Small business

In today’s digital world, where incidents of data tampering and forgery are increasing rapidly, it has become imperative to protect any data that is sent online. For the safety and security purpose of the data, Digital Signatures are expanding in popularity amongst the professionals. It validates the authenticity of a document, file, or software.

What is a Digital Signature?

The digital signature implements a mathematical pin or algorithm to sign, and it also validates the authenticity of a document, file, or software without using pen and paper. A digital signature is used to ensure that the data that is digitally sent belongs to a designated source, and it reaches the receiver in the same way as an envelope seal does. The digital signature is a small block of data attached to documents you sign and this signature is used to certify or approve documents.

Why do we need Digital Signature?

Traditionally, sending a physically signed document from one country to another via a courier was a time-consuming process. Moreover, there was a wastage of paper while transmitting the documents.

On the other hand, while using a digital signature, you can electronically send the texts in a matter of minutes and save lots of time and money. Various researches were conducted globally to understand the significance of digital signature, and it was concluded that you could save an entire working week for any professional by using digital signatures.

How does Digital Signature Work?

Digital signatures are established on Key Infrastructure and generate two keys, a Public Key and a Private Key. The private key is considered to be confidential and is kept by the signer. On the other hand, the receiver has access to the public key and the authority to decrypt the message.

It can be further elaborated as, suppose there is a person named Peter, who wants to send an encrypted message to Lee. Here, Peter has the private key to sign the document digitally. Before encrypting the message using the private key, an algorithm named ‘MD algorithm’ encrypts the message to be sent by Peter into a 128/256-bit format known as a hash value. Then Peter’s private key encrypts this hash value. On completion of both the processes, Peter’s message is said to be digitally signed.

On Lee’s side, the digitally signed message is decrypted with the help of the signer’s public key. The public key decrypts the message and transforms it into another hash value. Then the message is opened with a program(e.g., MS Word, Adobe Reader), and a comparison is made with this hash value to the original hash value, which was generated on Peter’s side. If the hash value on Lee’s side matches with the hash value created on Peter’s hand. After this, the message is opened, and if both hash values match, it displays the message “The document has been modified since this signature was applied.” If both the hash values do not match, it shows the following message:

“The document has not been modified since this signature was not applied.”

Last Words:

The growth in data tampering incidents has caused a significant increase in the acceptance of digital signatures. The latest research depicts that the global Digital Signature market will expand to 24.2% from 2017 to 2025. Moreover, digital signatures are considered equivalent to handwritten signatures in many countries. Bearing in mind the perks involved along with the potential dangers, it is safe to conclude that the digital signature is the next-gen solution for potential digital frauds.

Having multiple businesses or being a small business owner, you always have to handle a number of business activities all the time.  Sometimes, it becomes a challenge to handle too many things at once, not to become chaotic. But sometimes, you cannot do everything alone. So, it makes sense that you start using business management software solutions to manage your business activities efficiently. 

Business management software helps businesses in many ways. It gets the things done by the employees, predicts risks, manages stocks and inventories, and improves the overall efficiency of your business. Hence, there is nothing wrong with saying that business management tools have come a long way and continuously make things better for all involved in the business. 

Let us get deeper into business management software by discussing its types briefly:

Business Management Software

By definition, a business management software is an application or a set of programs that helps the small, medium, and even large businesses by supporting, improving, and automating their processes. These software systems are best to eliminate errors, report activities, complete business tasks, and increase the overall efficiency and effectiveness of your business. 

Some Commonly Used Business Management Systems 

It is not always easy to decide which business management system will work best for you, as many of them can work for different purposes. Below are some commonly used software programs that are used by majority of businesses:

• Business invoicing programs
• Customer relationship management software
• Asset management software
• Word processing programs
• Database software

How to choose the Best Business Management Software System?

There are so many factors that one should consider while choosing a management software for their business. These factors depend upon the size, needs, tasks, and processes that should be automated in a business. Besides, your business management software should have the following essential features:

• Task and project management
• Invoice and budget management
• Resource management
• File storage and document sharing
• Time tracking capabilities

Top Business Management Software Solutions

#NetSuiteERP:

NetSuiteERP is one of the best cloud business management software that has been engineered to scale with businesses to grow and streamline their critical processes. It is a chosen solution from small to large business organizations. It works on Windows, Mac, and Linux based systems and is actually a horizontal package designed for an extensive range of industries. 

