Tanisha bajaj

Here are 10 things you should know before hiring an accountant for your software business. Let’s get started!

Finding an accountant for your small software business can be an intimidating process. It requires research, an understanding of financial software, and knowledge about budgeting and tax information. But you can learn these concepts quickly, thanks to online resources.

What to Know Before Hiring an Accountant in a Tech Company

Whether you’re a blockchain developer or a video game dev, you’ll need an accountant. Here are 10 things to keep in mind before you hire an accountant for your software business. 

Are They Qualified and Certified?

Verify that the accountant has a valid and up-to-date professional qualification, such as Certified Public Accountant (CPA). You may need to learn how to obtain a CPA license if you want to help a great employee level up their certification. Also, check if they’ve worked in your industry.

Are Their Services in Your Budget?

Many companies like to hire a freelancer as it can be cheaper than hiring a full-time employee, but they may not be qualified to handle your financial department. For this reason, you should hire an employee or outsource. Be sure to factor in the cost of new software and financial tools.

Are They Compatible With You?

Some accountants may prefer to handle everything themselves, while others are more of a facilitator, actively working with you and your staff in order to ensure the best possible outcome. If you express your needs openly, you’ll ensure they’re compatible with you and your goals.

Are They Able to Communicate?

Another thing to consider is how well the accountant communicates. Your accountant should be able to explain tax and financial laws in a way that makes sense to you. This will help you make more informed decisions. Look for a professional who is prompt in responding to your questions.

Are They Knowledgeable in Tax Planning?

Tax law is ever-changing, and it’s essential to have an accountant who stays up-to-date with the latest changes as well as helps you plan accordingly. Additionally, you’ll want someone who is able to review your tax documents and handle filing with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). 

Are They Knowledgeable in Payroll?

Payroll is the most tedious part of the accounting process, but it needs to be accurate and prompt. Your accountant should understand payroll forms, employee benefits, payroll taxes, and retirement plans and take them into account when calculating employee wages and bonuses. 

Can They Make Financial Reports? 

Good financial reporting is paramount in the software industry. Your accountant should be able to prepare monthly and yearly financial reports, such as profit and loss statements, balance sheets, and cash flow statements. With this overview, you can recognize areas of improvement. 

Also read: 5 Tips For Onboarding Remote Employees

Are They Knowledgeable in Auditing? 

An internal audit is essential for any business, and you’ll want to make sure your accountant is familiar with the necessary procedures. Your accountant should be able to provide a thorough analysis of your company’s financial statements in order to detect fraud or negligence. 

Can They Track Your Inventory?

Your software business will likely carry a large inventory of items, and an effective inventory management system can help you monitor your current job costs. A good accountant should be able to assist with setting up an inventory control system that tracks and reviews expenditures.

Do They Have Industry Knowledge?

Last but not least, your accountant should have some surface level of understanding regarding your industry. While they don’t need to be interested in your products, they should know common financial issues in your industry. That way, they can warn you of potential pitfalls.

Tanisha bajaj

You want to start an AD Agency? Here are the 6 steps so let’s get you started!

Starting an advertising agency is a fantastic way to build a brand that’s truly your own. One of the benefits of owning an ad agency is the flexibility of your schedule. And since you’ll be in charge of your company, you can determine your success and use your proven business strategies. 

On the other hand, many businesses are considering outsourcing their marketing and advertising requirements. They find this strategy an excellent way to save money instead of hiring additional staff to meet their demands.

Starting an ad agency may seem daunting. However, it’s possible you can build a large clientele and generate substantial income if you put in the time and effort. If you find yourself getting too excited about the idea, go now and search for online resources to help you find success.  

Here are the crucial steps when starting your ad agency.  

Develop A Business Plan

One of the things that should come to mind when you want to start your ad agency is to develop a business plan. It’s where you put every detail about your company, including your capital investment, business structure, and possible expenses. A business plan can help guide your growth and internal operations.  

It’s essential to have a purpose when you’re creating a business plan. It should have your objectives or goals and how you intend to achieve them. For instance, you may want to include strategies to strengthen your company’s focus to better compete in your field. Generally, your business plan should be your guiding tool to ensure you run your agency more efficiently.  

Meanwhile, starting an ad agency requires a hefty capital investment. On the other hand, a business plan is an excellent tool to help you secure external funding. It might be wise to consider financing if your savings aren’t enough to cover the investment. 

If you need additional funding, you can apply for loans, seek investors, or find sponsors. However, financial institutions and potential investors will be interested in knowing about the business plan for your company before they can offer the financial assistance you need. 

