

Ask HN: Accounting Software for SaaS Products? - dchuk

Are there any SaaS product specific accounting applications on the market? All popular accounting applications revolve around the idea of either inventory or invoice/payment style systems, neither of which apply to SaaS apps at all.<p>All I'm looking for is a way to track payments coming in and expenses &#38; salary going out without the mess of invoices and all that stuff that doesn't apply to SaaS companies.<p>Any options you guys know of?
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mootothemax
I very much disagree with your claim that invoices don't apply to SaaS apps.

Without an invoice being issued, it's a pain for my company to account for
handing over money to you. In fact, it's enough of a pain that I won't use any
SaaS app - or company for that matter! - that doesn't issue invoices.

I've also had people contact me, asking to pay on an invoice basis. I
generally only do so for annual subscriptions, but doing so has brought in
extra money I'd otherwise have missed out on. When you have a system that
automatically generates invoices, it's not much of a pain to do so.

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codegeek
This. It is always a good idea to invoice even if you are charging for a SAAS
app on monthly basis. Sure it might sound like an overkill for very small SAAS
apps or businesses, but invoicing is a good idea in terms of record keeping
which will help accounting.

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mneumegen
I use www.xero.com ...it's awesome.

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dchuk
I was taking a deep look at Xero when I submitted this thread actually...it
just seems to me that 90% of the features of Xero are unnecessary for a SaaS
app and the remaining features you need don't really address what is unique to
a SaaS.

Care to share any specifics of your workflow? Are you tracking each individual
payment as a transaction/sale? Are you creating customers in Xero that match
up with your customers in your own app and then attaching their monthly
payments to their Xero customer record?

