DodoBooks is cloud accounting built for South African owner-operators. Auto-generate VAT201, EMP201 and EMP501, file directly to SARS eFiling, and watch transactions land from your FNB, Standard, ABSA, Nedbank or Capitec account. ZAR-priced, POPIA-hosted, no FX surprises.
Sage Pastel is twenty-five years old. Xero is priced in pounds for shopkeepers in pounds. QuickBooks Online speaks American GAAP. The biggest accounting market in Africa is being run on software designed for someone else's tax system.
VAT201, EMP201 and EMP501 generated from your ledger and submitted directly through SARS eFiling. No CSV exports. No copy-paste into the wrong form. No "send it to your accountant" loop.
FNB, Standard Bank, ABSA, Nedbank, Capitec. Transactions land in DodoBooks within hours, pre-categorised by AI, ready for you to reconcile with a swipe.
Income statement, balance sheet, cash flow, AR/AP aging, VAT detail. Built for owners to read over coffee on a phone, not just for accountants on month-end Friday.
Your debtors live on WhatsApp. DodoBooks reminds them where they actually read, with a one-tap pay button. Most invoices clear faster than the next email chain you would have started.
Financial data hosted on infrastructure inside South Africa for POPIA data-residency. Row-level security on every record. Daily encrypted backups for 30 days.
Already using DODO CRM? Invoices, clients, payments and expenses sync into DodoBooks automatically. Double-entry happens in the background. You never type the same row twice.
You issue invoices. We post the journal. The bank feed reconciles itself. SARS gets filed on time. You finally know whether your business made money this month.
Plug in your business bank account through your bank's open banking flow. DodoBooks pulls every transaction from the last 12 months retroactively.
Send invoices via email or WhatsApp. Capture supplier bills with a photo. We post the right journal entries automatically using SA-default VAT codes.
Bank transactions arrive pre-matched to invoices, bills and expense categories. Tap "Match" or correct the AI's guess. Everything posts to the ledger in real time.
At the end of every VAT period, DodoBooks pre-fills your VAT201 from the ledger and submits it through your eFiling profile. Same for EMP201 and EMP501.
| DodoBooks | Sage Pastel | Xero | QuickBooks | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starter (ZAR/mo, ex VAT) | R 249 | R 495+ | R 650+ | R 415+ |
| VAT201 auto-fill | Yes | Manual export | Manual export | Manual export |
| SARS eFiling submission | Q3 (ISV pending) | Via accountant | Via accountant | Via accountant |
| EMP201 & EMP501 | Built-in | Sage Payroll (extra) | Add-on | Not localised |
| SA bank feeds | All 5 majors | Limited | Most | Some |
| WhatsApp invoice reminders | Built-in | No | No | No |
| SA support, SA time zone | Yes | Yes | Email only | Email only |
| DODO CRM sync | One-click | No | No | Available |
Prices accurate as of May 2026 starter tiers, ex VAT. Comparisons based on published pricing pages.
Pay monthly. Cancel anytime. Every plan includes unlimited invoices, bills, customers and bank reconciliations. We never charge per transaction.
Paid plans (Starter / Growth / Scale) land when beta ends. Beta users get 50% off the first 3 months of any paid plan, forever — even if you signed up for free.
We're hand-onboarding the first 200 beta customers personally. You'll get 50% off the first three months and direct access to the team that built it.