From Chartered Accountant to Coder: My Journey into ERPNext

I qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 2012 and later worked as a banker, but I always had a product-driven, innovative mindset. I wanted to enable ease of doing business by automating tasks—things like automated accounting when payments are received or made, seamless transaction processing, and interconnected business systems to spend less time towards data entry and exchange (my initial thoughts published in below image). Hence started my entrepreneurship journey in late 2019.

To achieve this, I initially planned to build an ERP from scratch integrating banking (neobank) and e-commerce solutions to create an ecosystem of digital services (inspired by Jack Ma to create Alibaba of India). With no background of Software Engineering, I started building a tech team. Since building an ERP was a big project, with the hope of securing some funds, we built a mutual fund investment app (this is still part of the treasury management solution offered). This was our first experiment into fintech, we further launched our bill payments service, and more using Java Springboot and other technologies.

Discovering ERPNext 🚀

In Dec 2020, a year into my entrepreneurship journey while exploring DigitalOcean, I stumbled upon ERPNext, an open-source ERP founded by Rushabh Mehta. A quick glance, and I was intrigued. His vision for an open, community-driven ERP resonated with me. More importantly, I saw that ERPNext that's built on Frappe Framework had an API-first approach, making it highly flexible for automation and integration—exactly what I was looking for. That played a key role in my decision to start using it.

My teammate, Salih, helped me understand coding, how software works, and deployment, and we began experimenting with ERPNext to build our neobank prototype.

Taking the Leap into Coding

My first piece of code? A simple algorithm for our mutual fund investment platform using Frappe Framework. It gave me a glimpse into the world of coding and the framework. But when Salih moved on to another opportunity, I had to make a choice—find another tech lead or dive into coding myself. I chose the latter.

I started writing code to migrate our Mutual Fund and Bill Payments backend infrastructure from Java Springboot to Frappe and continued building our neobanking platform using Frappe. We launched a working version of the neobanking platform with payments and accounting integrated into ERPNext. Later, I single-handedly built the ONDC Seller app, helping businesses sell via ONDC. While Frappe incubated and supported us in this project, we struggled with market fit. Our other fintech experiments also didn't turn out as expected.

Finding Market Fit & the Shift to Consultancy

As a bootstrapped company we have limited resources and limited time, further acquiring and servicing users digitally proved challenging. But during this journey, we found a market fit—our first enterprise client, Lifelong, approached us for ONDC onboarding. Working closely with them helped me understand ERP implementation journey. I also started getting connected with the Frappe's team and the community.

I realised that ERPNext is powerful, but implementation is an art. It requires a consultancy-driven approach rather than a generic software distribution model. This realisation led me to pivot towards providing ERPNext consultancy, ensuring sustainable growth while still keeping my long-term vision alive.

The Road Ahead

Looking back, coding was never part of my plan, but it became the tool that transformed my journey. Today, I help businesses leverage ERPNext effectively, bridging finance, operations, and technology to drive real impact.

But the long-term vision is still intact. Building great products takes time, and scaling them requires resources. By focusing on a sustainable ERPNext consultancy model, we are creating the financial stability needed to consistently allocate budgets for future innovations. Every step forward is a step toward achieving that bigger goal.

🚀 From finance to banking to ERP and coding—this journey has been unexpected but fulfilling. If you're exploring ERPNext or need guidance on implementation, let’s connect!