Going global with a merchant of record

In Q4 of last year, our team finally launched its online subscription model allowing us to label ourselves with all the characteristics of an end-to-end software-as-a-service (SaaS) business. PRESTO P-D-C-A, our operational excellence business management platform for growth-focused businesses is now available online and at an affordable price for single users. This not to mention complete with a free trial for anyone looking to test the waters. It has been quite a journey to say the least.

Since the launch we have developed new partnerships, absorbed heaps of new information and know-how, and of course, acquired new clients from new countries all of which have arrived through our online portal & payment gateway.

As we steer ourselves toward a 100% automated service offering, we experience first-hand the challenges that bringing a fully automated product to market entail. Starting from the sales cycle, moving through the process of on boarding and product training, and of course, payments, tax processing and compliance.

All of these topics while contributing to our growth and enhancing our skill sets have challenged our team to raise the bar in servicing our value proposition and have opened up expansion opportunities to explore in 2023.

Leveraging a merchant of record

As we learnt quickly, selling online across borders comes with a great deal of responsibility in financial and legal administration. In the SaaS world each transaction must consider first if it is a business-based (B2B) or end client (B2C) transaction and then apply the appropriate value-added tax (VAT / goods & services tax) according to the buyer's home country. With each country comes different tax schedules and in some a base threshold is applied forcing the seller to always be aware of how much business they currently are doing in each territory to determine if or if not the tax rates are applicable. Finally, it is to be noted that in each country we do business, the home tax authorities expect quarterly or semi-annual reporting from us regarding sales levels.

Specialising in removing the invisible barriers that get in the way of selling software we are delighted to announce our official partnership with Paddle, UK-headquartered merchant of record (MOR) who has taken away our pain of payment fragmentation offering our customers faster, safer and simpler end-to-end transaction processing.

With more than 3,000 SaaS providers selling through their platform and having more than 300 employees servicing 245 countries, Paddle has enjoyed five back-to-back years of being nominated on the Deloitte Fast 50 list of growing companies.

Specifically servicing SaaS companies and growth strategies, Paddle specialises in payments, taxes, currencies and financial compliance focusing on the end buyer which includes the responsibility for the calculation and remittance of sales tax.

All of this allowing our team to remain in control of how we present our product and maintain the ongoing relationship with our customers interacting with them as normal in terms of product support and executing separate terms and conditions that relate to product use.