Free e-invoicing and accounting software for Malaysian SMEs – Wired PR Lifestyle Story
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After spending at least half of his life working and studying in the US, Max Lee, Syaheedah Jes Izman and Eong Tat Ooi finally decided it was time to return to Malaysia.
While working in New York, they met many successful Malaysians who were reluctant to return due to a lack of opportunities, especially in the fintech and software scene.
“But we decided to come back because we believe we can create that opportunity for ourselves and other Malaysians as well,” Max said in our interview.
Combining their experience in financial and software engineering, they built a system called Adequate and launched on May 31, 2021. It is intended to help other businesses transact electronic invoicing, billing, and payments through a network effect.
What is Pantas?
On the surface, Pantas looked like a cloud-based accounting software on the market that is not lacking in Malaysia or around the world. Here, we have options like Funded and Bukku, which also offer e-invoicing features, and have been around for a long time.
Pantas, however, is a little different, as Max and Eeong, who are the company’s CEO and CEO, respectively, explained to me. Most other companies have shared that even though they claim to provide electronic invoices, they simply create PDF documents that a user needs to send via email or WhatsApp. A quick check on the websites of other Malaysian e-invoicing companies has confirmed this.
With Pantas, the whole process is integrated into the system, and it offers extreme billing, billing and payment software.
Pantas ’end-to-end transaction system is not a new concept, as there are such software in the West. But its founders have shared that they have decided to launch the system here because they see it missing in the SEA.
“We see many opportunities in SEA to provide similar services, and now our solution is tailored and localized to the Malaysian market or SEA market,” they said.
Here’s how it works
To make it more digestible, we will use the terms A and B or simply A and B.
Tell A that B will send you an invoice, that B will receive and accept the invoice. It will then be reported in the A statement.
When it’s time to pay, Pantas will remind Company B of the maturity date.
Once paid, B will be able to upload the receipt to Pantas so that both parties can track the transaction, which will be reflected in the software’s integrated accounting systems.
Pantas therefore operates in a network effect by which the value or usability that a user derives from a good or service depends on the number of users who use the products. Think Facebook doesn’t work as a social network if there aren’t enough users on it.
Therefore, in order for A to be able to invoice, invoice and invoice electronically, as all actions are reflected in Pantas, all their customers and suppliers should use the same software.
What happens then if the provider of A, let’s call them C, doesn’t want to use Pantas? Well, the correct answer is that A and C should be done manually.
There, invoices are sent by e-mail, and transactions must be manually recorded in the accounting systems. Some businesses don’t mind this, but for those who do, Pantas offers users a better and faster way to do these processes.
Building a network of users
“The incentive here is that we offer Pantas for free, so it’s in the best interest of our customers to include all other customers and suppliers as well to save time,” Max said.
But I was still hesitant, as most accounting software companies charge a subscription fee for companies to use the service. So how does Pantas win?
Max shared that the team is building a funding service in the backend, which will come with a fee.
Using Pantas, its algorithm will track a company’s billing, billing, and payment history. This will serve as a proxy for a company’s income and outflow, which will help Pantas determine the credit quality of a business by providing financing, such as loans.
The team represents this feature as a one-click financing solution for users, which will be a way for Pantas to make money.
Pantas ’main service will be free for life, and to guarantee customers, it has verified that it has partnered with MDEC, CEDAR (a subsidiary of SME Bank) and SME Corp.
“They did the due diligence to verify that it took them several months to get full approval because they had to be absolutely sure that Pantas was helpful, and that it was safe and really free,” Max said.
Having that protection at their service has been one of the ways Pantas has been able to scale so fast so far. So far, 723 users have joined. If Pantas wants to grow its network at an even faster rate, targeting corporations can be a good strategy.
Time funding
Initially launched by 3 founders, Pantas also closed a round of funding when it was launched.
It was able to raise $ 1.53 billion, or about RM6 million, from venture capitalists (VCs) in New York and Europe, private equity and hedge fund investors. Max reported that 80% of that funding group came from abroad, and the rest from 2 Malaysian companies (now also using Pantas).
They decided to look for financing so early in the operations because, Max and Eeong stated that the company had time to build its own financing system, which would bring in revenue.
“We need time to build that, because there are regulators and banks involved,” Max said. “So the funding will give us the capital to support the business before we can make money.”
For now, Pantas will focus on developing its solutions as a basis for Malaysia, but the founders are ultimately aiming to expand the solution to the rest of the SEA market through countries like Indonesia and Thailand.
Featured Image Credit: Max Lee, Syaheedah Jes Izman and Eong Tat Ooi, Founders of Pantas
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