The best small business accounting software is easy to use and has essential bookkeeping features, including accounts payable (A/P) and accounts receivable (A/R) management, income and expense tracking, and financial reporting. Some businesses may do well with free software like Wave, while others may need premium options like QuickBooks Online or Zoho Books for advanced tasks, such as project accounting and inventory management.
Here are the seven best accounting software for small businesses:
- QuickBooks Online: Best overall accounting software for small businesses
- Wave: Best free for invoices and tracking expenses
- FreshBooks: Best for service businesses seeking project accounting
- Xero: Best value with inventory and more than five users
- Zoho Books: Best mobile accounting app
- Sage 50: Best desktop accounting software
- Bench: Best online service as an alternative to accounting software
We are committed to providing you with an unbiased, thorough, and comprehensive evaluation to help you find the right accounting software for your business. We meticulously and objectively assess each software based on a fixed set of criteria—including pricing, features, ease of use, and customer support—in our internal case study.
To delve deeper into our best small business accounting software, we tested and used each platform to evaluate how the features perform against our metrics. This hands-on approach helps us strengthen our accounting software expertise and deliver on the Fit Small Business mission of providing the best answers to your small business questions.
Best Small Business Accounting Software: Quick Comparison
QuickBooks Online: Best Overall Small Business Accounting Software
Pros
Cons
- Is a bit expensive compared to similar software
- Requires at least Plus subscription to track inventory and project profitability
- Can’t enter bills or record time worked from the mobile app
- Requires one subscription per organization
- Simple Start: $35 per month for one user
- Essentials: $65 per month for up to three users
- Plus: $99 per month for up to five users
- Advanced: $235 per month for up to 25 users
You can try QuickBooks Online for 30 days or get 50% off for three months if you subscribe immediately.
Add-ons:
- QuickBooks Bill Pay: Starts at free for five automated clearing house (ACH) payments per month (read our QuickBooks Bill Pay review)
- QuickBooks Payroll: Starts at $45 plus $6 monthly per employee (read our QuickBooks Payroll review)
- QuickBooks Live: Starting at $300 monthly after custom-priced startup fee (read our QuickBooks Live Bookkeeping review)
- QuickBooks Time: $20 base fee plus $8 monthly per employee (read our QuickBooks Time review)
QuickBooks Online is our best small business accounting software because it is widely used by business owners and accountants, making it extremely easy to find help. It has a strong feature set, including the ability to create classes and locations for tracking income and expenses. This is particularly beneficial for businesses that operate in multiple departments or physical locations.
The program is versatile, so you can customize it to specific industries, such as churches, restaurants, and nonprofits. It is also easy to use and allows you to share data and files effortlessly with employees, certified public accountants (CPAs) Certified Public Accountants , and tax professionals. Since QuickBooks for Mac has been discontinued, QuickBooks Online is our choice for the best accounting software for Mac.
It also has a vast network of QuickBooks ProAdvisors, who can help you with various accounting workflows, such as setting up specific reports, customizing invoices, and optimizing the chart of accounts. If you need expert help, read our guide on how to find a QuickBooks ProAdvisor.
On the downside, QuickBooks Online is a bit costly, especially for very small businesses with only basic accounting needs. If you are starting out or are on a tight budget, you might find the free Wave accounting software sufficient.
In our accounting rubric, QuickBooks Online consistently stands out across various criteria, such as banking, A/P, A/R, and inventory. It earned near-perfect marks for its support network because of the availability of QuickBooks ProAdvisors. However, we docked a few points for project management because you can’t track estimated and actual project costs in the Plus plan.
The platform received a fairly high score for mobile accounting, but it could have done better if the app allowed users to enter and pay bills, just like Zoho Books. And while it is generally easy to use, we want to see an improvement in customer support. Unless you purchase Advanced, you can’t place a direct phone call to an agent; you need to send a ticket first and wait for a call. If you want access to direct phone support, then we recommend FreshBooks or Zoho Books.
The good thing is that QuickBooks Online offers many self-help guides to help new users get the most out of QuickBooks. If you need additional training resources, you can check out our free QuickBooks Online tutorials.
