The best accounting software in India, by the kind of business you run

The picks, by business #

Your CA works in Tally, stock is simple: TallyPrime. Silver ₹22,500 for one user, Gold ₹67,500 for unlimited users on the office network, plus GST, with TSS renewals of ₹4,500 or ₹13,500 a year after the first. Tally also rents: ₹8,100 a year for Silver. It runs offline, files GST returns through its connected GST features, and every accountant knows it.

Small team, works from anywhere: Zoho Books. Free for one user and an accountant while revenue stays under ₹25 lakh a year; Standard is ₹749 a month billed yearly for three users. Bank feeds, reminders, a customer portal and phone apps. Batch and serial tracking need the Elite plan, ₹4,999 a month.

Trading and distribution with heavy stock: BUSY. Standard is ₹16,500 one-time with full GST, e-invoicing, e-way bills, batch-wise stock and unlimited users in one office; serial-number and size/colour stock are on the SMART subscription (₹8,000 per 360 days).

Pharma and FMCG distribution: Marg ERP 9+. Silver ₹13,900 and Gold ₹26,000 with unlimited users and companies, plus GST, with yearly ARC of ₹4,780 (Silver) or ₹9,550 to ₹19,100 (Gold). Built for distributors and chemists, and sold through Marg's own network.

A shop billing from the phone: Vyapar or myBillBook. Vyapar's basic Android app is free; desktop plus mobile costs ₹4,399 a year on Silver or ₹4,799 on Gold at the prices on its site. myBillBook offers GST invoices, e-invoicing, e-way bills, batch and expiry tracking on PC, web, Android and iOS.

One app for a large team: Odoo Invoicing. One Odoo app is free for unlimited users; adding apps moves you to ₹580 per user a month billed yearly.

Books plus projects, production or payroll: Rebota. GST books, e-invoicing and e-way bills, batch and serial stock, payroll with PF, ESI and PT, and the operations on top: BOQ, RA bills and site logs, production orders and scheduling. Priced per company. After the 15-day trial, keep using Rebota free: 1 user, 30 GST invoices a month, stock, suppliers and cash. Upgrade only when you need more.

Prices checked on 20 October 2026 on the vendors' own pages: Tally, Zoho Books, BUSY, Marg, Vyapar, myBillBook, Odoo. All before GST.

Five questions that pick the right one #

1. What does your CA use? If it is Tally and you are happy with them, start with Tally and compare only if something hurts.
2. How many people bill at the same time, and where? One office with several users favours BUSY Standard or Tally Gold; people in different places favour cloud software.
3. How complicated is your stock? Batches and expiry, serial numbers, sizes and colours, several godowns: check each on the exact plan you will buy.
4. Desk or phone? A shop counter and a phone favour Vyapar or myBillBook; a back office favours Tally, BUSY or Zoho Books.
5. Is the real problem books, or operations? If you cannot say which project or job made money, you need an ERP, not a better ledger.

What to check in any trial #

Enter one real week: ten sales invoices with HSN codes, five purchases, one credit note and one stock transfer. Then print the GSTR-1 summary, the stock summary and a party ledger, and send them to your CA. Check that you can export everything to Excel, and that the audit trail cannot be switched off if you are a company, as Rule 3(1) has required since 1 April 2023.

Choose with your accountant in the room. Ask them which three reports they need from you every month and every year, then make each shortlisted product produce those reports from a week of your real data. The software that gets your CA what they need fastest will save more in fees than any difference in licence price.

• Ask your CA what they use and which reports they need.
• Count users who bill at the same time, and where they sit.
• List stock needs and check them on the exact plan.
• Work out three years of cost on each vendor's current price page.
• Check HSN codes and GST rates with the free HSN code finder.
• Head-to-head pages: Tally vs BUSY, Tally vs Zoho Books, Tally vs Marg.