How accounting firm Global Connectors added $55k in annual revenue by launching its own SaaS

Global Connectors is an accounting and consulting firm in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire. Its founder, Ulrich, is an expert consultant in business management, structuring, and development who has advised small and mid-sized businesses since 2016. His firm handles outsourced bookkeeping, tax filing, and audits for more than 100 client companies across the region. For years he asked business owners the same question: what did you make last quarter? Most could not answer. The software that could give them that answer existed, but it was built for Europe and priced for European budgets.

Ulrich built Compta 360, a full ERP SaaS, by himself in a month on Hercules, with no coding background. It saved him $100k he had been quoted by outsourced developers, cut 200 hours a month of manual work at his own firm, and added $55k a year in new SaaS revenue within its first two months on the market.

With Hercules, it's like talking to my own developer. Every time I put an idea in, it builds it. I didn't copy Odoo, I didn't look at SAP. I built something authentic based on what I know about my customers.

Saving $100k on outsourced software development

Ulrich had wanted to build his own accounting software since 2023. SAP, Odoo, and Sage were built for Europe and were never sufficiently adapted to the revised SYSCOHADA accounting standard used across the OHADA region. They also weren't adapted to how small businesses in Africa actually operate: on paper and Excel. He knew exactly which numbers a business owner needed to see, since that gap was the reason his consulting firm existed in the first place. Developers in Tunisia, Cote d'Ivoire, and Mali quoted him a minimum of $100k for the platform he had in mind. Even a stripped down version, just a tool to enter documents and generate financial statements, still came to $80k. He solicited quotes for over two years and never found one he could afford.

Ulrich built and launched Compta 360 himself in a single month on Hercules. He launched it with far more scope than the $80k version he could never afford. Instead of just bookkeeping, he added a full sales cycle from quote to invoice, purchasing, inventory, HR and payroll, a CRM, treasury and bank reconciliation, visitor and event check-in, a secure VIP client portal, and business intelligence.

You would have needed a team of hundreds of people to build what I built by hand. It would not have been possible with a single developer. It's amazing. I was able to integrate a payment aggregator in two or three minutes.

Saving 200 hours a month by moving his 100-client firm onto the ERP

Ulrich's own firm ran its 100-plus clients on Sage. Sage requires a software license for each employee at his company. Cashiers would enter payments by hand then an accountant would re-enter it into the ledger. Invoices went out by email as separate files. Financial statements were an end of year scramble to reconcile everything that had been keyed in twice.

Ulrich migrated his entire 100-client firm onto Compta 360. He estimates the migration saved his team 200 hours a month. He did the migration so quickly by building a feature that allowed him to import books straight from Sage, Odoo, or Excel. Once imported, they would convert to the SYSCOHADA format automatically. Now, when a cashier enters a payment, it automatically gets posted to the ledger on its own, an accountant only needs to validate it. He also built an AI invoice management feature: AI reads an uploaded invoice, extracts every field, and generates the compliant accounting entry in seconds. Not only has Ulrich saved his team 200 hours, but he now no longer has to pay for a Sage license for each new hire.

The cashier enters a payment and it's booked to the accounts automatically. The accountant used to struggle with the entries; now the AI generates the SYSCOHADA entry in seconds. Hercules has eliminated a whole step.

Adding $5k in revenue in his first month by launching his own SaaS

Launching Compta 360 allowed Ulrich to create a new revenue stream for his business. As an outsourced accounting firm, Ulrich's revenue was capped by the hours his team could bill. Compta 360 allowed him to offer a more scalable, higher gross margin software subscription product. Two months in to launching it, he has 30 paying customers, 230 users, and a run rate of $55k a year. Compta 360's tax engine is already built for all 17 countries on the SYSCOHADA standard, changing rates and regimes automatically by country: 25% corporate tax in Cote d'Ivoire, 30% in Mali, a different regime again in Guinea. It even issues certified electronic invoices straight through Cote d'Ivoire's tax authority API, instead of making the user log into the government site. That depth of compliance is what Odoo and Sage don't offer, and it's why customers are switching.

Odoo wasn't built for our market, it was just adapted to it. What we offer is built for the compliance rules in our region and accounting standards.

Why Hercules

Ulrich chose Hercules after every other app builder and service he tried failed him. He tried building with Claude and GPT. He even hired a developer, and none of it worked the way he needed. With Hercules, he says, it is like talking to a developer who actually builds what he describes. He is able to bring his decade of accounting expertise to develop real software that he owns and understands. He built it all without code, API keys, hosting, or a team.

I tried Claude, I tried GPT, I tried a developer. None of it was easy. With Hercules, it's like talking to my developer.

What's next

Ulrich is preparing a public launch of Compta 360 on October 15, 2026 in Abidjan, at the Noom Hotel, in front of accounting institutions, professionals, and prospective clients. Soon after, he will release Compta 360 on Google Play and the App Store. From there he plans to expand across all 17 SYSCOHADA countries and into new verticals, including dedicated versions for churches and mosques. He is not in a hurry to chase funding: he is convinced the product solves a real problem, and that the customers and the money will follow. As Ulrich puts it: "There are 100,000 businesses here still running on paper and Excel. The market is enormous."