Ask HN: My product idea: Easy Bookkeeping, Simple Accounting

12 points by milofelipe 16 years ago | 19 comments

Hi. Do you think there is still a market for another online bookkeeping/accounting SaaS app? My idea for the app is to be a bare basics accounting system for freelancers, micro-isvs, and small businesses. I'm a one-man startup registered as a sole proprietorship. I am required to submit annually my financial statements (Balance Sheet, Income Statement, Cash Flow Statement) along with my tax return. What I need is a simple and basic app that can generate the three basic financial statements (if PDF or Excel format). From what I've read, these are the most important financial statements to any business. So my idea is an online app that does simple and easy bookkeeping and can generate the three financial statements. No invoicing, no proposals, no accessing my bank account, and so on. I looked at Xero and Less Accounting, they're not simple and basic enough for my needs. So I'm thinking of scratching my own itch. I was just wondering if others have this itch too. Would you be willing to pay for a service like this? For example, would you pay $5 per month for this SaaS app? What monthly price would you be willing to pay for?Thanks!

jcnnghm 16 years ago |

Quickbooks sucks in a major way. If you could come up with a simple accounting system that didn't take three full minutes to load, even with an SSD, 4 processing cores, and 8GB of memory, you'd have a winner. Even if your software was really bad, it would probably still be better than Quickbooks.

You'd probably have to support these basic features:

Write Checks

Track Account Balances and Transactions - These need to be able to be imported in standard formats. The format Quickbooks uses is XML. I found it simple enough to reverse engineer that I was able to convert CSV dumps from my bank to QBO files and get them importing into Quickbooks.

Categorize Transactions - I need to be able to say what each transaction is. I should be able to setup filters to automatically categorize imported transactions. For example, at the convenience store Wawa, I buy exactly two things, coffee and gas. If the transaction is less than $5, I want it to be categorized as personal food, if it's over $20, I want it to be categorized as gas. I should be able to set this up, and never have to categorize one of these transactions again.

That's all it would really take. You would probably want to integrate with one or more invoicing systems to track receivables. You could setup an API then build connectors for popular applications, like Freshbooks. A good interface for accounting for bank deposits would be helpful as well.

nreece 16 years ago |

Go for it! Start with a MVP.

Steve Blank's post on the subject is a good read: http://steveblank.com/2010/02/22/no-accounting-for-startups/

Fred Wilson also shared this thoughts: http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/03/accounting.html

jhancock 16 years ago |

I like what I've seen in Outright. Outright is focusing initially on the "single member LLC". This suits me...except: I need to account for me as a person in addition to my LLC. I want both accounts in the same system since it is common to make mistakes or to rethink the expense later: I paid on my personal credit card but its a business expense. I paid on my business card but it should have been paid on my personal card and then reimbursed as a travel expense to employee. There are many of these types of "reconciliations" between personal and business. A good accountant looks at my mistakes and ends up making three or four entries to fix my mistake. I don't even know how to fix the mistake. I want one-click fixing the books for these common cases.

ledger123 16 years ago |

I am not sure what response you get here because accounting is traditionally a non-hacker domain. In my own research, there is a huge need of a service like yours for the particular segment you are aiming for.

I have been offering SQL-Ledger (and its fork LedgerSMB; both open source) hosting, training, support, customization for many years. (See my info)

Though both packages are targeted to small to medium sized business, the biggest problem I find with new users is they always find it difficult to learn. This is mostly because of a large number of features even for smbs (and also because accounting software does require you have a basic understanding of accounting) And no one has time to read the fine manual.

I have been experimenting for the last few months by removing/rearranging menus, adding context sensitive help/tips, making it more user-friendly but still not satisfied with the results.

So yes I also want to target exact same segment (bare basics accounting system for freelancers, micro-isvs, and small businesses) but I need to do a lot of work/testing before doing that.

dtsingletary 16 years ago |

Freshbooks does sound like it fits the bill. What I see a market for are SaaS accounting apps that are tailored to the domain language of particular industries: accounting for bands, accounting for programmers and consultants, accounting for day care. So on and so forth. That way people feel more comfortable with the language used to present the accounting.

milofelipe 16 years ago |

Thank you for all your replies. Many suggested Outright, Less Accounting, and Quickbooks. I tried all of them. They're not simple enough for me. I like Outright but what's missing (and the most important feature for me) is the ability to generate the three most important financial statements: Balance Sheet, Income Statement, and Cash Flow Statement. Outright can generate an Income Statement, but it's more tailored to US requirements. It would be great if the financial statements can be in Excel format so modifications, like typing in a header, will be easy. The three financial statements are very important for me because I need to submit them annually to the government. Also, it gives a picture of my business.

