I still remember the early days, back in the late 90s, when I just started working with small trading and manufacturing businesses to help them grow their business through digital marketing. While doing so, more often than not, the business owners would also seek my help in resolving their accounting problems, because they did not understand technology well, and since I came from a technology background, I would be able to help them with all their automation problems. They weren’t asking for miracles. They just wanted speed, accuracy, and control. But every time they tried to scale, their finance system held them back. This was not only frustrating but also incredibly costly. That consistent pain point planted the seed for what would eventually grow into a long-term business venture, one that, three decades later, led to building BUSY, a product now used by nearly 4 lakh businesses.
Over the years, I’ve realized that building a high-quality accounting software isn’t about cramming in features. Today, what separates a great accounting platform from the rest is not the number of features but how effectively those features solve real-world problems at scale. The core principle of building a market-leading accounting product lies in its ability to reflect the financial needs of its users. Whether it’s a 5-person startup or a multi-location enterprise, every business needs visibility into receivables, payables, cash flow, and profitability at a granular level. The best billing software goes beyond basic invoicing—it ensures financial clarity, automates workflows, and integrates tightly with compliance needs.
One instance that stays with me is working with a logistics aggregator struggling to manage multi-branch billing with variable pricing across clients and service zones. Their existing system couldn’t cope with their growing needs. We stepped in with location-wise invoicing, automated tax splits, and integrated receivables tracking. Within a quarter, their revenue leakage dropped by 11%. Solving such granular problems consistently is what earns trust.
But understanding customer needs is only the beginning. A truly impactful product must be able to scale with the businesses it serves. According to an IBEF report, today, India has over 6.3 crore MSMEs, and this number is expected to grow to 7.5 crore in the coming years, expanding at a projected CAGR of 2.5%. And most of these businesses need help with evolving opportunities and threats that today’s technological enhancements are presenting.
Security, for example, is non-negotiable now. In Q3 2024 alone, organizations saw an average of 1,876 cyberattacks, a 75% spike from the previous year. Businesses trust accounting software with their most sensitive data: financials, taxes, payroll, and customer ledgers. One breach can mean regulatory penalties, reputational loss, and operational chaos. From end-to-end encryption and role-based access control to audit trails and compliant backups, security must be your top priority. It’s not just about defence; it’s about trust.
That trust extends beyond the product to the people who support it. When we started, I personally took customer support calls because every query was a chance to understand what we’d missed. That mindset has helped us scale. Our response time, and domain-trained support team made us a product differentiator. Because when financial data is at stake, responsiveness builds trust.
Compliance has also been a moving target. Be it GST updates, e-invoicing, or TDS provisions, the pace of regulatory change is relentless, and staying updated has become existential. An industry leader must anticipate these shifts and bake updates into the product proactively. In 2023, when the government revised e-invoicing thresholds twice within months, we had updates live ahead of time to ensure zero disruption. That’s the kind of responsiveness businesses remember.
Behind such agility is the right team. And when I say it, I don’t just mean engineers. You need domain experts, testers who understand accounting workflows, and product managers who obsess over edge cases. We’ve built cross-functional teams that sit with CA firms, observe factory floors, and test use cases most software companies don’t even know exist. That’s how we build robustness into every release.
What fuels our product evolution, though, is data. We track how users engage with features, where they drop off, and what support queries recur. This helps us simplify interfaces, eliminate bottlenecks, and prioritize enhancements. For instance, analytics showed that businesses struggled with bank reconciliation workflows. We redesigned the flow, introduced auto-matching, and saw support queries drop by 28% in the next release.
Another element that has helped us sustain that edge over two decades is a dedicated community. From feedback forums to user meetups, we’ve learned more from our customers than from consultants. Some of our most innovative features, like negative stock alerts, multi-unit conversions, or payment reminders, started as user requests and helped us grow into what we are now.
Looking ahead, the future of accounting software lies in intelligence and foresight. AI-led suggestions, risk alerts, voice-enabled compliance, and blockchain-based audit trails aren’t distant ideas. They’re already shaping our roadmap.
Building an industry-leading accounting platform isn’t a sprint. It’s a disciplined marathon. It takes obsessive product thinking, empathy for users, and an unshakable commitment to accuracy, security, and scale. That’s what you should strive for.
Brijesh Agrawal serves as the CEO and Managing Director of BUSY Infotech Private Limited, a leading provider of business accounting software in India, acquired by IndiaMART InterMESH Ltd. in 2022.
He is also the Co-founder and Executive Director of IndiaMART InterMESH Ltd., India’s largest online B2B marketplace, established in 1996.
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