Archive for category startup
3 months FREE Bookkeeping Data Entry
Posted by vinkash in accountants and bookkeepers, bookkeepers, small-business, startup on October 14, 2009
Small businesses – Go to the Pricing page and click on the “Beta Signup” button.
Accountants or bookkeepers – Get it free at Pricing page and click on the “Beta Signup” button. For customer referrals and partnership, email us at marketing@docsnaps.com.
What is the most tedious and time consuming task for a small business or start up? While there are those who absolutely love it, the overwhelming response from surveyed business owners is “bookkeeping”. Therefore hiring a good bookkeeper early on is not just a life saver for many but also makes good financial sense.
Work smart! Automate the rest.
A good bookkeeper or accountant understands your business, keeps your books updated, and provides actionable reports. While a lot of this requires skills, there is a part that is repetitive and monotonous. This consists of working with boxes or folders full of documents, bookkeeping data entry and moving data between various applications.
DocSnaps aims to automate a lot of this data entry and provide online access to accounting and tax services, resulting in enormous time and money savings.
Using DocSnaps users can capture and upload any financial document – bills, receipts, checks, etc. – using their mobile phone camera, eFax, or email. A transaction is created for each of these documents by the software. Users can also import data from other applications including their invoice application, bank or credit card account.
Real-time financial reports are generated which allow users to drill down to source documents. Transactions can also be exported to other accounting applications like Quickbooks. The accountant or bookkeeper can conveniently access DocSnaps remotely.
Are you looking for a solution to your bookkeeping data entry problem. Help us beta test our product and give us your feedback. Just go the Pricing page and click on the “Beta Signup” button. We are looking for beta users, and are happy to provide DocSnaps for FREE until the end of this year.If you are an accountant or bookkeeper we welcome you to try out DocSnaps. Eliminate the most boring and lowest paying part of your work. Save time and make money.
You can get a beta – go to the Pricing page and click on the “Beta Signup” button. If you are interested in partnering with us and getting customer referrals in the near future, please email us at marketing@docsnaps.com. This is a limited time offer and is on a first come first serve basis.
Free Tools and Applications for Small Business
Posted by vinkash in small-business, startup on October 3, 2009
With web startups giving away free applications with hopes of getting uses hooked, there are a lot of great tools out there that small businesses can use. Add to that open source apps and a plethora of already existing desktop tools and you have a free bonanza for companies. Granted some of these applications are less than perfect, and others fall short of their peers in terms of usefulness and features. But many of them are true gems, and for a cost conscious freelancer or entrepreneur they make life easier and help conserve cash.
We will be featuring one really useful app every week that is free (or has a free offering), saves money, makes money, or solves a real problem for a small business. Other apps in the space with slightly different uses will also be listed.
But first to get started here is a list of lists – websites that feature free apps. Please comment about others that you know and the list will be promptly updated.
Freewaregenius – A list of mostly windows applications, and others from pdf converters to time trackers.
Mashup – Has a list of useful apps for everything including twitter, business help, blogging, and money & finance to name a few.
Manage Money – Accounting and Bookkeeping
Invoice –
Expense Reports –
Bookkeeping –
Data Entry –
Payroll –
Create a Product or Service
Create a Website -
Design an Application -
Hire Talent –
Shopping Cart –
Online Billing –
Manage Customers – Marketing and Sales
Get Beta Users –
Survey Users –
Manage contacts -
Manage website analytics –
Blog –
Newsletters –
Do PR
Twitter – Twellow – Twitter yellow pages, Bit.ly – URL shortening and twitter analytics
Customer Forum –
Manage Partners
Legal
How to deliver Online Bookkeeping Services
Posted by vinkash in accountants and bookkeepers, small-business, startup on September 23, 2009
(Summarized version of a white paper published on a partner website - Suitesonline.com, Inc)
Why is it important?
Online bookkeeping is nothing new. There are products and services available that tackle different aspects of the solution. For businesses it promises to save time and money, and deliver several soft advantages including efficiency, faster actionable information, and agility.
Scanning of documents, remote work, and risks associated with sending important documents online pose adoption problems. But those who overcome these problems can reap rich rewards. The phenomenal growth in the number of tech-savvy companies drives demand for this service. Similar to email, a steady adoption of online bookkeeping is inevitable. As an accounting or bookkeeping firm, how do you plan to tap into this large lucrative market?
How does it work?
Online bookkeeping services can be delivered online if three main functions can be done entirely online:
1. Sharing of source documents
This includes receipts, bills, checks, account statements, reports, etc. to be transmitted to the service provider. There are several ways to capture electronic images of source documents:
- Inexpensive scanners like the Fujitsu ScanSnap can be used by clients to quickly scan documents.
- Smaller documents like receipts can be captured by a cellphone camera (resolutions of > 1.5 MP is recommended). ScanR is a cool app that helps you scan, copy and fax from your cellphone.
- Services like Shoeboxed and Pixily will digitize all your documents for you if you simply mail it in.
2. Performing bookkeeping
This includes creating transactions, printing checks, bank reconciliation, generating reports, etc. Several applications are available for small business to do this.
- Specialized applications for invoicing are available – Freshbooks and Blinksale are the better ones.
- Xero, Quickbooks online, and Sidomac are some applications that provide online bookkeeping functionality that includes bank reconciliation and check printing.
3. Communication and process
Especially while working online it is easy to lose control of the work being done. Communication is very important to be able to hold the team together and focus on the next set of tasks that needs to be done. For effective online collaboration contextual information exchange and processes are very important. At present there is no good tool, save for SIDOMAC that offers a good framework for online bookkeeping services delivery.
Online bookkeeping also has the following disadvantages:
1. It involves an extra step – that of scanning and uploading documents.
2. The documents need to be indexed and somehow correlated to transactions to be useful in any way.
Should I use it?
Whether you are a good candidate for online bookkeeping services depends upon how clearly the work is split between you and your bookkeeper. If what your bookkeeper does can be easily done using the tools listed above then go for it. If it entails transmitting documents, exchange of information and time critical information then make sure to find an all encompassing solution to your problem that includes strong processes and a competent and experienced online bookkeeping services company.
5 Great Business Plan Resources
Posted by vinkash in small-business, startup on September 10, 2009
DocSnaps has made it into the finals of the Pan IIT Business Plan competition to be held in Chicago in October. In writing a business plan for investment it is always good to access the most recent and pertinent resources for your industry. Here are 5 great resources to help you get started.
1. Guy’s business plan advice – Why write a business plan? It is important to answer this question first before putting pen to paper.
2. Sequoia Capital’s business plan outline – This provides an outline of what makes a business sustainable and the company fundable. It also includes an outline of what to include in the business plan.
3. Market research – A general idea of the size of the market is essential to get started. This is a great starting point with statistics and numbers to give you a general idea of the market. Other resources for qualitative research – BizShark, Crunchbase.
4. Competitive Strategy – A viable business is all about competing. If the idea is good then it safe to assume that somebody is already working on it. And to be successful a strategy has to be devised that makes you more successful than the other. Micheal Porter a university professor at Harward Business School helps you to analyze competition and create a successful strategy. Without a great strategy even the best business idea will fail.
5. Financials Basics – It is important to understand the basics of startup finance and take into account all startup expenses. A business might be profitable but for investors to be interested they would want a healthy return on investment for their risk. Your financial plan should provide general trends and ratios which helps answer these questions.
Biz plan competitions are always wrong – According to Seth Godin pundits are always wrong at predicting the future. So do not worry if your biz plan does not win any competitions.