Industries · Family businesses preparing for investors
Family businesses preparing for investors
- What will be running
- Official ERP as the single source, internal controls agent, continuous audit agent reporting monthly
- By when
- First agent live in 30 days; MIS adequacy in 6 months; audit-ready books in 12
- What it saves
- Target: statutory audit queries cut by half and the investor timetable held, agreed in writing
Works with what you already have
What runs on Excel today
You plan to list on NSE Emerge or BSE SME in two to three years. The merchant banker has given you the list: three years of restated financials, an ERP that is the single source, MIS the board reads, internal financial controls that can be tested, an audit trail.
This is what you have. Tally for the statutory books, kept by the accounts team and the CA. Excel for everything that runs the business: production, stock, costing, sales targets, receivables. Informal records, often a diary or a second spreadsheet, for advances, cash purchases, contractor payments and family-related transactions. The three do not reconcile. Nobody has needed them to.
The board is the family. The MIS is a WhatsApp message from the accounts head on the 10th. The statutory audit takes six weeks because the auditor is reconstructing the year.
None of this is unusual. It is how most ₹100 to ₹1,000 Cr family businesses in India run, and they run well. It is not what an exchange, a merchant banker or a QIB will accept. Closing that gap is the work.
What we deploy
Agents, not features. Each one is listed when it is live.
Official ERP core
Makes one system the source for orders, purchases, production, stock and receivables, with Tally kept as the ledger until cut-over. Each Excel file is absorbed or retired, in an agreed order. You see the daily position on your phone by 9 am; the board sees a monthly MIS the auditor has already reconciled.
Internal controls agent
Enforces the controls the auditor will test: approval limits, segregation of duties, three-way match on purchases, rate changes with sign-off, related-party transactions documented. A transaction that bypasses a control is logged, not blocked, so the business keeps moving and the exception stays visible. Weekly exception list on Monday.
Ledger completeness agent
Captures the transactions that today sit in the diary or the second spreadsheet, with date, amount, counterparty and approver, and reconciles them against bank and cash book weekly. Your CA gets a complete record to regularise and tax where due. Weekly reconciliation summary.
Continuous audit agent
Runs the internal audit checklist nightly. Monthly report in the format the SME auditor and the merchant banker's due diligence team expect, on the 3rd. Exceptions found the day they occur.
What it saves
Audit queries. When records arrive reconciled, the query list shrinks and the audit shortens. Target: statutory audit queries cut by half in the first full cycle, and audit duration cut by a third.
Restatement cost. Three years of restated financials from unreconciled records is the most expensive line in a listing or an investor budget after the merchant banker. Every month the controls layer runs is a month nobody has to reconstruct. Target: restatement for the current year reduced to a review.
The timetable. A listing that slips a year because the MIS failed due diligence costs a year's growth in valuation, and sometimes the window. Target: the listing timetable held.
Before we build, we agree one of these in writing with a number against it. If it is not met in 90 days, AgentJi keeps working at no charge for up to 90 more days until it is. The guarantee covers the first agent.
The guarantee
In writing, before we build.
One number for the first agent, how it is measured, and the date. Not met in 90 days from go-live, we keep working at no charge for up to 90 more days until it is.
How the first 30 days go
We visit the plant and the head office. We sit with the accounts head, the person who keeps the second spreadsheet, the supervisor who fills the production logbook, and your CA. We read the merchant banker's checklist together.
Internal controls agent scoped against that checklist. Approval limits and signatories agreed with the family. Ledger completeness agent built on the existing diary format.
Internal controls agent live on purchases. First weekly exception list. Ledger completeness agent recording in parallel.
Weekly brief starts. ERP core scoped module by module, with your auditor's requirements as the specification. Audit checklist agreed with the statutory auditor.
Questions promoters ask
What does being investor-ready mean for a family business in India?
In practice, four things the merchant banker and the exchange will test: an ERP that is the single source of financial data, MIS the board uses, internal financial controls that work and can be shown to work, and an audit trail. AgentJi builds the systems. Your merchant banker and CA handle the filings.
Our books are in Tally and Excel with some informal records. Is that a problem for an SME listing?
It is the normal starting point. The problem is not Tally or Excel; it is that they do not reconcile and the informal records are in no system at all. We build one source, capture the informal records so your CA can regularise them, and make the controls visible. Nothing is hidden. Everything is accounted for.
Is internal audit automation accepted by SEBI and the auditors?
The audit agent does the internal audit work: continuous testing of controls, exception reports, reconciliations. Your statutory auditor and your internal auditor still sign their reports. They receive reconciled records and a monthly exception list instead of reconstructing the year.
Do we need ERP for a family business in India before we start the listing process?
You need it before due diligence, which starts 12 to 18 months before listing. Starting now gives the system a full year of clean data, which is what the restated financials are built from. Starting later means reconstructing that year by hand.
Tell us where the money leaks.
Tell us where the money leaks. A 30-minute call: we ask about the business, you ask about us. If AgentJi is not the right answer we will say so and tell you who is.