Intro A person filled with energy, open to challenges, and a wizard with numbers, Nithya did her first job with the London Stock Exchange Group as an Analyst and later moved on to an early age Startup. Career In the year 2021, Nithya finished her MBA while working with LSEG as an analyst. Later, she got a chance to work with AvairSense and is now heading the Finance and Human Resources department while making things a piece of cake. About AvairSense AvairSense (OurEye Private Limited) is a smart camera company that specializes in building AI-enabled security cameras. It was founded by Sourav Sanyal and Ajay Kumar and backed by Y Combinator and 100x. AvairSense goes all out to build the smartest cameras ever, to help people see beyond what they can, and empower people to protect their love. The product is entirely made in India and will be launched soon. How does finance look at AvairSense Nithya says that when she joined in October 2021, the team size was 4-5 and the entire core team was filled with talented techies. She further explains how she built everything from scratch. From Zoho books, and Razorpay to other software, she has set up an incredible process for anyone who next steps into finance at AvairSense Oh, and did we mention she is doing all this by herself?! ⭐ There’s a vast difference between a finance person looking at the finance data and a common man looking through it. AvairSense outsources things such as Taxation and Auditing to an external team. With the help of the auditing firm, Nithya likes to keep tasks such as bookkeeping in-house Challenges she faced while building systems from 0 According to Nithya, the biggest challenge she faced was to explain finance jargon and process to non-finance folks. She also finds it pretty annoying when people mistake HR and Finance to be the same (we agree with her though!) What does our finance rockstar’s day look like? As Nithya is handling both HR and Finance at AvairSense she likes to divide her day into 2: The first half of the day is for finance. In general, a typical day for Nithya involves a mix of financial and HR tasks. Some of her financial responsibilities may include preparing and managing budgets, analyzing financial data, and preparing financial reports. The second half is for HR duties. This could include managing the company’s payroll, coordinating employee benefits, recruitment and onboarding process, and handling any employee relations issues that arise. She doesn’t like to spread out 1 task for the entire day. Challenges/Painpoints The only pain point she had was not having a structured system. How Zuna can differ from others A lot of documents are asked for financial valuations and other processes as well. It is easy if anyone could have all the details and documents/give a checklist for documents. When is the right time to hire a finance guy? Finance is the foundation of any business. Hiring a person in the early stage to handle all financial activities is very important. However, at a time, when the company’s revenue and expenditures are increasing it is a must to hire a finance person. ‍

Nipul Jain’s journey to becoming a Chartered Accountant began with failure. In this blog, we will take a closer look at his journey from a young boy who had no interest in studying to a successful professional making a difference in the accounting world. The Beginning of the Journey Nipul shares his story of him coming from a very low family background and struggling with his studies upto 10th grade. He recalls clearing his 8th & 9th exams with grace marks and getting the bare minimum percentage required to clear the 10th exam. It was a challenging time for him, but it would mark the beginning of his journey towards his career as a Chartered Accountant. During his 10th vacation, he had a chance encounter with an institute called “Different Master Institute” in Ahmedabad through a gentleman he met. It was here that he discovered the possibilities for his future career. He attended a seminar on career opportunities and was inspired by the energy, motivation, and people. At the time, the journey to becoming a Chartered Accountant was difficult, with limited access to content, no internet, and no LinkedIn. However, the people at Different Master Institute helped him to see that it was doable and manageable. Nipul admits that he initially did not have a positive mindset towards studying. He only thought about getting a job that paid 2-5k worth of money, in fact he started working in a factory considering this is his future. However, after attending Different Master’s Institute, his perspective changed. He was brainwashed, as he puts it, and suddenly, he liked the new subjects he was studying. He had a positive mindset towards what was next to come, and it showed in his performance starting class 11. He excelled in accounts and economics, and his school teachers were surprised by his sudden improvement. This is when he started his journey of becoming a chartered accountant. Nipul continued his impressive performance into the 11th and 12th