A comprehensive business plan should have five major sections. These include a company description that defines your business, an executive summary describing your ad agency’s operations, and the services you’ll offer customers. Other parts include your marketing strategies to promote your firm and a financial plan with revenue and expenditure projections.  

Learn The Basics

There are no academic or professional qualifications for starting and running an ad agency. But there are some courses you can take to improve your management and business skills. You can take business leadership, business planning, accounting, and marketing courses. Learning them can help you properly manage your company and increase revenues.  

Nowadays, learning a new skill is easier than ever before. In the past, traditional learning methods required attendance in a classroom. Today, the internet has made it possible to acquire new knowledge while on the go, using devices such as laptops and smartphones. 

If you’re too busy to attend classes in person, consider enrolling in an online program. Finding a school or learning platform that provides online classes is a good option if you have a tight schedule. You can also visit websites or online resources to learn about other courses you may need to run your ad agency successfully. 

Create A Budget

Another important step when starting an ad agency is to organize and acquire capital. You need funds to purchase equipment, register your company with the state, hire employees, and find suppliers and service providers. 

After you launch your business, you’ll still need cash to settle your daily and monthly expenses. Your company might not make enough profits on day one, and you may have to wait several weeks. To help you get through this challenging time, you must learn how to organize your finances. 

The first thing you need to do is create a budget. It’ll give you an overview of the cost of starting your company. Outlining potential expenses and the cash allotted will help you see where you could need extra funding. Depending on your budget, you can get additional financing by applying for loans, seeking government grants, or working with angel capitalists and investors.  

Also read : Best Way To Start a Website

Register Your Business

The government will require you to register your ad agency before you operate. It’s illegal to run an unregistered company, and you’ll have difficulty getting clients because of your lack of credibility. So, it’s best to register your ad agency to comply with the law. 

One of the steps to take when registering your ad agency is to decide on the structure of your business. You can choose a sole proprietorship, partnership, corporation, or limited liability company. Each option is unique and has its benefits. You can hire a corporate lawyer to guide you on the best type of ownership for your ad agency.  

The next thing is to select a business name. This is a title that customers will identify your advertising services with. And because there are several other ad agencies in the market, try to create a unique name for your firm to make it easier for prospects to find you.  

Now that you’ve decided on your business structure and name, you must present all the necessary documentation for business registration. In addition, you should register your business with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) or visit their offices to complete the process. Once completed, the state will list your ad agency and give you an operating license.  

Hire Employees

You’re starting a new business with no clients. So, you might think you’ll be able to multitask or put everything on your shoulders. It could become stressful and overwhelming, especially when you start serving clients. Therefore, you need to hire employees to help with accounting, marketing, selling, managing assets, and other responsibilities. 

The number of employees will depend on the size of your ad agency. If it’s small, you may require just a few employees. The idea is to hire enough employees to run your company more efficiently. 

Build A Company Website

Lastly, you should build a company website. Most businesses search for advertising agencies over the internet. Therefore, it’s important to have a company website to connect with your target clients. However, it’s not enough to build a company website. You also need to optimize it for search engines.  Search engine optimization (SEO) will ensure your website ranks better to become visible to a large audience. As such, you can generate more leads and increase your sales.  

Takeaway

Starting an ad agency can be a great way to earn. It enables you to connect with many businesses looking for advertising services. You can also assist clients in ways that are exclusive to your agency. You’ll have the freedom to hone your abilities and explore new areas. 

For now, the chances of succeeding may be low. But if you put in the effort and stay focused, you can get over the challenges and grow from your experiences. Best of all, with this investment, you have the opportunity to make significant revenues and build your wealth. You can follow the abovementioned steps to help you start and run a successful ad agency.  

Tanisha bajaj

This article enumerates essential tips to boost the security of the Magento admin panel.

The eCommerce business has seen unprecedented growth in the last decade, and it will keep growing as more people have access to smartphones. Individuals and companies are entering this space to make the most of this opportunity. However, cyber risks are growing every day, and securing an eCommerce website has become a challenge. Cyber criminals are one step ahead when it comes to learning new technologies and using them for their benefit. 

Since Magento is a leading eCommerce platform hackers and attackers target it to steal information. Despite taking various security measures, Magento websites are still not immune to cyber risks. Attackers try to access them to disrupt the functioning of the website or access customers’ credit card details, or passwords. Magento users need to learn how to protect their eCommerce websites against malicious intent. T

Top 7 Tips to Secure the Magento Admin Panel

Here are the 7 tips to secure the Magento Admin Panel:

Install an SSL Certificate on Your eCommerce Store website

Security is the first thing that comes to customers’ minds when they want to shop online. With too many incidents of cyber-attacks, people think multiple times before they provide their bank account or credit card details on any shopping site. How to secure your eCommerce store and win customers’ trust? 

