Accounting software for small businesses: 6 things to check before you pick one
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Small businesses do not want to learn accounting, they want the numbers to be right when the accountant asks. Here are six things to check before you pick software for the books, with DEV3 Ledgemoor as the worked example.

1. Is there a real ledger behind the invoices?
An invoice list is not accounting. Check that every document posts a balanced journal, that a posted document cannot be edited in place, and that you can see the trial balance. Ledgemoor posts exactly one journal per invoice, bill and payment, and revising a document reverses the old journal and posts a new one.

2. Can you explain the tax to the cent?
Ask how rounding works: per line or per document, tax-inclusive or exclusive prices, components such as CGST and SGST, reverse charge. Rates are settings you control, and the presets are starting points. Ledgemoor exports a period tax summary as CSV, but it does not file returns and is not certified for any country's statutory audit, so say that plainly to your buyers.

3. How does the bank get in?
Most small-business tools import files. Ledgemoor reads CSV, OFX and CAMT, skips duplicates, suggests matches by amount, number and name, and finishes a reconciliation only when the statement balance agrees. There is no live bank connection.

4. What stops a mistake in a closed month?
Period locks and year-end close matter more than any report. Check that nothing posts into a locked period, that unlocking needs a reason and that the audit trail records who did it. Ledgemoor closes a year in one journal and reopens it with an audit entry.

5. Can your accountant work in it?
Sharing a login is not access control. Ledgemoor lets a practice invite a business with a one-time code, work across its clients with bookkeeper rights and be revoked at any moment, and every change is tagged with the practice.

6. What are the limits?
Payments are simulated until you connect your own provider and the operator is the merchant of record, mail goes to the log until you configure it, documents in other currencies use manual or imported rates, and there are no mobile apps. Ask every vendor for this list.
Prices with tax included — One click turns the same lines into tax-inclusive prices, and the total still adds up.




