ERP for startup. Books, payroll and compliance from day one, without hiring a back office.
A startup does not need a back office; it needs the books, payroll and filings to run without a founder awake at midnight. Kinnow has no ready-made startup setup, so we set up the right applications and controls with you in the first two weeks.
Set up with youHow does Kinnow help a startup? You start with the finance core and add what you need: invoices, bills and expenses, bank reconciliation, payroll, GST and TDS preparation, and statements an investor or auditor can read. There is no startup industry setup in the product, so approval limits, who signs off, and reports are set up with you rather than switched on from a ready-made template. Nothing is filed, paid or posted without a person.
Your company, in one paragraph.
There are a handful of people and no finance team. The founder raises invoices, matches the bank statement on a weekend, chases a customer who has not paid and asks the CA what is due this month. Payroll is run from a spreadsheet, and every investor update means stitching a profit and loss from three tools. Buying an ERP feels premature, so the books live in something you will outgrow in a year.
Three things keep the founder awake: a filing date nobody owns, cash that looks fine until payroll week, and a first audit or due diligence that finds the books were never closed properly.
What is configured with you, and what is not a template
We say this plainly because the other industry pages describe a ready-made setup and this one has none.
| Area | What we set up with you | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Applications | Which of the 49 you switch on, per company: typically Masters, Sell, Buy (bills and expenses), Account, People, Comply, Know and Vault | Applications are switched on per company |
| Starter data | A General item group and six payment terms (advance, due on receipt, 7, 15, 30 and 45 days) come with every company | Common starter data |
| Approval limits | Who approves a journal, an invoice or a credit limit, and from what amount. You decide the figures | Limit templates and the approvals designer |
| Industry setup | If you build software, the Tech Product Development setup fits; services firms can start from IT Services or Professional Services. Otherwise none is applied | 15 industry setups exist; none is called Startup |
| Opening position | Masters and opening balances imported in the first week; you can run alongside your current books until a month ties | Migration with a trial balance that must tie |
Tell us your stage and team size; we will propose the first three applications to switch on.
How your month runs on Kinnow
This is set up with you, not a ready-made template: you choose which steps you need.
| Step | Who | What Kinnow does | Where a person approves |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Invoice and collect | Founder | Invoices are raised in Sell; overdue reminders are drafted by days overdue. The customer sees and can dispute an invoice in the customer portal. | Invoices over the limit you set wait for approval. |
| 2. Capture bills and expenses | Founder, ops | The AI Invoice Extractor reads a vendor PDF into bill fields and checks that the amounts add up. Expense claims are approved by someone other than the claimant. | The approver signs; the claimant cannot. |
| 3. Reconcile the bank | Founder | Bank Reconciler pre-matches statement lines to receipts and shows why it matched each one. A line it cannot match gets a journal drafted from your own history, which waits for approval. | An accountant or the founder approves the draft. |
| 4. Run payroll | Founder, HR | PF, ESI, professional tax and salary TDS are calculated in a payroll run. | The run is approved by someone other than the person who prepared it. |
| 5. Watch the filings | Founder, CA | The compliance calendar checks deadlines every night and alerts you 15, 7 and 1 day before each. GST and TDS returns are drafted, and you get a file to upload. | A person reviews and uploads. |
| 6. Close the month | Founder, CA | Every journal is checked to balance before it posts. The close runs twelve checks and seven must pass; the Close Checklist pre-fills the list and drafts notes on what moved. | A person confirms the close. |
| 7. Read the numbers | Founder, investors | Trial balance, profit and loss, balance sheet and cash-flow statement come straight from the books. A weekly digest summarises revenue, collections and alerts. | The founder reviews before anything is shared. |
| 8. Face the audit | Founder, auditor | An audit pack gathers the period status, debtor and creditor confirmation lists, the fixed-asset schedule and each bank account with the date it was last reconciled. | The CA reviews and signs off. |
Agents a startup would start with
Bank Reconciler
Matches bank lines to receipts ahead of time and shows why it matched each one. Lines it is unsure about come up as suggestions only and are never committed on their own.
