10 years! That’s exactly how long Klaar.me has been on the market, and now seemed like the perfect time to look back on the work we’ve done, the lessons we’ve learned and our funniest moments. Here are the ten insights that I have taken with me along the way.

1. Passion for your profession is the key to success!

Although starting a business can be daunting, it’s a journey that’s extremely exciting and full of opportunities for self-development. If you have a passion for the field, you’re more likely to find success along the way. Personally, I’ve never regretted establishing Klaar.me, and I’m glad that trusted my gut feeling 99% of the time when difficult decisions had to be made.

2. Do you want to be exceptional? Shake up the system and create value!

Through Klaar.me, I’ve wanted to offer more than just the ordinary accounting service. Firstly, the entire service has been built to be paper-free from the beginning and follows the remote service principle in order to offer the most efficient service possible. Secondly, we have in-house expertise in advanced financial management, which we can offer to our clients if needed. This is how we can deliver the value that is expected of us.

3. Your story and brand are important!

Since the early years, Klaar.me has worked with a variety of well-known clients, such as Bolt and Tuul, whose brands are probably known to all Estonians. I liked the fact that they sell their mindset under a single brand name and have really thought it through. I realised that, like them, I needed to package my world of ideas in a way that’s already good and trendy, and that’s how Klaar.me was born. That’s why I decided to make a bigger investment in the early years and create a proper and meaningful branding. I’m grateful that my mentor at the time, Ivar Siimann, introduced me to the branding genius that is Roland Uus, who helped make Klaar.me look exactly like its soul!

4. Developing the sector is an essential part of the mission!

Before establishing Klaar.me, I worked as an auditor and saw that the average level of accounting on the market was weak. I had a realisation and a sense of purpose that this was an area that could and should be developed. Along the way, I’ve put a lot of emphasis on education and, in addition to my day-to-day
work, I’ve put more emphasis on average on attending conferences, panels and writing industry-specific opinion and blog articles to help colleagues and clients along the way.

5. The winners in a digital society are the ones who adapt fast and make the digitality work for them!

Accounting software, automation tools and digital platforms have helped make working faster, more efficient and accurate for us and our clients alike. This has been our competitive advantage on the market from the early days until today. We have found a powerful and important partner in digitality, not something that takes our work away, which is often feared. We’re open-minded and always looking for new digital solutions and partners to help us create even more value in accounting. For our clients, we apply a layered software approach, i.e. the basis is always accounting software, but it’s complemented by different business management software, which paints an adequate complete picture of the business.

6. The people and team around you are important!

The success story of Klaar.me was created in cooperation with the best in their field! Every business has its life cycle and life stages, and just like in real life, different people fit into these stages, and that’s when they can create value. Some for longer and others for a shorter time. Everyone has their time and place, and I’m extremely grateful that we’ve been able to create an exceptional service together!

7. Give yourself time and forgive yourself if your plans don’t go as expected.

Being an entrepreneur has taught me to be patient! Every process has its own development path and unfortunately you cannot jump ahead of your own path. In business, I’ve always thought several steps ahead and had ambitious plans, but you have to give yourself time to realise these plans and also make plans that are realistic. That’s a skill in itself!

8. Leave room for reflection and personal development

For this, I’ve involved mentors who’ve given valuable information about my development as an entrepreneur and entrepreneurship. I feel that in the meantime, you need to experience the harsh reality, that somebody else would also see the bottlenecks in business and help you think about how to fix them.
The involvement of a mentor has definitely brought important moments to my story as an entrepreneur, because it’s made me think differently or develop my business in a significantly. As a sporty girl, I really connected with the thought of one of my mentors: “You have good ideas, now put your trainers on and just get it done.” And I did get it done! Here, I am sending sincere and big greetings to my mentors through the years – Ivar Siimann, Kaarel Krinal, Gristel Tali, Argo Rannamets and the Fontes Development Programme.

9. People’s satisfaction comes first!

For me, the people of Klaar.me have always been priority number one. Whether they’re employees, partners or clients. I believe it’s important that our people feel valued, that they have enough challenges and their salaries are motivating. If everything is fine “at home”, this is also felt outside, i.e. it’s also directly related to customer satisfaction.
At Klaar.me, we work on the basis of teams, but putting these teams together is a challenge for any manager! Over the years, my bedtime reading has evolved into a variety of books on personality and psychology. Just to develop my gut instinct and to be able to create financial teams that work together at a high level, are efficient and always have a good working atmosphere.

10. Sky is never the limit!

I’ve always been ambitious – my personal development, and obliviously the development of Klaar.me, give me a thrill! My secret wish has been to put Estonian accounting on the map. We’ve already developed a service that makes the financial side of running a business smooth and reliable. Over the years, I’ve realised that such a service would also be of great benefit in other parts of the world. So I’ve always kept it in the back of my mind and made management decisions and business development ideas with this ambitious plan in mind. I look forward to seeing what the next ten years will bring!

References:

• Introduction of Klaar.me services – LINK
• BIG PERSONA STORY | Liis Laanesaar: Estonian accounting landscape needs to be refreshed – LINK
• Liis Laanesaar, CEO of Klaar.me: We’ve made the business and accounting processes of our clients significantly more efficient – LINK
• LISTEN | Money Matters Made Simple: Will digitisation leave accountants out of work? – LINK