# Accounting software requirements checklist

Original checklist by PlanSmith, updated 28 September 2026.
You may adapt it for your software evaluation or custom-build requirements.
Source for the research counts and tests:
https://plansmith.io/blog/accounting-software-features

## Scope decisions

Organisation and evaluator:
Bookkeeping-first / invoicing-first:
Single-entry / double-entry:
Currency and rounding policy:
Financial year and reporting timezone:
Tax basis and reviewer:
Roles and approval boundaries:
Migration source and reconciliation owner:

For each capability choose Required, Optional or Out of scope, then assign an
owner and record Pass, Fail or Not tested with evidence. Counts are observations
in a 37-product research sample; they are not a required scope or quality score.

| Capability | Observed / 37 | Acceptance example | Scope | Owner | Result and evidence |
|---|---:|---|---|---|---|
| Income and expense ledger | 31 | Record an expense without an invoice; it appears in the relevant report | | | |
| Organisation/fiscal settings | 30 | Change financial year start; report periods follow it | | | |
| Financial reports | 30 | Reconcile one report line to the underlying transactions | | | |
| Invoice builder | 29 | Check line tax, discount and total; confirm issued-document correction policy | | | |
| Customers/clients | 28 | Customer balance agrees with invoices less allocated payments/credits | | | |
| Payment allocation | 28 | A part payment reduces the invoice balance by the exact amount | | | |
| Numbering and document templates | 27 | Concurrent invoice creation cannot issue the same number twice | | | |
| Bank and cash accounts | 26 | Reconcile one account to its statement; explain differences | | | |
| Dashboard | 25 | Each figure opens or identifies the scoped source records | | | |

## Branches to decide separately

- Bank feeds: provider, duplicate import handling, reconnect and reconciliation.
- Multiple currencies: rate source/date, realized/unrealized treatment and reviewer.
- Double-entry: posting rules, balancing, corrections and period closing.
- Recurring invoices: schedule, skipped runs, retries and duplicate prevention.
- Online collection: signed events, retries, part payment, refunds and matching.
- Inventory, payroll and projects: exact relationship to the accounting scope.
- Access: who can approve, edit, issue, export, correct and close a period.
- Import/export: field mapping, rejected rows and control totals.
- Backup/restore: prove both records and supporting documents can be restored.

## Final evaluation

Chosen scope and unresolved decisions:
Failures requiring another trial:
Migration/reconciliation evidence:
Operational owner:
Go-live checks and rollback plan:

For local tax/reporting requirements, have the responsible accounting reviewer
define the expected treatment before using those outputs operationally.