SMEs introduces new accounting software for growth

An indigenous operator, ProbityBooks.com has introduced new accounting software targeted at helping businesses, especially the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in Nigeria improve on their productivity.

The Co-founder of ProbityBooks.com, Olushola Ogunniyi, said the company’s software has been designed to assist MSMEs in the country in a way that it will bring value to their value to their businesses.

The Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) has put the number of SMEs in the country at about 17 million. The deployment of technology means that new innovative SMEs have the ability to punch above their weight and compete with larger, more established peers almost immediately.

Ogunniyi added that as a software as a service platform, ‘SaaS’, a user can register for a 15-day trial account on ProbityBooks.com or can request a complementary demo presentation to be done on their premises.

The software is an all-in-one accounting solution designed to manage book keeping, invoicing and inventory for business owners that cannot afford hiring full-time accountants or as a complement to the roles of accountants and book keepers.

Before now companies including, Microsoft, SAP, Intel, OdooSME have all canvassed the need for SMEs to leverage on technology for growth.

In an interview with the media in Lagos, Ogunniyi identified the biggest users of Probitybooks as business owners, who want an easy-to-use tool to generate and send invoices, keep track of their business performance, update prices remotely and monitor their sales.

He assured that business owners that use Probitybooks can enjoy real-time, bird-eye view of their business metrics from a single dashboard as the software is a cloud-based solution.
Ogunniyi noted that while ProbityBooks is designed as a cloud-based solution, the developers understand the possibilities of internet downtime at the locations of users.

To accommodate this peculiar challenge, ProbityBooks software is available as both cloud-based and self-hosted solutions, and advised accountants and bookkeepers that work as consultants to MSMEs to encourage their clients to adopt ProbityBooks instead of paper-based solutions.
He noted that this enables organisations to automate their accounting and book keeping processes, thereby saving the company on endless manual tasks.

Speaking on the features of ProbityBooks, the Chief Technology Officer, Adimula Tayo, noted that the accounting solution is best suited for the need of most Nigerian businesses, as it is built 100 per cent in Nigeria to solve local challenges. One of such use cases is that business can run self-hosted and online versions of the software simultaneously and easily synchronise the data to the web real time as soon as internet access is restored.

He also added that the software was customised such that accountants and auditors can easily work with the exportable data to automate their job functions. According to global trends, most businesses fail because of poor accounting or poor record keeping. Solutions like Probitybooks can be seen as a way for these businesses to overcome this challenge.

The Business Development Manager of ProbityBooks, Ope Adelaja, said his experience with business accounting has helped to develop a truly innovative accounting solution for the market.

He recommended the software as the best tool for financial institutions like Bank of Industry (BoI) or any organisations that give out loans to use to monitor performance of their loans.

It is obvious that there are established foreign solutions that provide similar services. Some of these include Sage, Peachtree and other online apps.

In a bid to differentiate their solution, Ogunniyi noted that unlike most foreign brands that are expensive and difficult to use, the accounting solution is very easy for non-accountants and comes with free training which can be mastered within 30 minutes.

He also added that the different tiers of the product are also competitively priced than foreign products.

“This way, we are helping local businesses reduce the demand for dollars as we are in the crusade of promoting made in Nigeria goods to help the currency,” he enthused.