AccountClose Checklist
Runs the twelve period-close checks, helps clear the ones holding up the close and drafts the commentary on variances. A person confirms the close.
Account / KnowCash-flow Forecaster
Builds a rolling cash forecast for the next 30, 60 and 90 days from post-dated cheques, bills due and how customers have paid in the past, with a range around each figure to show how sure it is.
Sell + AccountCollections
Drafts overdue reminders and steps them up according to how many days a payment is actually late. A person approves each reminder before it goes out.
ComplyFiling Prep
Builds the GSTR-1 file from your books and lists every document it left out, with the reason, for a person to clear before filing.
AccountAI Invoice Extractor
Reads the text of a supplier invoice and fills in the bill for you, checking that the amounts add up before anything is saved.
AccountDouble-entry Validator
Stops any journal entry that does not balance, or that uses a ledger that is not valid, before it can be posted.
VaultAsk Kinnow
Answers questions from your documents and from the records of the applications you use, and only shows what the person asking is allowed to see.
Every agent is validated with each client before it touches their books, and every output waits for a person.
Ask us to run the bank reconciler on one of your own statements.
Statutory calendar for a startup
Alerts go out 15, 7 and 1 day before each filing. GST is prepared and exported for upload; Kinnow does not file on the portal. Dates change by notification, so your CA checks the notified date.
| Obligation | When it falls | What Kinnow prepares |
|---|---|---|
| GSTR-1 | 11th of the next month; 13th for quarterly filers | File built from your sales book |
| GSTR-2B reconciliation, then GSTR-3B | 3B on the 20th | Bills against the portal download, then a draft return and a file to upload |
| TDS deposit | 7th of the next month; 30 April for March | Challan drafts by month and section from your deduction entries |
| TDS returns | 31 July, 31 October, 31 January, 31 May | Quarterly return drafts by form; Kinnow does not file them |
| Payroll | Monthly | PF, ESI, professional tax and salary TDS calculated in a payroll run that a second person approves; PF, ESI and PT return figures prepared from the payslips with gaps listed, not filed |
| E-invoice | On each invoice where your turnover requires it | The e-invoice file, and the reason when the portal rejects one |
What the founder sees
| Ask Kinnow | Answer built from |
|---|---|
| Give me the trial balance as of today | Trial balance |
| How did we do this year? | Profit and loss |
| What is our cash forecast for the next 90 days? | Cash-flow forecast |
| Which customers owe us the most and for how long? | Receivables ageing |
| What is due this week? | Compliance calendar |
Each answer shows its source and what it will cost before it runs. Veil, our privacy layer, holds back bank, tax and ID numbers and swaps names for placeholders before an AI call. It covers Ask Kinnow and most agents today; the rest are being added.
See your own first month-end close on Kinnow.
Questions
Is Kinnow overkill for a ten-person startup?
No, if you start small. There is no licence fee for the ERP or any application, and nothing per user. Every business gets one fixed price, set with a Kinnow partner, and you switch on only the applications you need.
Is there a ready-made Startup setup?
No. Fifteen ready-made industry setups exist and none is for startups. A software company can use Tech Product Development, a services startup can start from IT Services or Professional Services, and we configure the rest with you.
Can I start with accounting and add the rest later?
Yes. Applications switch on per company when you need them. Sales, bills, payroll and compliance share one ledger from the first day, so nothing is migrated twice.
Will it handle our first audit?
It prepares for one. Journals are validated as balanced, the close runs checks before a period locks, and the audit pack gathers confirmation lists, the fixed-asset schedule and bank reconciliation status. Your auditor still decides what they need.
Who files our GST?
Your team or your CA. Kinnow prepares the return and a file to upload; someone reviews it and uploads it on the portal.
How long does set-up take?
About two weeks to first results for one company: masters and opening balances in the first week, agents switched on and a first close in the second.
Show me Kinnow for startup.
Answer three questions. Get the applications, the agents and a two-week plan for your business.