A Secure Socket Layer (SSL) certificate protects a customer’s details by encrypting them. It provides a secure connection for the transmission of data between the user’s browser and website server, thus preventing any third party from accessing it. Moreover, using an SSL certificate also boosts the Google ranking of a website.
When you install a low-priced SSL certificate like cheap SSL wildcard or multi-domain SSL certificate on your website, it will show HTTPS and a padlock on the URL, which makes your website safe and reliable for customers.

Implement the best password practices

A password is a key to your website, and you need to make it secure to prevent some unauthorized person from accessing your website. If a criminal gets to know the password, he can steal your users’ data, or lock you out of the website. You never know what they can do to your website. Keeping a strong password can help you avoid such situations. 

An ideal password for your website should be of a minimum of 12 characters, and it must be a combination of letters, numbers, and special characters. However, you need to ensure you can remember it. Cyber experts recommend using password managers if you can’t remember them. You should also avoid storing the password on the computer you use to access your Magento website. Some viruses can easily find out a stored password in the system.  The last thing about your password is to keep changing it regularly to ensure infiltrators don’t get much time to guess the password.

Scan your eCommerce Store Using Magento Scan Tool

Magento developers understand the security risks, and they developed the free scanning Magento tool to determine if there is a security threat to the admin panel. The tool has many security features that make it easy to perform a security scan. During the scan, it alerts you about any suspicious activities or security threats to your website. Other features of this tool are saving the scanning sessions in the Magento merchant accounts, real-time alerts about any security issues, and scheduling security scans.

Also read: Cybersecurity During Work from home | A Security Checklist

Use the Latest Version of Magento

 Magento is open-source software, and anybody can contribute to its development. Hackers try to find out ways to target business owners using it. To mitigate the threat, Magento developers worked out a solution. They constantly monitor the software. When they come across any security threat, they roll out the latest version of the software that includes security patches to deal with the threats. So, upgrading to the latest version of the software is another effective way to secure your Magento admin panel. 

Use a Unique URL for the Admin Panel

The admin panel is the most critical part of your website, and you must secure it to safeguard your website from attacks. Hackers can easily access the regular admin panel for the website, which is mysite.com/admin. Setting up a custom path for the admin dashboard is the best way to protect your Magento admin panel. Doing so will make it difficult for the attackers to find it. Do you know how to create a custom path to your website’s admin URL? Here are the steps:

• Go to configuration >> advanced >> admin >> work
• Look for the ‘Use Custom Admin path’ command and click YES
• Type in a more complex admin pathname and save it
• Log out and log in again to make the changes effective

Use a Firewall for an Additional Layer of Security

When it comes to your eCommerce store security, it is wise not to take chances and use an extra layer of security. Using a web application firewall (WAF) will safeguard your Magento website. A firewall can monitor, analyze, and filter the web traffic to ensure people with malicious intentions can’t access your website server.

Besides that, online stores may face MySQL injection attacks. The criminals can access and tamper with the database of your website and use them to fulfill their malicious intent. Using a firewall can protect your website from SQL injection attacks and a сross-site scripting attack.

Backup Your Magento Website Regularly

You may take the best measures to ensure the security of your website, yet it may face an attack. The reason can be a failure of a security tool, or it can be because of any human error. Suppose an employee uses a weak password or saves it somewhere, and some attackers find it! It’s better to be ready for the worst scenario and back up the critical data of your website regularly. 

It will prevent data loss and misuse of crucial data in case of a cyber attack. While backing up the website data, use the built-in backup functionalities to ensure you don’t miss out on any data. Once you back up, make sure you do not store the copies in any device to avoid any chances of miscreants getting access to the data. For an additional layer of security, you can upload them to a remote server. It is a great way to ensure you have a working version of the website.

Conclusion

Magento is an excellent platform for building eCommerce websites with all the necessary features. The developers are constantly working on adding more features. Besides, they release timely updates with security patches to secure your Magento website. However, as a business owner, you should take additional security measures to prevent data theft and risks. A cyber attack not only poses a threat to your and consumers’ sensitive data but also damages your reputation. Install a Comodo SSL certificate to encrypt customers’ data on your Magento website and follow the above tips to secure the admin panel.

Tanisha bajaj