1. Xero, Wellington/Auckland, New Zealand
If you’re looking for a more sublime experience than tearing your hair out with your accounting software, Xero might have what you need. The three-year old, company provides an online accounting system for small businesses and advisors.

You can easily sync your bank transactions, handle invoices, expense claims and all those other tasks that typically make you want to watch paint dry instead. Only, Xero have managed to make the process much more intuitive, and since its web based you could be working in the backyard sipping lemonade. A more delightful way to do your books.

2. Freshview, Sydney Australia
Freshview is most notably known for Campaign Monitor, the email newsletter web application. It was designed for designers creating newsletters and announcements for their clients. Used by the likes of 37 Signals and Twitter, Freshview have kept their interfaces simple and fresh as their name suggests. They also try to keep their users topped up with helpful tools to improve the creation process, even starting a movement to change Outlook’s web standards in 2010 to preserve the viewing quality. Taking on Mircosoft for users, that’s commitment.

3. Anecdote, Melbourne/ Canberra, Australia
We all know that words are powerful and that stories stick. We also know that managing change can be an emotionally charged process. Anecdote essentially helps business leaders and management make effective use of strategic storytelling. From coaching on how to become more influential and persuasive to working with teams to enhance knowledge management, and resolve conflicts. Communication is a huge part of a company’s culture and can make or break an initiative. Thinking about how people transfer knowledge and motivate others can lead to more human centered systems. Ones people will actually follow.

4. Plan HQ, Wellington, New Zealand
New entreprenuers can spend a lot of time faffing about with voluminous business plans. Plan HQ , another Kiwi company, gets to the nuts and bolts of what you really need to focus on. The web based software acts as a new wiki/project management/ financial monitoring tool, to help you as you launch. Collaborate and track the basics.

5. Eis-One, Brisbane, Austrailia
While Plan HQ might be light and breezy for start-ups Eis-One is for serious business buffs but make no mistake, this doesn’t mean boring. If tracking the health and performance of your business is a sport for you, the Analysis-One product will provide you with hours of fun — well depending on how your business is faring. Track KPIs, profitability, ratios, break-even and cash flow with visualizations that can make the most drole data meaningful. We also really like the performance scorecard which was easy to create. It’s useful to say “we’re a B+ right now we, really need to be an A” everyone gets it.

6. Ponoko, Wellington, New Zealand
For the more ambitious make-it-yourself crafter Ponoko is the place for you. Where else would you go to upload your design that needs fuchsia acrylic, laser cut into a bird? You can make almost anything, from mod chairs to coasters. Ponoko is also marketplace, bringing crafters, material vendors and buyers together.

7. Envato, Melbourne, Australia
Our list wouldn’t be complete without mentioning Envato. The online empire that provides blogs, tutorials, resources and inspiration to the creative class. As well as several lucrative marketplaces, such as Theme Forest for web site templates, Audio Jungle for sound clips and Graphic River for vectors. They also produce the very popular Freelance Switch blog and podcast for freelancers. There’s a wealth of knowledge available to designers, writers, and developers mostly for free.