In the dynamic and demanding landscape of Nigerian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), founders face a relentless daily grind. They manage sales, staff, suppliers, and regulatory compliance, often with fragmented tools that hinder rather than help. A new solution, born from deep personal experience, is changing this narrative. Countam, Nigeria's first homegrown accounting+ software, is designed specifically to be the operational backbone these businesses need to not just survive, but thrive.
From FTSE 100 Experience to Nigerian Entrepreneurial Reality
The architect of this innovation is Kemi Osinibi, a management accountant whose career path uniquely prepared her for this mission. She trained not to merely report financial history, but to influence business decisions. This drive took her to roles within FTSE 100 companies in the UK and later across Nigeria's healthcare and oil & gas sectors upon her return.
Throughout her journey, a consistent pattern emerged: businesses with robust accounting systems and clear documentation scaled successfully, while those without them struggled fundamentally. This truth became impossible to ignore when Kemi established and ran her own complex entertainment venture in Nigeria. She sought structure, visibility, and real-time insight, but found only a frustrating patchwork of disconnected tools—one for point-of-sale (POS), another for payroll, a separate accounting package, and features locked behind costly upgrades or tailored for foreign markets.
"You cannot run a real business with disconnected tools," Kemi emphasizes, highlighting the daily chaos of tracking inventory, managing staff, and monitoring profitability simultaneously. She identified a critical gap: many SMEs fail not from a lack of effort or opportunity, but from a lack of clear, actionable information and structural visibility.
Building Countam: An All-in-One "No Wahala" Solution
Driven by her firsthand struggles, Kemi Osinibi made a decisive move. If an integrated system didn't exist for the Nigerian SME context, she would build it. The result is Countam, launched as an all-in-one, SME-specific platform that seamlessly merges Point-of-Sale (POS), payroll, tax compliance, inventory management, and virtual CFO insights into a single, trusted dashboard.
The software is built on a philosophy of simplicity and relevance. It avoids the overwhelming complexity of traditional Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, targeting businesses with annual revenues between ₦50 million and ₦10 billion. Countam provides what Nigerian SMEs genuinely need while eliminating unnecessary features.
Its design is meticulously localised. The chart of accounts aligns with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), tax logic is embedded from the initial setup, and reporting focuses on practical dashboards SMEs actually use. These include virtual CFO overviews, anomaly alerts, forecasts, and audit-ready statements.
Driving Compliance, Confidence, and Growth
The impact of Countam is multifaceted. It serves as a single platform that ensures businesses stay compliant with key regulatory bodies like the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), the Lagos State Internal Revenue Service (LIRS), and the Nigeria Data Protection Act (NDPA).
Beyond compliance, Countam is engineered to unlock growth. By transforming messy, scattered data into clear insights, it helps founders make informed decisions, protect against fraud, streamline operations, and build credibility with banks and potential investors. Its integration with local financial institutions, payment processors, and fintech solutions solidifies its position as the go-to operating software for growing Nigerian businesses.
Kemi Osinibi's vision for Countam is bold yet grounded: to become Nigeria's number one SME accounting+ software by 2028, trusted by financial institutions, regulators, and business owners nationwide. At its core, Countam is more than software; it is the "No Wahala" structure meant to empower founders with clarity, reduce the fear of accounting, and build the financial resilience Nigerian SMEs require to navigate economic turbulence and scale with confidence.
