4 Best FreshBooks Alternatives for 2024 (Free & Paid)

• Mobile app: QuickBooks Online’s mobile app has the ability to send invoices, accept payments, capture receipts, track mileage, and view reports. We included it in our guide to the best mobile accounting apps.
• Location and class tracking: With QuickBooks Online you can set up tags to track your income and expenses across different departments, properties, or locations of your business. This feature can be useful in determining which department brings the most money to your business.
• Project accounting: QuickBooks Online allows you to set up projects to include income, expenses, and wages, and create project estimates. You can easily track time and add it to an invoice later.
• Inventory management: QuickBooks Online Plus and Advanced subscribers have access to inventory management features, including tracking stock items and quantities, updating inventory quantities automatically, organizing items by their taxable and nontaxable status, and setting up alerts to see whether you need to replenish your stock.
• Accounts receivable (A/R) management: QuickBooks Online can calculate sales tax for every sale automatically, depending on the jurisdiction. It also lets you issue credit memos to customers and review the summary of customer transactions. Invoices are also customizable, with the ability to change the template and colors.

QuickBooks Online is better than FreshBooks for:

• Businesses charging sales tax: Both FreshBooks and QuickBooks Online let you add sales tax to your receipts, estimates, and invoices. However, QuickBooks Online is better since it can calculate sales tax rates automatically based on the address for the transaction, which can save you time if you ship goods to multiple states.
• Businesses with inventory: Unlike FreshBooks, QuickBooks Online allows you to track COGS, making it ideal for businesses managing inventory items.
• Businesses seeking specialized bookkeeping assistance: QuickBooks Online is more popular than FreshBooks, and it has a vast network of CPAs and bookkeepers who are knowledgeable and certified as a QuickBooks ProAdvisor. In QuickBooks Online, you can either sign up for QuickBooks Live or find an independent ProAdvisor.
• Businesses with multiple locations: QuickBooks Online’s class and location tracking is useful for businesses like property management companies because it allows them to separate net profit by type of property and location. FreshBooks, on the other hand, doesn’t allow you to track income and expenses by class.
• Startup businesses: We ranked QuickBooks Online as one of our best startup accounting software because of its scalability. From its Simple Start to Advanced plans, it allows you to add advanced accounting features as your business grows.

• Freelancers and self-employed individuals: Unlike FreshBooks, Zoho Books has a free plan that’s optimal for users with annual revenues below $50,000. It lets you create and send professional invoices, track time and project expenses, and manage all of your clients in one place—making it our overall best accounting software for freelancers.
• Ecommerce businesses seeking integrated management software: Zoho’s suite of other 40 apps, such as Zoho Inventory and Zoho Commerce, integrates with Zoho Books, which automates the different aspects of your ecommerce business. Zoho Books made the list of our top ecommerce accounting software.
• Growing businesses: Zoho Books has six pricing tiers that can scale up to 15 users. For businesses with multiple users, you can add extra sets for only $3 monthly.
• Businesses that manage international customers: Another feature that makes Zoho Books unique is that you can send invoices in different languages and select the appropriate currency based on your customer’s or business’ location.

Zoho Books is better than FreshBooks for:

• Inventory tracking: Zoho Books has complete features for tracking inventory. It allows you to track inventory on hand and the COGS, adjust the cost of inventory, and categorize expenses based on vendor details, product details, and stock-keeping units (SKUs).
• Mobile accounting: Mobile accounting is one of Zoho Books’ biggest strengths. Its powerful mobile app can perform a variety of accounting tasks including accepting online payments, invoicing customers, recording bills and bill payments, and viewing financial reports.
• Accounts payable (A/P) management: Zoho Books has many useful accounts payable features, including the ability to enter, manage, and track purchase transactions. It also lets you convert purchase orders to bills, set up recurring payments, and add payment reminders so that you can track bills to be paid easily.
• Banking and cash management: Zoho Books has an advanced banking module for reconciling bank transactions. You import transactions by connecting your bank account or by importing bank statements manually. You can also enter a statement balance manually when reconciling your account, a surprising rarity among the software that we have reviewed.
• Reporting: Zoho Books has an excellent selection of financial and accounting reports, including a general business overview, P&L and cash flow statements, general ledger, balance sheets, trial ledger, A/P and A/R, and inventory reports.

• Fixed asset management: What makes Xero stand out from its competitors is its fixed asset manager, which lets you record and track fixed assets (such as vehicles and equipment) and set up depreciation entries. You can also account for gain or loss from a disposal of a fixed asset.
• Inventory management: Xero allows you to create and track inventory, monitor inventory levels, add inventory items to invoices, and track COGS.
• Network of Xero advisors: You can access Xero-certified independent accountants and bookkeepers or accounting firms in Xero’s Advisor Directory. Aside from Xero advisors, Bookkeeper360 also offers assisted bookkeeping services for Xero users. Read our review of Bookkeeper360 for more details.
• Businesses seeking unlimited user access: All of Xero’s plans support an unlimited number of users at no additional cost. This is a good value for your money, considering that plans range in price from $13 to $70 per month. FreshBooks charges $11 per month for each additional user beyond one, which can get expensive.
• A/P management: Accounts payable management is one of Xero’s strongest features. From vendor creation to recording of payments, Xero can assist with keeping your billing system organized. It also has an outstanding PO system to convert POs into bills, track unpaid bills, record e-payments, and apply vendor credits.

Xero is better than FreshBooks for:

• Businesses that want to track fixed assets: Xero has a dedicated fixed asset manager that lets you keep track of your company’s fixed assets. This feature is unavailable in FreshBooks and the other software in this guide except QuickBooks Online, which offers fixed asset management in its most expensive plan.
• Businesses that don’t want to restrict the number of users: All Xero plans are good for unlimited users, which is ideal for large teams. FreshBooks offers decent features at its highest plan but it becomes expensive if you need more users. The $11 monthly add-on per seat can be heavy if you need more people with access to FreshBooks.
• Ecommerce businesses: Xero’s inventory tracking feature is ideal for ecommerce businesses because it calculates your COGS automatically and allows you to monitor customer payments and orders, making it suitable for online transactions. We selected it as one of the top ecommerce accounting software.
• Project-based businesses needing to assign inventory to projects: Xero and FreshBooks both offer excellent project management features, but only Xero allows you to assign inventory items to projects. This is crucial if you often need to purchase and manage various construction materials and equipment as part of your operations.

• Invoicing: Despite limited invoice customization options, you can still create professional-looking invoices and send them to your clients. You can also generate recurring invoices if you have regular billing arrangements.
• Accounts payable: A/P is Wave’s strongest feature. It makes it easy for you to track bills, purchases, and vendors. You can also enter bills and expenses before paying and then track them until paid.
• Receipt capture: For Starter users, you can add receipt scanning for $11 monthly. Alternatively, you can upgrade to Pro for only $16 per month which includes receipt scanning. Wave uses optical character recognition (OCR) technology for quick and efficient receipt scanning.
• Bookkeeping support: Available both in the free and paid plan, Wave provides bookkeeping support for only $149 per month through the Wave Advisor program. Wave’s bookkeeping service is more affordable than QuickBooks Live and Bench.

Wave is better than FreshBooks for:

• Businesses seeking free basic accounting software: As our leading free accounting software, Wave Starter offers the essential features needed by most small businesses, like invoicing and income and expense tracking.
• Small-scale property managers: Wave is adequate for tracking rent income and expense for landlords with few properties for lease. It made our list of the best real estate accounting software.
• Freelancers looking to send invoices for free: If you only need simple invoicing for your clients, there’s no reason not to choose Wave’s free version over the paid FreshBooks.