- Cash Basis Accounting: Record income and expenses when cash changes hands, ideal for unincorporated businesses.
- Fast Data Entry: Autocomplete functionality speeds up transaction input, enhancing efficiency.
- Multiple Bank/Cash Accounts: Support tracking transactions across various bank and cash accounts.
- Bank Reconciliation: Match bank statements with records to ensure accuracy.
- Basic Financial Reports: Generate profit and loss, balance sheet, and ledger reports for financial insights.
- Double-Entry System: Use integrated ledgers (cashbook, customer, supplier) for accurate bookkeeping.
- Error Correction: Allow easy editing or deletion of incorrect transactions.
- MTD for VAT (Paid Feature): Submit VAT returns to HMRC, requires VT Transaction+ license.
- File Compatibility: Share data files with VT Transaction+ for seamless integration.
- Free Usage (Non-MTD): No cost for basic features, excluding MTD functionality.
VT Cashbook
VT Cash Book records daily cash transactions for businesses using cash basis accounting.
Updated July 27, 2026
VT Cashbook Overview
VT Cash Book is a free, user-friendly accounting software designed for unincorporated businesses using cash basis accounting. It simplifies recording daily cash transactions, including bank receipts and payments, and features a bank reconciliation function.
With a double-entry system, it ensures accurate bookkeeping and generates basic financial reports. Ideal for small businesses, it supports fast data entry and can integrate with VT Transaction+ for enhanced functionality.
Key Features
Pricing
| Plan / Product | Price / Cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| VT Cash Book (basic version) | Free | Core cash-basis bookkeeping — unlimited cash flow entries and basic accounting features. |
| VAT / MTD & advanced features (via license) — VT Transaction+ | £90 + VAT / year per user | Required if you need VAT-return / Making-Tax-Digital (MTD) features. |
| VT Accounts Suite — full bookkeeping suite plus statutory accounts (VT Final Accounts / VT Filer for Companies House filing) | £175 + VAT / year (single user) (additional users £90 + VAT/yr) | For businesses needing full double-entry bookkeeping and more features than the free Cash Book. |
Pricing source: https://www.vtsoftware.co.uk/prices/index.htm
Pros
| Competitor | Pros of VT Software |
|---|---|
| QuickBooks | VT Cash Book is free and still records unlimited transactions across as many bank and cash accounts as you need, with an unlimited number of company files. Stepping up to VT Transaction+ costs £90 + VAT a year per user, which is less over twelve months than QuickBooks UK charges for its £16 a month Simple Start plan. New users get 60 days free to test the software, and a licence can be installed on any number of PCs. |
| Xero | One VT Transaction+ licence at £90 + VAT a year covers sales and purchase ledgers, foreign currency bank accounts, bank statement file imports and Making Tax Digital submissions for both VAT and income tax quarterly updates. Xero UK runs from £16 a month for Ignite to £65 for Ultimate, billed every month for as long as you use it. Because VT runs locally, data entry never waits for a page to load, and autocomplete keeps keystrokes down. |
| Zoho Books | Zoho Books UK charges per organisation, from a free tier and £12 a month Standard up to £199 Ultimate, and adds £2.50 per month for each extra user. A single VT licence handles an unlimited number of company or business files, which is why bookkeepers with many small clients stay with it. VT sticks to bookkeeping, VAT and accounts rather than bundling inventory, projects and CRM modules that a cash based trader will not open. |
| Sage Business Cloud | Sage’s UK accounting plans run from £20 to £59 a month plus VAT, with features unlocked tier by tier. VT has two paid packages only: VT Transaction+ at £90 + VAT a year and the VT Accounts Suite at £175 + VAT a year, where the Suite adds VT Final Accounts and VT Filer for iXBRL statutory accounts filed straight to Companies House. FRS 102 and FRS 105 templates and agent services account submissions come with that £175 licence. |
| FreshBooks | FreshBooks UK is £16 a month for Lite, £30 for Plus and £42 for Premium, and each extra team member is another £8 a month. VT’s Cash Book costs nothing and its paid licences are annual, with additional users at £90 + VAT a year each. Where FreshBooks ends at bookkeeping and billing, VT produces the year end financial statements and files them, which is why accountants keep it on the desktop. |
Cons
| Competitor | Cons of VT Software |
|---|---|
| QuickBooks | VT is Windows desktop software with no cloud version and no mobile app, and a licence covers one named person, so every additional user is another £90 + VAT a year. QuickBooks UK starts at £10 a month for sole traders and £16 for Simple Start and runs in a browser on any machine. VT pulls transactions in from a downloaded bank statement file rather than a live bank feed. |
| Xero | Xero includes unlimited users on every plan from £16 a month and connects to a large app marketplace; VT has no app ecosystem and licences per individual. Collaboration in VT means passing a company file around rather than several people working in one ledger. There are no dashboards or automated rules, so reconciliation stays a manual, if fast, job. |
| Zoho Books | Zoho Books has a free UK tier for micro businesses and paid plans that layer on inventory, projects and workflow automation, plus add ons such as document autoscans at £6.50 per 50 scans. VT has three levels in total and no automation layer, and the free Cash Book cannot submit MTD returns at all; that needs a VT Transaction+ licence. Anything approaching stock control or approval workflows is out of scope. |
| Sage Business Cloud | Sage’s £20 Start plan is a cloud product with live chat, phone and community support behind it, while VT includes technical support only with the two paid licences, not with the free Cash Book. VT Final Accounts, the part of the £175 Accounts Suite that produces statutory accounts, is an Excel add in that needs the 32 bit desktop version of Excel. That requirement rules out Mac only and browser only setups before price even enters the conversation. |
| FreshBooks | FreshBooks sells retainers, proposals, time tracking and a client portal from £16 a month, none of which exist in VT. Emailing an invoice or report from VT depends on having a compatible email program set as the default application on the PC, rather than sending from the cloud. A freelancer who wants to invoice from a phone between jobs is not the customer VT is built for. |
Reviews
- TechRadar Review (Rating: 3.8/5): VT Cashbook suits businesses with fairly basic accounting and tax needs and delivers a straightforward, no‑frills experience. The review highlights its simplicity, though it notes the lack of extras beyond core bookkeeping tasks.
- Bookkeepers.org.uk forum: Several practitioners share long-term use of VT Cashbook and VT Transaction+, with one member stating they “used it for years” and many users remain self‑taught. A trial user plans to purchase after finding it “rather good,” while another raises concerns about being able to delete transactions instead of correcting them with additional entries, questioning the strength of the audit trail. One contributor points out the built-in “Transactions Report” under Display > Transactions Report, which prints a full double-entry record for the year.
- G2 Review of VT Final Accounts (Rating: 4.5/5, for a companion VT Software product): The system earns praise for a “very user friendly” design and an easy-to-understand layout of account codes, which makes navigating and preparing accounts feel straightforward.