#Bitrix24:

Bitrix24 is also a renowned CRM software for small to large businesses that also works for iPad/iPhone other than Windows, Mac, and Linux based systems. Their aim is to keep your company united by supplying a variety of project to task to operations management software products. Bitrix has been among the Fortune 500 Companies and gives major company management goals to its customers. The basic software price starts with $35 per year.

#ProWorkFlow:

ProWorkFlow - an online project management software enables the businesses to keep, plan, and organize their accurate time records, delegate jobs and tasks while using the timeline to get an overview of the company activity. The information collected by the software allows you to measure as well as analyze your company’s performance so that you can streamline profit margins and display meaningful directions through strong and robust reporting features.

#Utiliko:

Utiliko – a simplified business management platform brings all essential business services to a single platform. Other than project management, accounting, CRM, and HR management systems, it also offers e-signature for estimation, contract execution, email integration, billable time tracking etc. It comes with a 14 days free trial pack and its pricing starts with $89 per month. 

#ZohoOne:

ZohoOne is a participant of the giant Zoho collaboration tools family. It facilitates more than 40 applications with complementary mobile apps to make you run your entire business on just one business management suite. Zoho One offers you a full-featured, enterprise edition of the entire Zoho suite. The software comes with a 30 days trial pack and its pricing starts with INR 3,000 per user per month billed annually. 

There are many more business management systems available on the Internet that help you to simplify and automate your business functions. They help you unlock the possibilities and scale your business to new heights. The only need is to choose wisely the software that suits your business perfectly. 

The most important thing we should keep in mind before designing a logo is the creativity. Basically, your logo should present what your entity exactly do. For example, if you are thinking of designing a logo for real estate, ideally, buildings or towers should be a part of logo. However, latest trends are keeping the logo very simple and flexible which should be independent of background color. Also, logos today are including alphabets or name of the business itself as a logo. P.S client's requirment here is a crucial part and should be considered and understood before designing. All the best.

At first instance, the word “Digital signatures” sounds like some electronic signature scribbled on some digital documents. However, it is not the same. Digital signatures have broad application in the e-world. Every day tons of confidential documents are transferred over the internet, but it is also true that it is exposed to hackers. 

To protect these files from hackers and transfer them securely, a digital signature software was introduced. It involves the use of mathematical pins or algorithms to sign and validate the authenticity of a document, file, or software instead of pen and paper. 

A digital signature ensures that the file(s) sent digitally belongs to a designated source and reaches the intended receiver in its original format without any tampering. 

Digital signatures involve Public Key and Private Key. The private key is kept by the signer, and it should be kept securely. On the other hand, the receiver must have the public key to decrypt the message. 

Digital signatures have high-level security criteria and authenticity. There is a legal binding in many countries for digital signatures, and they follow the PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) security level. 

There are various digital signature tools available in the market, 

1) Panda doc: 

Pricing: Free/ Paid:$9-$49 

It provides high-security for data transfer. The user's data is encrypted in transit and at rest and then stored in a SOC, FISMA, and PCI DSS Level 1 compliant cloud. 

2) SignRequest: 

Pricing: Free/ Paid: € 7-$12 

With agents stationed around the globe, Signrequest provides some best customer support. The user can send more than one document to a recipient at one time, within a single email and signing flow. 

3) Zoho sign 

Pricing: Free/ Paid : $10- $18 

Zoho sign has a simple user interface with robust features. It is laced with the most current e-signature laws: ESIGN and eIDAS. The individual can track every step of the document signing process with the comprehensive audit trail. 

4) Dotloop 

Pricing: Free/ Paid : $29 onwards 

The wide selection of tools enables users to operate seamlessly and collaborate in real-time. The dotloop helps in the sharing and collaboration process by adding documents to the loop - no need to upload huge PDFs and email. 

5) Signable 

Pricing: Trial version/Paid: £19- £149 

Users can sign and send documents on the move with their tablet-based app or our Progressive Web Mobile App. It integrates with a variety of tools, syncing them with your customer’s info and making it easier to use an e signature in your day to day business. 

6) Assuresign 

Pricing: Paid : - $2000- $4000 

It allows users to send documents out for signature via text message and get a response back instantly. Not just text, their innovation is stretched even to voice. The eSign via voice, enables customers to sign, affirm, and consent to your products and services from their telephone. 

