Development of mobile applications for accounting: how to replace 1C

Until recently, the 1C system was widely used by companies to solve a variety of problems. It helps automate accounting, manage a warehouse, work with documents, orders, projects and much more. Moreover, 1C has quite flexible customization capabilities and adaptation to the unique business processes of each enterprise.

However, after the start of a full-scale war, the software of the aggressor country almost completely lost demand.

Moreover, a bill has been registered in the Verkhovna Rada that proposes the introduction of fines in the amount of 1,000 minimum wages for the use of program code written by Russian developers, which in the future will lead to the complete exit of 1C from the Ukrainian market.

As a result, entrepreneurs began to look for an alternative to 1C. And the best option is to create your own software that will take into account all the subtleties and needs of your company. How to develop and launch such a solution is described in this article.

The ban on the use of Russian software put an unambiguous end to the prospects of 1C on the Ukrainian market. But in reality, this decision simply accelerated the process of companies moving from 1C to more modern and convenient software.

Along with the advantages, 1C also has many disadvantages, due to which many startups and young companies began to abandon this system long ago. Let’s consider the main ones:

• 1C is a very heavyweight application. Large functionality, designed to satisfy the needs of businesses in all possible areas at once, led to serious problems with 1C performance. The application turned out to be so heavy that it became almost impossible to use it on devices with low memory and low processor speeds. Moreover, on more modern computers and smartphones problems with optimization are also often observed.
• Interface complexity. 1C has a complex and loaded interface, and in order to learn how to administer the system well, specialists need to study on average from 6 to 12 months.

Plus, the program has a very strict problem-solving mechanism, in which any attempt to perform wiring in a non-standard manner instantly leads to failures and serious problems.

• Slowness. Some calculations in 1C take quite a long time, and the ability to keep dynamic records is completely absent.
• Limited templates. No matter what integration capabilities and flexibility 1C has, it still belongs to the mass market. This is where the extra functionality, heaviness and other problems described above come from. At the same time, during the installation of 1C, the company has to put up with the fact that the system simply cannot cover part of its business processes, since it simply does not have the appropriate functionality. And this is quite inconvenient.

Considering all this, the development of an individual software solution focused on the business needs and processes of your company looks much more attractive than the implementation of the gradually outdated 1C.

Today, companies can easily order software development for any of the existing platforms, including web, desktop and mobile. Therefore, before moving on to the technical side of the issue, let’s look at the main advantages of mobile applications for accounting:

• Mobility. Smartphones and tablets allow accountants and entrepreneurs to work from anywhere. They can adjust financial statements, track expenses and income, and perform other accounting tasks without even being in the office. This is especially useful if the accountant works remotely, or if his responsibilities also include holding meetings with partners and clients.
• Convenience. Mobile applications usually have a simple and intuitive interface, which is why the accountant does not have to retrain and master new software for a long time.
• Easy access to data. Smartphone applications allow an accountant to instantly access the necessary information, which facilitates better monitoring of financial transactions and quick decision-making.

• Automation. Accounting apps on mobile devices provide automation capabilities such as importing bank transactions, recognizing checks and receipts, and generating reports. This reduces the time spent on manual data entry.
• Multitasking. Using a mobile application, an accountant can easily switch between different applications and tasks without losing data, which increases work efficiency.
• Save time. Using mobile devices for accounting can make your work much easier and faster. This is especially important for small businesses and companies that do not have large accounting departments at their disposal.
• Safety. Accounting applications provide a high level of security and data encryption, which ensures the confidentiality of financial information is reliably protected.

Another important advantage of your own mobile accounting application is flexible options for data synchronization. This means you can easily integrate it into your existing software infrastructure, such as ERP, or use it alongside desktop software.

When developing a mobile application like 1C, you can use different technologies. Most often, the choice is this: use the native programming languages Swift and Kotlin, designed to create software for a specific operating system – iOS and Android, respectively, or give preference to cross-platform technologies, such as the Flutter framework and the Dart language.

Native technologies allow you to achieve maximum performance. But in this case, you will actually have to create two separate applications that will have a single server part, but a different front end.

Cross-platform is an opportunity to save on development on average from 30% to 50%. At the same time, Flutter ensures good application performance by using its own engine for rendering graphics, so in most cases users will not even feel the difference.

To select the optimal technology stack that can best solve the company’s business problems, our team first studies the client’s goals and objectives, and also analyzes the planned functionality of the application.

The development of a mobile application for accounting consists of seven main stages:

• Collection of information. To create an effective software solution, the team needs to fully immerse itself in the client’s business and learn their business processes. Therefore, development always begins with thorough research.
• Design and technical documentation. The next step is to develop a prototype. You need to understand that a program like 1C will have a multi-level architecture, a large amount of functionality and different access rights, so before starting the main development, you need to think through, model and create documentation for all elements of the system. Most often, such a mockup includes: interface warframes, module descriptions, function block diagrams and calculation mathematics, which will later be transferred to the code.
• Creation of UI/UX design. Based on the approved warframes, an individual system interface is drawn. It is very important that the design is convenient, functional and intuitive for the user. In the future, this will minimize the time employees need to learn new software.

• Technical development. This stage can be divided into two parts: creating the frontend – the client part with which users will interact through the smartphone screen, and implementing the backend – the server part of the application. On the server side, specialists design the database architecture, develop and connect the necessary APIs, configure the servers and write the code for all functionality.
• Testing. Before putting the application into operation, all its functionality is thoroughly tested and debugged.
• Technical support and development. After the application is released, it is important to focus efforts on its further development and improvement. The fact is that legislation changes regularly, and the company develops, which is why the functionality sometimes needs to be improved. To solve this problem, after completion of development, we offer to connect the project to our qualified technical support.

As for our experience, we, at AVADA MEDIA, have been creating 1C mobile applications for IOS and Android devices for a long time, and have also been developing individual solutions for business automation, such as ERP, CRM, accounting systems and warehouse automation systems. 

Now we are using this experience to help companies switch from 1C to more convenient and efficient software.