A Saral alternative with GST & AI
A modern, offline accounting and GST app with AI insights — LekhaPro is an alternative to Saral for Indian SMEs that want billing, books and returns in one place.
Live product UI — sample data.
Accounting + GST
Posted double-entry books with GST billing, GSTR-1/3B and reconciliation.
Modern & fast
A clean, keyboard-first desktop app that runs offline and updates itself.
AI insights
A business health score, cash-flow forecast and revenue-leak scan over your own books.
What this actually means in practice
Businesses that buy statutory software are usually solving a filing problem: returns due on fixed dates, figures that must tie back to source records, and a reviewer who will ask where a number came from. The requirement is traceability — a GSTR-1 line that can be opened down to the invoice, a 3B that agrees with the ledger, TDS and TCS captured at the point of entry rather than reconstructed at quarter end, and a pack the CA can work from.
Switching a compliance workflow is best done at a clean boundary. Party masters with GSTINs, item and HSN records, tax rates and opening balances import; filed returns and past transactions remain in the previous system, as no automated import has been built from Saral or any other package. File the current period where you are already set up, begin the next one in LekhaPro, and retain the old installation read-only — notices can arrive years later.
LekhaPro generates returns from the books rather than alongside them: GSTR-1 and 3B, GSTR-2B and 2A reconciliation, e-invoice and e-way bill, TDS and TCS ledgers, plus a GST health score, an error catcher for place-of-supply, HSN, rate and duplicate faults, and a filing-ready pack for the CA. Saral is a long-standing name in Indian tax and statutory software; changing a filing routine mid-stream is disruptive, so plan the boundary carefully.
| What to check before switching | How LekhaPro answers it |
|---|---|
| Can I trace a return figure back to its invoice? | Yes — GSTR-1 and 3B are built from posted entries, and every line drills down to the source document. |
| Is GSTR-2B reconciliation included? | Yes — 2B and 2A matching against purchases, with mismatches and ITC-at-risk listed for follow-up. |
| Are errors caught before filing, not after? | An error catcher flags place-of-supply, HSN, rate and duplicate issues, alongside a 0–100 GST health score. |
| How does live filing actually work? | Through your own GST Suvidha Provider credentials; without them the same returns export as offline JSON. |
| Are TDS and TCS handled at entry? | Yes — deducted with the correct ledgers when the transaction is recorded, not reconstructed at quarter end. |
| What will my CA receive? | A filing-ready pack with statements, registers and reconciliations, plus Tally XML and Excel exports. |
| Can I run several client companies? | Yes — multi-company and multi-year, with roles, permissions and a rollup across companies. |
| What moves across at the switch? | Party and item masters, GSTINs, rates and opening balances. Filed returns and past transactions stay behind. |
What’s included
- Offline double-entry accounting
- GST billing & returns
- GSTR-2B reconciliation
- Inventory & banking
- Deterministic AI insights
- Multi-company
- Offline-first
What it does not do
- · Previously filed returns and transaction history are not imported — start at a clean return-period boundary.
- · Live GSTN, IRP and e-way-bill actions need your own GST Suvidha Provider credentials.
- · There is no payroll or income-tax-return module; the product covers GST, TDS/TCS and the books behind them.
- · Desktop edition is Windows-only, and support runs over email and WhatsApp rather than a local office.
Frequently asked
Is LekhaPro a good Saral alternative?
Yes for SMEs wanting an offline accounting + GST app with AI insights and local data. Evaluate both against your needs.
Does it handle GST returns?
Yes — GSTR-1/3B and 2B reconciliation, offline, with live filing via your GST Suvidha Provider.
Is it offline?
Yes — everything runs on your machine.
Can I file the current quarter from LekhaPro if I switch mid-quarter?
Only if the whole quarter's transactions are in it. Since history does not migrate, the cleaner route is to file the running period from your existing setup and start fresh from the next return period. A monthly filer therefore loses at most a few weeks of waiting; a quarterly filer should aim for the quarter boundary.
Does my CA have to learn the software too?
Not necessarily. Most practitioners work from exports, and LekhaPro produces a filing-ready pack, standard statements, registers and Tally XML that fit existing review habits. If your CA prefers direct access, multi-company and role-based permissions allow a read-only login instead. Either way, the books are ordinary posted double-entry, so nothing about the format will be unfamiliar.
What exactly is included in Alternative · accounting?
offline double-entry accounting, GST billing & returns, GSTR-2B reconciliation, inventory & banking, deterministic AI insights and multi-company, and 1 more. Every item on that list is a working screen you can open in the trial rather than a capability described in the abstract.
How is alternative · accounting handled differently here?
It rests on accounting + GST, modern & fast and AI insights. The distinction that matters is that these are structural rather than cosmetic — the behaviour is built into how records are posted, not layered on as a report you have to remember to run.
Does Alternative · accounting post to the real books?
Yes, and that is the whole reason it lives in this product rather than beside it. What accounting + GST records lands in the same posted double-entry ledger the Trial Balance, P&L and GST returns are built from — so there is no second set of alternative · accounting numbers to reconcile against the first.
Does Alternative · accounting cost extra?
No. Alternative · accounting is part of the accounting core rather than a paid add-on, so modern & fast is there on the entry tier exactly as it is on the highest one. What the tiers change is reach and depth — devices, multi-branch and multi-warehouse reporting, and whether the conversational AI copilots are switched on.
Can I try Alternative · accounting before committing?
Yes — 14 days, no card. Test alternative · accounting against your own masters and your own transactions rather than sample data: the questions worth answering here are about your business's edge cases, and a demo dataset is built not to have any.