Retail

From GST returns to applying for loans, Y Combinator-backed Gimbooks wants to help India’s 70 million SMEs go digital


For Chhattisgarh-based electronics retailer Gopal Kaser, providing invoice was always in the form of a paper receipt until demand started picking up a few months ago. Since online customers increased in the last few months, it prompted him to shift to the digital invoice system.

While searching for invoice making solutions on YouTube, he came across Gimbooks-a cloud-based bookkeeping app and started using it to give quick digital invoices to his customers.

Kaser finds GimbooksEasy Invoice Manager feature user friendly, and it has helped lighten his workload. “It is affordable, saves a lot of time, and I could just do it all on my phone. I have also witnessed a few small businesses around me using the app for the same,” he told ET Digital.

When the country is witnessing rapid technology adoption on account of the coronavirus, apps like Gimbooks are playing an important role in the digitization of small and medium businesses.

The company was launched in 2017, the same year when the Goods and Services Tax (GST) was launched. The founder Yash Raj Agarwal believed the year was the right time to launch the app as the aim was to bring easy digital solutions to SMEs and small businesses in the country. Keeping this in mind, over the years, their services expanded to creating e-way bills, purchase orders, quotation creation, managing inventory, filing GSTR and applying for loans, among other functions. This year it has made it to the coveted list of startup accelerator programme Y Combinator’s winter batch of 2021.

Agarwal, a former business analyst for Target Corporation, had previously owned a venture which traded in pyrolysis products across India. Even after completing his MBA and having sufficient knowledge in finance, Agarwal could not manage the ledger, accounting and expense analysis.

“I realised that this was meant for specialized accountants and as someone running a small business, I could not afford a full-time accountant, I had to do it myself,” he told ET Digital.

Similar experiences over the years working with retailers and multiple vendors drew his inspiration to bring a modern accounting platform for MSMEs. This meant creating a platform where even those who do not have knowledge of accounting can easily get their work done.

“Gimbooks is a do-it-yourself easy platform. It does not require any prerequisite training. At the bottom of the pyramid, there are people who are not so tech savvy for accounting and bookkeeping. These guys are looking for a simple, easy-to-use approach that can manage extensive invoicing, sending payment reminders, payment receipts to merchants, etc,” he said.

Yash_Headshot2

Yash Raj Agarwal, founder, Gimbooks.

Digital ledger

There are nearly 70 million businesses in the country, and 85% of them manage their day-to-day bookkeeping using pen and paper. As per a recent study by Cisco India, digitalization of SMBs could add around $148-216 billion to India’s GDP by 2024 and is expected to help in the Indian economy recovery post COVID-19. While most of the push to digitization came after the pandemic brought offline businesses on their knees, the initiatives towards the same began prior to COVID-19. From the government to big tech firms such as Amazon, digitizing SMEs became the sole focus this year.

Working on the same objectives over these years, Agarwal said that many other bookkeeping and accounting software emerged, however, they all had general invoice templates. The key takeaway from working with the SMEs for Agarwal was the need of customization.

“For every industry, there is a need of customization. If someone is from a pharmaceutical background, then their needs and parameters would be different to create an invoice such as manufacturing date, expiry date, batch number, manufacturer’s name. If someone is coming from an electronic background, then there is a need for an IMEI number, which means there may be a need for a barcode generator. Therefore, at every step of bookkeeping, there is a need for customization and Gimbooks have customized for all these domains,” he said, adding that the feature is one of the unique selling points of Gimbooks.

It creates these invoices in real-time and can be synced in the cloud using both desktop and mobile. The firm also provides the luxury to create these in multiple regional languages, keeping in mind how SMEs have greater presence in smaller towns.

During the initial months of COVID-19, the company saw a dip in revenue but bucked up from the month of June as customer engagement jumped and it has seen a growth of 15% month on month. Gimbooks digital services came in handy during this period, as most of their merchants worked from home and not from their offices.

Even for festivals, the Gimbooks app, which stores details of the merchant’s company name and logo automatically, creates greetings for the festivals to be shared with their business contacts and customers, something which usually customers don’t get time to do properly.

The firm has so far gained 10,000 paying customers and is offering its services on a subscription basis. For the first 3-4 weeks, customers can use it for free following which the subscription stands at Rs 2000 plus taxes per year. It offers other plans as well, ranging from half-yearly subscriptions to five yearly subscriptions priced between Rs 1,200 to Rs 5,000. It also has a tie-up with ICICI and HDFC Bank.

When asked about future plans, Agarwal said they are planning to go international and serve other similar markets where small businesses contribute a majority to the economy. “Our next phase will be entering other Asian countries. We are planning to live in the neighbouring countries- Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Indonesia by December end,” he said.





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