Free accounting software in South Africa: what R0 gets you

A business that is just starting, or that runs a side line, does not always want to pay for accounting software. Two products on the register publish a free plan: Zoho Books and Wave Accounting. They are free in different ways, and they were built with different countries in mind. Read from the vendors' own pages on 11 October 2026, here is what each one says.

Zoho Books: free for one user and one accountant

Zoho Books has a South African page and lists its prices in rand, excluding VAT. Its Free plan is for one user and one accountant, while the business's revenue stays under R1 million a year. The first paid plan, Standard at R99 a month excluding VAT, is described as three users with VAT tracking, VAT returns and bank feeds. Paid for a year, the same plan is R82.50 a month.

R1 million is also the turnover at which a business must register for VAT, so a business that is about to cross it will need to look at Standard or above, since VAT returns are listed with that plan.

Wave Accounting: free to keep the books, with paid parts

Wave's Starter plan is free, with unlimited estimates, invoices, bills and bookkeeping records. Automatic bank import and receipt capture are on Pro, which Wave prices in dollars at about R318 a month at the 2 October 2026 rate. Wave is run from North America, and its own card payment and payroll add ons serve US and Canadian businesses, so a South African business would use it for the bookkeeping and not for those.

What a VAT registered business should check

• Does the plan you would use prepare the VAT201 figures? The register records this only where the vendor's own page says so. See the accounting sector page.
• Does it read your bank? Check bank feeds, bank by bank for your bank, and ask whether the feed is on the free plan.
• Does it issue a valid tax invoice? See what a valid tax invoice needs.
• Can you take your data with you if you leave or the free plan changes?

When to move to a paid plan

1. When you register for VAT and need a return prepared from the books.
2. When you add a second user, or your accountant needs to work in the books as well as view them.
3. When reconciling by hand starts to cost more of your time than a bank feed costs in rand.
4. When revenue approaches a limit stated on the free plan.

Put the paid plan's price on the same footing as the others, using including and excluding VAT. The Zoho Books price excludes VAT, so a business that is not registered pays 15 percent more than the figure on the page. The free tiers on the register lists every product that starts at zero, across all six sectors.

Read the reviews

The Zoho Books review and the Wave Accounting review have the plan cards, charts and a calculator for each, with every figure in rand.