8 Best Small Business Accounting Software

• 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, CPAs, 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 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’ app. 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.

• Starter: Completely free for a single user
• Pro: $16 per month for unlimited users

Add-ons:

• Wave Receipts: $8 per month or $72 per year for unlimited receipt scans via the mobile app (included for free with the 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, available even in the free tier, is automatically importing and categorizing your expenses from a bank feed—something nice but not necessary.

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, which 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, which is the only provider to ace our evaluation of mobile accounting. Another weak point for Wave is customer service as it 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.

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 three 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, making the solution a great choice for consulting firms and marketing agencies that bill clients based on the time worked by their employees.

We also like that it can issue project-specific estimates that can then be compared to actual expenses, which isn’t possible with QuickBooks Online and Wave. 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 over 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 mobile app.

We want to see an improvement in FreshBooks’ banking features, though. 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, which 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 of FreshBooks, so 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 seats as needed without any additional fees.

All plans have unlimited users:

• Early: $20 for 20 invoices and 5 bills
• Growing: $47 for unlimited bills and invoices
• Established: $80 includes project accounting

Xero is currently 95% 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. Like QuickBooks Online and Zoho Books, it 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 $99 to $235. Xero gives companies with inventory a solid option for unlimited users at a much lower price.

Xero scores high 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—things that Zoho Books’ app offers.

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 is a good alternative if excellent customer support is crucial to your business, as it offers phone and live chat support.

• 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 in our guide 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 an excellent mobile app. However, that’s not the only thing Zoho Books can offer as it’s also remarkable in 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 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 needing this level of project profitability tracking should consider QuickBooks Enterprise if they also need inventory or FreshBooks if they’re a service-based business.

• Pro Accounting: $60.08 per month (one user only)
• Premium Accounting: $103.92 per month for one user to $239.17 per month for five users
• Quantum Accounting: $177.17 per month for one user to $452.67 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; read our QuickBooks Enterprise review to learn more.

Sage 50 is a high-quality feature-packed accounting platform. 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 Accounting and Quantum Accounting plans.

Sage 50 scored very well across all the major accounting features that we have in our case study. It’s exceptionally strong in project and inventory accounting, which is why it received a perfect mark in the category. 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.

Pricing, mobile app, and ease of use are the other weaknesses of Sage 50. It’s a bit expensive compared with cloud accounting programs but costs much less than QuickBooks Enterprise (from $349 monthly for one user)—and a more affordable pick would be AccountEdge. Moreover, Sage 50’s mobile app captures receipt images but nothing else, and its ease of setup and ease of use is about what we expect for a desktop program.

AccountEdge has three plans:

• AccountEdge Pro: $20 per month for one user
• AccountEdge Network Edition: $30 per month for two users
• AccountEdge Hosted: $50 per month for one user

Add-ons:

• Payroll: $20 per month for unlimited employees
• Telephone support: $10 per month
• Workstation licenses: $10 per month
• Bank feeds: $5 per month
• AccountEdge Connect: From $15 per month
• AccountEdge WebPay: Included in AccountEdge Connect
• Credit Card Processing: From 1.79% per transaction
• Customized business checks and forms: Custom

AccountEdge is one of our favorites because it is an affordable desktop software. It allows accounting for multiple companies and doesn’t require an Internet connection to work. And given that the base plans are affordable, purchasing add-ons like bank feeds, credit card processing, and payroll won’t inflate the monthly subscription by a lot. It’s also compatible with Mac.

The only downside we see with AccountEdge is the add-ons. You’d have to pay for additional features that usually come free with other software on this list like Zoho Books and QuickBooks Online.

AccountEdge scored decently across different categories but got high ratings in banking and inventory. The banking module provides a wide range of features and provides a central place for all your bank accounts. If bank feed was included in the base plan and not as an add-on, AccountEdge would’ve gotten a higher score.

Its inventory features are also outstanding. It provides granular tracking of inventory items and costs through location, category, and stock tracking. However, AccountEdge took a hit in ease of use because of the difficulty due to its outdated interface. It can be overwhelming, and though one can get accustomed to it, that will take time.

Additionally, given that it’s purely desktop software, it doesn’t have collaboration features. For better collaboration, our best recommendation is to use cloud-based software like Zoho Books, QuickBooks Online, and Xero.

• 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.