grades. He achieved 80+ per cent in the 12th grade, and his parents were incredibly proud of him. It was a challenging journey, in any case. He had to face the dilemma of choosing between English or Gujarati as his medium of instruction. With the help of the Different Master Institute, he decided to take the Chartered Accountant course in English. At that time, Nipul was the highest educated person in their entire family on both their father’s and mother’s sides. He credits his success to the support he received from his parents and the coaching center he joined. His parents joined him in Different Master Institute seminars and always supported his choices. They did not have much money, but they were willing to keep him in any way they could. The coaching center he joined provided him with coaching at a reasonable and discounted rate. They also helped him fill out forms, get study material, and provide financial support. Nipul Jain began his journey by enrolling in a one-year course for the first cycle of his Chartered Accountancy (CA) program. He joined PE1, started BCom part-time, and began learning the subject. He was excited about his future and looked forward to the day when he would become a Chartered Accountant. During the PE1 final exam, Nipul was super motivated and charged. He was confident that he would get a rank. Unfortunately, someone passed away in his family during the exam, and no one was around him. That impacted him a lot, and he felt scared. However, he continued with his exams and gave his best shot and secured a good score in exams. He believes you need your loved ones around you in the journey. The Beginning of Articleship In his conversation, Nipul mentioned that the journey with PE2 started, and he faced the challenge of deciding where to do his Articleship again. Unlike his previous experiences with known people until the 11th and 12th, all the people he met during this journey were professionals. This led to a different kind of connection and journey. He eventually started his Articleship at a firm called “Salawat & Associates” and began learning from the first day. This opportunity allowed him to gain a lot of knowledge and experience. His principal at the firm gave him many possibilities in terms of leading everything from the front. During this period, he joined “Arihant Institute for Chartered Accountants” to improve his knowledge further. Nipul’s family faced a financial constraint when it was time for him to pay for his PE2 course. The founder of “Arihant Institute” recognized Nipul’s potential and allowed him to pay whatever amount he could. Nipul’s father’s friend connected him to a social group called “Jain Jagruti Sangh”, providing him with financial assistance. This financial help enabled Nipul to continue his studies. Nipul joined PE2 but later understood that it would end that year, and PCC would come up. He took PCC by default and joined the first batch of PCC at Arihant. He secured the 50th rank in India, first in Ahmedabad and third or fourth in Gujarat. He was felicitated by ICAI Ahmedabad branch , and became a member of the Bombay Chartered Accountancy. Clearing CA and CS in First Attempt He began a company secretary course simultaneously with his CA studies, an additional challenge he had to face. Nipul cleared all his exams on the first attempt, including his CA and CS exams. He was super excited and proud of his achievements. Nipul Jain expresses his thoughts on the CA course. According to him, you need 100% dedication, hard work, and luck to clear this milestone. Nipul emphasized the importance of luck, as he believes it plays a significant role in success in the CA course. Becoming a Chartered Accountant is a difficult journey in itself. But Nipul Jain’s journey to becoming a CA came with a social change. Society started looking at him and his family differently, with more respect and admiration than before. According to him,

Intro Mr. Naveen has been helping the startup industry manage their finances for the last 35 years. From trying to match the trial balance on paper, to now automating everything on computers, he has definitely seen the world turn around. Career From trial balance to a floppy disk and now using various automation and softwares for finance, Naveen has come a long way. He started his career in the year 1987 as a Senior Accounts Manager at Bharat Electronics. He then spent 2 years with Bharat Electronics He later moved to Star Paper Mills in the early 90s and helped them as an Assistance Finance Manager. For the first 11 years of his, he was into manufacturing. In these 11 years. he saw various trends, faced many challenges, worked on manual trial balances (can’t even believe that’s real), used Floppy Disk and Lotus 1234, and a lot more. In the later years, IT stepped it’s foot in India. Since this industry was new, there were no experts in it and hence were hiring people majorly from a Manufacturing background. Here, Naveen got a chance to work in the IT industry and help them with their finances. The transition here was