Keez has all the ingredients to bring accounting services into the 21st Century: digital, cloud, mobile, machine learning, AI

One year ago, Daniel Mateescu and two angel investors launched a product that revolutionised the accounting business from the very beginning: online accounting on mobile and desktop. What started as merely a bold idea has proven to be a profitable business that has more than half of a million euros in revenues and 400 clients, mostly small and medium-sized enterprises.

Until last year, accounting services were frozen in a “last century” paradigm. Entrepreneurs used to collect invoices and receipts in a box, and then, early the following month, they would ship them all to their accountant for processing. And that was only one part of the problem.

Today, Keez brings accounting into the 21st century. CEO Daniel Mateescu and his team were able to add ingredients like digital, cloud, mobile, machine learning, and AI to the accounting business. In fact, Keez delivers to the market a “service + technology” package that changes the way entrepreneurs approach their firm’s accounting. They have their entire company in their pocket, on their mobile phone: all the documents and all the reports are available to them real time via the Keez Mobile App, which works on both Android and iOS.

All it takes to benefit from Keez’s online accounting services is taking a picture with a mobile phone. However, turning a picture of an invoice or a receipt into an accounting document in just a few seconds involves the deployment of a great deal of technology. Keez built a software robot that uses a “pattern recognition” tool to automatically process all the documents which it has been trained to recognise. Training the robot requires a lot of history and algorithm work. For example, Keez is now able to automatically process fuel receipts from large retailers like OMV, MOL or Rompetrol thanks to a history of almost 4,000 processed images. The same procedure is followed with other documents that can fit in a certain pattern. At the end of the process, the accuracy of the data is verified by one of the accountants at Keez.

“We managed to transform accounting from a chore into a management tool. Keez has eliminated the need for parallel reports because any management report is immediately available on the mobile phone. Furthermore, our quality control systems imply processes where at least two accountants check and validate every recording and all financial statements filed online with the authorities are signed by “CECCAR” certified accountants,” said Daniel Mateescu, the CEO of Keez.

More than 400 entrepreneurs have found Keez’s business proposition attractive and have signed up for their online accounting services. The client profile shows a young entrepreneur who is no more than 45 years old, has a strong digital footprint and a good understanding of the benefits or “real-time” information. The company’s client profile consists mainly of micro-enterprises, but Keez is able to service larger companies as well (Keez has several clients in its portfolio that are close to the EUR 10 million turnover threshold).

The complete online accounting services are rendered via 4 standard monthly subscription packages, with the majority of Keez clients having selected the “Start” package, which is dedicated to companies with 3 employees and 40 monthly documents. The “Mini” package, dedicated to startups, has been popular as well – in this context, Keez has set up a partnership with BCR/Erste, in which companies that have a contract approved by the bank thorugh the Start-Up Nation programme can benefit from 6 months of cost-free services.

Keez’s partnerships with banks do not stop here. Recently, Libra Internet Bank has launched its first version of an open banking platform and Keez is the first accounting firm to use the bank’s platform to automatically take over its customers’ balances and transaction history.

Keez is a tech and accounting startup marching on the right path: they made more than 500,000 EUR turnover in 2018, they are profitable, and their client portfolio is growing at a sustainable pace. CEO Daniel Mateescu forecasts an EUR 800,000 turnover in 2019, possibly even reaching EUR 1 million if the second round of financing goes as planned.