Eliminating expenses during start-up is very important. Starting a business is challenging, and one of the most important factors that helps people decide whether they will start a business or not is the initial investment. One of the biggest advantages of the internet is that it offers an abundance of free stuff. It will save you hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars short term and long term. Here’s a quick list of 5 applications that will help your new business grow. Heck, you don’t have to own a business to benefit from these free applications. Anyone can benefit from them.

1. OpenOffice.org is probably one of the most useful free applications you can possibly download. What it is? Oh, you don’t know? It’s a free, open source office productivity suite, comparable to Microsoft Word minus the price. It is absolutely wonderful tool. It consists of five applications neatly intertwined to provide awesome experience; word processor (Writer), spreadsheets (Calc), presentations (Impress), draw (Draw), and database (Base). You can do everything that MS Office does with OOo, but spend a lot of money. Plus, there’s a free support community to help you solve problems and answer questions. Also, you can extend your version with many different extensions.

2. Comodo Internet Security Suite is the top, free internet security application out there. It has won many awards, including 5 star rating on Download.com and PC Magazine Editor’s Choice. It offers full range of internet security features including firewall, antivirus, and prevents malware from being installed. Protecting your computer should be at the top of list of priorities, you don’t need someone stealing your information and causing you a lot of financial harm. You have to think about your business and protect personal and business computers with the best tool on the market, plus it’s free.

3. I bet you didn’t know that QuickBooks Online Simple Start has a free offer for small businesses. They do! It is one of the best accounting tools on the market and you can start using it for free. You got to stay on top of your bookkeeping, so when time comes Uncle Sam won’t get mad. Keeping track of your transactions, invoicing customers, are just a few of the benefits. It’s truly a great application that will save you money and headache during the tax season. It’s free, you got nothing to lose. Check it out, it’s pretty impressive.

4. Ah, Skype. What would we do without it? Millions, if not billions, of people use Skype. It is an amazing tool for connecting you with your customers, clients, partners, friends, family, you name it. The best part? How about talking to your clients in Japan for free? Throw in free video calls and conferencing and you’re all set. If you feel like calling phones you can pay as you go or small monthly fee. But it is worth it, it is much more cost effective than landlines, especially when you can communicate internationally for free with you customers and clients. Everyday more and more people download Skype and use it for free. Why not become one of them.

5. I’ve stumbled upon one of the greatest little apps out there for businesses. It’s called JFire. The site says it is “the new, powerful and free ERP, CRM, eBusiness and SCM /SRM solution for business enterprises.” Yes, it does a great job at managing your contacts, store management, point of sale, and so much more. It seems like it’s a little monster. You will definitely benefit from having such flexible and multifunctional app. It’s free, can’t beat that. Stop by and check it out, at least give it a whirl – I bet you will like it.

Internet provides a lot of free stuff. Trust me, there’s a free application for every single task that needs to be done. You just need to do some research.