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Ask IH: Would you use a service that automates accounting and bookkeeping for SaaS companies?

I've just started a company with Stripe Atlas, which was really streamlined and easy. I was a little surprised to learn that I'll need to pay an accountant thousands of dollars to file my corporate income taxes. I knew I would need help from attorneys and accountants, but it feels like most of this should have been automated by now. If I use Bench, I'll also need to spend $115 per month for bookkeeping.

I'm running a pretty simple SaaS app. I take payments via Stripe, spend money on Heroku and AWS, and... not much else. I feel like it shouldn't be that hard to automate my bookkeeping and automatically e-file IRS Form 1120 (and Form 5472.)

I'm thinking about building a service that does this for small SaaS startups, and companies that make money from mobile apps. I've put up a landing page: https://www.nanobooks.co

I just need to validate the idea before I start writing any code or working with accountants. Please leave a comment (or sign up for the mailing list) if this is something you need, or would have used in the past. I'd also love to hear any feedback, or advice about how I could validate the idea

Thanks very much!

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    I find it easier to hire an accountant than to use a tool. Edit: there are cheaper accountants if you're not doing huge volume.

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    I think the idea is great. But, I wonder how many indie businesses have a corporation set up (and the burden of large tax filing fees)...

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      if you don't you're missing out.. Any solo indie business should be filing as an S Corp when they reach a certain amount of income. My accountant had me do this and it has saved me an absolute mountain in taxes.

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      Thanks, that's something I'm also wondering! Stripe Atlas makes it so easy to set up a company for $500, so maybe if the accounting side was also automated, then more people would set up corporations.

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        We have used Atlas to setup a company and it is FANTASTIC! The issue I have here is that I already pay an accountant to do all of this for me so I wouldn't be your target market. Even though I pay my accountant about $700/yr to file my corporate taxes, he saves me much much more. Making it hard to switch even for a very small monthly fee.

        The problem I see with taking on an accountant is a good one makes you money.