The startup back office stack at seed, Series A and Series B

The right startup back office stack is small at seed and grows with every round. At seed you need a bank account, books your CA can see, simple payroll, clean folders and a data room. By Series A you add proper HR, monthly board reporting and someone who owns finance. By Series B you need systems that talk to each other, because the spreadsheets between them have started costing you money and sleep.

Who this is for: founders in India who want to know what to set up now, what to set up next, and what they can safely ignore for another year.

I have built a company from a handful of people to a few dozen, and most of the back office mistakes I made came from setting things up too early or too late. Here is the stack I would choose today, stage by stage.

The four jobs every back office does

Whatever your stage, the back office has four jobs:

1. Raising: keeping investors informed, sharing documents, running diligence.
2. People: hiring, onboarding, attendance and leave, payroll, reviews, exits.
3. Money: books, GST and TDS, bank matching, reporting, cash planning.
4. Legal and compliance: company filings, contracts, policies, registrations.

The question at each stage is not "which tool is best" but "what is the lightest setup that does this job properly".

The stack at a glance

Seed: the minimum that keeps you out of trouble

At seed your time is the scarcest thing in the company. The back office should take a few hours a month, not a few days.

Raising

• A data room. Even for a small angel round, put your documents in one place with access you can control. Read the seed round data room checklist for what goes in.
• A cap table you trust. A carefully kept spreadsheet is fine at this stage. Include every instrument, including iSAFEs and notes, and model what happens at the next round.
• A monthly update. Short, on the same day every month.

People

• Templates, not tools. Good offer letters, an appointment letter and a one-page leave policy.
• Payroll. Through your CA or a simple payroll tool. Get the tax deductions right from the first salary.
• IP assignment. Everyone who writes code, designs or creates content for you signs one. Investors will ask.

Money

• A separate current account for the company. Never mix personal and company money.
• Accounting software your CA can log in to. Desktop software emailed back and forth leads to version confusion.
• GST and TDS on time. Late fees and interest add up quickly, and lenders and investors notice. If you are unsure of the dates, our GST and TDS calendar has them.

Legal and compliance

• Appoint your first auditor on time. The board must appoint the first auditor within 30 days of incorporation under the Companies Act.
• A founders' agreement that covers vesting and what happens if someone leaves.
• DPIIT recognition, if you qualify. It opens up some benefits, including the convertible note route and the Credit Guarantee Scheme for Startups.

What can wait at seed

A full HRMS, a board portal, an expense management tool, a dedicated finance hire and most paid analytics. A spreadsheet and discipline will do.

Series A: the stage where spreadsheets start to break

Somewhere between 15 and 30 people, the seed setup stops working. You will notice it as small failures: a leave balance argued over, a GST credit missed, an investor asking for a number you cannot find quickly.

Raising

• Board reporting every month. A board pack with P&L, cash, runway, hiring and risks. See the monthly board pack template.
• A diligence-ready data room that stays current, not one you rebuild for each round.

People

• An HRMS. Hiring pipeline, attendance, leave, employee documents and reviews in one place. At this stage hiring becomes the biggest time sink for founders, so screening help pays for itself.
• PF and ESI once your headcount crosses the limits. When PF and ESI become mandatory explains the rules.
• A POSH internal committee. The POSH Act requires an internal committee at every workplace with ten or more employees.

Money

• A month-end close by a fixed date. The 5th is a good target. How to close your books by the 5th shows the routine.
• A finance lead, full-time or a strong part-time controller, who owns the close, compliance and reporting.
• A cash forecast that looks at least 90 days ahead.
• Budget against actual every month, discussed with the board.

Legal and compliance

• Contract templates for customers and vendors, reviewed by a lawyer once.
• A privacy policy and data handling basics, especially if you hold customer or employee personal data.
• A compliance calendar with a named owner for every filing.

