In Kenya, its typical that many small business owners tend to treat accounting as one of their very last concerns when they get started. The truth is entrepreneurs are more concerned about the daily grind to keep their small businesses afloat rather than spending their time automate their accounting processes. If only it was just simple enough to do so! The heart is willing but the reality is that it often feels like rocket science for the average small business owner.

I have to confess that having been an entrepreneur for many years I can totally relate to how difficult and expensive business automation can be. A good accountant can make it really easy but the truth be said a good number of small businesses simply do not know how to go about it and even if they do its often quite intimidating for all sorts of reasons.

Enter MiniERP. MiniERP is an end-to-end business automation solution from the team behind Uhasibu, a locally developed and cloud-based accounting system built from the ground up for the Kenyan marketplace. MiniERP seeks to address a simple yet difficult challenge for small businesses – enabling them to streamline their business processes in an end-to-end manner without the high cost or hassles of doing so in a conventional manner.

MiniERP is more than an accounting package. Its actually as its name suggests an entry-level enterprise resource planning system or ERP for short. ERPs have been around for a few decades and are typically used by large and medium sized companies globally to run their operations in a fully integrated manner – via technology. The beauty of an ERP is that it comes with a mix of modules for finance, sales, marketing, procurement, manufacturing, etc. However, ERPs have historically been notoriously expensive and time consuming to deploy. That being said, MiniERP ‘mimics’ a full-scale ERP for the small business at truly cost-effective price points and easy cloud-based deployment – it literally takes minutes to sign-up and get started.

The inspiration behind MiniERP was realised when the Uhasibu team encountered numerous challenges trying to sign-up small businesses for their cloud-based accounting system. They found that as much as accounting is very important, the majority of small businesses they interacted with were more concerned about ‘fixing’ their basic operational issues rather than concentrate on implementing just an accounting system. This forced the Uhasibu team to ‘re-jig’ their go-to-market approach from ‘accounting-first’ to ‘operations-first’.

A key factor behind MiniERP is that its designed so that it also works when the internet is down – which happens quite often in Kenya. Another factor is that being cloud based, small businesses do not have to invest in major computer hardware or software to run MiniERP from the get go. It is specifically designed to address the needs of small businesses that are facing business operations challenges within an African context. MiniERP’s typical clients include barbershops, hair salons, pharmacies, etc. Lastly, MiniERP is fully integrated with the Uhasibu accounting system so they work hand in hand – making it easy for business owners and their accountants to capture all financial activities in one tidy package via MiniERP.

Going forward, the team behind MiniERP is motivated to deliver an offering that will help improve the chances of small business success in the long-term. The truth is that small businesses or the ‘jua kali’ economy is what is driving East Africa’s regional growth more than anything and arming them with a product like MiniERP could be a game changer. For more information about MiniERP, please visit www.erp.co.ke