Best Accounting Solutions for Small Businesses in Ghana

Small business accounting apps have evolved trmendiously over the past decade. These include innovations in modules and features since thier proliferation with the use of the internet.Products from companies like Peachtree and DacEasy and MYOB started their lives as full-blown, multiple-module, highly complex applications that were priced for the small business market in the early 1990s. These applications usually offer most features and jargons that makes the small business entrepreneur a lost in wonderland. There had been too much information for too little work. Intuit changed that with its first version of QuickBooks. The program was developed for DOS, and its main menu contained only a few simple choices, including CheckBook, Invoicing/Receivables, Accounts Payable, Chart of Accounts, and Company Lists. It relied on dialog boxes, registers, empty fields, and function keys for navigation and data entry. But a check looked like a paper check blank, and the software clicked with a lot of companies that needed its simplicity.

By the close 2016, Intuit had launched multiple versions of QuickBooks for Windows, as well as QuickBooks Online. Intuit remains the market leader, but other cloud-based applications like Xero and Zoho Accounting, which were launched on the Internet instead of making the leap from desktop software, provide similar tools and usability. 

In Ghana, Tally ERP is the most used and widely circulated by Intercom Programming and Management Centre (IPMC), this is followed by Quickbooks Pro various versions. Despite the advantages that online accounting apps have to offer such as

1. Friendly user interface and navigation.
2. Cloud-based accounting applications—for the most part—look great. 
3. They're not as graphically rich as some types of online services, but they don't need to be. 
4. Graphics are used where it makes sense, like for displaying charts and graphs, and for invoice forms. 
5. Navigation and data entry take their cues from desktop software, using static and drop-down lists, icons and buttons, fill-in-the-blank fields, and toolbars.

their awareness and usage among Ghanaian businesses especially SMEs is virtually non-existent.

Reasons accounting for this include:-

1. internet access and bandwidth,
2. cost of subscriptions (even though most are 100% free,
3. IT literacy etc

Some of the best Web-based accounting solutions make more than one level of service available—at different prices—so you can buy the version that most closely matches your need.

The future of accounting lies in two areas: the cloud, and integration. SMBs that experience tremendous growth or increased complexity may need to move up to the next level of cloud-based financial management applications, like NetSuiteLearn More at Netsuite or Intacct. But if a business just needs more flexibility and/or features in a particular area, like invoicing, expenses, or inventory management, there are hundreds of add-on solutions that can connect to services like QuickBooks Online and Xero.