Best Small Business Accounting Software Singapore

Managing a small business in Singapore is always very challenging as most of business owners had multi-task roles from managing day to day activities to administrative functions. The most important is always the bottom line of your business if can remain profitable all the time. There is a need to micro managed your cash flow which is very critical in order to ensure that your business is able to cover your cost, expenses and expenditure.

Time is always a limitation for a small business owner where they need to make many important decisions that is cost sensitive from procurement of goods and consumables, hiring of staff, marketing to increase sales, service / job / product delivery and on time payment receivable from customer.

Selecting the best small business accounting software in Singapore is will enable you to computerize your accounting process and streamline or automate your business process. It is a small business toolkit that helps you to save cost and your operations can be more productive. You may not require to hire an accountant to compile and submit your yearly income tax.

How to select the Best Small Accounting Software for your business?

Choosing the correct account software is very important for your business. Not all the popular brands of accounting software is suitable for your business as small business accounting software varies in complication and features offered where they are package very differently that you might not aware that you will face challenges in implementation, scalability and integration issues when your business expand. It is important to seek a 3^rd party or qualified consultant opinion to provide you a free consultation and assessment on your business needs as they are the professional qualified person equipped with better user experience on different software. Recommendations by them is highly credible compared to the sales persons from the software vendors.

The best Accounting software can provide your small business with the following benefits

• Easy and simple data entry– Fast in adoption and pretty straightforward any user friendly with standard icon and template (e.g. generating a sales quotation or invoice)
• Fast processing– Setting the business rules will enable the system to be automated (e.g. if payment is late from customer the system will sent an escalation and sent a reminder)
• Automation of accounting reports and analysis– Eyeball tracking on profit and loss, debtors and creditors, customer accounts, sales, forecasting, etc
• Task automation– eg eliminate manual calculating of pay, staff overtime, CPF deductions, staff job allocation
• Eliminate errors– System will prompt incorrect or incomplete recording of service or transactions, etc
• Monitoring of inventory – Automate supplies and consumable reorder or top-up
• Integration with other systems- Point of sales such as online banking and e-filing

Using the correct accounting software can help you save time and money in a long run, you may not visualize the benefits immediately as your staff need to overcome the implementation learning phase. It will offer you a valuable information and deep insight of your business. If you choose the package carefully, investing in a computerized accounting system can be one of the best decisions you can make for your business.

Popular Small Business Accounting Software

Basically there are 2 types of small business accounting software
Cloud base accounting software or on premise or desk top accounting software

 Xero Country of Origin: New Zealand

1. Pricing: monthly subscription $20-$40 per month
2. Type : Support both cloud based and mobile app application
3. Data is stored in a highly secure Cloud but you require to be connected to the internet
4. Pay for the price a single subscription with unlimited users
5. Integrated well with multiple APPS in the e-commerce store
6. Unable to support WIP billing and Job Costing
7. Accounting data will be gone once you unsubscribe
8. No immediate support only support via e-mail which will respond wih 24hr

QuickBooks Online Country of Origin: U.S.A.

1. Pricing: monthly subscription $21-$26 per month
2. Type : cloud based and mobile app application
3. Data is stored and secure in the Cloud and you require to be connected to the internet
4. Highly scalable
5. Strong support with highly responsive customer service team
6. Without Open APIs
7. Only work well on an average costing method
8. Not recommended for business with high volume of transactions
9. Do not have a comprehensive inventory system
10. Limited to 5 user logins, require to pay for the additional user access.

ABSS rebrand from MYOB Country of Origin: Australia

1. Pricing: Varies, a one-time investment of from $1350 to $3500
2. Type: On-premise or cloud version
3. No monthly subscription for on premise for a onetime payment and you own the software.
4. Added features that outshine its cloud competitors.
5. Require to save data constantly
6. a standalone software that does not integrate with other applications
7. Limited Inventory features

  Autocount Country of Origin : Malaysia

1. Type: On-premise
2. Pricing: Varies from S$700 (for basic package) to S$3,500 (for most advanced package)
3. User friendly
4. Unlimited user access 
5. Limited in built reports.
6. Limited support with a non-responsive support team and without help files or user manuals

Million Accounting Country of Origin: Singapore

1. Type: On-premise
2. Pricing: Starts from S$300
3. Available in Multi language English or other language.
4. Highly customizable and strong back end support.
5. Unlimited in creation of company data
6. Free upgrade
7. Provide customization of its software (building API connectors, custom workflows etc.).

Sage 50 Accounting / UBS (Peachtree) Country of Origin:  U.S.A.

Many old timers in the industry are familiar with Peachtree now rebrand as Sage 50/UBS as an accounting system with comprehensive function and features.

The accounting solution software would be sufficient to provide most needs of a typical SME with both online and offline operations. However, the subscription price might start to escalate when your company started to scale with more users assessing the system. 

Type: On-premise/Web-hosted

Pricing: $30-$130/user/month

Benefits:

1. Multiple add-ons, with your existing hardware and new apps i.e. POS, Payroll, Inventory & Billing.
2. Provides payment services such as UBS ePayMaster, OCBC Easi-Giro etc.
3. GST-enabled transactions.
4. Drawbacks:
5. It is a reasonably good for small businesses, but it is not versatile for scalability as it is just a basic entry level system.
6. System is rigid and not possible for any customization
7. Manual backup is required as there is no auto backup functions
8. Not advisable for any future upgrades which provide a bad user experience.