When creating a new company or being self-employed, there are two aspects that we must take into account. First of all, we must be clear about whether we want to manage our business through special software or if we are going to delegate this task to an agency.
The second aspect that we must take into account, if we are going to create a company, is if we are going to rule with him collective agreement of our sector or create a new one in case we like the one that exists at the provincial or national level.
If we know that we are capable of manage the operation of our company or self-employed business (invoicing, accounting, warehouse, customer management...) we have at our disposal a wide range of applications, applications that are linked to each other, facilitating the management of inventory, orders, billing, payroll, customers...
What applications do you need to run a business
Invoicing
Billing is the section most important of any business. If there is no billing, there is no income. If there is no income, the business is not profitable.
Billing apps for businesses and freelancers include a stock control, which allows us to know at all times, the inventory we have available.
If instead of offering products, we sell services (repairing appliances, for example), with these types of billing applications, we can also keep a complete record of labor hours and materials used.
allows us to configure alerts for when the stock falls below a certain number inviting us to place an order with the usual supplier. In the tab of each product, you can add both the cost price and the retail price, with its corresponding VAT rate.
The most complete applications of this type allow us to connect the app with our bank to analyze the income we have received with the invoices issued. In this way, we can manage the collections practically automatically.
Within the billing section, the application allows us to manage collections, purchases and, obviously, sales. This app is essential for any type of business, since, if the thing works, every day we should make use of it to generate income.
With this type of applications, we can also know at a glance, what are the products that are sold the most, those that leave a greater margin of business, the best sellers at certain times of the year...
Yes, besides, connects with Microsoft 365 Apps (Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint...) we can send the reports directly to Excel to apply filters and analyze the data, share via email without having to save them beforehand...
This integration also allows import provider rates or data from other apps into the app to always have them at hand in the application.
Accounting
Along with billing, accounting is another of the most important sections within a business, since It will show if we are doing things right or wrong.
Even if you have no knowledge of accounting, these types of applications automatically takes care of generating the accounting entries, when we generate an invoice, when we collect it, when we pay supplier invoices...
If you have knowledge of accounting, it will always be better than if you do not have them, since you will not be forced to hire an accountant or resort to consulting.
The applications to keep the accounting of freelancers and companies allow us to manage businesses based on direct estimation y indirect estimate.
In addition, they greatly facilitate the work of presenting the VAT settlement reports, the IRPF model, the account books in the Mercantile Registry, the annual accounts...
The lists that the application allows us to create can be export in Excel and PDF format.
The application to manage the accounting of a business must be updated periodically to include the changes in legislation that is added or modified.
This type of application allows us to control at all times the assets of our business, tangible fixed assets, intangible fixed assets, intangible fixed assets, financial fixed assets... Some of these allow us to include photographs of the company's assets.
Another important aspect that we must take into account when choosing an application that allows us to manage accounting is that integrate with Office to share the reports created, analyze them with Excel…
Payroll
We can also manage our company's payroll and social security with specific applications that will allow us to save the monthly expenses of a consultancy. With this type of application, we can adjust the payroll amount to a gross net amount in a very simple way.
They allow us to manage management of collections and working days for days, weeks or months, overtime, set the days worked on a calendar, an ideal function for using employees discontinuously.
Just as it allows us to manage payroll and social security, with this type of application, we can also create employment contracts and they are in charge of generating the communication files to process them from the Contrat@ platform.
The application will inform us of the expiration dates of employee contracts, medical check-ups, permits that you have enjoyed, of the pending vacation days...
It also allows us to manage the parts of high and low in social security, changes in contraries and social security. Just by entering the date of leaving the company and depending on the reason for leaving, the corresponding settlement will be automatically generated.
Like apps for managing both billing and accounting, if the payroll app offers office integration, better since it allows us to export lists with data to analyze them with Excel or share reports directly by email.
More things to consider
Before deciding on one application or another, we must take into account the technical assistance that the company offers us, the app updates and from which devices we can access the information of these applications.
Access via web from any device to our company's billing or accounting application is a point to keep in mind, especially among freelancers who are always on the go.
the best we can do before deciding on one set of applications or another is to try them. What you cannot do is choose a billing application from one company and the accounting application from another, since you will not be able to transfer the data automatically.