The booming business of bookkeeping apps in Indonesia

Check out our top articles for the week. [Read from your browser]( Top Stories of The Week Hello {NAME} , The first impression I had when I saw the emergence of bookkeeping apps in Indonesia, such as BukuWarung, BukuKas, and Credibook, is that they were just copying similar apps in India like Khatabook or OkCredit. Other than the similarities in their services, the user and funding growth of these local apps are just as quick as their Indian peers. However, in the course of writing [this story]( I realized that it’s actually not just a simple task of copy and pasting the business model. One of the big differences is that the Indonesian apps were launched as sales and expense trackers, rather than accounts receivable and accounts payable trackers like Khatabook and OkCredit. With the limitation of the payment ecosystem in Indonesia, local platforms also face more challenges to monetize their users. But the opportunity is there. In fact, Khatabook actually wanted to expand to Indonesia last year by creating an app called BukuUang. However, the service has been closed, and the CEO decided to invest in BukuWarung instead. Right now, the focus of local bookkeeping apps is squarely on fine-tuning their products and monitoring their competitors on what features they’re launching and what markets they’re approaching. The result will depend on the execution. With a tide of funding coursing into the space,, the competition will no doubt be interesting. -- Aditya Hadi, journalist at Tech in Asia  ---------------------------------------------------------------  THE BIGGEST STORIES 1️. [The VC-fueled race to become Indonesia’s dominant digital bookkeeper]( Players believe it isn't a winner-takes-all space and that there is opportunity for them to coexist and become dominant in different niches. 2️. [Hunting for deals: the rise of VC scouts in SEA]( Following in the footsteps of Sequoia Capital, VC firms in Southeast Asia have started offering scout programs to help with deal sourcing and train VC aspirants. 3. [Why these ex-Grab, Stripe, StanChart execs banded together to start a company]( Tazapay helps SMEs remove roadblocks that get in the way of trading with international partners. 4. [Gobi Partners, Warner Music invest in Philippine esports entertainment firm]( Tier One Entertainment will use the funds to hire back-end teams and set up its first content creation hub in the Philippines. 5. [Near-deaths, pivots, and an IPO: the evolution of India’s top gaming company]( Multiple pivots made over the years mark the many lives of this gaming company which has become the first of its kind to go public in India. 6. [Visualizing the size of Grab]( Grab’s US$40 billion valuation puts it in the big leagues of mobility and delivery companies in Southeast Asia and around the world. 7. [Indonesia’s ecommerce logistics giants brace for a price war]( As these companies raise funds in the hundreds of millions of dollars and secure valuations worth a billion or more, a price war may be imminent. 8. [Retrace the forgotten history of Grab with this timeline]( A lot of the incidents we've highlighted have been forgotten by most. 9. [How a drastic pivot saved one of India’s newest unicorns]( Messaging platform Gupshup is one of India’s latest unicorns, but it’s also the oldest in the bunch, surviving an arduous path to the billion-dollar club. 10. [Sizing up Zomato, India’s food delivery app]( India’s largest food delivery app is set to go public. 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