Wave: Best Free for Invoices & Tracking Expenses
Pros
- Offers free basic accounting features, including income and expense tracking and invoicing
- Can import bank transactions with bank feed
- Lets you send an unlimited number of invoices
- Has a great inexpensive receipt scanner
- Has a paid plan that supports unlimited users with different roles
Cons
- Has no advanced features like inventory tracking and project management
- Lacks scalable options
- Can’t reconcile bank statements when timing differences exist
- Has a free plan—but it excludes a bank feed; must import bank transactions from bank statement
- Starter: Completely free for a single user
- Pro: $16 per month for unlimited users
Add-ons:
- Wave Receipts: $11 per month for unlimited receipt scans via the mobile app (included with Pro plan)
- Wave Payroll: $40 monthly for tax service states or $20 for self-service states, plus $6 per month, per active employee, or independent contractor (read our Wave Payroll review)
- Wave Advisor: From $149 per month for bookkeeping support
- Accounting and payroll coaching: $379 per coaching session and email support
Wave is our recommended free solution for small business accounting and our overall best free accounting software. It includes free bookkeeping, invoicing, and expense tracking features, making it a great fit for freelancers and small businesses with simple accounting needs. For sole proprietors looking to upgrade accounting software, Wave is one of our favorite alternatives to QuickBooks Self Employed.
The main advantage of upgrading to the Pro tier is that it supports unlimited users, which can be useful for small businesses or freelancers working with a team. The most important added feature is automatically importing and categorizing your expenses from a bank feed. That’s nice but not necessary. With the free plan, you can import bank transactions from a statement and then manually categorize them.
Despite the limitations of the free option, it is still by far the best free accounting software we’ve found. We suggest starting with the Free plan—if you only need one user—and then deciding later if you want to upgrade for the additional banking features.
In addition to pricing, Wave performed well in terms of ease of use and general basic features, such as invoicing and income and expense tracking, which is expected given that it’s a very simple software. However, as a trade-off for being free, its features are not as flexible as those in premium software like QuickBooks Online.
For instance, it doesn’t allow you to reconcile bank accounts when there are timing differences—explaining its low score for banking. The reconciliation feature can’t account for when a check is deducted in the software but hasn’t cleared the bank yet. This could be a pretty big problem if you issue a lot of paper checks.
Additionally, Wave lacks some advanced features, like class and location tracking, inventory tracking, and project management. If you require such features, look into QuickBooks Online, Zoho Books, and Xero. Wave also didn’t meet our expectations in mobile accounting because the app doesn’t allow you to enter and pay bills, categorize bank transactions, and generate reports. Our top recommendation for mobile accounting is Zoho Books.
Another weak point is customer service as Wave has no live customer support, like phone or live chat. However, users can easily forgive this since it’s part of the trade-off for Wave’s very low price tag.
FreshBooks: Best for Service Businesses Seeking Project Accounting
Pros
- Has strong project management features
- Can compare estimated vs actual costs
- Lets you track time and expenses and add them to invoices
- Offers unlimited invoices in all plans
- Has a mobile app for invoicing and accounting
Cons
- Charges additional fee for each extra user
- Requires live bank feed to track account balances
- Is unable to track activity by class
- Is unable to track inventory and COGS
Each plan includes only one user:
- Lite: $19 per month; up to five billable clients
- Plus: $33 per month; up to 50 billable clients
- Premium: $60 per month; unlimited billable clients
- Select: Custom pricing for unlimited billable clients and specialized features
FreshBooks is now available at 70% off for four months, or you can try Lite, Plus, and Premium plans for free for 30 days.
Add-ons:
- Additional team members: $11 per person, per month
- FreshBooks Payroll powered by Gusto: $40 per month plus $6 per employee (read our review of Gusto)
- Advanced payments: $20 per month (unavailable with Lite plan)
FreshBooks is our top choice for project-based companies because of its robust project management and time-tracking features. Hours and expenses can be tracked by project and then easily added to the customer’s invoice. This makes it a great choice for consulting firms and marketing agencies that bill clients based on the time worked by their employees.
We also like that FreshBooks can issue project-specific estimates that can then be compared to actual expenses, which isn’t possible with QuickBooks Online. This helps you determine whether you are over or under budget, which allows you to make the necessary adjustments to your project plan or budget if needed.
Unfortunately, FreshBooks isn’t a great fit for product-based businesses as it has no inventory and COGS tracking features. If you have inventory to manage, we recommend QuickBooks Online for five or fewer users and Xero if you need more than five users.
FreshBooks aced our evaluation of project accounting, justifying its position as our top recommendation for service-based businesses. We docked points mainly in general accounting features and inventory management, but it did a great job in other aspects, like A/R management, general features, integrations, and a mobile app.
