Launched in January this year, Nigeria’s 1Suite Accounting wants to simplifies business record keeping and enable seamless financial performance monitoring.
Now with over 200 users, the platform aims to solve the financial record keeping dilemma of most small business and provide a platform for financial inclusion for businesses that will normally fall outside Bank radar.
The cloud Accounting Software is primed at making it easy for businesses to bill their customers, receive payment and track their expenses and also easily print their financial reports (including P&L and Balance Sheet) at the touch of a button. Their business works in the same way as Quickbooks and other international cloud-based softwares for accounting.
Uche Aniche & Julius Momnang, the founders, say they were inspired by their own internal accounting challenge.
“We had challenges with our process and found it difficult to get the right people to guide us – so we decided to build something for ourselves. Midway into it, we discovered it’s a need for other small business owners and decided to make it available publicly,” said Aniche. “We are actually shocked at the rate of adoption considering we started making noise about it in January this year.”
Aniche, who is also the founder of Havilah & Hills – a Web/Marketing Communication company in Port Harcourt says his goal as an entreprenuer is to solve localised business challenges with technology and 1Suite is a product of that vision.
His co-founder, Momnang, a Computer Science undergraduate of University of Port Harcourt and is the lead engineer on the project. Unlike Aniche who’s a Marketing and Communication guy, Momnang has been programming .Net for 6Years and is a former OfficeOnline Engineer.
Late last year October, before their stoftware publically launched, the co-founders say they pretty shocked to to be voted The Best Idea in an Elevator Pitch contest during EDC/Etisalat Market Access Event held in Port Harcourt. That’s was great validation, andthe duo have never looked back.
1Suite expects to earn revenue purely from subscriptions where firms can pay per month or year for a user licence however, their main challenge still remains offline traditional systems in Nigeria and the international softwares some firms use though the founders say the international ones pose a little challenge due to adoption.
The firm is now funded by Havilah & Hills and is focused on building a customer base and an awesome product.
Aniche disputes the worries surrounding cloud accounting softwares which many think are out to elimate jobs espeically for accounting officers.
Aniche says, “On the contrary, I think they create opportunities. First, you’ll need people to use the systems as the systems won’t use themselves. Secondly, it creates opportunities for smart people – as it makes it possible for them to branch out and start their private outsourcing business – knowing that with the software, they’ll be doing less work for more pay outside.
Aniche says the future of enterprise startups in Africa is bright as a lot is happening that’s good for the future of the ecosystem.
“I particularly like the knowledge sharing and the interest of people from Silicon Valley in Africa. I know that much still needs to be done. It’s bright – I’m optimistic,” he concludes.
