Which accounting software for a Swiss SME?
Bexio, Crésus, WinBIZ, Abacus, Odoo: the right choice depends less on the feature list than on three rarely-asked questions. And whichever yours is, we work inside it rather than asking you to change.
There is no best package. The right one for you follows from four answers.
A package designed for the business owner and one designed for the accounting firm do not look alike. If you enter the data yourself, simplicity wins. If we do, what matters is the quality of the export and the flexibility of the chart of accounts.
A Swiss payroll module has to be Swissdec certified, in its ELM 5.0 version. That is the standard that lets a single filing carry the data to the AHV funds, the insurers and the tax authority. Without it, every notification is redone by hand.
Online, it is reachable by both of us and backed up for you. Installed on a workstation, it belongs to you alone, and so does the backup. Both are defensible. What is not defensible is not knowing which of the two you chose.
That is the long-term question, and nobody asks it before signing. A package you cannot extract your entries from is a package you cannot leave. Ask for the export beforehand, not afterwards.
Six technical points separate the packages that are usable here from the ones that are not.
- The QR-bill. The red and orange payment slips disappeared on 30 September 2022: a package that does not produce one is no longer usable.
- Swissdec certification for payroll, in its ELM 5.0 version.
- The VAT return in the right format, and the ability to switch between the effective method and the net tax debt rate.
- Automatic retrieval of bank entries, through camt.053 or bLink.
- A Swiss SME chart of accounts, not one translated from somewhere else.
- A complete, readable export of your data, available without asking anyone for permission.
The rest — the number of features, the elegance of the interface — can be made up for. Those six points cannot.
We sell no software and take a commission on none of them.
That is deliberate. An accounting firm that resells a licence has an interest in you keeping that package, including once it no longer suits you. We would rather work inside yours. If we ever advise you to change, it will be for a reason we can put in writing.
One page each, with what we do inside it and what we take over when you arrive with it.
- Bexio — online, built for small structures that do their own data entry.
- Crésus — the long-standing tool of French-speaking Swiss firms, payroll certified Swissdec ELM 5.0.
- WinBIZ — commercial management and accounting in the same tool, widely used in French-speaking Switzerland.
- Odoo — a full ERP, for when accounting is only one part of a larger system.
- Abacus — the standard for larger structures and groups to consolidate.
Using something else? Tell us. The question is not whether we know it, but whether your data comes out of it cleanly.
Do I have to change software when I change accountants?
No, and it is rarely a good idea to do both in the same year. Changing accountants is a file handover; changing software is a data migration. Doing them together removes the point of comparison that lets you check nothing was lost.
Is the software included in your fees?
The licence stays yours and in your name: that is what guarantees you keep your data if we part ways. We bill our time, not a subscription resold to you with a margin on top.
Does a Geneva SME really need a package?
Above CHF 500,000 of turnover, double-entry bookkeeping is compulsory and a spreadsheet no longer does the job, neither for VAT nor for the year end. Below that, a well-kept table can pass, but it often costs more in accountant hours than a subscription would.
Can you take over books kept in a package you do not use?
Yes, in almost every case. What matters is the export: an entries file, the opening balances and the supporting documents. If no export is possible, we rebuild from the bank statements, which takes longer and is said before we start.
Tell us what you work in.
The questionnaire asks in three clicks. You get an estimate that accounts for your software, not for an average.