Top Accounting Software for Freelancers
- Zoho Books: Best overall accounting software for freelancers (4.43 of 5 points)
- QuickBooks Online: Best for freelancers collecting sales tax or scanning receipts (4.31 of 5 points)
- FreshBooks: Best for professional-looking invoices (4.27 of 5 points)
- QuickBooks Self-Employed: Best for tracking freelance profit and filing a tax return easily (3.50 of 5 points)
- Sunrise: Best free accounting software for freelancers (3.50 of 5 points)
Features to Look for in Freelance Accounting Software
Freelancers are self-employed individuals that provide services to multiple companies. As such, they have different requirements for accounting software than most businesses. For example, since freelancers don’t generally have employees, they don’t value integrated payroll when evaluating accounting software. Other features are essential for freelancers, such as the ability to track time and expenses to bill to clients.
Here is a summary of accounting software features that most freelancers will find either important or unimportant.
Freelance Accounting Software Features | |
|---|---|
Important | Less Important |
Great mobile app with receipt capture and mileage tracking | Payroll integration |
Professional Invoices | Inventory tracking |
Manage sales tax if providing a taxable service | Advanced tracking of income and expense by location or class |
Assign hours and expenses to customers | Multiple users |
Track project profitability for fixed-fee contracts | |
Transfer income and expense to Schedule C | |
Calculate quarterly income tax payments | |
If you need more features than a typical freelancer, such as payroll or inventory tracking, see our guide to the best small business accounting software.
How We Evaluated Accounting Software for Freelancers
We considered a wide range of software based on pricing, features, ease of use, and our own expert analysis. We also evaluated features that are useful specifically to freelancers, such as the ability to transfer information to their Schedule C tax return. When evaluating these software, we applied a higher weight to items important to freelancers and a lower, or no weight, to features unimportant to freelancers.
20% of Overall Score
The most important factors in our pricing score for freelancer software is the price and the availability of a month-to-month subscription. Software that included unlimited transactions were also given a slight advantage, but no weight was given to the number of users since freelancers generally only require one user.
25% of Overall Score
Ease of use includes a subjective evaluation by our accounting expert, but also the availability of customer service, the difficulty in activating online payments, and whether the software requires installation on a local computer.
20% of Overall Score
General features include items that would be expected of any modern bookkeeping software, but items were weighted within that list according to their importance to freelancers. For example a good mobile app is important while payroll and tracking inventory are not.
15% of Overall Score
Freelancer features are items not included in general features that are especially useful for freelancers, such as calculating estimated tax, transferring income/expense to schedule C, tracking mileage, and recurring invoices.
20% of Overall Score
Our expert evaluation is a subjective analysis of the software’s features and mobile app. It also includes the availability of bookkeeping assistance from third parties.
Zoho Books
PROS
- Customer service by telephone
- Manage sales tax collections
- Track time and expenses and add to an invoice easily
- Track project profitability
CONS
- Additional charge for receipt capture
- Cannot transfer income/expense to Schedule C
- Cannot calculate quarterly estimated tax payments
| RATING CRITERIA | Pricing | 4.38 out of 5 | OUT OF | 5 |
| Ease of Use | 4.63 out of 5 | OUT OF | 5 | |
| General Features | 4.50 out of 5 | OUT OF | 5 | |
| Freelancer Features | 4.31 out of 5 | OUT OF | 5 | |
| Expert Analysis | 4.25 out of 5 | OUT OF | 5 |
*Score is for QuickBooks Online Simple Start
Our Expert Opinion
Zoho Books received our best overall score when evaluating accounting software on the needs of freelancers. It scored high in Ease of Use because customer support is available by either live chat or by telephone, which is becoming rare among accounting software companies. If you’re a freelancer, you’ll love that you can set up recurring invoices and accept payments online easily from Zoho’s great mobile app. The mobile app also tracks your business mileage and allows you to create transactions by taking pictures of receipts.
While Zoho Books doesn’t transfer your income and expenses automatically to Schedule C of your individual return, it’s not difficult to complete your Schedule C based on the income statement report from Zoho. A major disadvantage of Zoho Books for many companies is the lack of integrated payroll in the United States, but most Freelancers don’t have employees, so that doesn’t present a problem.
Zoho Books Pricing
- Basic: $9 per month for two users and up to 50 customers and vendors combined
- Standard (recommended for most freelancers): $19 per month for three users and up to 500 customers and vendors combined
- Required to manage unpaid bills
- Professional: $29 per month for 10 users and unlimited customers and vendors.
