Best Free Accounting Software Programs for 2022
Tim is a Certified QuickBooks Time (formerly TSheets) Pro, QuickBooks ProAdvisor, and CPA with 25 years of experience. He brings his expertise to Fit Small Business’s accounting content.
Mark has researched and reviewed accounting software at Fit Small Business since 2019 and has developed an extensive knowledge of accounting software features and how unique business needs determine the best accounting software.
This article is part of a larger series on Accounting Software.
Sole proprietors and freelancers can often use free accounting software to track income and expenses to file tax returns. The best free accounting software should include the ability to track all income and expenses, import bank account transactions, and produce basic financial reports like profit and loss, balance sheets, and cash flow reports.
Here are our top six recommendations for the best free accounting software for small businesses:
- Lendio Accounting (formerly Sunrise): Best overall free online accounting software
- Zoho Books Free: Best for freelancers and businesses with less than $50,000 in revenue
- Wave: Best for businesses that require multiple users
- GnuCash: Best open-source accounting software
- NCH Express Accounts: Best free desktop accounting software
- ZipBooks: Best for creating and sending unlimited invoices
Comparison of Best Free Accounting Software
Free Plan Limitations | Accessibility | Standout Free Features | |
|---|---|---|---|
 | Only 1 user | Cloud |
|
 | Only for businesses with less than $50,000 in revenue | Cloud |
|
 | No limitations | Cloud |
|
 | Only 1 user | Desktop only (Windows, Linux & Mac) |
|
 | Limited to 5 employees | Desktop only (Windows & Mac) |
|
 | Only 1 user | Cloud |
|
Tip:
Retailers need accounting software that tracks their cost of goods sold (COGS), which the free cloud-based software on our list won’t do. We highly recommend any business with significant inventory spend the money to subscribe to QuickBooks Online Plus for high-quality inventory accounting in easy-to-use software. You can check out our best small business accounting software which have some advanced accounting features like inventory management.
Lendio Accounting: Best Overall Free Accounting Software
Lendio Accounting, formerly Sunrise, offers a free plan that contains almost all of its important features, including invoicing and income and expense tracking. If you don’t require advanced features, like project management and inventory tracking, and only need to track income and expenses and issue invoices to clients for free, then Lendio Accounting’s Free plan might be enough for you.
Lendio
Overall Score: 5.48
OUT OF 5
What We Like
- Free version contains most features of the paid plan
- Can create recurring invoices
- Connect to bank and import transactions
- Create and track vendor bills and customer invoices
What's Missing
- Poor bank reconciliation
- Can’t automatically compute COGS and track inventory
- Free version includes only one user
- Expenses paid cannot be assigned and billed to customers
Pricing
- Free: Includes almost all accounting features; good for one user only
- Plus: $19.99 per month for unlimited users; includes cash flow insights, expense automatic categorization, and payment integrations and discounts with Stripe, Square, and PayPal
Features
- A/R: Lendio Accounting makes it easy for businesses to track customer invoices because of its intuitive A/R tracker that shows the status of the invoice and the due date. It also has a wide range of options for customizing invoices, such as changing logos and colors, and adding a personal message. You can also create recurring invoices, which is useful if you have customers that pay you on a regular basis.
- Free forever: You can get all of Lendio’s outstanding accounting features in the free self-service plan except for integrations, payment discounts, and automatic classification of transactions from your bank feed.
Lendio accounting has a comprehensive dashboard that provides a quick snapshot of your business performance, including your revenue and expenses. It includes quick access to different functions, such as accounting, reports, and banking.
Lendio Accounting’s dashboard
Our Expert Opinion
Lendio Accounting is ideal for new companies looking for a simple solution to keep track of income and expenses and invoice clients. Most of its accounting features are present in the free version, so there are no advanced features to expect in the paid plan. However, the bank reconciliation feature isn’t streamlined in terms of determining reconciling items. If you process a lot of bank transactions, we recommend choosing a paid plan like QuickBooks Online, our best bank reconciliation software.
Zoho Books: Best for Businesses With Less Than $50,000 in Revenue
Zoho Books has a free plan for small businesses and freelancers with less than $50,000 in annual revenue and needing to send up to 1,000 invoices per year. The free plan—despite being limited to a single user—includes plenty of features, including expense tracking, bank reconciliation, mileage tracking, and sales tax tracking.
