Tiime, the inspiring French fintech that is moving off the beaten track

© Tiime < p>Tiime, a French fintech specializing in accounting software, has chosen not to call on any external investors. This has not prevented it from doubling its revenues in 2023, a sign of a solid business model, focused on customer experience.

A pioneer in online accounting

Tiime develops a suite of applications and software that cover the entire accounting chain, from electronic invoicing to cash flow management, purchasing management and even the pro account. If the platform positions itself as a major player in the digital transformation of the accounting sector in France, it is in particular thanks to the expertise of its management.

Tiime's ancestor, l-expert-comptable.com, was created in 2009 and established itself at the time as a pioneer in online accounting expertise. But the team is then faced with a major problem: how to retrieve its customers' bank statements, how to interact with them directly from the platform? To resolve this problem, the company develops an internal tool that is enjoying enormous success.

In 2015, this tool became a spin-off, then a real company called Tiime. ” From 2015 to 2018, we redeveloped the tool from scratch. It must become universal and correspond to all types of entrepreneurs and accounting firms “, explains Maxime Digue, co-founder of Tiime, in an interview with Presse-citron.

Three axes are then favored: the mobile experience, the convergence between banking, payment and accounting uses and finally, artificial intelligence (AI). In 2017, Tiime launched the first accounting AI in France, based on machine learning. Its marketing, in the form of a subscription, begins in 2018.

What does Tiime offer, exactly ?

Defining itself as a leading company in accounting software, Tiime offers its users the ability to coordinate their bank accounts. ” Let's say you have an account at BNP, Caisse d'Épargne and Qonto, for example, you can synchronize them all. From there, our algorithms recognize them and transform them into accounting entries “, explains the co-founder. This means that the user no longer has to manually enter cash movements, because the system takes care of it automatically.

Similarly, the platform is able to automatically manage supporting documents such as restaurant vouchers. Simply photograph them and the AI ​​will analyze the document and automatically extract important information such as the amount, date or supplier. This data is then linked to the corresponding bank transactions, without any manual entry.

Features are also offered for invoicing and collection, drastically simplifying administrative management. From their smartphone, the user can create and send quotes or invoices directly to their customers, avoiding having to go through a computer or print and send the documents physically. It is also possible to generate payment links so that customers can quickly pay them online.

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Finally, other modules complete the offer, for example for expense reports. A complete dashboard also provides a synthetic view of cash flow, customer monitoring and all the company's key data.

© Tiime

A long-term vision

The road borrowed by Tiime to develop all its tools is rare in the fintech field. The company has indeed opted for a bootstrapping development model, meaning that no external investor intervenes in its activities. While such a strategy comes with its share of difficulties, such as budgetary limitations in terms of recruitment or marketing, the company does not regret it at all.

«& nbsp;We know our market very well and want to be in it for the long term. Investors, for their part, need to be profitable quickly, regardless of customer satisfaction. The goal is to cash out quickly, and the question of increasing prices, which is sometimes crazy, comes up very quickly “, says Maxime Digue.

Tiime, for its part, intends to keep its prices at a reasonable level. The monthly subscription is currently set at 14.99 euros. Since September 3, the company has even revolutionized its business model by making all its applications free for users subscribing to its professional account. In the same vein, the firm does not have the ambition to internationalize, unlike many of its competitors.

« Accounting is a complex and very local sector, different in every country. The barrier to entry is not easy to make good accounting software. The market in France is already very large, and we believe we can bring a lot of additional things ”, confides the manager.

It’s a dynamic that works: in 2023, Tiime doubled its revenues, reaching a turnover of 32 million euros, “ while maintaining impressive profitability ”. ​It has more than 200,000 customers in France.

The time has come for generative AI

Like many companies in the tech sector, Tiime is closely interested in the rise of large language models (LLM). “Today, we are able to perform VAT calculations almost instantly and automatically. When it is done manually, which is in 90% of cases, this task can take 20 minutes “, explains Maxime Digue.

Thus, it continues to explore a large number of use cases, and plans new features based on technology starting next year, such as the ability to generate company statuses when accountants have to create boxes. Also on the program, the possibility for an entrepreneur to pay his employees' pay slips with a single click.

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