Looking for free software solutions that your small (or micro) businesses can use to manage daily tasks? Start here:

Open Office: Can’t afford MS Office? Open Office is a great alternative. The suite includes a word processor; spreadsheet, drawing, and presentation software; and database tools. It works on all computers and can read and write files from other common software packages. You can also download free templates to use with OpenOffice.

Unforgiven Organizer: Keep track of your daily, weekly, monthly, yearly and one-time tasks. Unforgiven Organizer lets you set alarms (or not), keep track of your contacts, and features integrated notes and a To-Do list. It’s simple to use, and free!

OneStep Accounting: Enable Computing will give you a free license to use their basic bookkeeping software, just for registering. Handle sales, purchase, cash and inventory transactions, and create reports. It doesn’t have payroll or job costing modules, but a lot of small businesses will find everything they need in OneStep Accounting.

QuickBooks Simple Start Free Edition: Intuit offers a very basic version of QuickBooks called Simple Start that tracks sales, A/R, A/P, and customer data. It gives you the option of tracking payroll if you subcribe to a paid service (which is offered at a very reasonable price), but, the free version only works for your first 20 customers. After that, upgrades start at $99. Still, it might be good for a very small consulting firm with a few long-term clients and is probably the easiest way to go if you eventually want to use QuickBooks paid editions anyway.

Those of you who just want an Excel invoice (which I’m asked for A LOT), can download one from Microsoft. There are many to choose from, so browse around a bit.

Vertabase Timer: Perfect if you need to keep track of the time you spend on various projects, either for time management purpose or invoicing. You’ll need Adobe Air (also free) in order to install it.

Comodo Internet Security Suite: You don’t need to pay for antivirus, spybot or firewall protection. There are several free versions available. I prefer Comodo. When I was hit by a serious virus, Comodo was the product that was able to ferret the virus out of my backup hard drive and hidden files.

WordPress: WordPress was originally developed for bloggers, however, it’s become so popular you can find lots of themes (templates) for developing more traditional websites. Plus, there are plenty of how-to videos on the web to walk you through creating and publishing your website.

MailChimp EMail Marketing Software: MailChimp is free until you have more than 100 subscribers or need to send more than 6 mailings per month. It’s very easy to use, has a ton of free templates to help you look good without a lot of work, and features step-by-step video instructions.

Google Options You’ll Love:

Google Calendar: Easy-to-use online calendar and appointment scheduling software.

Google Documents: Upload documents from your computer and share them with anyone who has an e-mail address. Google Docs makes online project collaboration easy.

Access these and other Google applications for free by browsing to www.google.com. At the top of the screen, you’ll see a menu bar. Click on “More” and the application you want.