huge and exposed him to 2 new things:A. Managing people/team trans boarder.B. Reporting to the corporate head office outside IndiaThis helped him learn how they think and work- which was an all new experience for him. In the year 1998, he became the VP of Finance at Xansa. After helping Xanas for more than 6 years, he joined hands with Global Loggic as a Finance VP. He then moved to Pangea3 as a CFO and continued there for more than 8 years. In the year 2016, he joined Thomson Reuters as a CFO and helped them for 8 years. Currently, he is working as the CFO at InnovAccer which he joined in the year 2017. The Last 356 years have been quite a rollercoaster for Naveen! Disclaimer: This interview was taken when Naveen was working at InnovAccer, he is now working at LambdaTest. How things have been so far for him Over time, Naveen has learnt that nobody looks at finance and accounts when the startup starts. All focus is on product development, all focus is on getting customers and growing revenue. Nobody looks at finance and that is the pain point. He says that he has seen opportunities in chaos. The opportunities are huge and he has seen chaos again and again, where things are haywire. But if one can streamline it, one can definitely make it out of it. About InnovAccer InnovAccer is a Data Platform for Healthcare. It unifies patient data across systems and care settings and empowers healthcare organizations with scalable, modern applications that improve clinical, financial, operational, and experiential outcomes. Challenges startups face “In the initial days of a startup, you will have to burn money to grow.” ”But people don’t understand that you cannot grow if you don’t track cashflow because cash is the king.” – Naveen One of the most prominent challenges startups face is that they do not have proper compliance and cashflow statements ⭐ In the initial days even if you have to burn cash, you need to have a path to profitability. When should a startup bring in its first finance person? Naveen says that the best time to hire a finance guy is as soon as possible. ⭐ Most often founders think that they can cut down on not having a CFO as the costs and expenditures are minimal. In case, a startup isn’t able to hire a finance guy at the very beginning, the next best time to do so is at the time when your product finds a market fit. At the time you start acquiring customers. ⭐ As a startup, if you are going to raise funds, then your valuation will only be good if your financials are good. Ideally, after Series A, is when a startup must start looking for a CFO who can take in-charge of things, the due diligence, etc. How finance is managed? Naveen tells us that repetitive tasks such as payroll, regulatory compliances especially for the US, and taxes can be outsourced while supervising them. Whereas things like P&L A/C, bookkeeping and FP&A must be done in-house. ⭐ One cannot do everything. To know and understand this while outsourcing what’s right is the best thing to do for your startup. ‍

About Mohammed Muyeen An apt proverb comes to mind when we speak to Mohammed ‘There is nothing certain, but the uncertain.’ With a vision to complete his MBA, which he successfully fulfilled in 2018, Mohammed was offered the prestigious role of a ‘lecturer’. It looks like life had other plans for this young mind as he rejected the opportunity and decided to start his career at a SaaS company called Pazo with the role of an accountant! As he gained experience over time, he was promoted to the role of a finance manager, and at present, he handles the entire finance and accounts of Pazo! What tools do you use to manage accounting and payroll as the sole operator of the ‘Customer complaint’ department? As a one-person show, Mohammed handles all accounting and payroll tasks on his own. QuickBooks is his go-to tool for bookkeeping, accounting, and other related tasks, while ‘Recipe’ helps him manage payroll efficiently. These tools are user-friendly and automate most tasks, from recording entries to generating monthly reports. By using these tools, he can make informed decisions based on accurate and up-to-date financial information, which is crucial for running a successful business. The effect of startups NOT taking complaints seriously. It’s common for startups to overlook the importance of hiring a full-time finance and complaint management team member in the early stages. Many choose to outsource these functions or simply manage them on their own. However, as the company grows and reaches a certain level of funding or employee count, the need for a dedicated finance team member becomes more pressing, and that’s usually when the first hire is made. In fact, this trend is seen in at least 50% of startups in India. As the workload became too much for one person to handle alone! As the company grows, they realize the need for an internal finance guy to handle accounts receivables, invoicing, financial analysis, and necessary metrics tracking. The taxation part is still handled by the accounting firm, and there is clear