We’ve started working on a new app with Ebba Berggren. It will make it really smooth for people who run small businesses in Sweden to keep track of their invoices, incomes and expenses. And what you owe to Skatteverket (the Swedish IRS).
The most common questions we have (and everyone we’ve talked to who run their own business).
- How much money do I have to spend?
- How much do I have to bill clients this month so I make it the next?
- How much do I owe to Skatteverket?
- Can I afford going on vacation? (usually pops-up around may)
There are also some common problems …
- Invoicing clients is a pain. We use InDesign at the moment, and let me tell you it’s not meant for it (we hear others are using Excel, Word and even Illustrator. People basically use the tools they are most comfortable with, none of them do a great job.)
- You wait until the last minute to do your paperwork whether you do it once a month or once a year.
- Once the numbers are in whatever software your accountant uses you rarely look at them again.
Our goal is to solve these problems and more with a well-crafted, easy-to-use web-based tool.
Background
We’ve been running our own business for almost 10 years and have been forced to learn how to keep track of incomes, expenses and invoicing as we go. Every month we gather the paperwork and give it to Alexis mom who does our accounting. Then we get some numbers on what we owe Skatteverket, what we spent and what we made. But the rest of the data is lost in the black hole called BL administration on Alexis moms computer.
We also use Pulseapp for getting an idea on how our budget looks a couple of months ahead. It’s a great app and inspiration, but since it lacks handling swedish tax regulations and such it doesn’t quite fill our needs.
A couple of months ago we got a call from Ebba Berggren, she wanted to build a webapp that does all of the above. We instantly thought ”Awesome, we’ve been thinking about the same idea!”. We’re now working on a prototype and trying to learn everything there is to know about accounting. (Nuts, right?)
Interested? Follow us on Twitter, head over to moola.se to signup for updates or read the blog where Ebba writes about problems on running your own business and our progress. (All in Swedish.)