We want to see an improvement in FreshBooks’ banking features. Expenses entered manually in FreshBooks cannot be assigned to a specific bank or credit card account until they are matched to a transaction transferred in from a bank feed. This means you can’t track bank balances unless you agree to establish live bank feeds. If you want flexible banking features with the ability to reconcile transactions manually, you should consider QuickBooks Online.
Another shortcoming is pricing since only one user is included in the base price—and you may find FreshBooks expensive if you need multiple users to access your software. Businesses with many users can save money with Xero since they can add as many users as needed without any additional fees.
Xero: Best Value With Inventory and Over 5 Users
Pros
- Has solid inventory accounting including COGS
- Offers unlimited users in all plans
- Comes with outstanding basic accounting features
- Has a good network of Xero Advisors
Cons
- Is not as easy to set up and use as QuickBooks Online
- Lacks customer support by either phone or live chat
- Has a marginal mobile app
- Is expensive for single users needing complete software
All plans have unlimited users:
- Early: $15 for 20 invoices and 5 bills
- Growing: $42 for unlimited bills and invoices
- Established: $78 includes project accounting
Xero is currently 90% off for three months, or you can try any plan for free for 30 days.
Add-ons:
- Payroll by Gusto: Billed separately by Gusto (read our Gusto review)
We chose Xero for the great combination of solid inventory accounting and unlimited users. Xero will track your available inventory and allocate the cost of inventory automatically between your inventory on hand at the end of the year and your COGS during the year.
QuickBooks Online also has great inventory accounting, and we think it is a little easier to set up and use than Xero. The problem is that if you need over five users with QuickBooks Online, then you must upgrade from Plus to Advanced, which increases the price from $90 or $200. Xero gives companies with inventory a solid option for unlimited users and a much lower price.
Xero scores extremely well across all the major accounting functions like banking, A/R, A/P, inventory, project accounting, and reporting. While we think it’s a little harder to use than QuickBooks Online, it can do pretty much anything that QuickBooks can do.
The reason we give Xero an overall lower score than Zoho Books and QuickBooks Online is its lackluster mobile app and the absence of any form of live customer support. The Xero mobile app is missing some basic features like receiving customer payments, recording time worked, and viewing reports. Additionally, customer support is only available through email with no phone number to call or live chat function. However, Xero has a lot of self-help material on its website and a user community group.
Zoho Books: Best Mobile Accounting App
Pros
- Has a mobile accounting app that offers more features than similar software
- Offers a free plan for businesses with revenue of less than $50,000 a year
- Has excellent inventory and COGS accounting features
- Integrates with other Zoho apps easily
Cons
- Has limited invoices in the Free and Standard plans
- Can’t track unpaid bills in the Free and Standard plans
- May be difficult to find third-party bookkeeping assistance in the United States
- Free: For businesses making less than $50,000 in annual revenues; includes one user plus one accountant and up to 1,000 invoices per year
- Standard: $20 per month; limited to three users and 5,000 invoices
- Professional: $50 per month; limited to five users with unlimited invoices
- Premium: $70 per month; limited to 10 users
- Elite: $150 per month with advanced inventory; limited to 10 users
- Ultimate: $275 per month; limited to 15 users
You can try any paid plan for 14 days with no credit card requirement.
Add-ons:
- Additional users: $3 per user, per month
- Receipt scanning: $10 for 50 scans per month
Zoho Books stands out from the other accounting software with its powerful mobile app. It tops our list of the leading mobile accounting apps because users can perform advanced accounting tasks on the app, including sending invoices, accepting online payments, entering bills, and viewing reports. You can also create recurring invoices and track time worked, making Zoho Books our overall best accounting software for freelancers.
We believe that conducting business with clients on the go is easier when you have a powerful mobile app. However, that’s not the only thing Zoho Books can offer as it’s also remarkable in other aspects, such as inventory and project accounting. It has features similar to QuickBooks Online—but at a more affordable price. This makes Zoho Books our top-recommended QuickBooks Online alternative.
One of its drawbacks is that it doesn’t allow you to set up and manage multiple companies under a single account. For this, we recommend QuickBooks Enterprise—which is our leading multicompany accounting software.
Zoho Books nearly aced the majority of our rubric criteria, but it fell short in terms of ease of use and tax management. We awarded it a perfect score for mobile accounting because the app provides more features than most similar apps. It also stood out in customer support because it offers phone support and live chat just like FreshBooks.