Zoho Books
Overall Score: 5.92
OUT OF 5
What We Like
- Free plan for businesses with less than $50,000 in annual revenue
- Competitive features for an affordable price
- Can reconcile bank accounts
- Capable mobile app
What's Missing
- Free plan is only for a single user
- Billing, inventory, and project accounting is available only in the Professional and Premium plans
- Custom reports and budgeting is available only in the Professional Plan
Plans & Pricing*
- Free: one user plus one accountant; can send up to 1,000 invoices per year; for businesses with less than $50,000 in annual revenues
- Standard: $20 per month for up to three users; can send up to 5,000 invoices per year
- Professional: $50 per month for up to five users; unlimited invoices
- Premium: $70 per month for up to 10 users; unlimited invoices
- Elite: $150 per month for up to 10 users; unlimited invoices
- Ultimate: $275 per month for up to 15 users; unlimited invoices
*Elite and Ultimate were introduced in 2022. Elite comes with advanced inventory features, like serial number tracking, while Ultimate offers advanced analytics, like collaborative reporting.
Add-ons:
- Additional users: $3 per user, per month
- Receipts scanning: $10 for 50 scans per month
- Snail mail credits for sending invoices: $2 per credit
Standout Free Features
- Invoice customization: Zoho Books’ invoice customization feature is commendable. Users can manipulate the look and feel of the invoices—you can add a logo, change the template, colors, and font styles, and add a personalized message after the invoice.
- Mobile app: Zoho Books’ mobile app is the best among all the software programs we’ve reviewed. The app is helpful for doing regular tasks like sending invoices, entering bills, and receiving payments. Users can also view reports, track time, and categorize bank feed expenses on the mobile app.
- Zoho integrations: The free version can be integrated with other Zoho apps, including Zoho CRM, Zoho People, Zoho Expense, and Zoho Inventory.
Zoho Books’ dashboard includes a list of your bank and credit card accounts and a summary of your financial transactions, including your total payables and receivables, cash flow, income and expenses, and projects.
Zoho Books’ dashboard
Our Expert Opinion
We like Zoho Books because it has a competitive free plan that benefits many small businesses and freelancers. If you don’t have many clients to invoice and need basic income and expense tracking while having the ability to send invoices and accept payments online from your mobile device, then Zoho Books is for you.
Wave: Best for Businesses That Need Multiple Users
Wave is a totally free accounting application with competent invoicing and billing functions. Its invoicing, accounting, and banking features are completely free, and you can add as many users as you need. It only charges fees when you process financial transactions, such as payments and payroll.
Wave
Overall Score: 4.72
OUT OF 5
What We Like
- Free accounting and invoicing
- Easy to set up
- Vendor bills and customer invoices can be created and tracked easily
- Offers bookkeeping assistance for a fee
What's Missing
- Bank reconciliations don't work if there are checks written that have not cleared the bank
- No mobile app
- Cannot track project profitability
Pricing
Wave is 100% free for accounting, invoicing, and banking. It doesn’t have any paid plans and only charges fees for credit card payments, payroll, and bookkeeping support.
You may visit its website for more information.
Standout Free Features
- Unlimited user access: Wave lets you add as many users and companies as needed for free. Most free bookkeeping software includes only one user, and you’ll have to upgrade to a paid plan to add multiple users.
- Managing unpaid bills: A/P is Wave’s strongest feature. It makes it easy for users to track bills, purchases, and vendors. You can also enter bills and expenses without paying.
- Invoicing: Despite being free, Wave is good at invoicing. You can customize invoices in different ways, such as choosing from various templates, including your logo, and adding a personalized message.
Wave has a very minimalistic dashboard, which includes different tabs, such as launchpad, sales and payments, purchases, accounting, and banking. As you scroll down, you’ll see charts displaying a summary of your income and expenses, invoices and bills payable, an expense breakdown, and other important information about your business.
Wave’s dashboard
Our Expert Opinion
Wave is ideal for small businesses with multiple users who need to stay on top of their receivables and payables. You can track income and expenses easily by connecting an unlimited number of bank accounts and importing transactions automatically.
GnuCash: Best Open-source Accounting Software
GnuCash is an open-source desktop-based personal finance and accounting software that’s ideal for businesses needing a customized solution. It’s free to download, and its source code is accessible to anyone who wishes to customize it. If you have coding experience or are working with a developer, you might find it a good fit.
GnuCash
Overall Score: 2.86
OUT OF 5
What We Like
- Outstanding cash management and amortization features
- Free and customizable
- No internet connection required
What's Missing
- Requires programming expertise to modify or enhance the source code
- No option to remotely share data with another user
- Very hard to use
- Customer support is software manual only
Pricing
GnuCash is a free download from the GnuCash website. No credit card is required, and there are no hidden charges.
