Clifford Muturi

Founder, Libre Technology. Building Libre Books accounting for Kenyan traders & wholesalers. eTIMS compliance in development. Nairobi 🇰🇪

[Clifford Muturi @CliffordMuturi]

Three weeks of building in public down. Pricing bugs caught and fixed, eTIMS sandbox work started, permissions and multi-user access shipped. Slow, steady, verified at each step rather than just claimed. What's one thing you'd want to see next?

[Clifford Muturi @CliffordMuturi]

Libre Books is built by one person right now. No dev team, no committee diluting decisions. Slower to build but nothing ships or gets claimed that I wouldn't personally stand behind if you asked me directly.

[Clifford Muturi @CliffordMuturi]

Sandbox testing this week reinforced something: eTIMS compliance isn't one feature to bolt on later. It touches invoicing, tax calculation, and reconciliation all at once. Building it in properly takes longer than a demo would suggest worth doing right the first time.

[Clifford Muturi @CliffordMuturi]

Started working through KRA's eTIMS sandbox spec this week. Doesn't need the 3-staff certification requirement we're still building toward the engineering groundwork can happen independently, so we're not sitting idle waiting on a hiring milestone.

[Clifford Muturi @CliffordMuturi]

Most SME owners assume compliance risk is about getting audited. It's really about whether your numbers already match before anyone looks. One is luck. The other is a habit built into how you invoice and record purchases daily.

[Clifford Muturi @CliffordMuturi]

KRA's eTIMS enforcement isn't "wait and see if you get audited" anymore. Mismatches between invoices, returns, and bank activity get flagged automatically first. A human only looks after the system already has. Being audit-ready matters less than having nothing to flag.

[Clifford Muturi @CliffordMuturi]

I'd rather tell you what Libre Books doesn't do yet than let you find out the hard way. Caught our own pricing overstating limits this week, held off claiming "eTIMS compliance" until it's actually confirmed. Slow and honest beats fast and oversold.

[Clifford Muturi @CliffordMuturi]

Next up: starting sandbox testing on KRA's eTIMS integration spec. Full certification needs a technical team we don't have yet but the sandbox itself doesn't wait for that. No reason to sit idle on the part we can actually start.

[Clifford Muturi @CliffordMuturi]

This week: audited our pricing tiers against what the app actually enforces. Found fixed assets had zero plan restriction anywhere, and a couple of limits were overstated. Fixed both, verified live.

[Clifford Muturi @CliffordMuturi]

Found a real bug this week: our pricing page said "unlimited inventory" on a plan actually capped at 200 items. Fixed both. Now display matches what's enforced. Pricing pages that lie by accident are still how trust erodes.

[Clifford Muturi @CliffordMuturi]

A year of compliance ready accounting software costs less than a single minimum eTIMS penalty in Kenya. For a business running on thin margins, this stops being a software decision and starts being insurance math.

[Clifford Muturi @CliffordMuturi]

Two months into building this in public. Multi-user access, bills/payable, validation, permissions all shipped. Still ahead: the eTIMS piece everyone actually waiting for. Getting there.

[Clifford Muturi @CliffordMuturi]

Most feedback I get isn't about features it's about trust. Will this keep working, what happens to my data, can I hand these numbers to my accountant. That's the actual bar for an accounting app: boring and reliable, not impressive.

[Clifford Muturi @CliffordMuturi]

Most feedback I get isn't about features it's about trust. Will this keep working, what happens to my data, can I hand these numbers to my accountant. That's the actual bar for an accounting app: boring and reliable, not impressive.

[Clifford Muturi @CliffordMuturi]

Multi-user access shipped this week invites, roles, permissions that actually hold. Small feature on paper. Big deal for any SME owner who's ever handed their only login to a shop assistant out of necessity.

[Clifford Muturi @CliffordMuturi]

This week's focus: multi-user access inviting a second person, assigning roles, making sure permissions actually hold once someone other than the owner logs in. Most SME owners eventually bring in help. The app needs to work for that, not just solo use.

[Clifford Muturi @CliffordMuturi]

Most SME owners don't struggle with eTIMS because it's complicated. They struggle because it's one more thing bolted onto an already manual process. Fix the process, and compliance stops feeling like extra work.

[Clifford Muturi @CliffordMuturi]

Kenyan SME owners: a month into building this in public what's one thing about running your books or invoicing that still feels harder than it should be? Genuinely collecting these.

[Clifford Muturi @CliffordMuturi]

Most accounting tools in Kenya added eTIMS and M-Pesa reconciliation after the fact. Building the reverse starting from how an SME owner actually runs their day, with compliance built in from the start, not bolted on.

[Clifford Muturi @CliffordMuturi]

Bills and payables shipped this week. Small milestone on paper, but it means the app finally handles both sides of a business's cashflow not just money coming in.