It is not new knowledge that we are living in a digital and technological era. In fact, everything as we know it is about to go completely digital.

The COVID-19 pandemic has made many people who had initially ignored this truth come to a realization that no matter what country or situation your business is in, you have no choice but to go digital. Even after the pandemic, we all know that the world we knew before is no more. The old way of working, transacting, and doing business is long gone and is not coming back.

As a business, the faster you accept this reality and catch up with the change, the better chances you have to make your business survive and get on top of your competition.

That said, no matter the type or size of business, you have to digitize your operations and you have to start now. However, if you are wondering where to start from and what software will take your business to the next level, this post is for you.

We review the best 5 accounting and business management software for businesses in Uganda, Kenya, and the rest of the East African region. Wondering why these countries and why these software suites? This is because they come with support and most are customizable to the business needs of the East African region.

1. Infor Sunsystems

Used by over 9,000 customers in 190 countries with over 30 years of experience, Infor Sunsystems is one of the most robust accounting and business management software suites in the world. No matter the size of the business or niche of customers, Sunsystems is the right fit for your business.

Sunsystems provides organizations with a highly scalable solution, whether it’s a single-user finance team or an international organization with complex lines of business and tens or hundreds of branches. SunSystems can scale from a single site with just a few users to multinational enterprises with global implementation of many sites and hundreds of user

Key features of Sunsystems include;

1. A unified set of ledgers that provide you with an instant view of your sales, purchase, and nominal accounts, with up to 35 levels of analysis and 5 currencies per transaction. View all the key information when you need it and across multiple locations

2. Easily access design, generate reports, and view reports and dashboards with information that can support better and quicker business decisions.

3. A centralized, real-time view of data coupled with business intelligence to support better business decisions

4. Purchase tracking, employee expenses with flexible approvals, and reporting dashboards

5. Multi-currency and multi-language capabilities empower you to transcend languages and currencies and effectively scale your international, multi-company operations.

6. SunSystems deployed in the cloud or hosted in your environment of choice, you can access the data you need on the go, complete with comprehensive controls to restrict access to data and functions per user.

Key functionalities of Sunsystems

1. Financial management: Get real-time access to all finance and accounting information, so you can make fast and effective decisions. Infor SunSystems’ unified ledger delivers access to all aspects of financial management— including nominal ledger, payables and receivable ledgers,
cash, currencies and fixed assets from one single source. Thanks to SunSystems’ inherent flexibility, organizations can meet evolving accounting and reporting requirements—from changing local compliance requirements and multiple GAAP standards to updated IFRS standard.

2. Corporate allocation and intercompany: Corporate allocations is a powerful module that allows you to manipulate existing ledger transactions to generate new transactions. It splits or reassigns expenses, revenues, and other transactions using predefined rules. Allocate amounts across business units, periods, accounts, and analysis codes such as departments or projects. The charges can be split, increased, or decreased. Corporate allocations generate and post ledger transactions. It automates the apportionment process and repeats it each period, or as often as required.

3. Fixed asset management: Fixed asset management is a fully integrated component of the SunSystems ledger accounting system. As transactions are entered into SunSystems to record asset acquisition or disposals, asset values and quantities are updated into the register accordingly. Depreciation is calculated automatically using a wide range of depreciation methods, from simple straight line to fully table based, with options for accelerated and reduced depreciation where permitted. All asset transactions are posted to the unified ledger, impacting immediately on the register and the relevant profit and loss and balance sheet accounts.

4. Sales and order management: Take complete control of your sales, purchasing, and inventory management, and seamlessly integrate your operations with your partners and customers with Infor SunSystems. Configure order processes and sequence transactions stages via user defined workflows to suit the way your business works. You can automatically update your ledger and inventory in real time, create, store and access any associated documents.

5. Purchase management: Improve control and reduce costs by maintaining complete oversight on purchasing activities over large numbers of employees with robust spending control and management capabilities. Allow your employees to manage their own purchasing requirements, while operating under rules and workflows you’ve defined and automated to enforce corporate policies. Users can raise requisitions directly from within SunSystems and have them automatically pass through a multi-level approval workflow to generation of purchase orders. Match purchase invoices to receipts and orders for end to end control of budgets and spend

6. Inventory management: The module includes inventory management and inventory traceability, with additional options such as costing, landed costing, cost analysis, and product profiles. It tracks inventory movements in and out of different warehouse locations, and includes multiple allocations and costing methods, as well as extensive user-defined analysis capabilities, across items and warehouses.