There is a long list of digital signature tools, and the choice of the software solely depends on your personal preferences. There are also some good free and open-source digital signature tools. 

Free and open-source digital signature tools 

Digital signatures should not be confused with digital certificates. A digital certificate is an electronic document that holds the digital signature of the issuing certificate authority. It binds together a public key with an identity and can be used to verify that a public key belongs to a particular person or entity. 

The Digital Signature Certificates are classified into three classes. 

• Class 1: This certificate validates files based only on an email ID and username. It provides a basic level of security and is used in environments having a low risk of data theft. 
• Class 2: It is used for the e-filing of tax and GST returns. The Class 2 digital certificate authenticates a signer's identity against a pre-verified database. It is used in environments having a moderate risk of data theft. 
• Class 3: It requires a person to present in front of a certifying authority to prove their identity before signing. The digital signatures of this class are used for e-ticketing, e-auctions, e-tendering, court filings, etc. It is used in environments having high risk of data theft. 

Maybe there can be a clause, when signing up, to confirm the terms and conditions of the communication services.

We are mindful of the reality that the Coronavirus outbreak has shaken the economy, and we would have to face severe circumstances of this situation in the near future. Companies across the globe have started taking measures to come up healthy after the pandemic ends. Unanticipated twists and turns will be exposed with each news cycle, and we will only have a complete picture in retrospect.

Based on the on-going analysis, I have enlisted some of the learnings that could help businesses for responding to unfolding events, communicating, and extracting and applying learnings.

Update and Modify Plans Regularly

Events are disclosing with astounding speed to date, and the picture seems to be changing daily. So in such a dynamic world, the best we could do is keep track of the changes taking place in the surroundings and, respectively updating or reframing the overall perspective.

Be Cautious of the Hype Cycles/News Cycles:

News channels often focus on what’s new rather than the big picture, and they sometimes don’t distinguish between facts and rumors. When exposed to rapidly changing information, whether it is the latest technology or an emerging crisis, the company should be prepared to focus on weak signals, then to emerging issues. By concentrating on weak signals, the organization gets to have a calibrated view of their existing problems and finding a solution to it.

Pay Less Attention to Spreading Information

In our connected world, employees have direct access to many sources of information. They further forward this information with their colleagues, which might not always result as productive for the company. So, the companies should ensure that the employees do not invest much time in creating and spreading such information.

Think Sustainable

Looking at the sudden downfall in the economy, it is crucial to make your business future-proof by adapting the latest business models and technologies. It is a prerequisite to thinking two steps ahead while continuing to deal with the current situation. Companies need to plan on how they could better position themselves and recover after the outbreak. It is an opportunity to improvise existing business models and strengthen the business’s core competencies.

Redesignate or Train Employees

Organizations must continue to upgrade the skills of workers and efficiently utilize workforce resources. Businesses can enhance their employee’s capability and productivity by using human resources. Firms should focus on reassigning employees for research and development to identify new business opportunities. These opportunities will enhance the existing business services and give rise to upcoming business opportunities.

Maintain a Budget To Ride The Recovery Wave

Maintaining cash flow is one of the most crucial parameters for unforeseen expenses. Most of the companies worldwide are dealing with monetary issues and facing difficulties in managing the resources. Hence, it is advisable for businesses to prepare, plan, and fund their cash cushion. The organizations should save enough capital considering the available credit, payroll need, riskiness of the business, and various other factors.

Start Prepping Up in Advance for Next Crises

COVID-19 is not a one-off challenge. Organizations should expect additional phases to the current epidemic in the future. By conducting an in-depth analysis of the current on-going situation, it has been evident that preparation and preemption are the keys to success. The time is right to start thinking about the effects of the pandemic on businesses and taking active measures to prevent it.

Summary:

As discussed above, it is still a challenge to know what the future holds for us, but proper analysis and planning would help your business survive. Research says that half of the Fortune 500 companies were started during a bear market or recession. So, the point here is that if the organizations utilize their resources in a futuristic manner, they could come out strong through the crises.