Standout Free Features
- Open source: Because it’s open-source software, programmers can modify or enhance the source code to strengthen the security or improve functionality. Since the source code is readily available, GnuCash can be redesigned to be a powerful accounting system that’s customized to your needs.
- Cash and amortization tracking: With GnuCash, you can track your cash flow easily and reconcile your accounts. You can even connect your bank account. GnuCash’s amortization features help you segregate your long-term loan payments into interest and principal so you can see how much is deducted from the principal and how much interest you have paid.
GnuCash has a spreadsheet-like dashboard, which shows a list of your accounts and income and expenses. The dashboard looks a bit outdated, and it may be difficult to navigate, especially if you’re used to cloud-based software.
GnuCash’s dashboard (Source: GnuCash)
Our Expert Opinion
While we’re impressed with GnuCash’s cash management features, its other features are pretty hard to use. However, businesses wanting a customized accounting software program can use GnuCash’s open-source code to modify the software. If you’re looking for software that you can use out-of-the-box, you’d be better off going with Lendio Accounting, our top-recommended solution in this guide.
NCH Express Accounts: Best Free Desktop Accounting Software
Just like GnuCash, NCH Express Accounts is a free desktop-based software. However, NCH Express Accounts is surprisingly easier to use than GnuCash and other desktop software we have reviewed. It offers a free version for businesses with fewer than five employees and comes with a decent selection of features, including invoicing, sales tax tracking, bill pay, and reporting.
NCH Express Accounts
Overall Score: 4.04
OUT OF 5
What We Like
- Reconcile bank and credit card accounts
- Free for companies with fewer than five users
- Easy to use considering it’s a traditional accounting software program
What's Missing
- Cannot establish a live connection with your bank or credit card account
- Remote access to your program requires configuration of your firewall and router
- No mobile app
- Steep learning curve for non-accountants
Pricing
- Free for companies with fewer than five employees
- Express Accounts Basic: $129 (one-time fee)
- Express Accounts Plus: $139 (one-time fee)
- Express Accounts Plus (Quarterly plan): $3.88 per month; billed quarterly
Standout Free Features
- Bank reconciliation: NCH Express Accounts offers a convenient bank reconciliation feature—you can add or edit transactions easily without leaving the reconciliation. NCH Express Accounts is one of our picks for the best bank reconciliation software.
- Intuitive workflow diagram: NCH Express Accounts provides a workflow diagram within each accounting function that helps users understand the accounting cycle within the area and shows them where they should enter transactions.
When you log into your account, you’ll see a traditional dashboard with a workflow diagram. We are unimpressed with it as the small fonts can be hard to read.
NCH Express Accounts’ dashboard
Our Expert Opinion
If you’re looking for a locally installed accounting software that’s free and easy to use, then NCH Express Accounts might be right for you. However, while it’s more intuitive than most other desktop software, it’s still more difficult to use than cloud-based software, such as Lendio Accounting and Zoho Books. Nevertheless, if you’re comfortable using desktop software or internet connectivity and speed are a concern, then it’s a good option.
ZipBooks: Best for Creating & Sending Unlimited Invoices
ZipBooks has an extremely easy-to-use invoicing module, which allows you to essentially type exactly what you want to show on the invoice. There’s no need to create complicated “items” and then add them to the invoice as you do in other programs. After sending invoices, ZipBooks will help you monitor them until paid.
ZipBooks
Overall Score: 4.59
OUT OF 5
What We Like
- Unlimited invoices are very easy to create and track
- Easy to use, even for nonaccountants
- Able to attach receipts to transactions
- Unlimited customers and vendors
What's Missing
- No mobile app
- Can only connect a bank or credit card account
- Cannot import transactions from comma-separated values (CSV) or spreadsheet files
- No inventory tracking features
Pricing
ZipBooks has three plans for business use and one plan for accountants:
- Starter: Free for one user
- Smarter: $15 for five users
- Sophisticated: $35 for unlimited users
- Accountant: Custom priced for unlimited users
Standout Free Features
- Invoicing: ZipBooks’ invoicing screen is very user-friendly, even for non-accountants. It has readily available templates that you can customize in a few seconds.
- Assisted bookkeeping option: If you want a personal bookkeeper to handle bookkeeping and assist in preparing tax filings, ZipBooks offers a bookkeeping plan that includes the ZipBooks software for free.
