What are the recommendations for accounting / book-keeping softwares for small startups / businesses?

I recommend QuickBooks .

tally

Peachtree and Quickbooks, both the software are very useful if you want to track your stock, issue sale invoices stock wise and enter bills the same way.
the only difference in Peachtree and Quickbooks is of Chart of Accounts.
in Peachtree you have to remember the numeric codes for e.g.
for One Standard Chartered Bank A/C xx-xxxxxxx-xx type10100 and Peachtree selects the account.
but in Quickbooks you can simply enter the first few alphabets for e.g.
for One Standard Chartered Bank A/C xx-xxxxxxx-xx type Standard and Quickbooks displays you the account to select.
QB is also helpful to enter time/Cost to a specific job.

QuickBooks Peachtree Tally