Can I Use QuickBooks for My Business in Nigeria?

The success of your small and growing business depends on how well you are able to manage your cash flow, plan your finance and take swift decisions that could propel you to the next level. But how do you achieve this if you are still using the manual accounting system?

This is one of the reasons business owners are upgrading their accounting processes, and deploying accounting software.

Here are the benefits of accounting software:

• Accessible in premise or cloud via remote desktop.
• Set financial year-end and opening balances.
• Track revenue by region or specific customers.
• Payment and Deposits
• Create custom charts of accounts.
• Banking; fund transfer and reconciliation
• Multi’-currencies.
• General Ledger/Financial Reporting
• User setup and Role Management
• Audit Trail; view users’ activity real time.

For a typical Nigerian business with a specific need, whether in Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, or anywhere, the question is which among the accounting software can I use to manage my growing small and growing business?

Find all the categories of QuickBooks software available for setup – see our price offers.

While there are options to consider before selecting a suitable application, I’d be sharing reasons more decisions makers are buying QuickBooks.

Why You Can Use QuickBooks for Your Business in Nigeria

From our practical experience and interactions with clients in diverse industries, here are the key points behind the increasing adoption of this small business software.

• Multi-currency and Exchange Rate (Naira)

By law and standard, businesses are required to present their financial report in their various home currencies. This is an accepted way to see how well they have performed across the board; from profit or loss to statement of financial position.

QuickBooks desktop lets to switch from a single currency file to multiple currencies so that you easily see relevant reports in local and foreign currency. And if you do business with foreign vendors or service providers and pay them in your own currency, this software provides the flexibility of posting such foreign transactions (the amount in that currency, related bank account as well exchange rate).

One important financial report this feature will show is Exchange Rate Gain or Loss or Unrealised Gain or Loss.

• VAT compliant.

Every business is required to account for the VAT portion of their revenue, whether cash is collected or not, which is in line with the Accrual concept.

If you are a small and growing business that processes a high volume of transactions or in an industry that’s tightly regulated, how do you ensure that you are VAT compliant and are at the same time not paying more?

This is what QuickBooks accounting software helps you to achieve seamlessly. You can take advantage of the VAT feature, configure your rate to comply with local tax law (7.5%) and even adjust it whenever there is a review.

For every invoice created, the system automates your tax calculations, computes payable to relevant tax authorities and if the clients or customers withhold a portion of the invoiced figure as tax, you can post the difference at the point of receiving payment to a withholding tax receivable account (seen as a credit to you when you file for tax).

• Affordable with No-recuring Annual Payment

One of the attractions of QuickBooks accounting software is that you have the option of buying a one-time license and still enjoy all the features of typical accounting software; invoicing, payments, expenses, inventories, banking, exchange rate and financial reports. This is totally different from what other software providers do; you’d be required to pay per module and the worst is that they are subscription-based.

• Offline Accounting Software

Access to one-off licensed software isn’t just the only attraction of QuickBooks software, you can enjoy seamless platform access that doesn’t require internet.

This only applies to the desktop versions, up to the 2021 version, which we still think has all the features you need to organise your accounting records and generate accurate financial reports.

• Customizable to suit Industries

Good accounting software isn’t one that lets post invoices, expenses, or track inventories but an application that can easily be customized to suit your specific industry needs. Whenever we demonstrate the use of QuickBooks, business owners are always amazed at how the software has been improved over the years to make accounting tasks simpler and more efficient.

For a retail, restaurant/bar or manufacturing company, you can upload the inventories of your raw materials, configure bills of materials or components of your finished products and track `manufacturing activities. On the same software, you can re-customize the charts of accounts to deliver seamless financial reports for a project-based company like property developer, construction or contractor.

What if I run an NGO, you don’t have to switch your accounting software, it has a non-profit module that lets you monitor donations, project expenses and become accountable to your sponsors.

• Generate Over 200+ reports.

Depending on your industry, you can view hundreds of built-in and/or customized financial reports in QuickBooks accounting software.

Some of the popular requests are:

• Sales/Revenue report
• Expenses/Cost of Sales
• Inventories of raw materials or finished products
• Receivable reports or ageing summary
• Payable reports.
• Bank statement/Reconciliation reports.
• Profit or loss/Income and Expenditure
• Statement of financial postions or assets and liabilities.
• Statement of cash flow
• Tax reports
• Planning/budget reports or Budget vs actual reports.

The version of QuickBooks discussed here is the desktop version which can only be accessed on a local area network (for multi-users) but if you want to deploy to the cloud, our team can help you migrate your data file to a remote server.

I hope the information shared answered your question?

If you still have specific areas of your business you want us to advise you on before you use QuickBooks, kindly reach out to our support centre at bigresourcessolutions@gmail.com