How digitalization helps to run a business

The path to small and medium entrepreneurship is different for everyone. Some people start freelancing in their student days, taking several orders a week. Someone is monetizing their hobby, making an old hobby a source of primary income. And someone comes to the business, already having a solid experience in employment. And although everyone’s entry points are different, the bottom line is roughly the same. Over time, “hacking” turns into a full-time job, once a small part-time job turns into high turnover. And sooner or later, the question arises as to how an entrepreneur can legalize his activity before the state. Here there is only one option – to open a sole proprietorship and start paying taxes, reporting your income.

At this stage, it turns out that not everyone is ready for registration of the FOP, because you need to follow everything, submit documentation to the tax office on time and without errors. The fears of young entrepreneurs are understandable. Previously, interaction with the tax office took a lot of time: first to deal with record keeping and document preparation, and then to fill out all the forms and send them, not forgetting to pay the taxes.

But now everything has become much easier, because all the necessary operations can be performed in just a few clicks on your smartphone. There is no need for any paper forms or unnecessary bureaucracy. And the main thing is that you can deal with everything without the help of an accountant. How digitalization helps to conduct business more easily – we tell in the joint special project of “Economic Truth” and PrivatBank.

Is “white” entrepreneurship really simple

You don’t even have to go anywhere to open a FOP. Everything can be done quickly, for free and remotely, without leaving your home. For many self-employed persons, this means literally: without leaving the workplace.

Registration of a natural person-entrepreneur in Ukraine requires the citizen to have only basic documents: a passport and the registration number of the taxpayer’s registration card. You perform a few steps on the Diya website and officially become an important part of the country’s economy – an entrepreneur. What’s next? Nothing complicated either.

In the “Privat24 for Business” application, KEP is implemented as a SmartID function. The KEP is free of charge, has the same legal force as a handwritten signature, and can be used from any smartphone on which the Privat24 for Business mobile application is installed. No additional settings are required for use. In addition, SmartID cannot be lost, stolen or copied.

SmartID can be used not only within the functionality of Privat24 for business: it is already integrated into electronic document management systems, the electronic office of the tax office, the ProZorro platform, etc. That is, SmartID can be used to sign any electronic documents.

In addition, it is also necessary to keep records of funds. Most FOPs (those who are on the simplified tax system and are not VAT payers) can only record their income and do it once a month.

Many FOPs will not need to do anything else. Additional steps may be required depending on the type of activity or tax system you are in. For example, some FOPs need РРО or РРРО – for registration of settlement operations for the sale of goods (provision of services), transactions for the purchase and sale of foreign currency and/or registration of the number of goods sold (services provided), operations for accepting cash for further transfer. However, do not let this scare you, because for such entrepreneurs there are also convenient software solutions that will work on a smartphone. Although the discussion of the shortcomings of the domestic taxation system does not subside, there is one undeniable fact. The Ukrainian simplified taxation system, suitable for most self-employed persons, is one of the most liberal in the world. Additionally, the ability to pay taxes, issue and submit documents using a smartphone makes life easier. So running your business in an official way is absolutely available to everyone.

Here are just a few advantages of “white” entrepreneurship: there is officially received income that can be shown for obtaining loans or opening a visa, work experience is counted, there is an opportunity to officially cooperate with companies that do not work with individuals. In addition, the FOP status allows you to avoid problems from the state tax service and possible fines for illegal economic activity, the amount of which is from 17 to 34 thousand UAH.

The introduction of online services for FOPs allows you to close most of the issues related to entrepreneurship, physically being in any part of the world, which is especially relevant now, when thousands of Ukrainians are forced to leave their homes due to a full-scale war.

All business processes are in one smartphone application

Any entrepreneur – even the most creative ones – will still have to deal with financial management: control balances, issue invoices to customers, make payments to suppliers, etc. And, of course, do not forget about the already mentioned payment of taxes and submission of reports. The largest bank of Ukraine, PrivatBank, which has been working with business for 25 years and currently serves more than 870,000 individual entrepreneurs, is well aware of all these requests of entrepreneurs. Responding to customer requests, the bank has developed a universal application for a smartphone, which already contains all the functionality necessary for the FOP. So, through “Privat24 for business” you can fully manage your business.

This enables Ukrainian entrepreneurs to manage their business not only more easily, but also without unnecessary costs. After spending a few hours studying the capabilities of the Privat24 for Business application, all routine processes can be performed without involving an accountant.

Submission of quarterly reports is one of the most useful functions of the application. The entrepreneur needs to choose the report type and period. And “Privat24 for business” will create a document based on receipts on the entrepreneur’s accounts. The report can be signed, sent, and resolved at any time. In the same way, all reports accepted by the state tax service can be downloaded to the personal account of the application. The report can be automatically downloaded to the bank for updating by providing consent for data processing.

You can log in to “Privat24 for Business” using “Privat24 for individuals” or using biometric authentication. It is absolutely safe, but at the same time the user does not need to remember two passwords for each of the applications.

Banking that works safely and even without electricity

The threat of enemy hacker attacks, the activation of fraudsters, power and communication outages are the conditions in which the Ukrainian banking system has to work during the war. In order to protect its customers, PrivatBank moved its databases to a cloud environment at the beginning of a full-scale invasion, which significantly increases the security of customers and ensures work in the event of long-term power outages. This was necessary in order to reduce dependence on hardware, which is under threat of destruction in various regions of Ukraine while the war continues. Virtually everything that clients use is placed in the cloud: “Privat24”, card payments, authorization systems, service functions, contact center infrastructure, ATM connections, POS terminals. The transfer of services to cloud storage ensures uninterrupted access to financial services for customers at any time. We are talking about all the “essential” functions: cards, digital banking, banking services, access to cash, etc.

By the way, in the event of a power outage, an entrepreneur’s smartphone based on the Android or iOS operating system can become a full-fledged POS terminal. All you need for this is a phone with an NFC module and the “Terminal” application installed on it, with which you can accept payments in the same way as using a regular POS terminal.