What billing software costs in Nepal: a comparative price guide

What does billing software cost in Nepal?

VAT is added on top of almost every figure above, including ours. The rate is 13% VAT. Our full plan list, with the Premium plan and what each plan covers, is on the pricing page.

Look past the numbers and you will notice two things about how the market is shaped.

First, the range is narrower than people expect. Turn every price into a yearly figure with VAT included. Most serious products for a small Nepali business then land within a few thousand rupees of each other. So price is rarely the thing that should decide this purchase.

Second, the tiers do not line up. One vendor’s middle tier is about invoice volume, another’s is about users, and another’s is about modules. Read what each tier limits, not what it is called.

Which costs are not on the price page?

Most of the real difference between products is in these costs.

Hardware. A desktop product needs its own computer, and if that one machine fails, everything stops. A cloud product runs on what you already have. A counter still needs a thermal printer, a barcode scanner and a reliable connection. Price the hardware once and spread its cost over the years you will use it. Do not leave it out.

Annual maintenance. Most desktop vendors in Nepal charge a yearly fee for updates and support, on top of the licence. Without it, the software falls out of date, which is a problem when the tax rules change. Ask for the maintenance figure in writing. Add it to every year after the first.

Implementation and data. Someone has to put your items, customers, suppliers and opening balances into the system. If the vendor does it, ask the price. If you do it, ask how long it takes, and count that time honestly as a cost.

Training and turnover. Counter staff change. If a product takes a week to learn, you lose that week again with every new cashier. Ask how long a new cashier takes to become useful.

Data entry time. The cost people notice least in any shop is typing supplier bills. A business that receives fifty bills a month spends real hours on it. Anything that cuts that time saves money the price page does not show.

Downtime. Ask what happens when the machine fails, the internet drops, or the one person who knows the software is on leave. Ask for a specific answer. A cheap product with no answer to this is not really cheap.

Exit. Can you export your own data in a format another system can read? If not, the price you are comparing is the price of being stuck with that vendor.

A five-year comparison worth doing yourself

Take the two products you are really choosing between. For each one, fill in these five lines over five years:

1. Licence or subscription, with VAT, including any increase at renewal.
2. Annual maintenance or support charge.
3. Hardware you would not otherwise buy.
4. Implementation (setup) and data entry, valued at what you pay the person doing it.
5. Training, for the staff turnover you can realistically expect.

Then add one more line. You cannot put a price on it, but write it down anyway: how much of your own month the software gives back. For most owners the honest answer is a day or two a month spent chasing figures. That time is worth more than the difference between any two tiers in the table above.

When is cheap genuinely cheap?

Sometimes the lowest price is the right answer.

Picture a single counter with one person, one location and few suppliers. The owner has no plans for a branch, the power supply is reliable and the accountant is patient. For that shop, a basic desktop product or an entry-level cloud plan is the right size. Do not buy multi-branch features for a shop that will never have a second branch.

When does cheap get expensive?

Here are three situations where a low tier turns into a bad year.

A second location. Branch work is where products differ most, and where a low tier usually stops. If a second shop is likely within two years, work out the price for that case now.

Bills you do not have time to type. If purchases are already recorded late, the cheapest plan will make them later still.

Compliance pressure. Your trade may be pushed towards electronic billing. If so, the product has to be on the Inland Revenue Department’s list, and the server has to be in Nepal and reachable. Reprints, cancellations and the activity log have to work as the rules require, in the product you can test today. A promise about next year does not count. A licence that fails these checks is not a saving. We cover what to check in IRD-listed billing software in Nepal.

How we price, and why

Kuver Books is a cloud subscription: NPR 1,500/month or NPR 9,999/year on the Standard plan, with Premium above it. What each plan includes, and its limits, are listed on the pricing page. We do not summarise them here, because plan limits are the part that really differs. Billing, POS, inventory, purchasing, reporting and a connected online store are in one account, so the costs above are for one subscription instead of several.

Two honest notes. First, we do not publish a free tier, and Enterprise is priced after a conversation with you, because multi-branch needs differ a lot between businesses. Second, we are not the cheapest line in the table above. If the lowest possible yearly figure is what decides it for you, one of the other products in that table will win.

Whatever you choose, do the five-year sums with the maintenance and hardware lines included. It takes twenty minutes, and it changes the answer more often than the price page does.