Free accounting software for shops: real books? (October 2026)

Updated October 2026

The short answer: yes, free accounting software exists for one shop, but you have to check what is inside. A lot of free software is a tidy expense log, not books. Real books mean double entry, where every transaction is recorded twice and balances; a balance sheet and an income statement that come from the same transactions; a month close; and a place for your accountant. Dashing includes all of that in its free plan for one branch, with no card and no end date. This guide shows how to check for yourself, what "free" costs elsewhere, and where Dashing falls short.

We are the Dashing team, which makes us a vendor, so we say where someone else fits you better. Figures for other products come from their vendors' pages, with dates.

What is the difference between an expense log and real accounting?

An expense log adds up what you paid and received and gives a total. That is useful, but it does not answer the questions a shop owner cares about: what do I actually own? How much do customers owe me and how much do I owe suppliers? Did I make a profit this month after costs? Those answers need double-entry books, where a sale lands in the till, revenue and stock together.

You do not have to learn accounting to benefit. What matters is that the software builds the books from selling and buying by itself and then gives you reports. Your accountant reviews them.

How do I know a free product has real books? Six tests

1. Trial balance: is there a report showing total debits equal total credits? If not, there is no double entry.
2. Balance sheet and income statement: do they come from the transactions you entered, or do you type them in?
3. Stock on the balance sheet: does the value of goods fall when you sell and feed into profit?
4. Customer and supplier balances: is there a separate account that matches each customer's statement?
5. Month close: can you lock a period so nobody edits it afterwards?
6. An accountant seat: can your accountant sign in with their own access, without seeing or changing everything?

A product that passes all six can carry your shop and satisfy your tax office. A product that fails two of them is a notebook.

What does "free" usually hide?

• Invoice caps. Daftra, an Arabic web accounting service, prices its entry plan at $240 a year with 100 invoices a month, and its higher plans at $495 and $600 (pricing page, October 2026). It says "start with the free plan", but the free plan's limits are not published, so we cannot say what is in it.
• Users and branches are paid separately. On that service extra users, branches and warehouses cost more, so every new employee raises the bill.
• Offline cashier. On Daftra the offline POS terminal is available only on the top plan.
• A 14-day trial looks free, then ends. After that you pay or leave.
• Per-user pricing. Odoo, the open-source ERP, lists its Standard plan at about $24.90 per user per month (US list price, annual billing, October 2026) and its Custom plan at about $49. Implementation through a partner costs extra. A shop with five users would pay roughly $1,500 a year for the Standard plan alone.

You decide whether each price fits the size of your shop.

What about Excel?

Excel is free and needs no learning, and it suits a very small shop. But it has no cashier, no live stock, no audit trail and no real double entry. Any cell can be changed without a trace, so your accountant cannot easily trust the numbers. Ready-made templates sell for between $2.99 and $19, and some point-of-sale templates on Google Sheets cost over $170. It is fine to start there, but moving is easier early than late. A paper notebook is the same trade at a smaller size. The steps are in From the notebook and Excel to a system in a week.

What does "free" mean in Dashing?

The free plan is the whole shop for one branch, free forever, and not a trial. On the accounting side it includes:

• Expenses, income statement, balance sheet and trial balance.
• Month close, and an account for your accountant.
• Customer debts and a statement link you share on WhatsApp. Details in customers and debts; a free account statement tool shows what your customer sees.
• Stock by unit and batch, and a full cashier that works offline.
• No cap on selling, unlimited users, no commission.
• Dash, the AI assistant, at 20 messages a day, and export of all your data to Excel whenever you want.
• Three languages, nightly backups and no ads inside the app.

Every new shop starts with 14 days on the yearly plan with no card, then continues on the free plan by itself. Nobody asks you for anything on day 15. The full accounting description is at accounting in Dashing.

When do you need the yearly plan?

For three things only: a second branch, Dash at 500 messages a day instead of 20, and priority WhatsApp replies. It costs 420,000 IQD in Iraq (about 35,000 IQD a month) and about 300 USD elsewhere. You pay once through a WhatsApp message, with no card and no automatic renewal, and a 14-day money-back option. A one-branch shop may never need it. Prices are on pricing.

Where is Dashing not enough?

• No e-invoicing and no tax-authority link. If your country requires either, that rules us out.
• No automatic bank feeds. You enter bank movements yourself.
• No fixed-asset screen. Depreciation is calculated but has no screen yet.
• One company per account. Someone running several companies needs an account for each.
• Books run in one currency per shop (chosen from seventeen when you set up). A quote can be priced in another currency at a rate you type.
• Financial reports, Dash and sign-in need a connection. The cashier alone works without one.
• Not a native app. It runs in the browser and can be installed from it.
• One branch on the free plan.

How to test it in an hour

1. Sign up without a card and enter five items and one customer. To see profit arithmetic before you sign up, the free profit calculator is enough.
2. Sell two items for cash and one on credit.
3. Open the trial balance. Does it balance?
4. Record an expense, then open the income statement. Did the figures move as you expect?
5. Close the test month and try to edit a sale in it.
6. Add an accountant account and sign in with it.

For the same test on the till read free cashier software. For choosing criteria see how to choose accounting software for shops, and for what a shop needs from an accounts program see an accounts program for shops.

What do you need from accounting in the first year?

Most shop owners need only five things in their first year: the real profit at month end, what customers owe them, what they owe suppliers, the value of the goods on the shelf, and clean papers to hand to an accountant or the tax office. If the free software gives you those five without you typing them in, it is enough for at least a full year. If it gives you only some, you pay for the gap later in hours of manual adding at the end of every month.

There is a simple sign that separates the two: can you open the profit report on the 15th of the month and trust it? If you need an hour of preparation first, the books are not connected to selling.

Frequently asked questions

Is free accounting software enough for one shop? If it provides a balance sheet, an income statement, month close and customer debts, yes. In Dashing all of that is in the free plan for one branch.

Does the free plan expire? No. It is not a trial. The first 14 days on the yearly plan are on us, and afterwards the shop continues free.

Do I need an accountant? Not to run the shop day to day, since the entries are built from selling and buying. If you have an accountant, give them their own account to review the books.

Can I leave with my data? Yes. You export your data to Excel at any time, and it is yours.

For everything the free plan includes see the free plan.

Facts about other products come from vendors' pages in October 2026 and can change. If you find a mistake, message us on WhatsApp.

Sources

• Dashing, the free plan and pricing
• Each vendor's own public pricing and features page, checked in October 2026. See the Excel and Daftra comparisons