Ask HN: Mundane startup financial details?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1721962

by joshu • 16 years ago

6 7 16 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

How do folks handle business banking? Payroll, HR, etc?

answerly• 16 years ago

Banking:

- We use silicon valley bank. They have a pretty horrendous online banking system (essentially a bunch of third party services cobbled together- we have like 4 different sets of login credentials). But, their bill pay system is good. They also are extremely responsive. We have a real account manager to help us with issues. They were also able to make intros to a number of financial/HR vendors that were used to working with startups, which was really helpful.

HR:

- Our lawyer provided all the boiler-plate hiring docs.

- Paychex (SVB intro) handles payroll processing, withholdings, etc for like $10 per employee per month.

- Melita Group (SVB intro) handles benefits administration. We only have basic medical coverage now, but they have the capacity to provide all sorts of enhanced benefits if we need them.

Expense Tracking:

- We use InDinero to track all of our expenses by category each month. They do a better job of categorizing expenses than the SVB system does and it saves us some accounting time.

gsiener• 16 years ago

Definitely agree that Quickbooks is the standard to beat. We (Profitably.com) just launched small business analytics that work on top of Quickbooks, and we keep hearing that lots of owners feel more comfortable with a well-established accounting suite. What other pain points are there for you? What would make that easier?

jaddison• 16 years ago

You might look into using Quickbooks - they have addon payroll options (I've not tried payroll though, sorry). I do like Quickbooks, however. Most accounting firms work well with the data files. Good reporting.

swalberg• 16 years ago

If any Canadian startups are reading, my venture is http://SmallPayroll.ca. Right now it's targeted to a slightly different audience, but I'd love to hear about what it would need to appeal to the startup crowd.

dangrossman• 16 years ago

Local bank and a copy of QuickBooks.

garply• 16 years ago

Local bank, pay monthly in cash (China is a cash economy).

billflo• 16 years ago

Another thumbs up for SVB. The real value is in the the personal manager they provide.

We use ADP for payroll - they are a little expensive

In terms of managing your finances it can be broken into two - Accounting (or preparing for taxes) I would check with your accountant for their preferences. Most smart ones will suggest an online app which saves them having to come to you(and saves you money!). If you don't have an accountant yet just pick one that you can invite your accountant to: Outright.com, Kashoo.com, LessAccounting.com or QB online are all good. - Finances (or managing your dollars) There's a new group of applications that some are calling BFM (business finance management) or CFM (cash-flow management). They could be described as Mint.com for small business. billFLO.com (us) and indinero are probably the best known at this point.

Good luck! Ian

Ask HN: Mundane startup financial details?

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