Best Accounting Software in APAC for Small Businesses

Pratibha Devasenapathy | Updated on: February 1, 2024

What is an accounting software?
Key features you should look for in an accounting software
Why TallyPrime is the best accounting software in Indonesia for SMBs?
FAQs on accounting software

What is an accounting software?

Accounting software is a solution used by bookkeepers, accounting professionals, and business owners to process accounting transactions and manage accounts. Here are some of the most important features, benefits, and things to consider when you pick an accounting tool for your business.

Every accounting software has different sections - modules - that deal with specific parts of the accounting process.

The core modules are:

accounts receivable, for all money the business receives
accounts payable, for all money the business owes
general ledger, which is the company's records ("books")
billing/invoicing, for all invoicing to the business' customers
inventory/stock, for all the company's inventory
purchase order, for all the inventory orders
sales order, for all the orders received by customers
bookkeeping, for the business records payments and collections

There are other modules in different accounting software that are added on as needed. They include:

Costing expense, for entering employee business-related expenses
payroll, for tracking employee salary and related taxes
reports, for printing out financial data on various parts of the business

Key features you should look for in an accounting software

Business accounting involves a wide range of activities in order to capture a business's entire financial picture. Done manually, it's complex and time-consuming work. But accounting software has helped simplify these processes, giving business owners more time to focus on the administration and execution of their strategies.

Let us take a look at some of the key features that you should look for in accounting software:

Automation of managing your books of accounts

To ensure complete accuracy from start-to-end, it is important that your accounting software allows you to automate processes completely. Manual bookkeeping is tedious, especially for small businesses, especially when there is consistent growth. With automation, accounting software keeps manual data entry to a minimum and increases efficiency. An ideal accounting software, would only ask you to configure features once, and understand your behaviour, and give out results without having to define actions, time and again.

Management of accounts receivables and payables

Sound management of accounts receivables and accounts payables is crucial to assess a company’s financial health. Accounts receivable refers to the amount that a company is entitled to receive from its customers for goods or services sold on credit. Accounts payable is any sum of money owed by a business to its suppliers shown as a liability on a company's balance sheet. In simple words, when you buy goods or services with an arrangement to pay later, such an amount till it is paid, is referred to as accounts payable. Debtor management is crucial to keep optimum cashflow, and with the help of your accounting software, you will be able to manage your accounts receivables and payables more accurately.

Anytime, anywhere secure access

Remote access to data has become a necessity than a choice. In a time when everyone is on the move and locations can’t pass as an excuse for poor work productivity, remote access can be your best ally. There could be several instances, where you would need access to some important company data, and your records are back in your office. During such times, remote access capability comes in handy, as it allows you to get the desired data on-the-go. However, when a software solution provides you a remote access facility, it is of prime importance that it also lets you define user-specific controls to the data, to avoid any data breach. Thus, this will not only increase your employees’ productivity, but will also save a lot of time and cost and help in faster decision making.

Flexible purchase and sales management

Every business is different. Depending on their process, they would decide on what kind of purchase and sales cycle they want to follow. In such scenarios, an ideal financial management software should allow business owners to configure features based on their business requirement, and not the other way around. For example, when you set up masters or record an invoice, the process of passing any transaction should be seamless. The software which you choose for your business should be customisable as per your needs so that you can make the most of it, to be more precise, your software should be “designed for you”. It’s very important to try and quantify the benefits you’re expecting to gain from your tool. The more specific you are, the more accurate you can be when researching prospective software solutions.

Provide support as per global accounting standards

Businesses who also operate internationally, often seek data as per the respective nation’s standards. Be it in terms of currency, compliance or language, etc., an accounting software must be able to mould itself as the business requirements. From the flexibility to give customised options to choose or predefine language to generate reports to filing returns as per the country’s law, the software should enable you to perform all country-specific actions, without having to opt for any external additional resources.

Why TallyPrime is the best accounting software in Indonesia for SMBs?

Simple, intuitive and works just like a human brain. TallyPrime enables businesses to stay on top of their game with accurate accounting reports with great amount of flexibility. Starting from payments, receipts, sales, purchases, credit notes, debit notes, journal, contra, and more. With just a click of a button, you can pass these transactions easily in your books and their effect will reflect in the respective accounting reports.

Enhance your business' cash flow

Receivable and Payables: Improve your business' working capital and manage your outstanding with ease
Cash Flow and Fund Flow: Master financial planning by estimating your business' funds source and usage
Scenario management: Helps in forecasting business finances for better cashflow
Payment performance of debtors: Keep a check on the time taken by your customers to pay your money and review your credit policy.

Expedite your business transactions

Multi-Currency Accounting: Capitalise on every business opportunity by transacting in any currency
Cheque Management: Reduce scope of errors and remove uncertainty while transacting via cheques
Integrated Invoicing: Perform quick invoicing by generating bills inclusive of tax and value your customers' time.

Regulate your business expenses

Cost and profit centres: Create as many as you want on the basis of departments, product verticals, employees etc. and analyse their performance separately
Budget & Controls: Utilise your business funds efficiently and control your expenditure
Credit Management: Minimize bad debt and improve your business' cash flow by allotting varying credit limits to different parties.

Boost your business' profitability

Stock movement analysis: This helps in keeping a track of stock more accurately. Identify slow/fast moving stock items, and manage stock across various locations
Item and invoice wise profitability: Estimate profits item and invoice wise and rework on the non-performing products.

Take a look at more accounting features that TallyPrime offers. Sign up for a free demo of TallyPrime and automate your accounting process with great ease and accuracy.

FAQs on accounting software

How to choose the best accounting software in Indonesia?
- Easy to implement and use the software
- Supports multiple business modules
- Wide variety of Insight full business
- Flexible software that adapts to your way of managing business
What are the benefits of accounting software?

Accounting software helps businesses to manage the business efficiently. It benefits the businesses by keeping track of the following:

- accounts receivable, for all money the business receives
- accounts payable, for all money the business owes
- general ledger, which is the company's records ("books")
- billing/invoicing, for all invoicing to the business' customers
- inventory/stock, for all the company's inventory
- purchase order, for all the inventory orders
- sales order, for all the orders received by customers
- bookkeeping, for the business, records payments and collections
What is the purpose of accounting software?
Accounting software is a solution used by bookkeepers, accounting professionals, and business owners to process accounting transactions and manage accounts. The reports from accounting software provide insights that help businesses to make confident business decisions
When is the best time to switch to accounting software?

You can switch to accounting software either at the start of the new financial year, starting the business or anytime that you would like to automate the bookkeeping and business process.

Why accounting software is useful for small businesses?

Small businesses need business management software to efficiently manage various functions of the business such as accounting, inventory, banking, cash flow etc. Also, it helps you to manage complexities associated with the growth and enhance your performance by leaps and bounds.