Selecting the right accounting and bookkeeping services for your small business needs you to invest some time. If you don’t want to manage the accounting responsibility and want to have someone to take part, it is better to have someone to manage accounts payable, receivable, inventory and other important transactions for your account books. It could be a virtual or local firm, but should be hired smartly and after a thorough research so that you could end up suffering after the financial year-end when you have to make many financial decisions for your business’s future.

The best thing with hiring a bookkeeping service provider is that you do not have to input information in the system or manage your expenses manually. Your service provider will handle all of such kind of jobs. However, you have to follow a few steps to find the best business that could help your accounting needs. 

#1. Identify what accounting services your small business needs. For example, whether you sell products, need to track inventory, or have 1099 contractors, or W-2 employees. Generally, the key bookkeeping services required by the small business include:

• Basic income and expenditure tracking
• Accounts receivables
• Accounts payable
• Inventory tracking
• Payroll processing
• Financial reporting

#2. Determine the type of bookkeeping tasks that you will prefer to keep in-house. This will help you in maintaining good customer relationships. For example, you may want to keep the task of customer billing and payment collection with your in-house team. 

#3. Consult with your CPA or tax professional to know what kind of software you should choose, the chart of accounts setup, and the preferred method of communication. Top bookkeeping services do all the legwork for you and assure you of the perfect method to implement.

#4. Select between local or virtual bookkeeping services. Virtual services for your bookkeeping and accounting needs are typically the best services for the businesses dependent on cash-based accounting and are on tight budget. On the other hand, local accounting services are best to use for those dependent on accrual accounting method and do not have any in-house solution for managing A/R, A/P, inventory, and payroll. 

Virtual bookkeeping would however be the best solution one can opt for, as it is budget-friendly, opted by more number of companies, and it reduces usage of paper-based receipts and documents.

#5. Start searching for a bookkeeping services provider. Search online for the list of top bookkeeping and accounting services providing companies and research over finding the best for your business. 

Here are some of the best companies that are famous for offering best bookkeeping services to small businesses:

1. MAVENTRI
2. Maxim Liberty
3. Outsourced Bookkeeping
4. Fourlane
5. Juanita Bookkeeping Group

You can check out the list of all top-rated bookkeeping service providers at Top Bookkeeping Companies - Reviews 2020 | GoodFirms

Coronavirus is at high-rise today. China, Italy, Spain, the USA, and many other countries are devastated due to this deadly disease. When the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared it as a global emergency, governments of all affected nations have requested their citizens to stay at home and quarantine.

Lockdowns are imposed in almost all the affecting countries. Special measures are undertaken to supply food and essential services to the homes, hospitals and, other needy ones if they are stuck somewhere.

As per the news channels reports, the epicenter of Corona, Wuhan, is opening soon for all of its routine workflows. Things are gradually resuming there, but Italy, Spain, and America are still suffering nations reporting hundreds of deaths every day. Their economies are thrashed brutally, and their supreme heads have declared their inability to cope up with the situation. India is under an observation these days.

When all significant nations have locked down their main cities due to the coronavirus pandemic, brands across the globe are worried as to how the entire situation will affect ecommerce as a whole. According to Technomic, a global consulting and research firm reports that the stock market has become increasingly volatile. More than 52% of the consumers are maintaining self-distancing and avoiding crowds, and 32% are not leaving their homes unless there is an emergency.

Coronavirus is affecting eCommerce Business. How?

1. Severe disruption to supply chains is the most apparent and immediate business impact of the corona virus pandemic on the businesses. People are forced into self-quarantine, and this led to a partial and full shutdown of some companies, plants, and factories. For example, Foxconn, a primary manufacturer of Apple iPhones has shut down its production in China, and thus, Apple experienced shortages of its iPhone supply in the country.

2. Due to the Coronavirus pandemic, several of the most important tech-conferences got to cancel, and it is likely to result in numerous missed partnership opportunities for the businesses. For example, Facebook canceled its F8 developer conference and Global Marketing Summit. Google has also rescheduled the Google Cloud Next event to online only. As per PredictHQ, the cancellation of the tech events has incurred more than $1billion of direct economic losses.

3. The need for remote interactions has increased during Coronavirus pandemic, and it has highlighted the need for 5G technology to improve connection density. Many organizations have given the ‘Work From Home’ facility to their employees. Hence, telehealth and teleconferencing facilities should be given high importance.

