Now, a Payment Gateway for Housing Societies

Nikita Peer

When Venkat Kandaswamy and Sangeeta Banerjee bought a 3BHK apartment in Bangalore in 2007, his housing society was plagued with water-logging. But Kandaswamy had no way to rally the residents to fix the problem. Most of them worked nine to five jobs and he couldn't get in touch with them.

Thanks to this pressing civic issue in a Bangalore housing society, residential complexes across the country now manage their accounting systems, facility management and communication via an app called Apartment Adda. You see, Kandaswamy, a software engineer, was so fed up that he developed the software, which automates every aspect of managing a residential complex. "That's why we call it an apartment-management software," beams Kandaswamy, who quit a high-profile job as a Principal Consultant at ThoughtWorks to develop this ERP solution.

Welcome To The Adda
Kandaswamy developed his app with a seed capital of Rs 10 lakh and launched it in 2008. The portal not only makes accounting and collecting dues a breeze, it also makes facility management super-easy and creates communication channels between flat owners, tenants and the managing committee. While the core software computes the society's budget, balance sheet, calculates taxes and tots up maintenance dues, other features like a compliant tracker and SMS and email alert system send out reminders on debts and dues, notices on water shortage, building repairs and a virtual notice board notifies residents of festival celebrations, meetings and other events.

Payment Gateway A Hit
Not surprisingly, the Apartment Adda website has testimonials from a legion of grateful flat owners, tenants and Management Committee members. Anil Danti, President of Brigade Metropolis Society, says, "Our maintenance collection has improved to a great extent and 60 per cent of defaulters made their payments after invoice implementation." This, he adds, is thanks largely due to the ‘payment gateway’ facility on the app.

Vivek Hippargi, an office-bearer of Purvi Residency Society gleefully remarks, "The pain of association office-bearers is gone!" while Samir Malik, president of Sobha Quartz Society says half the complex residents had logged into the app within just two weeks of it going live.

Running The Pilot
Kandaswamy says after developing the software, the company ran a pilot in their own complex and received valuable feedback. They also presented a demo to friends and got users who were willing to pay for a premium version. "One always enjoys an advantage when starting a tech-related company in Bangalore as it is full of software engineers and forward-thinking people who offered a lot of useful suggestions."

There is no underestimating the need for an app like this. “In the last few years, the number of apartments per housing complex has mushroomed. While there were once 15 apartments per complex in Bangalore, a township can now comprise as many as 3,000 apartments, says Kandaswamy.

Revenue Model
Once a housing society signs up with Apartment Adda, it can use certain basic features related to communication. But to access premium features – which are the soul of the app – there’s a fee. For instance, Premium Management costs Rs 10 per flat per month, Premium Billing Rs 12, and Premium Pro which comprises Management, Billing and Accounting, costs Rs 15.

The software prepares bills and collects maintenance fees on behalf of the society. "A 200-apartment complex collects about Rs 75 lakh to Rs 1 crore in three years. There is a need to manage the accounts, which is done by our income-and-expense tracker. For this feature, the complex has to invest Rs 5,100 per complex to build a payment gateway."

Slow But Steady
Apartment Adda software is already very popular in Bangalore, where 80 per cent of all large apartment complexes are already premium users. The company's smallest customer is Mary Apartments in Mumbai which has 15 apartments while the largest is a township in Bangalore with over 3,000 apartments. The app currently has 2,000 housing societies across 50 cities signed up, of which 30 per cent are premium users.

Despite these encouraging figures, Apartment Adda says adding new societies takes time. "Our product has a very long sales cycle because introducing it to new societies depends on when they meet. The Management Committee meets only on weekends and meetings are often cancelled and postponed. On average, we are able to add 200 clients a month, of which, 20 per cent convert to premium users," reveals Sangeeta Banerjee, Co-Founder, Apartment Adda.

Go Adda, Go!
It's a long way from trying to find a solution to water-logging to facing a challenge like creating a neighbourhood e-governance system. But that’s how far Kandaswamy has come. "We are now experimenting on connecting neighbouring apartment complexes by making the Management Committee members of adjacent buildings part of the apex-level adda. Social leaders in a locality will then be able to focus on leadership rather than getting lost in the nitty-gritty of running housing societies," says Kandaswamy.