MeraBills: A Step towards Financial Inclusion

Recently, Innovations in Development and Empowerment Alternatives (IDEA) undertook consultancy on a financial literacy initiative named “MeraBills.” In conversation with Ms. Narayani Gupta, Programme Officer, IDEA, let us understand what this initiative was all about.

What is “MeraBills?” What is its inspiration? Its vision?

Imagine a situation where a small grocery shop owner is experiencing difficulties in maintaining his financial records in terms of salaries, costs, small debts or his income. Such small businesses see a hoard of small transactions on a daily basis and keeping a reliable track of the same may turn out to be a nightmare.

“MeraBills” is a free android application that helps business owners run their enterprises more efficiently in terms of finance. The App consists of a suite of carefully curated, basic (but crucial) functionalities in aspects of accounting, reporting, insights, and more.

The vision of the initiative is, “MeraBills hopes to democratize business efficiency software and make its benefits available to everyone.”

It aims at enabling micro and small entrepreneurs to efficiently run their businesses, to access digital opportunities and be at par with the age of the internet, which is our future.

Who started MeraBills?

MeraBills has been developed by a Hyderabad based company named Peabody Soft LLP MeraBills development commenced in April 2019, (when Peabody was incorporated) and the Minimum Viable Product was released on the Google Play Store in June 2020.

What are the unique features of MeraBills?

MeraBills is a simple, easy-to-use app that helps small-business owners run their businesses more efficiently. Growing your business in today’s competitive environment requires timely information – what your biggest expenses are, are your sales increasing month-on-month, are you running low on money, etc. Seeing who owes you money (udhaar khata) is important, but it is not enough – MeraBills gives you all the information you need to maximize profits and avoid costly mistakes.

In addition, a user can invite customers, employees, owners, investors, accountants, etc. to be part of their business. Payments can be made and received online. Invoices may be sent by SMS and WhatsApp.

Financial reports can be filtered, viewed, shared and printed. There is automatic backup to the cloud. 

Who does MeraBills cater to?

For micro and small entrepreneurs, there are many difficult questions that cannot easily be answered by account books. These are called business metrics and most medium to large companies have something called ERP or Enterprise Resource Planning to help them make decisions like these. The other major problem that micro entrepreneurs face is while raising money to grow and expand their businesses. Even if they are doing well, it is extremely difficult to raise a loan from the formal financial system. 

Both these issues of managing your business and keeping accounts accurately can be resolved with the use of technology. Not the kind of accounting software that is complicated, or expensive to use, like Tally, or QuickBooks, which many entrepreneurs try but ultimately hand over the task to an accountant. What is rather needed is an easy to use, cutting edge technology product that allows small business owners to keep track of their businesses, and create a digital footprint of their profits and losses, cash flow, information pertaining to debtors or creditors, and the like. MeraBills does all this and more for its users. 

How did IDEA engage with the Project? What services did IDEA provide?

IDEA was recommended to Peabody Soft LLP by very eminent professionals.

To answer how IDEA has engaged with the Project till date, we are extending our support in terms of Business Development, interaction with various concerned government departments, agencies, companies, and drafting of Project Proposals.

How many people use MeraBills as of today?

Over 2000 micro entrepreneurs are using the MeraBills app as of today. These entrepreneurs are extremely satisfied with all that the App has to offer. With the much needed ease and convenience, in just one click, the user can get the information pertaining to pending payments of customers, vendors, etc. This app has loads of in app features that make it unique to other apps in the same market. If micro entrepreneurs want to receive a loan from the banks, a profit and loss sheet can be easily generated through the App.

Where can we find the MeraBills app? How does one get to understand its usage?

The MeraBills app is available on Google Play Store. It’s usage is free of cost.

To know more about the app, visit https://merabills.com/

To understand what the app is about, watch MeraBills introductory video linked on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLbBTAoR9hY

To understand the working of the app, visit:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1D991wp8EwFWioYxHYS-fg/videos

The link above has all the videos MeraBills has created to enable a user to understand the functionalities of the App. Training videos are available in English, Hindi, Kannada, Marathi, Telugu and Assamese (more languages will be added soon).