We state and prove a quantitative inverse theorem for the Gowers uniformity norm $U^3(G)$ on an arbitrary finite abelian group $G$; the cases when $G$ was of odd order or a vector space over ${\mathbf F}_2$ had previously been established by Green and the second author and by Samorodnitsky respectively by Fourier-analytic methods, which we also employ here. We also prove a qualitative version of this inverse theorem using a structure theorem of Host--Kra type for ergodic ${\mathbf Z}^ω$-actions of order $2$ on probability spaces established recently by Shalom and the authors.