Accounting is one of the essential parts of any business be it small or big. Maintaining books of a company’s accounts helps in understanding its financial position in the market and allows you to gain insight into profitability and losses.
Starting from manual accounting, many systems have evolved with computerized accounting and e-accounting which makes the scalability of a business easier. Accounting software has become integral for a business to maintain records of income and expenditure while automating reporting tasks.
This eliminates the tiring job of manual entries which might be prone to human error. Modern accounting software also comes with many features including payroll and inventory which have reformed the business management world.
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With the rise of GST, many software development companies in India have introduced GST compliance features in their accounting software to make it compatible with the latest tax structure.
Let us take a look at the most popular accounting software available for small businesses.
1- Zoho Books
Zoho Books is one the latest and most popular accounting software known for its automation and GST compliance. This software runs on the cloud and can be easily accessible by any device.
It acts as an integrated platform for an end-to-end financial solution from managing your accounting modules such as receivables, payables, inventory, timesheet, and reporting to automating business workflows.
Zoho Books is also integrated with 40+ apps that are useful for any business. From creating sales orders, creating professional quotes, customized invoicing, and sales bills, to keeping track of expenses, documents, projects, and banking.
Zoho Books is a one-stop solution for all accounting-related work. It is available at an affordable price with its full-fledged GST compliance which makes tax filing easier and error-free for businesses.
2- Tally
Tally.ERP 9 is one of the oldest and most widely used accounting software with over 75% market share and more than 2 Billion users. It offers complete enterprise software for both small and medium enterprises with its end-to-end business management and GST software.
Tally provides a simplified yet unique solution to complex parts of your business including reporting and profit analysis. It also provides advanced filters, alteration, and comparison tools that can be used to make the right business decisions using the data.
Tally also makes banking easy with invoice generation and tracking post-dated cheques, cash receipts, payments, and bank transactions. It also allows easy and error-free filing of GST returns with minimal chances of rejection.
In 2020, Tally also introduced TallyPrime, a smarter version of Tally.ERP 9 with a modern interface and browser compatibility.
3- Busy Accounting
Busy Accounting is the second-largest integrated desktop software next to Tally ERP. The software was launched in the year 1997 to suit the micro, small, medium, and large-scale enterprises. It is mainly popular for its inventory management features.
With more than 3 lakh licenses sold in over 20 countries, Busy is one of the top accounting software that allows multi-currency accounting. Its integrated application works on-premise and via the cloud that can be accessed through a mobile application.
BusyAccounting is also feature-packed with GST support, e-bill generation, Invoicing, Basic Inventory, MIS reports, and analysis, which is suitable for B2B and B2C operations. The software caters to a range of sectors including FMCG, Retail, Trading, Manufacturing, and Services.
4- Marg ERP
Marg Business Software is an integrated on-premise ERP accounting and inventory software that was launched in the year 1992. Although Marg has created distinct software for different industries like Pharma, Retail, or Trading, the Accounting Software for Pharmaceutical Industry is widely known.
The software is available in various editions like Basic, Silver, and Gold. Using the GST-compliant features, businesses can easily generate reports, accomplish tax calculations and file GST returns.
With over 1M+ businesses served worldwide, MargERP 9+ offers sound features for invoicing, purchase and sale claims, barcode and QR code management, payments reconciliation and even reporting directly to Whatsapp.
Marg ERP has also launched a mobile app that allows Businesses to integrate orders and inventory to the cloud and be able to access it anytime. It also drives partnership and collaboration with suppliers by allowing businesses to send invoices, send orders and track progress.
5- Profit Books
Profit Books is a fast-growing online accounting app for small businesses and enterprises in India. With its easy-to-use UI/UX, it offers complete inventory management, detailed tax reports, and track management processes that help keep the finance in order and make better decisions using the income and expense management system within a few clicks.
It also allows you to receive online payments through payment gateways, track receivables, record manual journals, and even collaborate with the accountant online.
Profit Books accounting software allows any business to create unlimited invoices and sales bills, and be able to track expenses and manage inventory without any accounting knowledge.
It can also generate VAT reports and GST analysis which makes tax filing easier and also prevents manual errors. It is one of the most profitable accounting software with its free plan supporting up to 100 customers for a single user.