Generating transactions by taking pictures of receipts costs an additional $5 per month for 50 scans per month. You’ll need the Standard subscription if you have more than 50 customers and vendors or want to track unpaid bills. Zoho offers a 14-day free trial with no credit card required.
For more information, read our complete Zoho Books review.
QuickBooks Online
PROS
- Manage sales tax with automatic sales tax rates based on the customer address
- Includes receipt capture to generate transactions from uploaded receipts
- Track time and expenses and add to customer invoices (requires Essentials)
- Automatically track miles with mobile app
CONS
- No customer service telephone number
- Must subscribe to expensive Plus version to track project profitability
- Cannot calculate quarterly tax payments or transfer information to Schedule C
| RATING CRITERIA | Pricing | 4.19 out of 5 | OUT OF | 5 |
| Ease of Use | 4.50 out of 5 | OUT OF | 5 | |
| General Features | 4.25 out of 5 | OUT OF | 5 | |
| Freelancer Features | 4.31 out of 5 | OUT OF | 5 | |
| Expert Analysis | 4.25 out of 5 | OUT OF | 5 |
*Score is for QuickBooks Online Simple Start
Our Expert Opinion
All editions of QuickBooks Online come with an outstanding feature that pulls the correct sales tax rate automatically to apply based on the address of the customer. In addition, it will accumulate your liability by jurisdiction and even help you file the sales tax return. All editions also come with a great mobile app with the ability to perform virtually any bookkeeping functions, including tracking miles, sending invoices, recording online payments, and uploading receipts to generate transactions.
Instead of a customer support telephone number, QuickBooks requires customers to contact them through its QuickBooks Online program. You submit your question and your telephone number, and you will be contacted as soon as possible. Based on user reviews, this system isn’t very popular, but it should work fine as long as the callback times are not too long. Another common criticism of QuickBooks Online is cost, but most freelancers can use QuickBooks Simple Start, which is very competitively priced.
QuickBooks Online Pricing
- Simple Start (recommended for most freelancers): $25 per month for one user
- Essentials: $40 per month for three users
- Plus: $70 per month for five users
Most freelancers will be served well with a Simple Start subscription. However, if you need to track your hours and add them to customer invoices, you’ll need the Essentials edition. New users can choose between 50 percent off for three months or a 30-day free trial with no credit card required.
FreshBooks
PROS
- Incredible-looking invoices
- Track mileage on mobile app
- Customer service by telephone
- Track hours and expenses and add to invoices
CONS
- Required to subscribe to expensive premium plan for more than 50 customers
- Cannot manage unpaid bills in any plan
- Receipt capture doesn’t generate new transactions
| RATING CRITERIA | Pricing | 4.19 out of 5 | OUT OF | 5 |
| Ease of Use | 4.63 out of 5 | OUT OF | 5 | |
| General Features | 4.25 out of 5 | OUT OF | 5 | |
| Freelancer Features | 4.50 out of 5 | OUT OF | 5 | |
| Expert Analysis | 3.75 out of 5 | OUT OF | 5 |
*Score is for FreshBooks Plus
Our Expert Opinion
FreshBooks has the best-looking invoices of any accounting software we’ve reviewed. Time and expenses can be added automatically to customer invoices, and invoices can be designated as recurring to minimize your monthly work. FreshBooks is also a capable bookkeeping system with a great mobile app that allows you to issue invoices, track mileage, and attach images of receipts to your existing transactions.
FreshBooks does not allow you to input bills until they are paid, so it offers no assistance in managing your unpaid bills. If you’re a freelancer with a large number of bills each month, you might consider a different program that can provide a list of all your outstanding bills and notify you when a bill is overdue.
FreshBooks Pricing
- Lite: $15 per month for five billable clients and one user
- Plus (recommended for most freelancers): $25 per month for 50 billable clients and one user
- Premium: $50 per month for 500 billable clients and one user
- Select: Custom pricing for more than 500 billable clients
Additional users can be added to any plan for $10 per user per month. Freshbooks provides a 30-day free trial with no credit card required.
QuickBooks Self-Employed
PROS
- Inexpensive and easy to use
- Calculate quarterly estimated tax payments
- Transfers income and loss information to TurboTax (requires the TurboTax bundle)
- Mobile app tracks miles and saves receipt images
CONS
- Invoice functionality is very limited
- No telephone number for customer service
- Does not track assets and liabilities for a balance sheet
| RATING CRITERIA | Pricing | 5.00 out of 5 | OUT OF | 5 |
| Ease of Use | 4.13 out of 5 | OUT OF | 5 | |
| General Features | 2.75 out of 5 | OUT OF | 5 | |
| Freelancer Features | 2.63 out of 5 | OUT OF | 5 | |
| Expert Analysis | 4.25 out of 5 | OUT OF | 5 |
Our Expert Opinion
QuickBooks Self-Employed is one of the easiest ways for freelancers to compile their income and expenses, but the program does little else. It imports your bank account activity and allows you to separate your income and expenses between personal and business. You can email invoices and accept online payments but, otherwise, the invoice functionality is very limited. For instance, you cannot save customer or product/service information, so you’ll need to retype it on each invoice. Also, payments from invoices do not flow to your profit and loss report. Profit and loss is calculated strictly from the bank accounts you connect to the software and transactions you input manually.
