For businesses moving off the ledger
A Tally and QuickBooks alternative for businesses in Uganda
Tally and QuickBooks are good at the books. The shop itself, the till, the shelf, the deliveries, is the part they leave to paper and spreadsheets. That is the part Outlyz runs.
Most shops here that use software at all use Tally, and a few use QuickBooks, usually because an accountant recommended it or it came with the business from a franchise abroad. Both do the job they were built for. The trouble starts when a business asks them to do the other job, running the shop, and discovers they were never meant to.
What the ledger does well
Tally and QuickBooks record what happened. Money in, money out, what you are owed, what you owe, the reports your accountant and URA want. If that is all you need, they are fine, and nothing on this page says otherwise.
Where a shop outgrows it
A ledger has no till. Sales get written up after the fact, so the stock figure is only right on the day somebody updates it. It has no idea an order came in on WhatsApp, no map of what the delivery person took out this morning, and no view of a second branch that is not a second set of books.
The tell is what grows around it: a counter book for sales, a phone full of order messages, a spreadsheet for prices, another for stock, and one person who spends the evening making them agree. The ledger holds the past. Nothing holds the present.
There is a quieter cost too. Prices and stock trapped in an export are prices and stock nobody at the counter can see. A pharmacy we onboarded had hundreds of items priced in Tally, and the counter could sell almost none of them because the till had no way to read it.
Priced in dollars, run in shillings
Every shilling that comes into your till is a shilling. A QuickBooks bill is not. It is set in US dollars, so the amount your card is charged shifts with the exchange rate every month, on top of the dollar price going up most years. A cost you cannot fix in your own currency is a hard thing to budget against, especially for a shop already watching margins on airtime, mobile money charges, and fuel for boda deliveries.
What each one leaves out
- Tally. Strong on accounts and widely known here. No counter till, so the stock figure is only as fresh as the last person who typed it in.
- QuickBooks. Built around the chart of accounts for an accountant. No till, no real stock count, and billed in dollars.
- Odoo. Can genuinely run a shop, but it is a full ERP. The setup, the consultant and the per user pricing put it out of reach of most shops here before it does anything useful.
- A book or a spreadsheet. Free and flexible, and it works until two people need it at once, or the branch that has it is not the branch that needs it.
- None of them has anywhere to put a crate, bottle or gas cylinder that went out and must come back. That gets tracked on paper, or from memory.
What running the shop looks like
On Outlyz the sale happens in the system, not after it. The till works at the counter, in UGX, and stock falls the moment something sells. Orders from WhatsApp and your store page land in one list with counter sales, and every branch reads the same numbers. If you send out bottles or cylinders that must come back, it chases those too, with the deposit held against the container rather than sitting as a lump of money nobody can match to anything.
The till also keeps working when the network drops. If the cashier is already signed in they carry on selling, and the sales go up when the line comes back.
Switching takes an afternoon
Send us your stock list in whatever shape it is in. An export, a spreadsheet, or a photo of the book. We set your products up with you, and you are selling the same day. From then on you can download your own sheet from Outlyz, change prices or counts in it, and upload it back. Before anything is saved it shows you what will change and which rows it could not read, line by line.
Your accounts do not move and do not break. Keep Tally or QuickBooks for the books if they serve you, and give the accountant the reports Outlyz produces. The shop stops living in the gaps between systems.
Common questions
Can Outlyz replace Tally?
For running the shop, yes. Tally records what happened; Outlyz is where it happens. Selling at the counter, stock falling as you sell, orders coming in on WhatsApp, deliveries going out. If you use Tally for formal accounts and tax filing, you can keep it for the books and run the shop on Outlyz.
Can Outlyz replace QuickBooks?
For daily operations, yes. QuickBooks is built around the ledger, so the shop itself, the till, the shelf, the delivery, lives in spreadsheets around it. It has no counter screen, no real stock count, and nowhere to put the crates or cylinders you expect back. Outlyz runs those directly. If an accountant keeps your books in QuickBooks, they can keep doing that from the reports Outlyz gives them.
Why does it matter that QuickBooks is priced in dollars?
Because your sales are not. QuickBooks subscriptions are billed in US dollars, so the shilling amount on your card moves every month with the exchange rate, on top of the subscription itself going up in dollar terms most years. Outlyz is priced in UGX. The number you pay is the number you budget for.
Can I move my stock list from Tally or QuickBooks into Outlyz?
We do it with you. Send us your stock list, in any shape, even a photo of the book, and we set your products up. After that you can download your own sheet from Outlyz, change prices or counts in it, and upload it back. Outlyz shows you exactly what will change before anything is saved.
Do I lose my history if I switch?
No. Your old records stay in Tally or QuickBooks, and nothing forces you to move them. Outlyz starts from what is on the shelf today and builds its own history from your first sale.
Do I still need an accountant if I use Outlyz?
Yes, and Outlyz makes their job easier, not harder. It keeps a clean record of every sale, delivery and deposit as it happens, and your accountant can pull reports from that record for the books and for URA. What changes is where the shop itself runs. The till and the stock list your staff already use become the record, instead of a ledger someone writes up afterwards.
Outlyz does this
Outlyz tracks your stock, orders and deliveries, and every container you expect back. UGX 20,000 per person per month. The first month is free and no card is needed.
Or call 0780 784870 and we will set it up with you.