Patriot Accounting Review: Features & Pricing

Patriot Accounting’s affordable price and strong features set it apart from other accounting software. Available at two pricing plans that range from $15 to $25 per month, it’s designed with small businesses in mind. Patriot also offers a Payroll plan that ranges from $14 to $34 per month, depending on the complexity of your needs. Patriot Accounting’s reliable customer support provides ongoing assistance for several issues. It’s an excellent software option for businesses that are looking for basic features like tracking unpaid bills and issuing invoices. There’s a free 30-day trial available if you would like to try it out first before committing.

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What We Recommend Patriot Accounting For

Patriot Accounting has been in business for over 30 years, and it has earned a reputation for being an ideal solution for handling accounting and payroll tasks. Our experts conducted a thorough evaluation of Patriot Accounting through an internally developed case study. We examined the software across 11 categories, and the results reflect Patriot Accounting’s capabilities, especially in terms of banking management, reporting, accounts payable (A/P), accounts receivable (A/R), inventory, and project accounting.

Patriot Accounting Is Especially Good For

• Businesses on a budget that are seeking easy-to-use software and excellent customer support: Patriot Accounting is among the least expensive accounting software on the market, and it’s extremely easy to use. Not only that, but the customer service is quick and accessible—you can contact them by phone, live chat, or email.
• Mom-and-pop businesses that want do-it-yourself (DIY) payroll software: With Patriot Accounting, you also have access to Patriot Payroll, which is a separate service that integrates with Patriot Accounting. We selected Patriot Payroll as one of the best small business payroll applications, especially for mom-and-pop businesses.
• Freelancers and contractors who want strong invoicing software: Patriot Accounting allows you to customize your invoices, giving you the ability to upload a logo, change the invoice colors, and create a personalized message. You can also set up invoices to occur automatically on a monthly basis.

Patriot Accounting Is Not a Good Fit For

• Businesses that need inventory accounting: If you track inventory, Patriot Accounting isn’t a good fit for you. Instead, try Zoho Books, which we ranked as the best overall QuickBooks alternative. Its inventory management features allow you to capture product details, including product costs and stock on hand. It also keeps track of cost of goods sold (COGS) and computes ending inventories.
• Businesses that often work remotely and need access to a mobile app: Since Patriot Accounting doesn’t offer a mobile app, you might want to consider Sunrise, which we selected as one of the best mobile accounting apps. Sunrise isn’t as easy-to-use as Patriot, but it has a free version with similar features.
• Businesses that need project accounting: QuickBooks Online Plus is ideal for retailers, wholesalers, contractors, and other small businesses that require project accounting features such as job costing. We selected QuickBooks Online as the best overall small business accounting software, partly because of its project accounting features.

Patriot Accounting Pros & Cons

Patriot Accounting Case Study

We formulated an internal case study to see how Patriot Accounting stacks up against Sunrise and QuickBooks Online Plus:

Based on the result of our case study, Patriot Accounting dominates Sunrise and QuickBooks Online Plus in the Customer Service category and also performs well in Banking, Tax, and A/R. While QuickBooks Online Plus beats Patriot in most categories, the version we tested is $85 per month compared to $25 per month for Patriot Premium.

Patriot Accounting Pricing

Patriot Accounting offers two subscription levels: Accounting Basic and Premium Accounting. Before committing, you can sign up for a 30-day free trial. Here are the prices for each:

• Accounting Basic: $15 per month
• Premium Accounting: $25 per month

Patriot also offers a payroll plan at two subscription levels: Basic Payroll and Full-Service Payroll.

• Basic Payroll: $10 per month plus $4 per employee or contractor—run your own payroll and handle payroll taxes yourself
• Full-Service Payroll: $30 per month plus $4 per employee or contractor—run your own payroll and Patriot will handle your payroll taxes

Patriot Accounting Features

Patriot Accounting offers a wide range of accounting features, depending on whether you subscribe to their Accounting Basic or Premium Accounting plans. Before checking out our detailed assessment of Patriot Accounting as part of our case study, you might want to take a look at the table below to have an idea of what you’re entitled to from each subscription level.

For low-priced software, Patriot Accounting is packed with plenty of useful features. It’s fairly simple to set up an account, and the dashboard allows you to manage users, create invoices, receive payments, and enter or pay bills. A toolbar on the left lets you navigate to more specific tasks. The Premium Accounting plan also offers a couple of features that don’t normally come with low-priced software. This includes the ability to issue credit memos and print vendor checks.

However, Patriot Accounting is lacking in certain useful features, such as the ability to track income and expenses by location, although you can assign departments. It also doesn’t allow you to track inventory or income and expenses by job:

Patriot Accounting General Features Video

Accounts Payable (5.20 / 10 Points)

One of Patriot Accounting’s best features is the ability to make unlimited payments to vendors. The software also allows you to record an expense without paying, create bills for the purchase of inventory, and set a default sales price of service items.

