Accounting software: VAT, entries and export to your accountant

What accounting software should actually do

In Belgium, the phrase accounting software covers two very different worlds. There are the packages that practices use to keep double entry books, calculate depreciation and file annual accounts. And there are the tools that freelancers and small companies use every day to invoice, record expenses, follow their VAT and hand over a clean file.

Novadesko belongs to the second group and says so plainly. You will not build a chart of accounts line by line, but you will find everything that feeds the books: sales, purchases, credit notes, payments, receipts and VAT, ready to leave in your accountant's own format.

That distinction avoids the most common disappointment: picking a tool designed for practices, spending three evenings configuring it, then realising you only wanted to invoice and stop losing receipts.

• Record a sales invoice and follow it through to payment.
• Log an expense by photographing the receipt, with no paper folder.
• See VAT payable and VAT deductible before the deadline, not after it.
• Produce a file your accountant's software imports without rework.
• Find any document in seconds if an inspector asks for it.

Tracking VAT payable and VAT deductible

VAT is what costs distracted business owners the most. A purchase invoice left sitting in an inbox is deductible VAT you never claim. A quarter recorded the day before the deadline gives a rushed return and sometimes a penalty.

In Novadesko, VAT builds up as you go. Every sale and every purchase you record feeds the balance of the current quarter: what you owe, what you reclaim, and the difference to set aside. You open the dashboard, you see the amount, and you know whether the account will hold on the twentieth of the following month.

The annual listing of VAT registered customers is generated from your sales instead of being retyped. Filing itself goes through Intervat, done by you or by your accountant, depending on how you have split the work.

• Belgian rates of 21, 12, 6 and 0 per cent handled per document line.
• Separate tracking of VAT charged on sales and VAT deductible on purchases.
• Quarterly balance visible at all times, not only at the end of the period.
• Customer listing generated automatically in PDF and Excel.
• Reverse charge and intra-community customers flagged on the invoice.

Purchases, sales and supporting documents

Bookkeeping holds together as long as every amount has its document. The sales journal fills itself the moment an invoice is confirmed. The purchase journal asks for one habit: recording the expense when it arrives, not three months later.

Novadesko reduces that habit to a photo. You snap the fuel receipt or the supplier invoice, the software reads the amount, the date and the VAT number, then suggests an expense category. You confirm and the document is filed, with its image kept alongside.

Payments are then matched to documents: a settled invoice leaves the list of outstanding items, a cash expense stays traceable. At the end of the quarter there is no pile to process, only a list to review.

• Sales journal fed by the invoicing, with no double entry of the same figures.
• Purchases and expense claims recorded from your phone, receipt attached.
• Automatic reading of amounts and VAT numbers on documents.
• Expense categories to show what is deductible and at what rate.
• Mileage log and vehicle costs tracked separately, as the tax office expects.
• Time stamped archiving of every document, available during an audit.

Exporting to your accounting practice

The real test of accounting software is the moment your practice receives your data. If they have to key everything in again, you pay twice: the subscription and the retyping hours.

Novadesko exports sales, purchases, credit notes and payments to the packages Belgian practices use. Your accountant imports the file into their usual tool and moves straight to the work that matters: checking and advising.

There is a second route, often preferred: your accountant opens your file directly through a dedicated portal, with no documents emailed back and forth. Access is free for practices.

Invoicing, Peppol and bookkeeping in one place

Splitting invoicing from bookkeeping means typing the same figures into two tools. It is the most ordinary source of errors and the most expensive one, especially when invoice numbers stop running in sequence.

With Novadesko, an invoice you issue is already a sales entry. An invoice arriving over the Peppol network lands straight in your purchases, with its amounts and VAT, without retyping and without opening a PDF. Since 2026, invoices between Belgian businesses travel over that network: structured reception is no longer a comfort, it is what keeps your purchase side complete.

The rest of the workflow follows the same logic: quotes turn into invoices, payment reminders go out on their own, stock and point of sale run alongside for shop owners, and everything feeds the same journals.

• Invoices and credit notes numbered in an unbroken sequence, as the law requires.
• Purchase invoices received over the Peppol network, ready to be booked.
• Sending over Peppol or by email, depending on whether the customer is reachable.
• Automatic payment reminders to limit unpaid invoices at quarter end.

Choosing your accounting software

The Belgian market puts very different worlds side by side. An integrated suite such as Odoo covers an enormous scope, at the cost of configuration and often an integrator. An app built for the solo freelancer moves faster but stops as soon as there is stock, a till or a team.

Ask yourself three questions before comparing prices: who records the day to day entries, who files the VAT return, and what happens to the file the day you change accountant. The answers rule out half the candidates.

The table below gathers the criteria that make a real difference after six months of use, the ones a pricing page never shows.

Frequently asked questions