
Ask HN: My product idea: Easy Bookkeeping, Simple Accounting - milofelipe
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!
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jcnnghm
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.

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nreece
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>

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jhancock
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.

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ledger123
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.

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dtsingletary
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.

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milofelipe
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.

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jarin
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.

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rs
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!!

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dminor
Doesn't Freshbooks do really basic accounting?

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maqr
It does. I use it. I like it.

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

~~~
comron
Thats exactly what my startup is doing: <http://www.appfolio.com>

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nopassrecover
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.

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

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dave1619
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.

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Kilimanjaro
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.

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

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

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ashnyc
check out <http://outright.com/>

