Who this suits: Small businesses selecting or replacing their bookkeeping system.
Start with your transactions
Choose software that handles your actual transactions correctly and is usable by the person doing the books. A cheap subscription becomes expensive if every job needs a spreadsheet workaround. Make a short requirements list with your accountant or bookkeeper before comparing packages. Include invoicing, purchases, bank reconciliation, stock, payroll if relevant, approvals and reporting. A business with simple services and ten invoices a month has different needs from a retailer with returns and multiple sales channels.
The ATO recommends considering software you can understand and operate. Its guidance also emphasises retaining access to records when changing cloud providers. This guide helps with selection, but your accountant should confirm the tax and reporting requirements for your circumstances. A product being popular is not a guarantee that its setup or your records are correct.
Build a small acceptance test
Take copies of a normal sale, partial payment, credit note, supplier invoice, expense claim and bank reconciliation. Add one awkward transaction such as a deposit, foreign currency purchase or stock return if that happens in your business. Remove personal information before sharing the examples with prospective vendors.
Ask the operator to process the examples during a trial and show the resulting reports. Check the invoice output as well as the ledger. Can someone follow the audit trail from the final figure back to the source document? Can a mistake be corrected without obscuring what happened? A feature tick on a comparison page is less useful than completing these tests successfully.
Check the integrations and responsibilities
List every connected system, including the online shop, point of sale, payroll, payment provider and bank feed. For each connection, identify what transfers, how often it transfers and who investigates a failure. Test taxes, fees, refunds and duplicate handling rather than just a successful sale. An integration may require a separate subscription and may have transaction limits.
Decide who owns the primary account, who can approve payments, who can change bank details and who provides support. Give your accountant appropriate access rather than sharing the owner's login. Keep the recovery details under business control. Reconcile connected systems regularly; automated transfer does not remove the need to detect errors.
Work out the real cost
Include subscription tiers, employee or payroll charges, additional entities, integrations, onboarding, conversion, training and ongoing bookkeeping time. Label every quote as including or excluding GST and use one basis for comparison. Introductory discounts should be separated from the ongoing price. Record what happens when a transaction or usage threshold is exceeded.
For an illustrative example, software costing A$35 more per month adds A$420 a year excluding GST. If it genuinely removes two hours of manual processing every month at an assumed A$50 loaded hourly cost, the operating benefit is A$1,200 annually. The net benefit would be A$780 before conversion costs. Validate the hours with a trial and do not assume every saved minute reduces the cash wage bill.
Plan conversion and retention
Choose a cutover date with the bookkeeper. Agree whether historical transactions, opening balances, attachments and customer records will transfer. Write down which reports must reconcile before the new system becomes the source of truth. Keep the old records accessible for the period your accountant says is required, even if the old subscription ends.
Ask for an export of records in usable formats before committing. A list of customers is not a full financial record. Check whether attachments, transaction detail and audit information can also be retrieved. The ATO's cloud guidance advises downloading complete records before losing access when changing provider. Keep a tested copy under business control rather than depending entirely on a consultant's account.
Keep a practical decision record
Make the bookkeeper's acceptance part of the implementation scope. Record opening balances, a reconciled bank account, a sample invoice, a credit and the reports the owner uses each month. Decide who investigates differences and who can authorise going live. If the demonstration cannot complete the awkward transaction you selected, do not assume configuration will solve it later without a written method and cost. An extra trial week is usually easier to manage than discovering a missing requirement after the old system has been closed.
Common mistakes and next action
Do not buy a broad business platform when the unresolved issue is simply a poor invoicing process. Do not accept an implementation quote that leaves opening balances, bank reconciliation or staff training undefined. Avoid a rushed cutover immediately before a busy period or reporting deadline.
Shortlist two packages, run the same transaction test and ask the bookkeeper to assess the results. Use the quote comparison tool for the subscription and implementation proposals. Treat unpriced conversion work as unknown, not zero. Sign off only when the test, responsibilities, historical access and recurring cost are all clear.
Sources and review notes
Official references used for this guide. Product features and terms can change. Examples are illustrative unless explicitly described otherwise.