communication when required. In 2019 Mohammed joined Pazo, and until then, the accounting tasks were outsourced to the auditors. However, the company’s growth necessitated the recruitment of an internal finance person. AR is taken care of in-house, and the reporting is done by them as well. A day of work in the life of Mohammed! Mohammed’s day starts with an email review in the morning since he is responsible for handling all accounting inquiries, including AR and AP. He first reviews emails and tries to resolve any accounting or bookkeeping-related requests. He then reviews their accounting tool, QuickBooks, starting with the banking part to check for payments received and enter any necessary entries. Next, he reviews the metrics sheet and accounts receivables ageing summary report, which helps them with payment follow-ups. This process typically takes up the first half of the day. After lunch, Mohammed will be focusing on finance and accounting-related tasks. He will be working on clarifying any doubts or setting up calls with clients to discuss accounting and bookkeeping-related queries. He focuses on tasks directly by the CEO and might need to work on reports and calculations at short notice. At 5 o’clock in the evening, he reviews payroll software and approves reimbursements. Mohammed cooperates with auditors and outsourcing firms to handle queries or work if required. Safe to say that all of this work is typically done post-lunch. The experience of working with several auditors and consultants, how has it been? Many companies have outsourced their accounting to auditors. The auditors they have chosen are somewhat advanced compared to others who are practicing. However, many auditors are resistant to change, and this is causing issues in the industry. For example, many auditors have been using a program called Tally for a long time and are resistant to switching to Zoho Books. This is a problem for many SaaS (Software as a Service) companies in Bangalore and Hyderabad, as it hinders progress in the industry. ‍

Meet Our Finance Prodigy: A Story of Compliance, Challenges and Solutions In a world where finances are the backbone of any organization, our guest, Manoranjan Gupta, has become a prodigy in finance. Hailing from Delhi University, he joined forces with his cousin, a Chartered Accountant, and that’s where his love for numbers and compliance began. After gaining valuable experience in the field, he joined Tripro Skill for four years before moving on to his current role as an Assistant Manager in Finance at Process Nine Technology. About Process Nine Technology Language Localization at its best. Established in 2011, Process Nine Technology is a language localization company that builds software to localize content in multiple languages. This helps its clients quickly go multilingual, whether English to Hindi, Hindi to Tamil or any other language. The company focuses on making language understanding easy for people to connect with a team of over 100+ members, including Manoranjan, a vital part of the finance team. Roles and Responsibilities As an Assistant Manager in Finance, Manoranjan works closely with his senior manager to ensure compliance with TDS and Roc compliances. The team comprises around 4-5 members who handle responsibilities such as AP, AR, taxation, and ROC compliances. The company also works with external consultants for Roc compliance, including CAs and auditors. Challenges Faced: Keeping Up with the Ever-Changing Guidelines The world of finance is ever-changing, and our guest, Manoranjan, faces various challenges, including data deviations and the increasing number of government compliances. With guidelines changing frequently, Manoranjan strongly believes that the team must modify their documentation regularly to stay compliant. Since there are a lot of compliant processes happening every day, like the 7th of the month is for TDS and 11th is GST, 15th is PF so on and so forth, it gets difficult to keep track of it. Manoranjan has overcome this by going old school and simply marking all the deadlines on his paper calendar. This helps him  ensure that compliance is completed within that timeline. Reporting System and SaaS Metrics Process Nine Technology’s reporting system involves internal software, Google Sheets, and Excel spreadsheets. Manoranjan reports to his senior manager and the founders with little hierarchy. Tally is used for accounting and audit purposes. In contrast, Google Sheets, Excel spreadsheets, and Power BI are used for internal reporting. Macros and VBA are used for automation, making reporting to the founders very easy. Power BI is used for interactive dashboard visualization. Conclusion In conclusion, Manoranjan Gupta has become a finance prodigy, quickly navigating the complex world of compliance. With his focus on practicality and the power of automation through macros and VBA, he has found solutions to the ever-changing guidelines of the finance world. Process9 Technology is lucky to have such a valuable asset in its finance team. ‍

