Ready to take your business to the next level in 2013? Consider the following four business applications to help you get money and make money.

1. Manage Customer Contacts: Salesforce.com

[Make Money/Get Money] Salesforce.com is a cloud-based CRM system that helps your business track business coming in before it closes, and all related sales activities and timelines. If you’re looking to help more accurately forecast incoming revenues, Salesforce.com can help by giving you the numbers from your front line staff – your sales team. The reports can also be used to show potential lenders and investors the source of your projected revenues. The system is online – so there’s no hardware to buy or software to load. It is also scalable based on the size of your business, number of users and business features needed.

• Accessible via mobile app? Yes
• Free trial: 7 – 30 days, depending on package selected.
• Costs: from $5 to $250 per user per month, depending on package selected
• Contract required: yes

2. Invoicing Made Easy: Freshbooks

[Make Money/Get Money] Here’s another cloud-based solution, this time for accounting. Freshbooks is built for small business and makes it easy to get organized and get paid. It helps you track time cards and vendor expenses and quickly and easily prepare quotes or roll numbers to an invoice. Invoices can be emailed or snail mailed out, and the system offers an option for online payment. Set up tax rules, late payment calculations, and reminders. Also, currency options are available per vendor or per invoice. It’s quick, it’s easy, and you don’t need to be a CPA to use it. The system is online, so there’s no hardware to buy or software to load. But if you’re old school and want a backup of your accounting in paper or on your local machine, Freshbooks offers a variety of reports, including accounts aging, profit & loss, balance sheet and more, for exporting your numbers. These reports are also useful for sharing with investors and other financiers who need details about your expenses or revenues.

• Accessible via mobile app? Yes
• Free Trial: 30 days
• Cost: $0 – $39.95 per month
• Contract required: no

3. Get A Handle on Social Media: Hootsuite

[Make Money] If you’re maintaining multiple social media accounts for your business, simplify posting with Hootsuite. Hootsuite is a social management solution that lets you create and schedule posts across a variety of social media platforms including Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Plus, WordPress, Foursquare, MySpace and mixi. The system lets you read, post, follow, tweet, like, retweet, and comment all from one central system. Hootsuite also provides analytics on your posts to let you know which ones are the most popular; whom you’re reaching, and the demographics of those interacting with you. It includes features such as auto-scheduler which automatically finds the best time of the day for your posts, and a browser plug-in called the Hootlet, that lets you add and schedule content to Hootsuite from any site, without having to copy and paste into the application. Hootsuite makes lead generation and customer service via social media manageable and timely.

• Accessible via mobile app? Yes
• Free Trial: 30 days
• Cost: $0 – $9.99 per month. Custom enterprise solutions available as well.
• Contract required: no

4. Polish Your Communications: Grammarly

[Make Money] Keep your brand image professional by avoiding spelling errors and grammar gaffes. Grammarly is an online proofreader that goes above and beyond the standard spellcheck offered in word processing software and email software. Grammarly checks for grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, it makes vocabulary suggestions and does a check for plagiarism. You can adjust the severity of the proofread from casual, to creative, to technical, to academic, to business, depending on the tone of the document. The system provides a grade out of 100%, identifies errors in the documents, and provides correction notes. Grammarly is a terrific way to ensure quotes, contracts, marketing documents and general communications are polished and professional in the eyes of your prospects and customers. The grammar police are out in full force; make sure you don’t get cited with an offence.

• Accessible via mobile app? Yes
• Free Trial: 7 days
• Cost: $0 – $29.95 per month
• Contract required: no

If you’re not currently position to invest in these solutions or would rather use your cash for other obligations, consider a merchant capital advance  to help see you through dips and valleys in revenues.