E Entrepreneurship comes with a good many challenges. When you are starting from scratch, taking the very first step and keeping things running can be overwhelming. From funding your startup to finding the right people, there is always a lot to do. But there are many tools that can help you with your new business. Here are 5 must-haves that can help you jump-start your company:
Wages Protection System (WPS)
The Wages Protection System (WPS), developed by Qatar Central Bank, is an electronic system that ensures the salaries of workers are paid through an electronic salary transfer. Companies and Institutions pay employees via banks that have been approved and authorized to provide the service. All disbursements are monitored by the Ministry of Labour, this ensures that employees receive their money on time. One thing you must know about the Wages Protection System is that if an employer fails to pay his employees their salaries for three months, the company gets blocked. The employer then has to clear the outstanding salaries and pay a fine, and then have his company unblocked from the Ministry.
Accounting System
Did you know the earliest known accounting records were found in the Middle East and were said to date back over 7,000 years? That is a long time ago!
When it comes to starting a new company or even running your current one, having an accounting system has its own advantages. An accounting system will help your business to keep track of all types of financial transactions, including sales, purchases and more. With this, you can organize financial information, the income, and expenses of your business. We are bringing you some of the highly-rated accounting software that you could make use of. Here are they:
1. QuickBooks is an accounting software package developed and marketed by Intuit Inc., in 2019. You can use QuickBooks to track expenses, manage cash flow & create invoices. It has an easy-to-use software that is customer-oriented and it also has many integrated tools that will help you increase efficiency. Since QuickBooks is focused on small businesses, small companies can grow bigger and earn good profits by using this software. QuickBooks offers a free 30-Day trial without a credit card. It includes five plans: Self-Employed is $15 per month, Simple Start is $25 per month, Essentials is $40 per month, Plus is $70 per month, and Advanced is $150 per month.
2. Wave Accounting is a free small-business accounting app. The free feature offers fully functional accounting software, including invoicing and receipt scanning. The features such as payments and payrolls, dedicated bookkeeping services are paid options. Payroll starts at $20 per month plus $4 per employee. Wave’s bookkeeping service comes around $49 per month. Wave also offers 30 days of accounting coaching for a one-time fee of $49.
3. Sage Business Cloud Accounting (formerly known as Sage One) is one of the most user-friendly accounting software. It was founded in 1981 in Newcastle by David Goldman, Paul Muller, and Graham Wylie. It was built specifically for small businesses and the platform in itself is user-friendly. It is a cloud-based accounting and invoice management solution. Sage offers two plans: Sage Business Cloud Accounting Start starts at $10 per month, it is for one user and Sage Business Cloud Accounting allows unlimited users, reports and full invoices for $25 per month.
Online Presence
1. Social Media
Living in the 21st century, we know just how imperative and influential Social Media is in our day-to-day lives. With people using social media for fun or to keep up with everything that’s going on in the world or even for businesses, this is the biggest online presence any company can have. Here are some popular social media platforms you can be on to establish the online presence of your business:
LinkedIn is a social media platform catered to professionals. This is a platform that focuses on professional networking and career development. When you are starting up, you can use LinkedIn to promote your brand. You could share company news or industry articles. You could also poll followers with questions. LinkedIn lets you share videos, photos, and links to your content. A new feature, Content Suggestion will also let you get suggestions on content to post by filtering for audience, industry, and location of your choice. One thing that would be of great use is the Visitor Analytics. It’s always good to know who visits your page and lets you monitor the engagement by specific date ranges, job functions, and visitor channels. There’s a feature that you can unlock with LinkedIn Premium, LinkedIn Learning, which offers courses to help you learn business, software, technology, and creative skills to achieve your professional goals.
Facebook is one of the biggest social media platforms, founded in 2004. Facebook has more than 2 billion active users, with more than 65 million Businesses actively promoting on the platform. Facebook allows you to add content and its current format is as such: text, images, videos and their latest addition, stories. Facebook also offers special features for its business pages such as Calls-to-Action, Manage Sections, Schedule Posts, Page Moderation/Profanity Filter, Similar Page Suggestions, Event App, Featured Likes/Page Owners, Pages to Watch, When Your Fans Are Online and Post Types.
YouTube, the second biggest social media site, is owned by Google. It is also said to be the second-largest search engine after Google. YouTube has over 2 billion active users, so imagine sharing a video about the journey of your startup and getting an audience who relates to your experience or just a stranger who wishes to learn more about startups. When you use YouTube to post a live video during an event your company is at, that is you engaging with your followers then and there. YouTube will help bring your audience closer to you. All you need is to put up a video, find the right keywords and share.
Instagram is principally a photo and video sharing social media app with over 1 billion active users. Launched in 2010, it is currently owned by Facebook, Inc., and allows you to share a wide range of content such as photos, videos, and live videos. Instagram launched Stories, a post that shows up for 24 hours and disappears after. You can promote your brand by posting on Instagram by using hashtags that are relevant to your business or even by having Instagram Influencers, with a good following, promote your products or services for a small fee.
Twitter is a social media site for news, entertainment, sports, politics, and more. Twitter was founded in 2006, and it has 330 million monthly active users and 145 million daily active users on Twitter. Unlike Facebook and other social media platforms, Twitter has a unique characteristic that only allows 280 characters in a tweet. As for Japanese, Korean, and Chinese, it is 140 characters. Twitter is also different from most social media sites, it has a strong emphasis on things that are happening right now. Twitter also has Business profiles, and it is said to be the #1 Platform for discovery. 79% of people on Twitter like to discover what’s new. 53% of people on Twitter are more likely to be the first to buy a new product, and people spend 26% more time viewing ads on Twitter than on other leading platforms. You can connect to what’s happening with Twitter.
WhatsApp Business is free to download app that was built with the small business owner in mind. You must have heard of WhatsApp, you probably even use it every day to communicate with your friends, colleagues and even family. With WhatsApp Business, you can showcase your products and services. When you create a business profile, you can add helpful information such as an address, business description, email addresses, and website of your business for your customers. WhatsApp Business lets you save and reuse messages you frequently send so you can reply to new messages in no time. It also allows automated messages, which you can set when you are unable to reply to your customers. This way your customers know when to expect a response.
2. Business Listing
Google My Business helps you claim and verify your local business. You can claim this free business listing and include information about your company, like the phone number, the email address, the address, types of payment accepted and business hours. Having a Google My Business account lets you connect with customers on Google Search and Google Maps, and increases your chances of showing up in rankings in general. Every month, there are over 5 billion searches on Google for restaurants, 3 billion searches for hotels, 1 billion searches for clothing stores, 600 million searches for hair and beauty salons and 5 million searches for coffee shops. Google also builds your first website for free and helps you establish your business online. Your customers are ready to connect, you can do it using Google My Business.
Company Formation Services
When it comes to forming a new company, it is advisable to have help along the way. Entities that help with Startups offer necessary tools to kickstart your new business and also provide you tools to get an online identity. These companies also offer outsourced P.R.O. services, which will help you cut half the cost of having your own P.R.O. department.
Venture Hub is one such entity that will help you make your company 100% compliant with all government regulations to avoid any potential penalties and provides business, employee and asset-related services that require any interaction with government agencies.
Forming a new business is not a cup of tea, but Venture Hub ensures it is for you as we help our clients navigate through the complex web of company formation processes.
Walk in with an idea, leave with a startup.