Zoho Books, however, has some minor limitations. For instance, its project accounting feature doesn’t allow you to compare estimated and actual inventory used, which is also the weakness we found in QuickBooks Online. Those who need this level of project profitability tracking should consider QuickBooks Enterprise if they also need inventory, or FreshBooks if they’re a service-based business.
Sage 50: Best Desktop Accounting Software
Pros
- Lets you manage multiple companies with one license
- Offers a free test drive account
- Has flexible inventory accounting
- Comes with solid all-around accounting features
Cons
- Has a poor mobile app
- Is expensive compared to cloud software
- Is harder to set up and use than cloud software
- Difficult to find proficient bookkeepers in the US
- Pro Accounting: $58.92 per month (one user only)
- Premium Accounting: $96.58 per month for one user to $222.25 per month for five users
- Quantum Accounting: $160 per month for one user to $409.17 per month for 10 users
Custom pricing is available for those with over 10 users. There is no free trial, but you can take a “test drive” in a hosted version of Sage 50 already completed with sample data.
Add-ons:
- Sage Payroll: Payroll can be bundled with any of the plans starting at $993 per year for up to 10 employees and the Pro Accounting plan.
With the discontinuance of QuickBooks Pro and Premier for new users after July 31, 2024, Sage is the only remaining major accounting software provider with desktop software targeting small businesses. While QuickBooks Enterprise remains available as a desktop solution, its starting price is nearly triple that of Sage 50—making it unaffordable for many small businesses.
Sage 50 is a high-quality feature-packed accounting software. It offers outstanding invoicing, bill management, reporting, and inventory features. It can be customized to suit the needs of just about any business. It can even be used to manage the books of multiple companies with the Premium and Quantum plans.
Sage 50 scored very well across all the major accounting features that we looked at in our case study. One of the few missing accounting features was a way to group paper checks and cash into a lump sum deposit amount so that the check register matches your bank statement. It’s exceptionally strong in project and inventory accounting.
Its weaknesses are in pricing, mobile app, and ease of use. It’s a bit expensive compared to cloud accounting programs, but much less expensive than QuickBooks Enterprise—which is another popular desktop accounting program. The only mobile app available captures receipt images but nothing else. Finally, ease of setup and ease of use is about what we expect for a desktop program, but much harder than cloud-based software.
Bench: Best Online Service as an Alternative to Accounting Software
Pros
- Provides access to a team of trained in-house bookkeepers
- Has a catch-up bookkeeping service
- Offers tax-ready financial statements
- Provides simple tax filing through its Premium plan
Cons
- Lacks invoicing and bill management
- Uses proprietary software; can make it hard to switch to another provider
- Doesn’t sync with QuickBooks for invoicing
- Essential: $299 per month
- Premium: $499 per month; includes income tax advice and return filing
Add-ons:
- Catch-up bookkeeping: Catch up on prior bookkeeping periods for as low as $299 per month
- Specialized bookkeeping: Track A/R, A/P, or segments starting at $100 per month
When you outsource your bookkeeping to Bench, which leads our roundup of the best online bookkeeping services, you can free up time to focus on more important aspects of your business rather than getting bogged down in administrative tasks.
Whether you are short on time or don’t have the bandwidth or resources to manage your books, Bench’s team of bookkeeping professionals can help you manage your accounting tasks, such as expense categorization, reconciliations, and financial reporting. For as little as $299 monthly, Bench costs far less than you would pay a local independent bookkeeper, and you can even add on tax filing and advisory services.
However, the service doesn’t eliminate all of your bookkeeping tasks. You’ll still need to issue invoices to your customers, collect payments, and pay your bills. These tasks are closely tied to businesses, and we believe most business owners like maintaining control over these activities. While Bench is doing the rest of your bookkeeping, you can consider using free invoicing software like Zoho Invoice, one of our top free invoice generators.
How We Evaluated Small Business Accounting Software
We evaluated the best small business accounting software using our internal case study. During our evaluation, we focused on the following key categories.
5% of Overall Score
In evaluating pricing, we considered the billing cycle (monthly or annual) and the number of users.
5% of Overall Score
This section focuses more on first-time setup and software settings. The platform must be quick and easy to set up for new users. Even after initial setup, the software must also let users modify information like company name, address, entity type, fiscal year-end, and other company information.
