rendered and smooth inks, which make your quickly-jotted notes look amazing, and you get a host of papers to use them on with more available through in-app purchases.

This app is best used with the Apple Pencil or other stylus  and is highly useful for taking notes in meetings or for collaborative planning exercises.

6. Stocks Tracker

Stocks Tracker is free and the most comprehensive stock app in the mobile world. Brings you free streaming live quotes, pre-market/after-hour quotes, portfolio monitoring, advanced full screen chart, push notification based alert, economic news, event/earnings calendar, market signal scans and much more. It puts real-time quotes on stocks at your fingertips, with support for just about every worldwide exchange. You can make the most of its highly customisable graphs and views to create your own personal stocks frontend, and use its custom push notifications to keep a close an eye on your portfolio.

While its abilities to track historical earnings and offer buy/sell indicators are undoubtedly useful, you might find even more inspiration in the integrated social feed, where other traders discuss the stock they find interesting and what they’re doing with it. This app also has in app purchases as the full version costs AU$24.99.

Note that these six business apps have in app purchases as well with premium subscriptions to get more features on to your iPad and require iOS 8.0 and above iPad version to run smooth on your device.