In addition to a poor invoicing function, QuickBooks Self-Employed is missing many features that freelancers might need, such as managing sales tax, tracking assets and liabilities, managing unpaid bills, and tracking project profitability. However, if all you want to do is compile your net profit to file a tax return, QuickBooks Self Employed is an inexpensive and easy way to do so.
QuickBooks Self-Employed Pricing
- Self-Employed: $15 per month for one user
- Self-Employed Tax Bundle (recommended for most freelancers): $25 per month for one user
- Includes Intuit TurboTax Self-Employed, online quarterly tax payments, and transfer of income/loss information
- Self-Employed Live Tax Bundle: $35 per month for one user
- Includes Intuit TurboTax Live Self-Employed, which provides unlimited year-round advice from a live certified public accountant (CPA), enrolled agent, or lawyer.
Bundling with TurboTax allows for easier tax return preparation, but subscribing to the base self-employed package and choosing a different business tax software could save you some money. QuickBooks Self-Employed offers a 30-day free trial.
Sunrise
PROS
- Software is free forever for unlimited users, transactions, and customers
- Mobile app performs most accounting functions, including attaching images of receipts
- Send nice looking invoices, including recurring invoicing
- Manually set up taxing authorities and manage sales tax
CONS
- Cannot track or input business miles
- Cannot extract data from captured receipts to create new transactions
- Cannot track project profitability
| RATING CRITERIA | Pricing | 5.00 out of 5 | OUT OF | 5 |
| Ease of Use | 4.13 out of 5 | OUT OF | 5 | |
| General Features | 2.75 out of 5 | OUT OF | 5 | |
| Freelancer Features | 2.63 out of 5 | OUT OF | 5 | |
| Expert Analysis | 4.25 out of 5 | OUT OF | 5 |
Our Expert Opinion
Sunrise by Lendio is a good online bookkeeping program that is absolutely free. Sunrise makes money by selling bookkeeping services to accompany its software. However, if you are comfortable using the software yourself, it is free forever. Sunrise has most features that a freelancer will need. You can send and track invoices, manage unpaid bills, import bank transactions, and perform bookkeeping on the go with its great mobile app.
You’ll need to print a profit and loss statement to calculate your quarterly estimated tax payments and file your annual tax return. Since you can’t input business miles driven, you’ll need to calculate the deduction manually and make a journal entry to record the expense on your books. However, for freelancers that don’t mind a few manual calculations, this free software will work great.
Sunrise Pricing
- Sunrise is free forever.
Sunrise offers monthly bookkeeping assistance with plans starting at $149 per month. However, there is no obligation to purchase bookkeeping assistance to use the free software.
Bottom Line
We’ve rated five great accounting software alternatives based on how well they meet the unique accounting needs of freelancers. While Zoho Books is our highest rated accounting software for freelancers, QuickBooks Online also scored extremely well and will be a better fit than Zoho Books for freelancers that scan more than 50 receipts per month or are required to collect sales tax from the customers. FreshBooks is great for freelancers who want the best-looking invoices while Sunrise provides a nice list of features for free. Finally, for freelancers who only want to compile their income and expenses and file a tax return, QuickBooks Self-Employed might be best.
Reema Adhikari
Hi,
Great written as well as the clearly defined blog. I am searching such kind of blog but finally, find this blog which is very informative. With my point of view, I think QuickBooks online is the best accounting software either be the small and medium business as well as easy to start. Through this blog, I have to learn something new. Thank you for sharing such a valuable article.
Amanda Norman
Hi Reema,
So glad you enjoyed the article!
Thanks for reading and sharing your thoughts.
Mandy, Moderator
Abubker Baharoon
I like wave its very simple account system just i face some problem when i add Arabic words to the invoice its appear in oppesit direction and unreadable in pdf file.
Crystalynn Shelton
Hi Abubker, thanks for weighing in on this topic! Have you reached out to the Wave support team about the issue with invoices when you use Arabic? If not, I suggest that you do that. They are pretty responsive over there.
Best-
Crystalynn Shelton, CPA