5% of Overall Score
The banking section of this case study focuses on cash management, bank reconciliation, and bank feed connections. The software must have bank integrations to automatically feed bank or card transactions. The bank reconciliation module must also let users reconcile accounts with or without bank feeds for optimal ease of use. Lastly, the software must generate useful reports related to cash.
5% of Overall Score
The A/P section focuses on vendor management, bill management, bill payments, and other payable-related transactions. A/P features include creating vendors and bills, recording purchase orders and converting them to bills, creating service items, and recording full or partial bill payments.
5% of Overall Score
This takes into account customer management, revenue recognition, invoice management, and collections. The software must have A/R features that make it easy for users to collect payments from customers, remind customers of upcoming or overdue invoices, and manage customer obligations through analytic dashboards or reports.
10% of Overall Score
Businesses with inventory items should choose accounting software that can track inventory costs, manage COGS, and monitor inventory units.
10% of Overall Score
Service or project-based businesses should choose accounting software that can track project costs, revenues, and profits. The software must have tools to track time, record billable hours or expenses, send invoices for progress billings, or monitor project progress and performance.
4% of Overall Score
In this section, we’re looking at sales tax features. The software must have features that allow users to set sales tax rates, apply them to invoices, and enable users to pay sales tax liability.
4% of Overall Score
Reports are important for managers, owners, and decision-makers. The software must have enough reports that can be generated with a few clicks. Moreover, we’d also like to see customization options to enable users to generate reports based on what they want to see.
10% of Overall Score
Customer service is evaluated based on the number of communication channels available, such as phone, live chat, and email. Software providers also receive points based on other resources available, such as self-help articles and user communities. Finally, they are awarded points based on the ease with which users will find assistance from independent bookkeepers with expertise in the platform.
10% of Overall Score
This requires the software to allow users transitioning from other bookkeeping software to import their chart of accounts (COA), vendors, customers, service items, and inventory items. Ideally, there will be a wizard to walk the user through the import process.
10% of Overall Score
Ease of use includes the layout of the dashboard and whether new transactions can be initiated from the dashboard rather than having to navigate to a particular module. Other factors considered are user reviews specific to ease of use and a subjective evaluation by our experts of both the UI and general ease of use.
5% of Overall Score
This includes the availability of integrations for payroll, time tracking, and receiving e-payments. We also evaluated whether an electronic bill pay integration was available.
5% of Overall Score
The software must have a mobile app to enable users to perform accounting tasks even when away from their laptops or desktops. Some of the features we looked into include the ability to create and send invoices, accept online payments, enter and track bills, and view reports on the go.
7% of Overall Score
We went to user review websites to read first-hand reviews from actual software users. This user review score helps us give more credit to software products that deliver a consistent service to their customers.
Choosing and Setting Up Your Accounting Software
Implementing new accounting software can be a major project—even for a company with only a handful of employees. Before buying your software, talk with your current software users about what they see as the most important features. Make note of what processes are currently being done by hand or in spreadsheets that might be easier in a new accounting platform.
Implementing new software is hard—and you want as much buy-in from the ultimate users as possible. Once you decide on a tool, you’ll need to ensure you have the proper equipment to run it:
- Cloud-based accounting software generally takes minimal computer power but relies heavily on internet speed and reliability.
- If you don’t have good internet access in your area, you might need to choose a desktop solution—which will rely heavily on the speed, processing power, and memory of your hardware. If you choose desktop software, see to it you have plans for backing up the data on a nightly basis.
Once the software is installed, be sure to provide adequate training to all the users. Depending on the complexity of the software, this might include videos or in-house training.
After training, you can begin using the software but should also continue with the current software. This short period of running parallel systems takes a lot of time, but it’s important in case of major problems with the new system.
You may need industry-specific accounting software for small businesses if you have unique bookkeeping needs specific to your niche. For instance, law firms require trust accounting features, which are often not offered in general-purpose bookkeeping solutions, such as the best small business accounting software presented above.
To help you select the right solution for your niche, check out our following guides to the best accounting software across various industries:
- Best accounting software for consultants
- Best accounting software for handyman business
- Best accounting software for small manufacturing businesses
- Best accounting practice management software
- Best church accounting software
- Best construction accounting software
- Best cryptocurrency accounting software
- Best ecommerce accounting software
- Best farm accounting software
- Best hotel accounting software
- Best law firm accounting software
- Best nonprofit accounting software
- Best real estate accounting software
- Best restaurant accounting software
- Best retail accounting software
- Best startup accounting software
- Best trucking accounting software
There’s no one-size-fits-all small business accounting software; each program has its benefits and drawbacks, especially in terms of features. That said, if there’s a specific accounting aspect or task you want to automate or achieve within your company, select a platform that is excellent in that area.