4. WHO has suggested consumers use contactless payment options considering the pandemic. People in rural areas still lack operating such facilities and thus, altering their shopping options or minimizing their usages that is further affecting the ecommerce businesses.

5. Due to coronavirus outbreak, up to 85% of the brick-and-mortar retail shopping turned into digital shopping, leading to creating the logistic challenges to the companies. The delays in supplies due to over-crowding demand has also become a challenge for the businesses these days.

6. Delivery services across the board for on-demand goods, food delivery, and grocery are observing an increase in new customers. Still, contactless supply, minimized risk of infection have become a challenge to the businesses to maintain consumer’s trust.

7. National Retail Federation in the US noted a downfall in the business due to falling consumer spending. The payment companies like PayPal, Visa, and Mastercard are revising their revenue estimates downward.

How can you protect your business during Coronavirus Pandemic?

If you have an ecommerce business, you can still protect yourself from this pandemic. Due to the progression of COVID-19, here is what the experts suggest for the best of your business’s survival.

1. Be wise and transparent. Do not alienate your audience.

2. Do not over-communicate. The consumer confidence level is quite low these days.

3. Diversify your supply chain.

4. Keep advertising.

5. Focus on virtual products.

6. Get social connections with consumers.

Build the trust of your customers. All the above-given tips have the same essence i.e. build your customer’s trust. It will turn back to you positively when the situation improves.

An e-signature or digital signature is often used in the documents to avoid physically signing it. A document need not be printed, then signed, then scanned and sent somewhere if you can digitally sign it.

Who can digitally sign/e-sign?

The digital signatures are always allowed through a validating token. This token was always in the form of a USB drive/ software which authenticates the person only if he is allowed to make an e-signature. There are multiple security measures applied to avoid the forging of e-signatures and for validation as well. An invalid digital signature won't be validated if you open the document in an acrobat reader.

How can you acquire a digital signature token?

If you are in an organization, chances have they have already affiliated with some kind of token service already, you need to approach your administration for this purpose. Apart from this, you can get a token service for your organization/ small business by contacting any token service in your region.

This is not a personal product which we can use to sign anywhere. This may be a thing in the future but for now, digital signatures are bounded for use by company officials.

Process Improvement program is a vital aspect to get success in any organization. This program involves the implementation of new changes in the company. Firms can use Lean Sigma concepts as a part of a process improvement plan addressing business tasks to optimize the business process and implement new quality standards. While applying process improvement techniques, companies must ensure that they follow a systematic approach to making it more effective. 

Moreover, companies can also expect better results and achieve their targets and monetary goals with this plan's help. The process improvement program includes a series of actions that the organization has to implement within their process to get desired results, like enhancing performance, reducing costs, increasing profits, and maintaining the quality of the product.

Some of the best three tools that organizations must utilize for effective implementation of the process improvement strategy are listed below:

1.Flowchart – Great For Understanding Processes

The Flowchart is a process improvement tool used for detailing and understanding service processes. This tool provides a seamless step-by-step guide covering the entire process into specific activities, events, and relationships. Moreover, Flowchart offers a graphical representation of service processes revealing the inputs, pathways, circuit actions, decisions, and outputs. Hence, Flowchart delivers extensive analysis and optimization of the workflow and helps organizations to visualize their processes.

2. Value Stream Mapping

Value stream mapping is a flowcharting tool that displays every step involved in the service process—however, this tool highlights value-adding and non-value-adding activities in operational processes. Value stream mapping achieves operations by providing a visual illustration of all the steps from product creation to delivery. Moreover, it also analyses and improves the detailed processes happening in the organization. Value stream mapping helps to eliminate defects in the service processes and highlights ways to improve the quality of products or services. The tool also makes it an effortless task for minimizing running costs, upscaling the culture of change, communication, and collaborations.

3. DMAIC for process improvement

DMAIC(Define, Measure, Improve, and Control) is another process improvement tool representing the five stages of quality improvement and implementation. Professionals in the industry use this framework to improve an existing process. The team handling the process improvement project set the goals and scope of the improvement project. The Measure stage is where the unit measures performance by collecting data from the process under review. The next step is the Improve stage, where actual process improvements are performed. Then, at the Control stage, the project team analyses improvements for non-compliance.

Final Words:

The above-mentioned three specialized software tools are the best tools available in the market that might be built to support a process improvement program in the organization.