A Chat With Eduard Panteleev, Co-Founder and Co-CEO at ANNA Money

Tell us about ANNA…

ANNA is an all-in-one business account that also does invoicing, expenses, bookkeeping and taxes. We launched in 2018 (with a cool miaowing debit card!) because we felt that small businesses in the UK weren’t getting the support they needed.

At first we focused principally on the business account, but we’ve expanded to provide a lot of integrated bookkeeping and tax services because, very often, the relationship between business account and tax software isn’t joined up. We think businesses deserve better.

What do you think makes this company unique?

There are a couple of things. ANNA is unique in that it uses a chat interface, so if a customer wants something, they just ask in normal conversational language. The majority of these requests can be fulfilled by AI, but if the AI can’t handle what the customer is asking for, the request is seamlessly passed onto our Customer Experience agents in Cardiff.

This means that the customer has support whenever they want it, and our agents normally respond to questions in under a minute, which explains why our Trustpilot rating is so good!

ANNA also offers Tax SAAS (Software As A Service) integrated into a business account, which we consider groundbreaking and pretty unique.

How has the company evolved over the last couple of years?

In the past two years we’ve increased revenue 4x and accelerated our growth 2x. We’ve launched our +Taxes proposition – which includes automated payroll, automatic VAT calculations and filings – and we’ve launched a Corporation Tax filing service. We’ve also gone international and acquired a company in Australia and we’re preparing to launch there.

But keeping our sense of fun and brand identity as we grow and evolve is a priority too – last year we launched a new feature, where the app makes a ‘Woof’ noise when a business has a payment land in their account. It’s our way of helping SMEs to celebrate the small wins.

So we’ve been busy!

What can we hope to see from ANNA in the future?

The next step in ANNA’s journey is to become a fully fledged AI accountant and advisor to business owners. Essentially, the AI will learn how the business runs and this information will be used alongside financial insights to help customers navigate their business finances in an organised, optimised and efficient way. Accounts will be analysed in real-time, with accounting advice tailored to each specific business – eg. how they can make savings in December when sales are usually low.

The potential for the ANNA of the future is huge – that “accountant in your pocket” is just going to get smarter and more useful. ANNA’s goal is to support businesses worldwide with its cutting-edge technology and user-friendly platforms. The more advanced the tech becomes, the more capability there is and the more potential to deliver on a huge scale while still maintaining exceptional customer service.

Our aim is to be a category leader in tax SAAS services integrated with business accounts – we want to become a solid part of the market infrastructure for SMEs in the UK and beyond.