How to Build an Accounting & Tax Management Software

Surely, developing accounting software takes effort as well. Besides, a lot of questions might pop up:

• Should you opt for a custom solution or get an out-of-the-box one?
• Is it possible to build accounting functionality into an existing solution like an internal ERP system?
• Where to store and how to protect digital financial data?

In this article, we’ll answer this and many other questions on accounting & tax management software development. Additionally, we’ll talk about what features you might need for your custom accounting software, what the 3rd-party integration options are, as well as give you tips on how to calculate your potential development expenses as precisely as possible.

So, if you want to develop an accounting & taxation software, need to find an answer to some of the issues we listed, or simply want to learn more about it — welcome!

We have 2 different articles on accouting software development. One is for accounting companies to manage their clients' bookkeeping as well as their own finance. And this one is dedicated to custom accounting software for companies that want to digitize their financial management. In case you want to read the first article, you can follow this link.

💼 Custom Development vs Accounting Software Providers

Ready-to-use accounting software is quite a popular option on the market. It’s normally based on a subscription model: for a fixed price, users get a set of features and a server; the design can be both fixed and is customizable.

Even though there are multiple software providers, many companies still opt for a custom solution — it’s 100% customizable, unique, and more beneficial in the long term.

In this section, we’ll talk about use cases when custom software might be a better option, compared to using accounting software from a certain provider.

However, if you’re quite a small company, it’s not likely that custom accounting software is actually a necessity for you. In such a case, we’d recommend taking a look at Quickbooks, Xero, and FreeAgent as ready-to-use alternatives. But surely, everything is highly individual and even the smallest companies might need a custom solution.

Case # 1: Functionality Choice

Tax management software providers are targeted at expanding their audience, which is why their functionality often includes a mixed set of features. For example, apart from tax calculation and revenue tracking they might offer a chatting feature.

The problem here is that, in most cases, only paying for certain features only isn’t an option. Thus, you have to purchase a whole set of them — regardless of whether you’ll use all of them or not.

Plus, having an excessive amount of features might make the software “bulky,” which can make it less convenient for users.

Custom accounting software development implies as much customization as possible. So, if you’d like to have a solution that’s fully tailored to your use case, you should consider developing a custom one.

Most likely, that implies that you work with numerous suppliers and have a multi-layered structure of accounting departments. For this purpose, custom accounting software might be more suitable.

❓ FAQs Concerning Custom Accounting Software Development

When developing an accounting software, a lot of aspects might be confusing, which is why we’ll now answer the top questions about the development itself, digital accounting and taxation in general.

How to Integrate Accounting & Tax Management Software with a Current Solution?

Each digital product is after all code, so, to integrate such functionality into your current software, you need to build it into the code. Yes, it is possible in many cases, but the question here is rather whether it’s worth it. Let us explain.

Continuous Integration can enable regular scanning for any bugs and breaches with each new code version. All testing is not performed on the actual code though but in the library where the code is replicated.

Once an issue is spotted, you get notified so your development team can fix the problem. When you’re done with this stage, Continuous Delivery takes up. With the help of CD, you can automatically apply fixes to the code and make the whole process even quicker.

✅ Accounting Software Features

In this section, we’re going to review the top features that you might need in your software.

# 1: Income and Expenses Tracking 🔄

Such software can register each operation and activity related to money turnover so you can access this information later. For higher convenience, you can create a filtering system. As for expenses, it can include filters by:

• Category (inventory, business trips, employee social packages, etc.).
• Date.
• Bank account (if there are several).
• Amount of money spent ($0-$500, $500-$1000, etc.).
• Destination. If you buy food for the office from the same supplier, for example, you can create a dedicated filter.

First, such features should be able to collect and analyze data on specific metrics like “item A sales,” “Food Expenses-June,” etc. So that analytical reports are more efficient, it’s reasonable to make them customizable — different departments and employees need different data.

One of the most useful things of the features is visualizing data with the help of infographics. That can include various types of graphs, charts, and tables. Such visual content allows you to track dynamics and detect repetitive patterns to enable forecasting and improve the accuracy of risk management.

⚙️ Top Features for a Tax Management Flow

Even though taxation is a part of accounting, we decided to dedicate a separate section to this flow since it has quite a lot of important details to discuss.

Tax Calculation & Payment 💳

One of the most important features here is calculation of taxes. Custom development is great in this case since it provides a fully personalized solution. Each country or even region within a country has different taxes, tax types, requirements for tax reports, etc. Additionally, there can be industry-specific taxes.

It’s also important to make sure that all documents and forms meet the according standards. For example, your software should be able to generate VAT report forms according to requirements. So, whatever it is you need to be compliant with, take that into account in advance and make the forms customizable as well.

🤖 Tech Stack for Accounting Software

To add certain features to your accounting software, you can use APIs and SDKs:

• For calendar integration, you can use Google Calendar, Zoho, or Nylas.
• Payment systems or BaaS services can be integrated by using Braintree, Stripe, Solarisbank. If you’d like to learn more about integration payment systems, feel free to read our article on this topic.
• As for desktop notifications, you can use iZooto or Sendpulse.
• If you need to get feedback from your customers, consider using Twilio or Lumoa.

💰 What Affects Accounting Software Development Costs

Even though it’s quite hard to predict the costs since each case is unique, there’s a set of aspects that you need to take into account when planning your budget:

• The number and complexity of your features.
• 3rd-party integrations.
• The design.
• The hourly rate of your development team.

💡 Takeaways

As you can see, developing an accounting software for your company might be a game-changer in many aspects. That includes reducing time needed for keeping track of your money turnover, digitizing document management, automating tax form fillup and payment, etc.

Let’s summarize what steps you should take to build an accounting software:

• Deciding whether you need a custom development or out-of-the-box solution would be enough.
• Think about what current products you don’t want to give up using.
• Choose the features that you want to have in your software.
• Think about how you’ll enable high-level security.
• Find a Tech Partner and start the development!

If you need any help with the development or have any questions left, feel free to contact us. We’d be happy to help you!