Digitalisation in businesses is often perceived only in large companies. We often meet the discouraged attitude of fellow entrepreneurs who are at the start of their journey, which links digitalisation to a very high level of Turnover.
This is why we are briefly presenting 6 ideas for digitization for a SME that is still at the start of the journey.
From the start we make it clear that we do not receive sponsorship from anyone and promote anyone’s products, but only share with you, from our experience and our customers the areas where we managed to digitize with a small budget.
- Invoicing – Budget 75 Euro / year
E-invoicing largely requires a database allowing for the traceability of documents issued, as well as a log of changes to documents and their archiving. Find more details about this of Article 319 of The Tax Code.
The first step toward digitization could be the use of billing software that allows you to: manage invoice series and numbers, separate billing responsibilities, set up automatic/recurring invoices, send invoices to email, send out non-payment notifications, track receipts and integrate invoicing with the accounting.
The integration of invoicing with accounting involves the automatic take-over of invoices in the accounting, without the need to reintroduce the data but to verify/validate them by the accounting department.
The applications we have tested are FGO, Smartbill, Facturone. As the main accounting software we work with is SAGA, we recommend integration with the FGO, which has the most options for integration with SAGA at the moment. The annual budget is 75 euros for an FGO subscription and 75 euros for a SAGA subscription. If the accountant already has a SAGA subscription, the SME should only invest in an FGO subscription.
- MANAGEMENT – SALES MODULE – Budget 200 Euro / year
Retail businesses, online or offline shops, bakeries/restaurants, as well as plumbing/mounting companies need to operate with stock. In these areas, there is a serious risk of mismanagement that comes from the fact that many businesses do not manage their stocks in real time.
There are several low cost solutions for efficient stock management:
- SAGA Emulator – Cash Register: These are applications distributed by companies selling cash registers and allowing communication between SAGA and the cash registers. In practice, at the time the sale is made, the application adjusts the stock accordingly and submits in the accounts the accounting notes related to sales and management downloads, as well as the receipts via POS or cash.
- Management programs for OFFLINE shops: Microshop would be a good example of a program that has retail management at store/workstation and is integrated with a cash register. The processed data does not arrive directly in SAGA but can be imported into the program using the import menus.
- Working Remotely on SAGA – If the volume is large enough, the databases remain in the store space and it is the accountant who connects to a server to access them.
- Specialized programs for foreign exchange / management orders for installation, construction-assembly, service companies.
- For online stores, there is enough tracking from WordPress that helps manage inventory and provides sales statistics.
- Restaurants/bakeries need an application to manage recipes in advance to stocks. A low cost example would be Micro ERP, which manages both recipes and local stocks and also the link to the cash registers.
The budget for each of these options does not exceed 200 euros / year and represents, in our vision, a must-have for these types of business.
- HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT – Budget 0 – 100 Euros / Month
Companies with at least 1 employee must organize a series of HR-specific documents.
Daily attendance and vacation requests can be managed electronically via FGO. Individual timings in the FGO can be completed by an app on the phone by each employee. They are centralized in the company or at the worksite. The app can manage holiday requests and integrate them into individual and centralized timings.
Management of OSH can be done online through easyssm.ro or a similar system that allows training, testing and archiving of OSH documentation in electronic mode.
ore advanced softwares also shows regular health checks, assessment deadlines and training obligations, although we cannot achieve this in the budget targeted in our exercise, however relatively simple solutions can be developed through a well-developed xls.
- TRAVEL SPECIFIC DOCUMENTS
We have not yet found an integrated software to cover the need for the forms of travel specific documents. We are not hiding the fact that we have talked to a few I.T. partners and we hope to lay the foundations for a new project to create a simple and easy software for SMEs.
Until then, we have some recommendations on the management of these documents. If you own 5 or more cars in your fleet, then a contract with a petrol station chain would already be recommended to improve fuel cost. By using GPS software such as alarma.ro or softparcauto.ro, you can manage both roadmaps and alerts for insurance expiry times, accident history, etc.
FGO can be used individually, to upload user expense documents by taking photos of documents. This type of loading can successfully replace the document retrieval for the expense statement. It can be uploaded to the same menu and can ensure the partial retrieval of the data in the accounting.
There are a few websites that help simplify data retrieval and document creation. For example foideparcurs.ro helps to easily complete the roadmaps.
- TASK MANAGER – Buget 0
A SME has a very dynamic TO-DO system. Tasks are often performed and transmitted 1-1, without a documented follow up.
However, there are some very handy software that we can use, the goals being to manage folder/theme lists in a multi-user system. Trello is an app that allows this kind of interaction, with 0 budget.
Another form of organization can be through Microsoft Teams and even Facebook Workplace. If you have Microsoft licenses, then Teams is also free, and so is Facebook Workplace.
In the same idea, you can use Google Drive as the last solution to manage a TO-DO list in xls.
- APPLICATION OF THE FISCAL FILE ACCESS – 0 Budget
For SMEs that have an in-house accounting department or want to be visible on the tax files, there is the possibility to use a robot to access the ANAF platform for filing declarations and checking the tax file.
We use the 4 Secunde application, but we also heard things about THE SAGA online declaration platform and about Tigris, which we have not yet tested.
All 3 applications allow: Checking messages from ANAF, requesting the sheets and various documents issued by ANAF through the SPV, and the automatic filing and archiving of declarations.
These applications are free of charge for users who use only 1 tax code, so we consider them all with 0 budget.
This list can continue with the integration of bank statements, entries and so on.
What is really important in our article is that digitization is also possible on small budgets, and that the most effective way to implement solutions is achieved with your reliable economists.