KhataBook: How It Works? | Top 5 Competitors of Khatabook

KhataBook: How It Works?

You cannot run a business without credits and maintaining credits is not an easy task especially if you are a small business owner. Small businesses like Kirana shops not only have consumers who promise to pay on a later date but they themselves get supplies from distributors and wholesalers on credit. So you see there are so many transactions and recording and settling these transactions is not easy for a business that has a single owner.

To solve this problem of small businesses, a startup was launched in December 2018 by four IIT Bombay alumni – Khatabook. Khatabook enables Kirana shops and other businesses which run on credit to not only keep an account of receivables but also send regular reminders to debtors.

What is Khata app?

Khatabook is a mobile app that helps Kirana store owners and small shopkeepers in India manage their finance books by helping them track the money owed to them through the means of a digital ledger. The merchants who onboard will have regional language (like Hindi, Punjabi, Kannada, Tamil) support including an interesting option of ‘Hinglish’.

What is the use of the Khatabook app?

Khatabook lets shop owners have all details of credit-debit for any number of customers across multiple businesses handy on their phone. The app has a reminder feature, it sends reminders through SMS and Whatsapp messages on behalf of merchants when the time is due to collect payments. It also keeps track of due payments which traditionally in India have been done through writing in notebooks.

Is Khatabook Indian app?

Yes, Khatabook is an Indian app with services only in India. They have over 1 crore businesses registered with them covering over 10,000 cities and towns in Indian and they have recorded over 5 lakh crore transactions so far.

Who can use Khatabook?

All shop and medium scale business owners who find it difficult to manage their credits can use Khatabook. It will be highly useful for:

  • Mobile Recharge & Electronics Shops
  • Kirana Shop, Grocery Store, General Store, Provision Store
  • Bakery, Snacks and Juice Shops
  • Jewelry shop and gold seller
  • Local Pharmacy and Medical Store
  • Garments, tailor shop
  • Paan Shops, chai shop, cigarette shop
  • Personal Credit Book Keeping

What are the features of Khatabook?

  • You can add a customer to Khata Book
  • Once added, you can edit customer information
  • Add N number of transactions done by the customer
  • You can edit old transactions of your hisab kitab app
  • In case of wrong entry, delete transactions from your account book
  • Call customer to remind about pending payments directly from KhataBook app
  • Whatsapp customer to inform about pending payments, increase your udhar (debtor) recovery
  • You can keep backup & also restore Khata Book data
  • Add Udhar Jama anytime, anywhere
  • Tally for mobile

Is Khata book free?

Yes, the app is completely free and any business owner can start using the app without any charges or commission. You will have complete access to all the features.

How does it work?

Perhaps the best thing about the app is its user interference and ease of access. You can download the app from the Playstore and log in using your mobile number. The first screen asks you the language in which you want the app to show you details and then you can register using your mobile number.

You need to provide your business name and then you go to your dashboard. On your home screen, you can add customers or people with whom you do business.

 

On your customer page, you can generate the report, make payments, send reminders through WhatsApp or SMS.

As per the company’s report, once the shopkeeper starts using the app, their spending receivables go up by a factor of the half. For example, if a shopkeeper has INR 4 Lakh – INR 5 Lakh outstanding in dues from debtors, he can get back around INR 2 lakh- INR 3 Lakh back in good time because of the various services mentioned above.

How does Khatabook make money?

The company currently does not have any monetization plans and is mainly focussed on user aggregation, instead of monetizing the existing services that it offers. However, in the future, the company has plans to monetize by offering financial services. They may also offer other services like a digital business card that the shopkeepers can share over Whatsapp which has a link to their Khatabook account.

Is Khatabook safe?

The app is completely safe to use, the company claims the user data is not shared with anyone. If you check the Play store rating of the app, it is 4.5, which is a clear sign its users are happy with the app.

The recent controversy

Growthpond Technology, a company that enables digital storefront for small merchants through an app called ‘dukaan’, has served a legal notice to Khatabook and its parent company Kyte Technologies, Inc for copying its logo and interface. Growthpond in the notice has said that Khatabook has published a similar mobile application using the logo and user interface of its app – dukaan. Khatabook created the new app ‘Dukaan by Khatabook’ and had made it live on Play Store last week, while dukaan made a debut two and a half months ago, on June 2.

If you check both the apps on Playstore, it is difficult to differentiate the two. So the allegations look genuine but the true and complete story is not yet out. It’s worth mentioning that Growthpond has been a vendor of Khatabook for the past year who did custom product development and digital marketing campaigns for Khatabook.

Top 5 competitors of Khatabook

Last year in October, Khatabook raised $25 Mn Series A round from GGV Capital, Partners of DST Global, Sequoia India, RTP Ventures, Tencent, Y Combinator, and others. As of today, they have raised $86 million in funding. Though the app is well received and showing great growth in the total number of users and the total number of transactions, it faces a lot of competition from other similar players. We are going to see the top competitors of Khatabook.

The biggest competitor for Khatabook is – OkCredit.

What is OkCredit? If you look at OkCredit it is almost similar to Khatabook when it comes to services. It is a very simple business accounting application for anyone to manage their important financial transactions.

Vyapar App

Vyapar App is a fully GST-compatible business accounting software aimed at simplifying the daily activities of micro & small businesses. This app is used by small businesses for inventory management, billing, & GST filing purposes.

Khata

It is an application to maintain a credit history for both customers and businesses. Khata lets customers view transactions, track data, and track account status. Further, this application offers users unlimited database, bill storage facility, SMS facility, Data Analytics, and monthly reports.

PhoneKhata

PhoneKhata is a secure, safe & reliable replacement of Bahi Khata. It ensures that each and every penny is tracked and recorded reliably. It is a free app for retailers, vendors, or anyone who is giving or receiving money and maintaining records on books.

Paymate

PayMate is an electronic B2B payment platform that allows users to create and send electronic invoices and collect payments. The platform replaces traditional cash, cheque, EFT payments to card-based payments for corporate, facilitating suppliers to be paid out, irrespective of them being a card acquiring merchant.

Are you running a startup? Learn which type of “Startup Funding” You Could Get !!

Related Posts

Search