Below are our helpful guides to finding the right bookkeeping software tailored to specific features or areas of accounting:
- Best A/P software
- Best bank reconciliation software
- Best cloud-based accounting software
- Best fixed asset management software
- Best invoicing software
- Best mobile accounting apps
- Best multicompany accounting software
- Best project accounting software
- Best small business budgeting software
- Best spend management software
Small Business Accounting Software Statistics
QuickBooks dominates the market for small business accounting software in the US with a market share of 81%. The next two most popular accounting software are Sage 50 with 10% and Xero with 9%.
Small Business Accounting Software Market Share
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QuickBooks Online
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Sage 50
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Xero
While we think FreshBooks is a great choice for many small businesses, it’s a much smaller company than the main players in the accounting software market with only $113 million in annual revenue—compared to QuickBooks Online’s $8 billion. However, it could be FreshBooks’ small size that allows it to provide the outstanding customer service for which it’s known.
Small Business Accounting Software Revenue
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QuickBooks Online
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Xero
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FreshBooks
The most basic purpose of accounting software is to track revenue, expenses, assets, and liabilities and produce a balance sheet and profit and loss (P&L) statement. However, good accounting software can do so much more including invoicing your customers, paying your bills, and providing business owners with important insight into how their business is performing and where improvements can be made.
The features included in the best accounting software include:
- General ledger
- Accounts payable (vendor bills)
- Accounts receivable (customer invoices)
- Bank reconciliation
- Financial reporting
- Payroll processing
- Inventory management
- Budgeting and forecasting
- Tax compliance
- Audit trail
Every business needs some sort of accounting software to file tax returns and meet the IRS requirements for financial records. However, you don’t necessarily have to use the accounting software yourself. You might find it’s cheaper to let someone else worry about bookkeeping so you can focus on your core business.
Here are a few options for doing your own bookkeeping:
- Go with an online bookkeeping service: Bench is our top-recommended online bookkeeping service as highlighted in this guide, but there are other great options. If all you’re looking for is basic accounting services and financial statements, you might like Merritt Bookkeeping, which only charges $190 per month for any size company with no additional software to buy. Read our Merritt Bookkeeping review for more information or see our best online bookkeeping services for more options.
- Find a QuickBooks ProAdvisor: If you use QuickBooks, you’ll have no trouble finding a local bookkeeper to take over the basic bookkeeping. Our article on how to find a QuickBooks ProAdvisor will walk you through the process.
- Hire an internal bookkeeper: At a certain point, a growing business will need an internal, full-time, professional bookkeeper to keep up with the bookkeeping and help management understand the data. Read our guide on how to hire a bookkeeper for assistance.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
QuickBooks is by far the most popular and best small business accounting software in the US. However, there are some less expensive alternatives to QuickBooks you may consider, such as Wave and FreshBooks.
Some key factors you need to consider when selecting the best business accounting software include cost, ease of use, deployment method, scalability, features, and customer support. Visit our guide on how to choose the right small business accounting software for the step-by-step process.
Prices may range from $0 to $200 per month for cloud-based software. Desktop accounting software can go as high as more than $1,000 per month, depending on the number of users included in the plan.
Among the software we’ve reviewed, Wave is the simplest and most user-friendly solution for businesses with basic accounting tasks. It lets you create and send unlimited invoices, track income and expenses, and create financial reports easily.
Cloud-based software like QuickBooks Online allows you to access your books from any internet-enabled device. Meanwhile, on-premise programs like QuickBooks Desktop can be accessed only on the computer where it’s installed.
If you only need basic accounting features like income and expense tracking, then you may benefit from free accounting software like Wave. We don’t recommend free software if you sell inventory.
No, you don’t. There are some easy-to-use accounting software that don’t require prior bookkeeping experience. Examples are QuickBooks Online, Wave, and FreshBooks. However, to get the most out of accounting software, we recommend that you work closely with your accountant.
Bottom Line
There are many terrific small business accounting software applications available, but none of them are as versatile and comprehensive as QuickBooks Online. However, it isn’t always the best solution, especially if you only have very basic needs and wish to save money.