Take a joinery in the Mühlviertel employing eight people. Its owner prices jobs, sends out invoices and, whenever something beeps, becomes the IT department too. One day it is the new apprentice's phone, the next it is a printer nobody can find on the network, and at the back of her mind sits the question of whether the nightly server copy still works. Those lost hours never show up in the books. Apply takes them over for a flat monthly amount, working entirely through remote access. Where to send requests, how fast they get answered and what is included all sit in a written agreement, and she can go back to running the workshop.
Aimed at firms where nobody was hired to do IT, yet nobody can work without it. Think of a tax adviser with six people, a physio practice, an architect's office of four, a heating and plumbing contractor, or a web shop that outgrew the spare room.
You pick up hardware wherever suits you. An Intune profile we maintain does the rest: once a newcomer logs in with a company account, applications install, BitLocker switches on and the security baseline lands automatically, whether that first boot happens at a desk in the office or on a sofa at home.
Branded mail, shared files
Addresses ending in your own domain, hosted in Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, replace the mix of private GMX and Gmail accounts. Team calendars and shared folders come with sensible permissions per person. Licence counts get reviewed too, which usually uncovers a subscription still running for somebody long gone.
Accounts software and the till
Logins for BMD, RZL or your accountant's preferred package are sorted out, receipts reach the practice through one agreed channel, and we prompt you to export the data capture log from your registered cash system at regular intervals. Someone is also named as a stand-in for invoicing during holidays. Tax questions remain your adviser's territory.
Protection in proportion
Multi-factor authentication for every login, antivirus we manage centrally, one password vault for the team and a GDPR processing register short enough to maintain. Fewer rules, each of them enforced, beats a thick policy binder gathering dust on a shelf.
Real people answering
Weekdays from 8:00 to 17:00 Austrian time you can reach us via the website form, by email or on a Teams or Meet call. Start guarantees a reaction within four hours. In quieter moments our engineers roll out patches and check that each backup job finished cleanly.
When Start stops being enough
Headcount alone rarely decides it. These four triggers are what usually point towards a larger plan or an add-on.
On-site serverTrade software lives on a machine under a deskThat box wants patches, monitoring and a separate backup
Late openingCustomers are served after 17:00Add Round-the-clock support
Faster pleaseAn hour without bookings or payments means lost salesBusiness answers within 60 minutes
11 and upMore than ten people need accountsBusiness, €1,890 monthly plus VAT, fits better
Small firms rarely suffer from having no server; they suffer from having no copy of their data. Quotes are saved to one person's desktop, signed contracts hide in a salesman's inbox and the current price list exists only in a laptop's download folder. A common belief is that Microsoft stores everything indefinitely. In reality deleted SharePoint items are normally purged after 93 days, and a removed mailbox can only be restored for a limited time. Backing up Microsoft 365 to a separate service is cheap compared with rebuilding lost work.
Frequently asked questions
For a small office, yes. Most tickets concern logins, licences, mail, patches or printers, and each of those is fixable through an encrypted remote connection, frequently within minutes. If a hand is needed on site, for example to power-cycle the broadband router or re-plug a cable, one of your staff or your regular electrician does it while our engineer guides them.
On the last working day we disable the login, hand the mailbox to a colleague or convert it into a shared one, free up the licence and review every folder and application the person could open. A returned laptop is reset through Intune for its next user; one that stays missing gets erased the moment it reconnects. Without this routine, accounts belonging to people who left years ago are a common find in small companies.
Yes. Anyone using that login is acting on the company's behalf in dealings with the tax authorities. FinanzOnline includes a user administration area where separate, limited logins can be created for individuals. We help you set these up, get passwords out of browsers and off notes stuck to monitors, and agree with your tax adviser which returns their office already submits.
That is not something we can guarantee. KMU.DIGITAL, aws schemes and grants from the individual federal states each have their own conditions, and some work only with consultants on an approved list, which does not include Apply. The Chamber of Commerce (WKO) can tell you what might be funded. Your regular support contract with us is unaffected either way.
First comes a short video meeting, then we inspect things remotely and hand you an inventory of hardware, users and software with the gaps marked. Pressing items, such as enabling MFA or protecting Microsoft 365 data, are handled within the opening weeks; everything else goes into a dated plan. Scope and response targets are part of the contract from the outset.
Availability Monday to Friday, 8:00-17:00 Austrian time (CET/CEST), reply within one working day
Meetings By video on Microsoft Teams or Google Meet
Your enquiry has arrived
Our reply reaches you within one working day. Outages that leave your staff unable to work are dealt with first.
Open points get clarified. If anything is unclear, we come back with questions by mail or propose a quick Teams or Meet session.
A written offer follows. Scope, cost in euros plus VAT and an achievable start date are all spelled out plainly.
You decide at your own pace. Read the offer, ask about whatever is unclear, and only then give us your answer.
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