The challenge here is how to make them realize the value of a software technology to help them see the reality of what’s happening in their business hence help them survive, strategize and grow.
Early this year, the team at Hilsoft launched its pilot cloud software, Snap Accounting. Over a decade ago, around this time, SaaS was called ASP, and data centers are initially built in the country, we tried to launch the same concept. A bus company subscribed and was connected via RAS but after a few months, our data center partner was bought by a Japanese company and the marketing efforts were cut short. After seven years, we encountered another partner who’s enthusiastic about reaching out to micro businesses. The partner wanted to introduce an accounting software to these micro businesses but the plans were aborted.
But who are these micro businesses? We believe these are businesses whose owners are not well-versed in theoretical accounting. These are entrepreneurs who don’t have its own accounting team and just rely on their bank statements to determine if they are earning or not. Some of them rely on a third party accountant who does their tax filing and FS preparation.
The challenge here is how to make them realize the value of a software technology to help them see the reality of what’s happening in their business hence help them survive, strategize and grow.
Some big software providers acquired some off-the-shelf programs to reach them but failed.
Hilsoft is now challenged to solve this and has been passionate about trying to reach them out. We have introduced vanilla transaction writers as the first step. A facility to write a check and to print invoices. That alone already give them the benefit of efficiency and faster lead time to prepare transactions. We are also trying to reach out these accountants who will introduce these transaction writers to their clients. The accountants can now scale up because they will eliminate the need collate their client’s transactions. It’s a win-win. We are also trying to partner with consumer-based service providers such as telco’s to bundle the software services.
Once the business owners realize the value since they will have a real-time transaction register, it will open their eyes and look for more. Invoice registers turned into accounts receivable aging. Collection and check transactions turned into Cash Position. Then finally, management reports and schedules turned into summarized Balance Sheet and Income Statement. The solution is build-your-own accounting software in the Philippines
Hilsoft is happy with the results so far, attending more than 80 subscribed customers online. We will not stop to bring legacy in helping startups and micro businesses. Coming up are more cloud apps such as HRIS and Payroll and front-end CRMs.