Christoforos Telemachou: How Logistaras’ mission is filling a significant gap

With the mission of helping the self-employed manage their business accounting and meet their tax obligations, the innovative Logistaras application aims to fill the gap between them and the tax portal when it comes to preparing necessary submissions and reducing inadvertent errors.

In an interview with InBusinessNews, the Director and Co-founder of Logistaras, Christoforos Telemachou, explains how the idea for creating the platform came about and suggests how users can make the most of it.

Telemachou also notes that, for self-employed people who want to learn more or get to know the service better, there is the possibility of free use of the application is provided for a certain period, for users to experience the app’s user-friendliness and efficiency before committing to purchasing it.

Future plans for Logistaras, meanwhile, include the continuous improvement of the service, as well as its expansion abroad.

"Our mission will have been achieved when we have contributed to improving the lives of the self-employed, a large portion of workers who are often neglected," Telemachou points out.

Read Christoforos Telemachou’s full interview with InBusinessNews below:

Tell us a little about yourself and how the idea behind the creation of the Logistaras platform came about?

Having completed my studies in electronic engineering and getting a master's degree in business administration, I worked at Cypriot and multinational companies for several years.

A few years ago, I chose to be self-employed, and along the way, I realised that there were important obligations I needed to fulfill such as the submission of VAT every 3 months, the self-tax assessment in the middle of the year, the payment of Social Insurance every quarter, and other duties.

As a well-organised and financially savvy person, I got things done, but being human means it’s still possible to miss some deadlines and have to pay monetary penalties. Many friends, also freelancers, were asking me to help them with their processing and it seemed that there was a need for such a service.

During the period of Covid and with the increased use of mobile phones and mobile apps, the idea of ​​creating Logistaras emerged.

Helping the self-employed

What have been the most important milestones in Logistaras' journey to date?

It started with the trust shown by the company LogiSoft in the development of the prototype.

An important milestone was the successful completion of the Bank of Cyprus' IDEA program and the valuable support during Logistaras’ first steps from the team and consultants at the IDEA Innovation Center.

This was followed by investment from GAIN Venture Studios for the development of the technology and initial promotional support.

What services does the Logistaras platform offer and who is it aimed at?

The mission of Logistaras is to help the self-employed in the management of their business accounting and in meeting their tax obligations.

The service is provided in a mobile application that you can find on Google Play and the Apple Store, while there is also the possibility to connect online via a website.

Certified accountant partners and experienced programmer-engineers have contributed to the development of the application so that the user experience is friendly and reliable.

The user of the application initially answers some questions in order to configure Logistaras to their own needs, and be able register transactions instantly and anywhere with electronic filing, receive reminders about deadlines, and have submissions such as VAT automatically generated in the format requested by the authorities.

Filling the gap

How can the public sector learn from the example of technological innovations like yours, and cooperations be created to handle accounting processes?

My impression is that in recent years the public sector has made significant leaps in the process of submitting tax obligations, such as the Tax-For-All platform. Private initiatives come to extend this development and create complementary digital tools for a complete experience of reliable and easy submission.

With the Logistaras application, we come to fill the gap between the tax portal and the self-employed in preparing the necessary submissions and reducing unintentional errors.

I should note that Logistaras has been certified as an Innovative SME by the Deputy Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digital Policy which means that the private investor in our company benefits from tax reliefs and we thank the state for this support.

We are dealing with an online platform and so there is always the concern of data security. How does Logistaras respond to this?

The protection of data, infrastructure, and user privacy is ensured through a multi-layered approach.

Key elements of security are identity and access management, network security with firewalls and intrusion prevention systems, regular software updates, data backup and recovery, but also compliance with relevant regulations such as GDPR.

What new services can we expect in 2024 and what message would you like to convey?

At this time, our effort is focused on making the Logistaras service known to the general public. For freelancers and the self-employed who want to learn more or get to know our service, it is possible to use the application for free for a period of time, so that they can experience its user-friendliness and efficiency.

Our plans include the continuous improvement of the service, as well as our expansion abroad. Our mission will be accomplished when we have contributed to improving the lives of the self-employed, a large segment of workers that is often neglected.

The Logistaras app is available for installation from Google Play and Apple Store. A free, no-obligation trial period is provided.

For more information:

• website www.logistaras.com
• email address: mail@logistaras.com

And on social media:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/logistaras/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Logistaras
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/92899197/