Financial management is a key aspect of running a successful business, but often challenging. Since its launch in April 2022, FIRA has been dedicated to making that process easier for all entrepreneurs with its intuitive design and advanced features such as open banking and webshop integration. We asked the FIRA team and they shared their story, the obstacles they overcame and their plans for the future.
Can you tell us the story behind FIRA? How did it all begin?
FIRA’s journey began in April 2022, when we launched our application to the Croatian market. Our mission was clear: to provide a tool that would simplify the invoicing process for entrepreneurs and provide a complete overview of their finances. The idea arose from the need for an intuitive, modern application that would save entrepreneurs time and effort. We envisioned a platform with open banking, the first of its kind in Croatia.
FIRA’s founding team is a combination of expertise and experience. Marko, our financial guru, has 15 years of banking experience behind him, with his most recent role as Chief Financial Executive Director of the Raiffeisen Group in Croatia. Damir and Zvonimir, our IT wizards, are experienced engineers and entrepreneurs who have been running their IT company Brain IT since 2018. year, which employs more than 20 experts. This combination of financial and technical expertise is the foundation of FIRA’s success.
Why did FIRA become a member of the eCommerce HR Association?
Joining the eCommerce HR Association was a strategic decision for us. The association provides a strong network of members to exchange information and offers numerous benefits. Our users asked for the integration of webshops, and membership in this association gave us access to a wider market. We recently developed the integration of webshops. Webshop integration enables the automation of the generation of offers, invoices and fiscal invoices, which is essential for eCommerce business.
Is FIRA’s webshop integration suitable for all webshops? How does it work?
Our webshop integration currently supports integration with Shopify and WooCommerce. We use webhooks to automatically send the necessary data to generate offers and invoices. Setup is simple – users configure a webhook and define events in their webshop, such as order creation or fulfillment, which trigger the generation of offers and invoices. The webshop settings are then adjusted in FIRA to ensure smooth data processing through our API. This seamless process frees users from manual invoicing tasks, allowing them to focus more on their business.
What was the biggest challenge you faced while developing this feature?
The biggest challenge was the precise adjustment of prices. At FIRA, we start with the net price of the product and calculate the VAT at the end, while Shopify and WooCommerce allow users to immediately include sales taxes in the price. This meant that the webhook sent us the gross price, and we had to recalculate to get the net price without any rounding differences. This process involved many iterations and significantly influenced our development.
From your perspective, which platform is better: Shopify or WooCommerce?
Shopify excels with well-structured data, making it easy to map products and other information. On the other hand, WooCommerce offers more flexibility but requires more customization. Surprisingly, no platform offers a standardized list of payment methods such as credit card, PayPal or cash on delivery. This meant we had to design a solution to handle the new payment methods. If FIRA encounters an unknown payment method, it generates an offer and informs the user to add this new method to their settings to define whether to generate an offer or an invoice. I would conclude like this – for users without deep IT knowledge, Shopify is often the simpler choice, while WooCommerce provides more options for customization.
You mentioned the innovation of open banking. What are the advantages of open banking?
Open banking brings users multiple advantages:
- FIRA consolidates all your accounts in one place, whether with one bank or through different institutions, users can monitor the balance and transactions in real time and simplify financial management.
- Automating the reconciliation of outgoing invoices with incoming payments provides up-to-date information and payment status notifications.
- Users can grant secure access to trusted individuals, such as external accountants, allowing them to view financial transactions and balances without delay.
What are FIRA’s future plans?
We are currently working on two important initiatives. First, we want to expand open banking to more than 30 countries and 2,500 banks across Europe, including payment providers like PayPal and Wise. Second, after successful growth on the domestic market, we are preparing to enter the German and Austrian markets. Considering the inquiries we have already received from Germany and Austria, we are confident that FIRA is ready for this next step. We plan to launch FIRA on German-speaking markets in the second half of 2024.
Thank you to the eCommerce Croatia Association ❤️ https://ecommerce.hr/od-ideje-do-uspjeha-prica-iza-fira-e/
