Eric Gerard Ruiz, CPA

From years of handling tax prep, I’ve found that TurboTax Premium (known as TurboTax Premier in its desktop format) is worth the upgrade if you have income from investments or rental properties. Otherwise, TurboTax Deluxe covers most other personal tax situations efficiently. Both options are available in online and downloadable (via CD) formats. TurboTax Deluxe: Best…

TurboTax offers various desktop versions of its tax software, and each is tailored to meet specific tax situations. TurboTax Premier and TurboTax Home & Business are two of its most popular options. While both include many of the same desktop tax preparation tools, Premier provides additional guidance for investments and rental properties, while Home &…

QuickBooks Ledger is an accounting solution designed for accounting professionals using QuickBooks Online Accountant. Rather than serving as a full business management platform, it focuses on after-the-fact accounting for write-up, tax-only, and year-end clients. You can import and categorize transactions, reconcile bank accounts, generate financial reports, and prepare books for tax filing without business management…

Cloud-based accounts payable (A/P) software is an online system that helps businesses receive, approve, pay, and store vendor bills in one place. It replaces paper invoices, email approvals, spreadsheet trackers, and separate payment records with a shared digital workflow. For small businesses, using cloud-based A/P software can lead to fewer missed bills, faster approvals, cleaner…

The best ERP software helps growing businesses move beyond disconnected accounting, sales, purchasing, inventory, reporting, and operations systems. For small and midsize businesses, the right ERP is not always the largest or most complex platform. It is the system that gives owners, finance leaders, and department managers better control without creating more software burden than…

The best business expense tracker app should help you capture receipts, categorize expenses, submit or approve reimbursements, and sync expense data with your accounting system. For companies with employees, the best tools also add approval workflows, corporate or employee cards, spending rules, and real-time visibility into card transactions. I chose Zoho Expense as the best…

The best receipt scanner app should do more than take a photo of a receipt. It should use optical character recognition (OCR) to extract receipt details, store receipts securely, and help you attach expenses to bookkeeping records, reports, or reimbursement workflows. Some businesses need a dedicated document management tool, while others are better served by…

Construction companies that use QuickBooks Online for accounting often need a connected construction platform for workflows QuickBooks does not handle natively, such as estimating, scheduling, document management, field time tracking, inventory, job costing, and subcontractor coordination. The right integration helps reduce duplicate entry between your accounting system and project operations while keeping QuickBooks as the…

The best online bookkeeping services give small businesses clean books without requiring a full-time hire. But the right provider depends on what you want outsourced. Some services only reconcile accounts and prepare monthly financial statements. Others can also handle tax filing, payroll, bill pay, invoicing, sales tax, and CFO-level advisory. Bookkeeper360 is my best overall…

The best free accounting software should deliver maximum value to users at no additional cost. At the very least, it must allow users to manage key functions like tracking receivables, payables, and cash flow within its free tier. Advanced features, such as detailed reporting or bank reconciliation, are excellent additions but aren’t absolutely essential for…

A mileage tracker app for a small business should do more than record miles. The right tool should help you document deductible trips, reimburse employees accurately, separate business and personal driving, and create reports that are easy to use at tax time. I reviewed mileage tracker apps for different small-business needs, including solo driving, team…

The best real estate accounting software is easy to use and offers specialized features such as tenant and rental management, as well as maintenance tracking. However, a full-fledged bookkeeping solution with excellent accounting features — like invoicing, project accounting, class and location tracking, and project management — might also be enough if you have basic…