Breadcrumb

Best Data Analytics Software for Small Business

Written by

The GoCardless content team comprises a group of subject-matter experts in multiple fields from across GoCardless. The authors and reviewers work in the sales, marketing, legal, and finance departments. All have in-depth knowledge and experience in various aspects of payment scheme technology and the operating rules applicable to each. The team holds expertise in the well-established payment schemes such as UK Direct Debit, the European SEPA scheme, and the US ACH scheme, as well as in schemes operating in Scandinavia, Australia, and New Zealand. See full bio

Last editedOct 20222 min read

Is your business using data analysis to make decisions? Data can be a vital tool when it comes to understanding your customer demographics, trends, and sales patterns. Yet sifting through all this information manually is nearly impossible, which is where data analytics software comes in to help. The best software lets you track and analyse data through visual dashboards, generating scannable reports to share. In this guide, we’ll review some of the best data analytics software to help you get started.

What is data analytics software?

Data analytics software uses tools like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to run mathematical analysis on large sets of data. It’s often used in industrial research and healthcare organisations, but can be equally useful to small businesses. These tools let businesses discover and organise data to identify patterns, which can then be used to inform your business decisions and strategy. This typically spans five steps:

Data preparation
Data modelling
Data blending
Data visualisation
Delivery of insights or reports

The data itself will come from your business’s files, transaction reports, and user activity on your website and other channels. As a result, most data analytics software is designed to integrate with your existing platforms for full functionality.

The best data analytics software for small businesses

The best data analytics software is scalable, user-friendly, and comprehensive with its features. Here are our choices for the best tools on the market.

Looker

We’ll start the list with Looker, a BI and data analytics platform built on its own modelling language called LookML. It’s a great tool for data exploration, offering businesses insight into historic and current patterns. Looker is part of the Google Cloud which makes it easy to integrate with numerous other tools, and includes its own API for custom applications as needed. Create and share your data visualisations with team members, embedding them into your workflow for accurate modelling.

Microsoft Power BI

Microsoft’s entry into the data analytics market is itsPower BI service, which can be used alongside Excel and other popular Microsoft products to design and analyse data visualisations. One benefit of this platform is its extensive library of online tutorials, making it a good choice for those who don’t have a lot of experience with data analysis. There’s an accompanying smartphone app and full integration with Office 365.

Tableau Desktop

Scalable and efficient, Tableau Desktop is an analytics platform that connects to hundreds of data sources to provide unique, visual dashboards for its users. You can create and share data with Tableau Public, and there’s a Tableau community that lets you communicate with millions of other members for on-demand support and tips. It also comes equipped with plenty of potential for customisation, including unique APIs for a versatile service.

Amazon QuickSight

Amazon’s contribution to the data analytics market is QuickSight, an intuitive tool that allows everyone in your organisation to ask questions and receive answers generated by existing data. Interactive dashboards include fields for queries and visual responses powered by machine learning. This cloud-based, serverless BI service scales to thousands of users so it can grow along with your business.

Zoho Analytics

If you’re looking for data analytics software that easily integrates with your existing apps and databases, Zoho Analytics could be a great fit. It’s designed to provide a deep-dive into your data with robust insights, but is also user-friendly with a simple drag-and-drop interface. Zoho uses AI and machine learning to sift through vast quantities of data and is available with an accompanying mobile app.

If you wish to streamline your accounting, payments, and data analytics into a single workflow, GoCardless integrates with over 350 partners including Zoho Books. This streamlines your processes for easier management of data and finance.

We can help

GoCardless is a global payments solution that helps you automate payment collection, cutting down on the amount of financial admin your team needs to deal with. Find out how GoCardless can help you with one-off or recurring payments.