Best Accounting and Tax Software for Small Businesses in India

Start with the thing most listicles still get wrong. QuickBooks shut down in India on 30 April 2023. If an article is recommending it to Indian businesses, it was written from a template and you can ignore the rest of it.

What follows is what small Indian businesses actually run on, with real prices as of August 2026.

The short answer by business type

Zoho Books

The default for most Indian startups now. It is cloud based, GST ready out of the box, handles e-invoicing and e-way bills, imports bank statements and gives your CA their own login.

Price: free for businesses under ₹25 lakh annual turnover, which covers a lot of early stage companies entirely. Paid plans step up from there to about ₹1,499 a month for the Professional plan, and every plan carries 18% GST on top.

Watch for: it pulls you into the wider Zoho suite. That is fine if you want CRM and payroll from the same vendor, less fine if you have already picked other tools.

TallyPrime

Still the most widely used accounting software in India, and that matters more than the feature list. Any accountant you hire will know it, any CA can open your books, and the GST filings come out clean.

Price: ₹18,000 one time for the single user Silver licence plus ₹3,600 a year for updates, or ₹54,000 plus ₹10,800 a year for the multi user Gold. That is a perpetual licence, so year three onwards it is cheaper than most subscriptions.

Watch for: it is desktop first and it feels it. If your team is remote or you want your books on a browser, it is the wrong shape.

Vyapar and myBillBook

Built for the Indian shopkeeper rather than the startup: billing on a phone, GST invoices, stock, payment reminders on WhatsApp. Cheap, usually a few thousand rupees a year. If your business is counter sales, these beat anything imported.

The pieces that are not accounting software

• Payroll. Zoho Payroll, RazorpayX Payroll or Keka once you are past five people. Salaries, TDS, PF and payslips in one run.
• Expense claims. Skip a tool until you are twenty people. A shared sheet and a monthly reimbursement date works.
• Payments. Razorpay, Cashfree or PayU if you collect online. Check the settlement cycle and the per transaction fee, not the marketing page.
• Filing. Your CA will have their own software. Do not buy filing software as well as paying a CA to file.

Two compliance thresholds your software must handle

E-invoicing at ₹5 crore. Once your aggregate turnover has crossed ₹5 crore in any year since 2017-18, B2B invoices must be reported to the invoice registration portal. It stays applicable even if turnover later falls. Every tool above supports it, but confirm before you cross the line.

The new Income Tax Act. The Income Tax Act 2025 replaced the 1961 Act from 1 April 2026, and TDS section codes changed with it. Make sure whatever you use for payroll and vendor payments has been updated, because old codes are being rejected.

Do you need software, or a CA?

Both, and they do different jobs. Software keeps the records straight day to day, which is the part a CA cannot do for you at a sensible price. A CA handles the filings, the judgement calls and the notices. Expect ₹4,000 to ₹12,000 a month for a small company, more once you have payroll and inventory.

The worst setup is neither: a folder of invoices handed to an accountant in March. That is how startups discover in year two that a year of GST credit was never claimed.

What to do this week

1. Pick one tool and put every invoice in it from today, not from April.
2. Connect your bank feed so entries reconcile themselves.
3. Give your CA a login instead of emailing spreadsheets.
4. Check that every expense you can claim input credit on is actually being captured, including your workspace bill.

Prices move. Confirm current plans on each vendor's site before you buy.