ZipBooks’ dashboard is the first thing you’ll see when you log into your account. It gives you quick access to its most commonly used features, such as invoicing, transactions, contacts, and payroll.
ZipBooks’ dashboard
Our Expert Opinion
ZipBooks is right for businesses needing a straightforward solution for sending unlimited invoices. Additionally, it can be used to track invoices, bills, and expenses. You can also tag expenses to departments or projects for proper tracking, which is an unusual feature in free software. It has many features similar to Wave, making it a worthy alternative. You can read our ZipBooks vs Wave comparison to learn more.
Microsoft Excel is a helpful tool to supplement your free accounting software by providing some of the missing accounting functions. Read our article on how to use Excel for accounting to learn how to track invoices, bills, COGS, and inventory costs. Plus, you get a free downloadable template.
How We Evaluated Free Accounting Software
We evaluated the free programs in terms of general features, and whether they have the basic functions of paid software, such as bank feeds and bank reconciliations. Finally, we assessed the software based on pricing, ease of use, and our own expert evaluation.
40%
General Features
10%
Inventory
10%
Project Accounting
30%
Ease of Use
10%
Mobile App
40% of Overall Score
We considered the software’s general accounting features, banking, accounts payable, accounts receivable, tax, and reporting features. Since we were evaluating free accounting applications, we gave higher points to software products that offered premium accounting features. Moreover, we evaluated whether or not they contained at least the basic features needed in small business accounting.
10% of Overall Score
Inventory accounting appears to be an elusive feature in most free accounting software products. Hence, we gave inventory a heavier weight in our scores. We evaluated the software’s ability to track inventory costs and stock levels. More importantly, we took into consideration whether the software could automatically track cost of goods sold and compute cost of ending inventory.
10% of Overall Score
Just like inventory accounting, project accounting is another elusive feature. Project accounting is essential for service-based businesses looking for a free accounting software product. That’s why we evaluated the software’s ability to do more than just bill clients and create estimates.
30% of Overall Score
Most users looking for a free accounting software service intend to self-manage the books. For ease of use, we gave higher scores to software products that are easy for non-accountants to use. We also considered accessible customer service and support networks.
10% of Overall Score
A mobile app should help on-the-go users keep their books organized. The app should let users send invoices, send payments, receive payments, and enter bills. We also like to see advanced features, like viewing reports and recording time worked.
*Percentages of overall score
Free Accounting Software: Frequently Asked Questions
When do I use free accounting software?
If you’re a budget-conscious small business or freelancer and only need simple accounting, like income and expense tracking and invoicing, then you should consider free accounting software. Don’t use free accounting tools if you buy and sell goods as you’ll need to calculate your COGS by hand.
How do I choose the best free accounting software?
When looking for free accounting software, know the features you need. Do you only need an invoicing solution? Do you have multiple users? Do you want the ability to manage projects? Know which features are important to you and find out which programs offer those. Other factors you should consider include ease of use, customer support, and user reviews.
What are the important features of free accounting software?
Small businesses should look for essential features, such as income and expense tracking, invoicing, and reporting. Also, check if the software has a free mobile accounting app—which is important in today’s digital age. We recommend Zoho Books’ mobile app because it allows you to perform many basic functions, such as sending invoices, recording bills, accepting payments, and recording time worked.
When should I consider paid software like QuickBooks Online?
- Inventory tracking: As you’ve noticed, all the free accounting software is limited to basic functions, like invoicing and expense tracking. If you’re a product-based business and need inventory management, then QuickBooks Online is worth your money. It can track the cost of ending inventory and COGS.
- Project accounting: QuickBooks Online has enhanced project management features that let you create projects and assign them to your members, monitor project status, and track profitability. ZipBooks also has a project management tool, but QuickBooks Online is more useful as it can record actual inventory used in projects.
- Advanced reporting: QuickBooks Online has far more advanced reporting capabilities than free software, including the ability to track income and expenses by class or location. This is useful if you operate in different locations and sell various product lines.
Bottom Line
Lendio Accounting is the overall best free accounting software for small businesses because of its extensive list of accounting features; its only limitation is that it’s for a single user. If you need additional seats, we recommend Wave. Zoho Books has even better features than Lendio but can only be used by companies with less than $50,000 in annual revenue.
If you’re dissatisfied with the range of features available in free accounting software, consider a paid plan, like QuickBooks Online Plus.