Kushaal and his journey with Startups! ⏱️ Fun fact: Kushaal is the one breaking the ice in Verak’s in-person quarterly catchups. Kushaal makes it a point to just shake hands and talk with everyone there so that they feel comfortable! There’s a reason why everyone in Verak knows and loves Kushaal Intro Kushaal is a Chartered Accountant and a CFA candidate equipped with the tools and knowledge that perfectly suit an innovative, growth-driven company like Verak. His journey from an Articled Assistant to Finance Manager to Finance Controller has taught him a lot of lessons & made him a finance rockstar with 7 years of domain experience Career Kushaal did his articleship in a mid-sized firm where he got exposure to basics and advanced concepts of Auditing, Income Tax, Sales Tax etc, especially for small and medium-sized businesses. Post qualification of CA, Kushaal knew that he had done enough compliance work & wanted to add value to whichever organisation he works for. So he decided to enter the core finance domain straight away. From then till date, Kushaal has been working with startups in the finance domain for around 7 years. Kushaal, like many others, had no idea about finance topics like FP&A or Business Finance when he cleared the Chartered Accountancy course. However, he was quick to pick them up and now is an expert in advanced concepts like forecasting and fundraising. Firstly, he joined iWebbies, a tech-enabled digital marketing solutions provider where he worked on hardcore finance for a year. He then worked for 3 years in Quotel, an Online One-Stop Solution for Architectural Products as Senior Finance manager. He then had a stint at MyHealthCare Technologies for a year and a half as GM of Finance He’s presently killing it as the Finance Controller at Verak! Disclaimer: This interview was taken when Kushaal was working at Verak, he is now working at InsuranceDekho! About Verak Verak is an IRDAI-certified business insurance provider for MSMEs in India. Its goal is to be the preferred business insurance brand for 1M+ MSMEs by 2027. Its platform allows business owners to: Generate a commercial insurance quotation instantly Get expert guidance on selecting the policy best suited to their business Have one-click support for endorsements, claims, and everything in between How Kushaal manages Finance at Verak Right from day 1, Kushaal was keen to look at himself as a profit centre rather than a cost centre. He was keen to ensure that the return on his salary was always more than his salary. That’s exactly why Kushaal implemented as many processes as possible, soon after joining Verak. For instance, they use as much software as they can to streamline & manage different aspects RazorpayX for Payroll Carta for Cap Table Management Budgeting & Forecasting, after discussions with the founder, sales team etc. This streamlined approach helps him focus on what he should do, and also clear audits and due diligence easily. Also, Kushaal gets a lot of support from Verak’s founder who himself understands and enjoys finance as much as Kushaal does. The balance between in-house & outsourced functions Due to the very nature of it & the context required to master them, Kushaal believes that the following aspects of Finance must be the last ones to be outsourced: Business Finance Budgeting & Forecasting How does Kushaal spread out his day? Kushaal spends around 30% of his time managing compliance which is dynamic & ever-growing. This is also specific to Verak since it’s a regulated space (insurance) 20% of his time goes into accounting and other legal matters, fundraising etc. The remaining 50% is where the magic happens, as per Kushaal. It is completely focused on the business, discussing each and every aspect of the business with the founder and the sales team to understand the company’s prospects, projections etc. This in turn helps Kushaal guide the founders to take the right strategic decisions.   Kushaal believes that Finance rockstars must come out of their comfort zones & start conversing more with different members of the organisation to get an inward-looking view of the business. When should a startup have a finance team (or a person)? Kushaal strongly thinks that a dedicated person must be hired to manage finance once the product is built and sales have started ticking in. And more importantly, he feels that the hire should be a competent person so that he/she can guide on compliance as well as help the founders with decision-making inputs. It’s always to pay his/her salary than interest/penalty to the government. How can a consultant differentiate it from others? The need of the hour is to have a firm that is actually providing Virtual CFO services rather than just mentioning that in its website or profile. How can this be achieved? Take the headache away from the founder – COMPLETELY Provide insights to the founder on mismatch in projected vs actual revenue future cashflows fundraising requirements Not just submitting the reports but also analysing & interpreting them! Keen eye on Understanding the business ‍