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2. Oracle NetSuite’s JD Edwards EnterpriseOne

JD is for small, medium and large-sized businesses in the consumer goods, manufacturing, distribution, asset-intensive, project, and services industries. It provides capabilities related to financial management, supply chain management, customer relationship management, human capital management, manufacturing, reporting, and more. It can deploy on the cloud or on-premises.

It collects real-time data and creates visualizations to make insight gathering easier. It has an emphasis on real-time visibility and allows the user to see how products are moving through the supply chain, live. Additionally, forecasting and budgeting capabilities are integrated with the production process to help develop actionable plans.

3. SAP Business ByDesign

SAP Business ByDesign delivers pre-built processes for everything from finance and sales to product management and purchasing on a single, unified solution. Connecting every function across your company with proven best practices and in-depth analytics. It uses real-time data analysis and visualization to streamline processes such as demand planning and bank reconciliation. It offers a range of integrations, allowing users to configure it to meet their specific needs. It’s intended for small and medium-sized companies. It’s hosted in the cloud, meaning that it can be accessed, anytime and anywhere, as long as an internet connection is available.

Key features of SAP BusinessByDesign;

1. Finances: Get a real-time view of your financial condition, streamline your core accounting processes, and better manage cash and liquidity.

2. Customer Relationship Management: Expertly manage your marketing, sales, and service processes – and drive customer engagement

3. Human Resources Management: Streamline HR processes, such as organization management, workforce administration, time and attendance, and employee self-service.

4. Project Management: Manage projects of any size and complexity with SAP Business ByDesign.

5. Procurement: Empower employees with self-service procurement capabilities to save time and costs, centralize supplier information, and negotiate better deals.

6. Supply Chain Management: Improve supply chain effectiveness with better supply-demand matching and increase flexibility by streamlining customer and supplier collaboration.

7. Industry-Specific Functionality, and much more.

4. Sage Business Cloud X3

With Sage X3, automation can be implemented between processes such as sales and financial management to reduce the manual time spent on data entry and tedious communication among departments. For example, with Sage, the sales team could give discounts on products and have them instantly reflected in the financial system upon receipt of payment. It has on-premise and cloud deployability and caters to all industries and businesses of any size. Users may customize it to fit their particular business requirements and permit APIs to utilize external services.

Key features of Sage Business Cloud X3;

1. Production management: Get to market quickly and efficiently by managing all your manufacturing processes with one system.

2. Supply chain management: Keep up with demand and ensure optimal efficiencies through real-time monitoring of inventory.

3. Financial Management: Control your bottom line with accuracy and real-time global visibility while meeting local requirements.

5. SYSPRO

SYSPRO is an on-premise and cloud ERP for manufacturers and distributors focusing on inventory management, manufacturing operations management, order management, production management, and more. Lot traceability and serial tracking, sales analysis, and optimal pricing, product information, and sales tax reporting are some of its quintessential features.

Key features of SYSPRO;

1. Industry Built: SYSPRO specializes in the manufacturing and distribution industries, with us, you get more than an ERP solution – you gain a global team of industry experts who speak your language and understand your pain points.

2. Flexibility: SYSPRO 8 gives you the flexibility to choose the deployment that best suits your unique business needs and budget, whether on-premise or in the cloud. With the ability to choose the device that best meets the task at hand.
Dependent on your role, operational need, remoteness, or preferences, you can opt for the Windows UI, the web interface with its improved ease-of-use, or their mobile platform.

3. Actionable Insights: Empower your users with critical insights and real-time trends for quicker analysis, decision making, and execution. Users are enabled to meet their goals, targets, and deadlines with improved collaboration with others and the means to act quickly and proactively.

4. Engaging User Experience: SYSPRO ERP renders a productive and satisfying working environment that encourages and accelerates user uptake with a system that’s engaging, easy to use, fosters collaboration and above all, one that empowers users in their daily operations

5. Personalized Experience: SYSPRO is relevant to, and adapts to, all users within your organization. They provide users with that personal touch by allowing them to customize their workspace to meet their individual role and needs, surfacing the information that they require as and when they need it – without requiring development.

6. Scalable Solutions: Whether your business growth demands high-transaction volumes or transactional elasticity, with SYSPRO ERP, you get an industry-built technology infrastructure that is flexible and scalable enough to grow with you along every step of your growth journey, and is supported by technology platforms that offer the highest level of availability.