How to choose accounting software in 2026: eight questions before you subscribe

Choosing accounting software is a decision you live with for years, and switching later is costly: migrating data, retraining the team and a period of running two systems at once. Before you subscribe, ask these eight questions — and test the answers yourself during the free period, not in a sales demo.

1. Does every document book its own entry?

If you type entries beside documents, you will be reconciling the two every month. The right program builds the entry from the document when it is saved, updates it with the document and deletes it with the document.

2. Do documents pass an approval before entering the books?

Ask where an unapproved document sits: does it appear in the trial balance? And is an approved document locked, changeable only through an unapproval with a written reason?

3. Are permissions enforced on the server?

Hiding a button on screen is not a permission. Real protection means the server itself refuses what the user is not allowed to do, however the request reaches it.

4. Is your data really yours?

Can you download all your data whenever you like? Is it backed up regularly? And what happens to it when the subscription ends? Ask for the answer in writing, in the terms.

5. Is e-invoicing built into the program?

In Saudi Arabia invoices pass through ZATCA. Ask whether the integration is in the program itself or through an intermediary your invoices pass through — and whether the program explains a rejection in plain language.

6. Do documents print the way you want customers to see them?

Your letterhead and seal, Arabic and English, and an honest status on the page: an approved document says so, and an unapproved one prints clearly marked as such.

7. Are prices published and clear?

Know the price before you talk to anyone, and know what happens when your users or employees grow. A price you only learn after a call usually changes after another call.

8. Does it cover your whole activity in the same books?

HR and payroll, projects and certificates, clinics and home care, or a law practice: every separate system means another integration, another reconciliation and a second copy of the truth.

A trial plan for the free period

Set up your real establishment with its real numbers, not sample data.
Issue an invoice, collect it and approve both.
Open the trial balance and the customer statement and compare the two.
Add a user with limited permissions and try what they can do.
Export your data to Excel and check it is complete.

If the figures match without you typing a single entry by hand, and the program refuses what the limited user is not allowed to do, you are looking at software that works the way an accountant does.

Put it to work in your business

14 days free, starting from your first sign-in.

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