Entrepreneurs should work on their business, not in them. The best way to do that is to cut-down on all the day-to-day micro tasks and keep an eye on the bigger-picture stuff. The intricacies that goes into running a smooth business operation is almost mind-numbing to say the least. While accelerators might be up to lending you a hand or two, many people prefer keeping their startups to themselves as much as possible — furthermore, using online tools rather than freelancers.
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Having tools to organize or boost your social media presence and help you develop your site are important but they only scratch the surface of your startup. Underneath the pretense you’ll find the inner grimy gears of business operation — namely the event organizers, accountants and so forth.
And so, from accounting and CRM to taxes, most of these online services listed below have been born, bred (or flew the coop) in South Africa and thus have a better understanding of local business dynamics than any other outsourced service ever would.
TaxTim
TaxTim is a friendly online service that organizes your taxes for you. While tax season might seem like an irking memory, the next one is right around the corner and any business could do with a third party hand handling their tax returns. By guiding you through a step-by-step questionnaire, TaxTim promises a secure, simple and easy-to-use service. The friendly Tim is also online 24/7 to help you out.
My Business Online
One of the many features offered by Sage Pastel, My Business Online is described as being multi-user online accounting application that allows small businesses to manage their customers, suppliers and inventory items online. To emphasize the on-the-go aspect, there’s even an app available for Android and iPhone users to run your business on the road.
My Business Online also helps you log and keep track of your customers and inventory. The Bank Feeds feature updates your bank statements in your My Business Online bank or credit card accounts saving you time and the hassle of banking. Furthermore, for a bird’s eye view, business owners can either see an overview of how the finances is doing or use a comprehensive list of reports for further scrutiny.
Magnetic
This Cape Town-based startup offers a cloud-based end-to-end management platform for both internal and external company use. Magnetic takes care of Customer Relations Management. Some features include keeping tabs on company and customer databases through email integration. By helping you track projects and organize files the service will automatically build your client/ company databases as well keep track of employee reviews and development.
AWeber
While a general social media angle is crucial for an online presence, services such as newsletter management are still incredibly productive. While not based in South Africa, AWeber is widely used across the globe as a email organizer and marketing service.
Described as a service providing email marketing for small businesses, AWeber has over the years established itself as one of the leading email management software services available today. Some competitors? MailChimp offers some awesome package deals as well as iContact.
WooCommerce
Have a WordPress site and want to branch out to the online shopping industry? Originally based in South Africa, WooCommerce is an open source ecommerce plugin for WordPress and is designed for SMEs but has soon established itself as an internationally recognized tool for thousands of businesses. It is mostly known for its user-friendly user interface that lets you to easily manage your simple, digital and variable products.
The services basically gives you an fully-fledged store in the cloud. One of the latest features that stands out of the recent WooCommerce 2.0 update focus on providing a secure platform — it even got its stamp of approval by WordPress’ original Sucuri Security team. The WooCommerce 2.0 also lets you configure comprehensive tax settings to adjust to local and international standards. Other neat competitors worth a mention in this area are Shopify and Magneto.
Peach Payments
To further integrate commerce services into your business, Peach Payments offers payment solutions to online businesses. Why is this relevant? Well, Peach Payments is a locally-based startup which also means that it has a specific focus on Africa and other emerging markets.
In a nutshell, Peach Payments enables your business to accept payments across all channels including website, mobile site and a range of different apps. Your customers, on the other hand, are able to pay via credit/debit cards, bank transfers, mobile wallets, electronic wallets and mobile operator billing.
Many of these services come with monthly or yearly contract fees but usually have a trail-run package deal. If you’re looking for cheap and free ways to running your startup, take a look at our guide to bootstrapping a web startup on a tight budget or check out the must-have list of online tools to simplify your web-based startup.