I think I'll go for it! =) MVP will be doing simple bookkeeping and generating the three financial statements. These are the basics of accounting. I guess even if nobody buys it or subscribes to it. I will still end up with something I really need. Thanks again.

jarin 16 years ago |

Check out Outright too, their big draw is integration with plenty of other web services.

Basically when breaking into an existing market, you want to be at least 15% better than the competition to convince people to switch. That doesn't mean you have to START better, but you should have a good idea of what you can do to accomplish that.

rs 16 years ago |

When business started picking up, I incorporated (Ltd in UK) and thought of doing the exact same thing, where I build a simple app to do all the accounting statements. I mean, how hard could it be, right ?

Well, that's when I got hold of a Tax accountant and had a really in depth conversation with her about book keeping, financial statements and tax. I came out concluding that there are so many small nitty gritty rules that need to be satisfied (I'm thinking its the same situation in the US).

She recommended Sage Instant Account Plus, and while it is by far the least innovative product from an engineering point of view, it does the job and most important of all, it does it right. A good example would be that I need to submit a VAT statement to HMRC (UK's IRS) every quarter. Sage does it in a few clicks, and I can trust that the numbers look correct.

Now, Sage does have an import facility. I take 1-2 hours a month to do all my book keeping. Revenue is automated, expenses is not (manual entry). I'm reducing my supplier list and it should come down to a solid 1 hour a month.

If you're still compelled to move forward with this. Here is what I would look for:

1. An API to automate revenues. I really don't think putting in 1000s of monthly transactions is a good investment of time

2. Consulted and signed off by a number of accountants. This brings credibility to your service. I think this is important because I really don't want to be in a position 5 years down the line and owe the tax authorities £££

3. Ease of use! Sage is clunky. I can't count the number of times I had to use the "Corrections" facility and ammend/delete incorrect transactions. These are all expenses that I've manually put in, so, part of the blame has to go to me.

4. Don't stop at just the 3 sheets (balance, P&L, cash flow). Do add reporting facilities and a way to classify revenues/expenses. Would be good if you'd chuck in ratios as well.

These are the big ones for me. Sage sorta does (1). Its definitely (2) as its one of the most trusted accounting apps. Forget Sage on (3) and it does (4) in a really odd and clunky way (you need to put in different account types for different revenue streams and what-nots, uugghh).

I would prefer if its something I can run on my own server/desktop. If its a one-off fee, I would see something like £400-£500 a reasonable figure to pay for this.

If its an SaaS, I would see anywhere between £10-£20 a month. But there's always the 'trust' issue here.

HTH!!

dminor 16 years ago |

Doesn't Freshbooks do really basic accounting?

maqr 16 years ago | |

It does. I use it. I like it.

rmorrison 16 years ago |

Another good area to target could be landlords, who may be willing to be a couple dollars per month per rental unit.

comron 16 years ago | |

Thats exactly what my startup is doing: http://www.appfolio.com

nopassrecover 16 years ago |

There is major competition in this space and I think the market is saturated. The reluctance you have to using any of the existing solutions is the same reluctance anyone else will have to using yours.

latentflip 16 years ago |

I'll add http://www.freeagentcentral.com/ to the list of companies growing in this space. It's quite excellent too.

dave1619 16 years ago |

I've been using quickbooksonline and their automatic bank transaction downloads are fantastic. Makes reconciling easy. You'll need to compete against them and be better.

Kilimanjaro 16 years ago |

I've been cooking for some time the same idea exactly as you have exposed it. Maybe we will be competitors?

It is always good to have competition, even if intuit, xero, etc do the same thing.

$5 is ok.

stickhandle 16 years ago |

go for it! but be aware ... http://lessaccounting.com

jacquesm 16 years ago |

There is always room for 'more' in any field, if you can differentiate yourself somehow.

ashnyc 16 years ago |

check out http://outright.com/