Thai tech start-up offers affordable online financial tool for micro-SMEs

Launched early last year, FlowAccount, which offers an online accounting service developed for helping very small businesses handle financial tasks, aims to serve 10 per cent of the roughly total 2.8 million small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Thailand within the next three to five years. 

The tech start-up has also set its sights on other markets within Asean. 

Chief executive officer Kritsada Chutinatorn, 32, founded FlowAccount in an attempt to address his own business pain-points. 

When running his own small business, he faced problems in doing financial and accounting matters on his own, he said. 

While appreciating that having a financial and accounting system was a must for doing business, as it informs a company about its business health, he realised that having such a system was a costly matter for SMEs. 

Therefore, he decided to turn himself from an SME owner into a tech start-up with the aim of developing an affordable online financial and accounting service for micro-SMEs. 

The concept of FlowAccount is to provide such an online system, which is located on the cloud, for micro-SMEs with only one to five employees through the Freemium model.

Basic accounting features such as billing, purchasing order and tax invoice are provided free of charge. 

Users are charged Bt990 per year once they need advanced features such as a Non-Resident Withholding Tax Certificate. The fee allows three subscribers to use the service on the cloud.

“The beauty is that the service can be used anywhere, anytime and on a range of devices. FlowAccount is available via Web browser and mobile application. Small-business owners can be flexible in using the accounting system anywhere and anytime. It is very convenient for them and helps them to keep in touch with their financial statements,” Kritsada said.

Even though FlowAccount, which already has around 8,000 users, currently targets Thai-based micro-SMEs with revenue of up to Bt10 million per year, is available in both Thai and English. 

By the end of 2016, the aim is to serve SMEs in nearby countries within Asean, while the company sees SMEs throughout the region as potential customers, he said. 

SMEs in markets across Southeast Asia have common pain-points to those in Thailand and need accounting software, but it is costly – something that FlowAccount can solve for them, he explained.

To penetrate these markets, however, having a partner is the key to success, he stressed. 

FlowAccount – winner in the “AIS The Start-up 2015” contest – is partnering with AIS (Advanced Info Service) to deliver its online system to SMEs in Thailand initially, and then across the region through the business network of SingTel, the Singapore-based major stakeholder in AIS.