Serious Development Agency IT company — development of mobile applications and sites for startups

Web site: https://sda.company

Alex Shubin is the founder of Serious Development Agency IT company.
Has 12 years of programming experience
He started his cash flow management with Finmap 1,5 years ago

How can an owner of an IT company keep money in order in business if he works 17-19 hours per day and has literally no free time? And what if the company is located in Ukraine and, like most entrepreneurs today, he needs to take care of the team’s safety and continue to develop the business in conditions of total instability?

You could postpone the task until better times. Or you could lay the foundations for systematic accounting now by understanding the numbers, seeing the current state of affairs clearly, and making confident decisions about the future based on the data. Alex, the owner of the IT company Serious Development Agency, chose this way.

In this case, we will tell you how he managed to find the time and what results he achieved.

Given

The IT company, Serious Development Agency, has been developing mobile applications and websites since 2019. There are 16 people in the team, and they continue to grow. The number of projects and tasks from clients is also increasing.

If you don’t keep organized cash flow management, it is easy to drown in the chaos of incomes, outgoings, regular payments and debts. That’s why Alex, the founder of the company, decided that it was necessary to implement systematic cash flow management.

«I decided to get my business in order after all. Because I realized that I don’t understand what’s going on, how much money I could get out and so on.»

Task

We always say, keeping track of the cash flow for the sake of keeping track is a mistake. Therefore, before you systematically put your money in order, you need to determine why you need to keep track of it and how cash flow management will help you grow your business. Alex has set himself these objectives:

• Get rid of the financial mess

Clearly understand how much the company earns, how much dividends you can collect, and what is going on in your business.

• Monitor your account balances and planned incomes

It is to see how much money is there right now and how much you can expect in the future.

• To save time

Alex works 17-19 hours a day now. He doesn’t have enough time to focus on managing the cash flow.

«In general, there is more work now, because we are constantly hiring more employees and have to pay attention to them. Plus, we must devote more time to customer service in order to reassure our clients that even in spite of the war we are able to meet their needs».

• To keep track of your cash flow in a systematic yet simple way

«When I was entering everything into Google spreadsheets, I realized that there were some things I might overlook and not take into account. You need to spend some time setting it up, the same reports and so on. And since I understand that time is money, it’s easier for me to keep all the documentation in one place and have multiple options to run different reports, integrations…».

Alex decided to implement Finmap to solve his business matters.

Solution

Alex first tried Finmap a year and a half ago. However, he did not manage to fully apply the features of the service to his business then and switched to another product. But Alex found many bugs that made his work more difficult. So he decided to go back to Finmap again.

«Why Finmap — because I was already a user. I had taken courses from both Ivan and Alex*».

* Ivan Kaunov and Alex Solovey are both co-founders of Finmap. Ivan led the course «Finance in plain language». Over time we expanded and supplemented the information, which resulted in Alex Solovey’s «Business Money» course on how entrepreneurs can get from chaotic finances to a system in just 5 steps.

With the service, Alex decided to use the help of a Finmap financial expert straight away* to save time on set-up and to see the focus points in cash flow management for his company.

* Our users can request the help they need from Finmap’s financial experts and choose an assistant, manager or mentor. You can book free consultation and find out more about this service.

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The first thing Alex did was to connect and add all the company’s accounts to Finmap, so he could see all the balances he have at the moment on one screen.

*The data is provided as an example

The next step is to synchronize with Privatbank and the Wise money transfer system. So that all incomes and expenses are automatically uploaded to Finmap and displayed in the financial reports.

*The data is provided as an example

The synchronization:

• saves time on manual data entry;
• makes keeping track of accounts easier;
• eliminates the risk of losing a particular payment.

Even small expenses that are often overlooked (such as transfer fees or payments for app and service subscriptions) will be taken into account automatically. As a result, users get a more accurate picture of the company’s financial situation.

As one of Alex’s tasks was to understand how much the company earns, he paid particular attention to the Profit and Loss statement ( P&L)*.

*The data is provided as an example

* The P&L statement shows a company’s profits and losses for a specific period, e.g. a month. It is generated automatically in Finmap based on the data entered by the user and fed into the service through integrations with banks and other services.

Alex also plans to introduce regular maintenance of the payment Calendar* to control future income and to track upcoming expenses in advance.

*The data is provided as an example

* By adding future expenses and incomes to Finmap, the user will see them in the Calendar and will be reminded to make the planned payment or collect client debt in a timely manner.

Plus, the Calendar will show whether there is enough money to cover all expenses for a particular date or if there is a risk of a cash gap (a temporary situation where a business does not have enough money to cover all necessary expenses).

‍*The data is provided as an example

However, the founder of Serious Development Agency also informed us of a feature of particular concern for his business.

«I have this issue. I receive one payment, but this payment is allocated for several people at once. I have to split it up manually every time and calculate how much of this payment relates to one specific project and how much to another? It would be cool if we had a large payment coming in, and we could specify that a certain amount of money from that payment applies to a specific project».

Our development team is now actively working on implementing the functionality that Alex is missing. This feedback is vital to us as it helps us develop Finmap tools that our users can use to manage their specific financial needs more efficiently.

* Our users can request the help they need from Finmap’s financial experts and choose an assistant, manager or mentor. You can book free consultation and find out more about this service.

What’s the result

✅ Alex sorted out the mess in his finances and set up systematic cash flow management.

With Finmap financial expert Karina, Alex was able to sort out what was going on in the company in January-February, including when the war in Ukraine began.

«We set everything up, looked at what was happening between January and February and now there is an understanding of the numbers».

✅ Thanks to the connected integrations, the transfer of transaction data is automated; Alex doesn’t have to transfer it manually and spend time on it.

✅ It is possible to see financial reports in a couple of clicks and understand what’s going on in the business. Reports are generated automatically in the form of easy to understand graphs and charts. There is no need to waste time putting tables together and then trying to make sense of dozens of columns of numbers.

«Graphs are quite useful. You can even present the data in percentages in them».

The P&L report is also important to Alex because it allows him to easily track the company’s profits.

✅ Alex plans to use a payment calendar within Finmap to monitor future incomes and expenses (e.g. to plan tax or loan payments). He also plans to test the soon to be released Finmap mobile app. Most importantly, with his finances under control, he can now monitor the growth of his business. After all, as Alex says:

«If we work in times of war, even from basements, what else can stop us?»

Are you the owner of an IT company? Understand the finances of your business, clearly, see the profitability of each product/project, and accurately calculate your investments in new product development with Finmap. Test the features of the service for your business. 14 days free of charge.

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