Series B: when the joins matter more than the tools

By Series B you probably have a tool for every job. The new problem is the gaps between them. Attendance lives in one system, payroll in another, and someone reconciles them in a spreadsheet every month. Revenue figures in your board pack do not quite match the books. Each gap is a place for errors.

What changes

• Connected systems. Your HR, payroll and accounts should share one team list and pass data to each other without exports.
• Audit-ready all year. Books closed monthly, reconciliations kept, approvals recorded. Year-end becomes a check, not a rescue.
• Controls. Who can approve payments, add vendors or change salaries, and a record of who did.
• People analytics. Attrition, time to hire and cost per team, without building it by hand.
• An ESOP register that matches your cap table and your employees' grant letters.

How to choose a tool at any stage: five questions

Before you sign up for anything, ask these five questions. They have saved me from more bad purchases than any comparison site.

1. What job does it do, and who owns that job? If nobody in the company owns the job, the tool will sit unused. Name the owner first.
2. Does it work for India? GST, TDS, PF, ESI, professional tax, Indian payslips and lakh-style numbers. Many good global tools stumble here, and the workarounds become someone's monthly chore.
3. Can my CA, auditor or investors get in? Read-only access for your CA, a clean export for your auditor, and a way to share with investors without emailing files.
4. Does it share data with what I already use? Every manual export is a future error. Ask what connects, and how.
5. Can I get my data out? If you leave, you should be able to export everything in a format another system can read.

If a tool fails two of these, keep looking.

A month in the back office at 40 people

To make this concrete, here is what a well-run month can look like for a 40-person startup between Series A and B. It is an example, not a rule.

Nothing on that list is heroic. It works because each job has an owner, a date, and systems that hand data to each other instead of to a spreadsheet.

Signs you have outgrown your setup

• Month-end runs past the 15th.
• The same document gets requested by investors more than once a quarter, and you rebuild it each time.
• Leave and attendance disputes reach the founders.
• Someone on the team spends a day a month copying numbers between systems.
• You find out about a late filing from a penalty notice.

Common mistakes

• Buying tools too early. A seed startup with five HR tools has five logins and no process.
• Buying tools too late. A 60-person company on spreadsheets spends more on mistakes than software would cost.
• Treating the CA as the finance team. A good CA files your returns. Someone inside the company still needs to own the numbers.
• Ignoring the joins. Choose tools that share data, or you will pay for the gaps in hours.
• Not writing anything down. The first finance or HR hire should inherit a written process, not a founder's memory.

Questions people ask

What back office tools does a seed-stage startup need?

Very few. A business bank account, an accounting system your CA can access, a simple way to run payroll, a shared drive with clear folders, and a data room for your raise. Contracts and offer letters from good templates. Most other tools can wait until you have more than ten people.

When should a startup hire a finance person?

Usually around Series A, when monthly reporting to a board, GST and TDS across more vendors, and a growing payroll become more than a founder and an outside CA can handle well. Before that, a good part-time accountant and a CA firm are usually enough.

Should a startup use one platform or separate tools for HR and finance?

Separate tools can work, but every gap between them is a spreadsheet someone keeps by hand. The more your HR, payroll and accounts share the same team list and numbers, the fewer errors at month end. Choose tools that connect, or a platform that covers several jobs.

What legal and compliance basics do startups often miss?

Common misses are appointing the first auditor on time, signing IP assignment with everyone who builds the product, registering for PF and ESI when headcount crosses the limits, and setting up a POSH internal committee once you reach ten employees. A CA or company secretary can check these in an hour.

Sources

• Ministry of Corporate Affairs: Companies Act, 2013 (opens in a new tab)
• Ministry of Women and Child Development: POSH Act, 2013 (opens in a new tab)
• Startup India: DPIIT recognition (opens in a new tab)
• Taxguru: TDS deposit deadline under the Income-tax Act, 2025 (opens in a new tab)

This is general information, not legal or tax advice. Check with your CA or lawyer for your company's situation.