What is accounting software
- What approval costs a month
- $4,300.80
- Hours on routine handling
- 120
- Hours on exceptions
- 14.4
Every figure on this page is computed from the inputs entered, by the method stated below it. Monthendly publishes no benchmark close time, no industry average DPO and no accounting standard: the tasks, the minutes, the rate and the exception rate are yours, and the defaults are a worked example to replace with your own figures.
Accounting software is the system that keeps the ledger: it records transactions, produces a trial balance and the statements that come off it, and in most small businesses it is one of Xero, QuickBooks, Sage or a competitor. It is worth being precise about the category, because a great deal is sold under the name that is not the ledger at all, including this product. Monthendly is not accounting software in this sense and does not want to be: it sits beside the ledger you already run and handles the close and the payables work around it. This page explains what accounting software is, what it is not, and where the tools that surround it fit.
Open the Accounts payable invoice approval process Free to use. No account, no card, no trial clock.
What the ledger does
It records every transaction against an account, produces a trial balance, and lets you take a set of statements off it. Everything else a package offers, from invoicing to bank feeds to reporting, is built around that job. If a product does not keep a ledger, it is not accounting software however it is marketed.
What sits around it
Payables and expense tools, close-management tools, reporting and consolidation layers, and industry-specific front ends. They feed the ledger or read from it, and they exist because the ledger is deliberately general while these jobs are specific.
Where a close tool fits
Beside the ledger, not instead of it. The close is the process of getting the ledger to a state somebody will sign off, and the ledger does not manage a process. That is why teams run a checklist alongside their accounting package rather than inside it.
What is accounting software: common questions
Is Monthendly accounting software?
No, and we would rather say so plainly. It does not keep a ledger, post transactions or produce statements. It runs the close and the payables work around whatever ledger you already have.
Do we need both?
You need a ledger. Whether you need a close tool as well depends on how much of your month is spent chasing and reconstructing rather than accounting. Price your close on the free worksheet before deciding.
What about accounting software for our industry?
Industry packages bundle a ledger with a vertical front end, and whether that is worth it depends on how unusual your transactions are. Those rows are deliberately out of scope for this hub, which serves the close rather than any one industry.
Monthendly Pro
Keeping what you make
The worksheets are free forever. Pro turns them into the record: the close checklist for each month with its owner and its dates, the payables queue that clears before the cut-off, the reconciliations attached to the month they belong to, your team's name on the pack, no watermark, and an export when the auditor asks.
- Download the finished sheet as a file
- Send it without the Monthendly line on it
- Save a close and reopen it next month
- Put your company name and logo on it
- Export every close and reconciliation at once
- Approval chases emailed to whoever is holding the close up
- Connect your own Stripe account and get paid online
- Connect your QuickBooks Online or Xero
$43per month, whole team
Start Monthendly Pro PricingRenews monthly at the price above until you cancel. We email you before any price change.
Will it do what you need for What is accounting software?
Tell us how your close runs and we will tell you straight whether Monthendly Pro fits it today, whether it is coming, or whether you need a different product instead. A person reads these and replies.
Cite or embed this figure
The distinction is practical: on the worked example a close is 33 hours of process, and a ledger manages none of it.
Accounts payable invoice approval process (What approval costs a month): $4,300.80, Monthendly, worked example.
Cite as: "What is accounting software, Monthendly", updated 2026-09-04, https://monthendly.com/what-is-accounting-software/.