Top 5 accounting software for small business in the UAE

Proper accounting became the need of the hour when UAE introduced Value Added Tax (VAT) in 2018. Correctly registering the businesses with the government, and filing papers for paying VAT or exemption has left many business owners at the mercy of financial accountants.

For small and medium-sized businesses, this could come as a higher operational expense. Moreover, many founders have noticed the excess time consumption on their end to simply deal with third-party accountants who need clarifications and documents.

To make this easy, entrepreneurs need to look at automated accounting solutions. Today, there are multiple automated software products for financial accounting, business management as well as enterprise resource planning.

If you’re still using an excel sheet for these purposes, these software solutions will ease your load, free up time and help you to focus more on growing your business. Moreover, they are VAT compliant and can save entrepreneurs money and time by automating many processes.

Here we round up our top 5 based on multiple ratings and reviews, to help you know them better. The only aspect to note is that they all allow you to track expenses, customise invoices, get reports, and more.

Offering cloud accounting, QuickBooks can be accessed from anywhere, giving you control and flexibility to manage your business as well as stay organised all the time. Being an international software company, QuickBooks has an automatic VAT feature that helps you stay compliant with the UAE law.

Additionally, you can track your expenses, create professional quotations documents, invoices as well as financial accounting reports in just a few minutes. Built for entrepreneurs, this software can also be used by accountants themselves to speed up processes and free up time for other important activities.

Currently, you can get a 70 per cent discount via their website or try out the software for free for 30 days.

A more cost-effective software that gives an ample number of features along with a stronger mobile app and arguably better customer service. It doesn’t offer as many advanced features as QuickBooks, but offers a lot at almost half the price.

While it does not process payrolls, it is easier to set up and use, and hence great for those starting out with such a financial accounting software.

Another international software, this one hails from New Zealand. Xero is a robust account software that is great for a small well as growing medium-sized business. It allows you to change your plan as you grow, to offer you more service you might need, instead of charging a lot for base software.

Being a cloud-based platform like the above, it allows for better integration and access on the go.

The unique and much liked feature of Xero is that it allows multiple people to use the same platform. So in case you want to give access to co-founders, administrators, accountants, or others, you can easily do so with Xero.

Sage also offers multiple packages at different costs, applicable for small, medium as well as growing businesses. The lowest plans are mostly for tracking income and expenses, as well as sending invoices; however, as you grow or want to access more services, you can scale it up to higher plans that allow for project management services with multiple features.

It also provides a free trial for 30 days (without the need to put in your credit card details), unlimited invoicing and quotes, an allowance to add unlimited collaborators, support on multiple devices due to its cloud-based nature, and more.

Sage, according to experts, is better for project management than financial bookkeeping. Yet it does support businesses in the UAE by offering VAT-compliant software, which it launched last year.

With one of the best mobile accounting applications, FreshBooks seamlessly allows you to access your accounts and work on-the-go. It also includes time tracking, project management tools and helps you track invoices, expenses, and automate the reporting process—making it ideal for startups, small businesses, entrepreneurs starting out, as well as freelancers.