With the Accounts Payable function, you must enter a credit card to use the bill pay service. You aren’t able to create recurring expenses, and vendor accounting doesn’t allow you to enter a purchase order. Project accounting features are also lacking as you aren’t able to create a project within Patriot Accounting:

Patriot Accounting Accounts Payable Video

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With both the Accounting Basic and Premium Accounting plans, you can create and track unlimited customers and invoices and accept credit card payments. With Premium Accounting, you can also set up recurring invoices and invoice payment reminders and create custom invoice templates with your company logo and colors of your choice. Premium Accounting users also have access to automated payment reminders. When you initially set up Patriot Accounting, you can establish rules for when to send past-due messages to customers.

While Patriot Accounting doesn’t allow you to track inventory, you can add inventory to an invoice and charge sales tax on the sale of inventory. Patriot Accounting won’t track billable expenses as you pay them. You’ll need to keep track of these in a spreadsheet to add them to a customer invoice later. More expensive software, like QuickBooks Online, will track billable expenses as they’re paid, then add them automatically to the customer’s next invoice. You also can’t issue a sales receipt for a sale paid immediately or combine multiple checks and/or cash in a single deposit:

Patriot Accounting Accounts Receivable Video

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Patriot Accounting offers a strong set of features for banking and cash management, which include connecting to a bank account and uploading transactions, selecting transactions that have cleared the bank, and viewing outstanding transactions.

One of the software’s drawbacks is that, when setting up your account, Patriot Accounting doesn’t allow you to enter your beginning bank balances. You must instead create them with a journal entry. It’s also not possible to lock your books from a prior year.

Patriot Accounting Banking & Cash Management Video

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Patriot Accounting doesn’t offer much in terms of tracking fixed assets, which is why it scored so low in our case study. It does allow you to record a note payable as a long-term note payable, but other functions are missing. This includes viewing a list of fixed assets, assigning an ID number to the asset, setting up a separate depreciation for taxes, and printing or viewing a depreciation schedule. You also can’t set up an amortization schedule for a note payable or record the sale of a fixed asset.

Patriot Accounting allows you to create estimates, which can be useful when starting a project. Estimates can be customized with due dates, and it’s possible to show sales tax on an estimate. You can also convert the estimate directly to an invoice on the same screen.

However, Patriot doesn’t allow you to track income and expenses by project, so you’re fairly limited in what you can do in terms of project accounting. If you have a lot of projects, you should evaluate whether it would make more sense to find another application that has stronger project accounting features, such as QuickBooks Online Plus.

Patriot Accounting Project Accounting Video

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Patriot Accounting allows you to create sales tax items and charge sales tax on the sale of inventory. You can also include a sales tax adjustment on a credit memo. The software allows you to file a sales tax return electronically, or you can pay your liability by check.

If you have independent contractors, Patriot lets you track 1099 payments. When it’s time to file your taxes, you can create, print, and e-file 1099s and 1096s.

Patriot Accounting has very limited inventory features. You can create inventory items to add them to invoices quickly, but you aren’t able to track inventory in any way. We recommend Zoho Books instead. It has strong inventory features and also integrates with Zoho Inventory for more complex needs.

Patriot Accounting offers all of the standard reports, which include profit and loss statements, general ledger, balance sheet, A/R and A/P aging, and trial balance.

Patriot Accounting’s customer service is its strongest feature. The company employs US-based customer support agents who are knowledgeable in each aspect of the software. They can guide you through each step of the installation and set-up process, and any other issues that may come up along the way. Hands-on, real-time support options include phone, email, and live chat, and experts are available to assist you Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Eastern time.

The Patriot website also has a detailed accounting help section that offers training videos for every aspect of the software. There’s also a blog section with accounting tips, further training articles, and news about the platform.

Although Patriot Accounting doesn’t have a mobile app, the desktop version is optimized for mobile use, and you can access your account via your smartphone. You can use all of the same features as the desktop version while you’re on the go, but perhaps not as easily as if they had a mobile app.

Assisted Bookkeeping Options

Patriot’s Accounting Premium software gives you access to assisted bookkeeping services, which will take over your day-to-day bookkeeping. This includes a complete setup of your accounts, transaction categorization, monthly reconciliation, and monthly meetings with your bookkeeper. For the bookkeeping service, Patriot charges a one-time onboarding fee which is based on your monthly expenses and ranges from $50 to $95 per month of historical data. The monthly service fee is also based on monthly expenses and ranges from $100 to $650 per month.

Patriot Accounting Integrations

Patriot Accounting integrates with Patriot Payroll, which is one of our top picks for the best small business payroll software. You can add on time and attendance software for $6 per month plus $2 per employee, which integrates seamlessly with Patriot Payroll. Check out our Patriot Payroll Review for more information.

Patriot Accounting Alternatives

Bottom Line

Patriot Accounting is recommended for small businesses that need the flexibility to handle invoices and manage payments while also keeping close track of cash flow. Its ease of use, quick setup, seamless integration with Patriot Payroll, and stellar customer service separate it from its competition.