6- Saral
Saral is an online accounting software from RelyonSoft dealing with billing, accounting, and inventory needs for small businesses. While being user-friendly and integrated on-premise software, Saral supports invoicing and accounting for regular and composition dealers in B2B and B2C segments serving in the trading, manufacturing, and service industry.
Saral allows GST Computation for monthly GSTR-1 & GSTR-2 return filing. It also offers seamless data transfer to the GSTN portal using API connectivity.
Apart from statuary compliance, Saral offers barcode integration, and inventory management, and helps to keep track of product pricing, product warranty, batch numbers, AMC, and e-way bills among others.
One of the unique features of Saral is the ability to create Tax invoices in multiple Indian languages. Being one of the best accounting software used by Chartered Accountants, Saral also offers Payroll, Tax, and E-Filling products like SaralTDS, SaralIncomeTax, SaralGST, SaralSign, etc.
7- Reach Accounting
Reach is a powerful business automation software that is being used by many small businesses across India. Unlike other accounting software, reach doesn’t have to be customized to fit your business needs as it already goes with 21 different businesses end to end.
It provides a full-fledged ERP with common features including quotes, invoicing, sales, purchase management, and inventory management. Reach is very easy to use and accessible from computer and mobile through a free cloud server whilst also providing auto-cloud backups to support 99% uptime.
Some of the other popular features considered for switching to Reach include lead capturing, an order tracking system, multi-currency support, and import options from Excel and legacy tools like Tally. The software is available with multiple plans according to the number of users.
8- Vyapar
Vyapar is one of the most preferred accounting software for small businesses to deal with invoicing, inventory, and other accounting needs. It is available both as a desktop application as well as an android application which is free to use.
It also provides an auto backup feature for securing the data and works offline which allows business to utilize their productive time for business management. Vyapar acts as an effective solution for small businesses as they show a picture of assets, liabilities, and equity, that allows proper planning for further activities.
The software is also GST-compliant and enables error-free tax returns. It also allows the centralization of business records and collaboration. Vyapar has reformed businesses by being able to manage all parties from one place, create customized invoices, and automate payment reminders.
It also helps in inventory management by maintaining records of products and their expiry dates, batch numbers, etc. Vyapar also allows us to keep track of the team’s performance by analyzing sales invoices.
9- Real Books
Real books is a cloud-based application that serves inventory, payroll, and accounting. It is GST and VAT-compliant allowing businesses to generate GSTIN-wise reports for one or more branches through its Group Accounting feature.
It also allows seamless uploading to GSTN with easy accounting and automated GST calculations. The software also comes with a Mobile app that allows you to be updated with your receivables, payables, voucher approvals, customer dues, and many more.
RealBooks comes along with a business intelligence system redefined for small businesses that provide access to all the important numbers of the core business process including MIS, KPIs, and the dashboard.
It also has a document management system that allows you to upload bills directly to the cloud which can be accessed easily from anywhere. The software also allows outsourcing the bookkeeping activities to a CA partner or auditors who can do continuous audits from their office.
10- Align Books
Align Books is a completely GST-enabled cloud-based accounting software with exceptional features like advanced sales and inventory management. It has an inbuilt operational control attribute with various primary and intelligent MIS specialties.
Some of its modules include sales, finance, purchase, inventory, production, payroll, and asset management. It also has an intuitive dashboard and reporting feature that shows the overall picture of the company’s financials and provides analysis to increase sales and optimize inventory. AlignBooks is designed with multiple capabilities including multi-currency, multi-location, and configurable user privileges and notifications. It also allows you to keep track of agent performance by tagging them with invoices and bills and automating incentive calculation.
Conclusion
We have seen the list of popular accounting software that can be used by small businesses to make their accounting jobs easy rather than mundane and repetitive. From manual bookkeeping, increased digitization has enabled the migration of these tasks to computers.
Yet, the big difference between online vs offline still stands. Some of these products are desktop-based or cloud-based, while some are integrated to be both. With mobile applications and cloud solutions, businesses can keep track of their accounts from anywhere and from any device.
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Most of these products are moving to online solutions for increased data security through backups and ease of collaboration with other parties. Thus, business owners need to consider every option available to make their accounting effort hassle-free
