So you’re looking for
an accounting programme?

Accounting probably doesn’t make the list of things you like to do as a Kiwi business owner. It can be complicated, and it needs to be done correctly. The makers of small business accounting software have worked hard to present this discipline as simply and pleasantly as possible. Some, including Intuit QuickBooks Online and FreshBooks, have been more successful at this than others.

After you’ve supplied information about your company structure, one of your next setup tasks will be to add information about your customers and vendors. Most online accounting sites let you include more than basic contact details (“customer since” date, birthday, and other similar fields), which can be helpful as you develop and maintain relationships with them. You do the same thing for the products and services you sell, so you can add them easily to transactions.

Accounting services let you easily create any transaction that a small business is likely to need. The most common of these are invoices and bills, and most of the services we reviewed support them. Sites such as Xero and Zoho Books go further, allowing you to produce more advanced forms, like purchase orders, sales receipts, credit notes, and statements. They provide templates for them, too. All you have to do is fill in the blanks and select from lists of variables like customers and items.

Once you have completed an invoice, for example, you have several options. You can save it as a draft or a final version and either print it or email it. If you do the latter and have established a relationship with a payment processor, then your invoice can contain a stub explaining how the customer can return payment via credit card or bank withdrawal. You can create a PDF version of the invoice, copy it, record a payment on it, and set it up to recur on a regular schedule. All forms in these sites work similarly.

Accounting services also pay special attention to your Kiwi company’s expenses—not bills that you enter and pay (though many support this), but rather other purchases you make. This is an area of your finances that can easily get out of control if it’s not monitored. So, small business accounting sites tell you about them, dividing them into expense types and comparing them with your income using totals and colorful charts.