Starting up a business from scratch is no small affair — after all, there is tons of behind-the-scenes work that goes into registering and coordinating your company.
Not only do you have legal requirements such as registering as an entity and creating sound contracts for employees, but you also have to make sure that the necessary infrastructure is there to allow you company to function on a daily basis.
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Luckily in the digital era, there is a slew of online services which can help you get (and stay) up and running.
Here are five online services that can help your new business.
Legal Legends
Remember those aforementioned legal requirements? Well, contracting the necessary legal professionals to sort these out for you often comes with jaw-dropping prices.
But thanks to services like Legal Legends, you can outsource this work to independent lawyers at a reduced price.
Rather than paying per hour or requiring a retainer, this online service sells services in packages with a set price.
This means that you can pay for exactly what you need — such as a trademark registration or Shareholders Agreement.
The company also offers a free legal health check for your company.
Its tech-savvy nature is not only limited to the delivery of the service. Legal Legends is also very aware of legal requirements in the digital age.
This means that packages can include services like writing up terms of services, privacy policies and licensing agreements.
Zoho Suite
While Microsoft’s Office 365 is the go-to office suite for many businesses, Zoho.com offers many similar products at different prices according to the size of your company.
A great aspect of the suite is not only that you can pick and choose which services you want (such as bookkeeping tools or email clients), but that all basic packages are free.
This means that it is a great tool for tiny businesses with limited cash flow as well. If you have bigger requirements, you can subscribe to various tiers of packages according to your needs.
The entire software suite is hosted in the cloud, meaning you don’t have to worry about getting licences for specific PCs. Rather, access is based on accounts rather than individual machines.
WordPress/Squarespace/Weebly
In the digital age, it is almost essential that every company have its own website. From purely informational sites to online store fronts, it has become much easier to create the site you want with little development experience.
While sites like WordPress and Squarespace were traditionally seen primarily as blogging platforms, they have become so much more. They all offer ecommerce functionality, along with a number of templates for business websites.
Weebly is a less well-known competitor in the market — but it has a very appealing feature that makes it stand out from the others. The service allows you to drag-and-drop elements to sites, giving the user significant customization control without requiring them to have development knowledge.
WordPress and Weebly both have free plans, with priced plans offering more functionality. Meanwhile, Squarespace offers personal and business plans, both of which are paid services.
With so many options, getting your business website off the ground is easier than ever before.
FreshBooks
Cloud accounting software has made keeping track of your startup or small business finances much more accessible to those without specialist knowledge.
Much like Zoho, FreshBooks gives businesses access to financial software in the cloud. However, FreshBooks is different to Zoho in that accounting and financial tasks are its sole focus.
This concentration on bookkeeping means that it has some added features that are useful when keeping track of your accounts.
You are able to invoice, send estimates, track expenses, log time and even use the software to accept credit card payments from customers.
Giraffe
As your company becomes more successful, the need to grow and expand will usually arise as time goes by. Looking for people to hire can be an expensive process, as many quality job listing sites require payments while free ones often lack the nuance and professionalism you need.Recruitment agencies also don’t come cheap.
Luckily, Giraffe, a local recruitment agency, has made things a lot easier for businesses looking to hire. As a mobile-based recruitment agency, it definitely stands out from the rest. This gives you the best of both worlds — the focus of an agency, with the reach and ease-of-use of a job listing site. The only caveat is that it is for medium-skilled workers only.
Due to the automation and mobile functionality of the agency, it also works out much cheaper for businesses to recruit employees. Giraffe charges three percent of the employee’s annual salary once a placement is successful
“Because Giraffe has automated the entire recruitment process- from sourcing to screening to contacting to interview-scheduling, Giraffe is more than 10x cheaper and 10x faster than any other recruitment agency or employment service – giving you candidates in less than 48 hours,” the agency’s site says.
Feature image: Pixabay
