The 9 Best Small Business Accounting Software of 2023

At $39 plus $6 per user per month, Gusto is also fairly reasonably priced. Many bookkeepers and accountants use QuickBooks to track their clients’ finances, including both QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop. Accounting software also generates financial reports for you, which is a crucial part of creating a small business that many first-time business owners aren’t aware of. You usually need to submit financial documents like profit and loss reports as part of your business taxes each year. Additionally, you need thorough documentation to secure a small-business loan or appeal to eventual shareholders.

How To Choose the Right Accounting Software?

However, creating a solid accounting database in Excel requires a thorough knowledge of how to set up spreadsheets and all the formulas that may entail. However, if you opt for the free trial you lose the opportunity to save 50% on your first three months. Tracking inventory as you sell them, entering the details in the right expense account and calculating taxable income at the end of the financial year can be very cumbersome manually. With a Pro Plan subscription, you can connect your bank account with Wave and automatically import your transactions. Wave is PCI Level-1 certified for handling credit card and bank account information. Easier bookkeeping means less stress—and less work—when you file your tax.

QuickBooks Pricing

If you’re having trouble narrowing down your free bookkeeping options, enter some basic information about your business’s accounting needs. We’ll get back to you with a list of up to five accounting providers we think work best for you. If you want more extensive accounting features, Zoho Books has a free plan for businesses with under $50K USD in annual revenue. If that describes your business, we highly recommend adding Zoho Books to your Zoho Invoice plan. Again, QuickBooks has many reports available to analyze your bills and expenses.

Bills & Expenses Tracking

All of these features combined make NetSuite a very capable option for businesses of a suitable size. That said, it’s not a trivial investment and implementation does require specialized expertise to configure it optimally for each unique client situation. Costs can really add up both upfront and ongoing, so it’s important any prospective user has a completely validated needs case first before committing. The software also offers tools for businesses requiring financial compliance such as GAAP, ASC 606 and SOX. These insights include profitability ratios, cash positions, liabilities, fixed assets and taxes. NetSuite’s pricing is custom, so you’ll need to speak with a sales team member for a quote.

Best for advanced data management and reporting

The functionality of the computer program differs by product, depending on the firm’s size. The ability to easily access accounting information through accounting software makes it easier to complete audits, particularly those that require evaluating information from years prior. This not only assists with internal audits but also assists external groups, such how to find the best tax preparer near you as the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), in case they need to investigate financials for tax purposes. Ad hoc reporting was generally impractical due to the labor involved in consolidating the manual entries. Accounting software automates these tasks, reducing the costs of accounting and allowing better financial decision making through timely reporting.

Manage your inventory in 
real-time

You can filter transactions, match receipts with expenses on the go, customize invoices, make payments and view trends and insights about your business. Plus, you can get automatic accounting reports, receive guided workflows and set it up in five minutes. I found the software to liability definition and meaning be extremely easy to set up and start using. To sign up, I first set up my account by filling out a simple form with my name, company name and contact information. Xero is one of the most popular accounting software for small businesses, offering all the features you’d need.

This makes it a good choice if your business relies heavily on invoicing for revenue. In addition to invoicing, you also get basic reports, vendor and customer management and digital payments through Square or PayPal. Paid plans start at $15 per month, and include features, such as auto-billing, reminders, time tracking and the ability to save invoice line items.

There are four different Freshbooks plans to choose, and businesses can get a 10% discount if they choose to pay yearly rather than monthly. Additionally, FreshBooks often offers discounts for your first how to calculate payroll tax liabilities months of membership. We chose Xero for really small «micro-business» that have just a few invoices and bills per month. For businesses of that size, Xero’s «Early» subscription plan may be a good fit.

Any connections between you, your bank accounts, and Wave are protected by 256-bit SSL encryption. With the Pro Plan, automatically import, merge, and categorize your bank transactions. Also known as software-as-a-service (SaaS), cloud-based software adoption rates have increased over the past decade. In 2015, 76% of the buyers indicated a receptiveness to hosting their software externally, off-premise.

1. Anything that you spend money on—whether it’s your monthly lease payment, utilities, office supplies, or postage fees—should be recorded in your accounting system.
2. It also offers strong budgeting functionality to assist with financial planning.
3. This free accounting software is available online and through its mobile app.
4. The ERP allows companies to personalize invoice templates, making adding their logos, brand colors, and custom fields easy.
5. The features that Sage does offer are done well, such as their inventory tracking system and unlimited user count on accounts.
6. The fees may be lower, but be sure to ask about their background and experience before entering into an agreement to contract their services.

On the project discussion forum accessible from a project’s page, I could even attach documents such as checklists, and the entire team could discuss the project via a chat-like feed. Once I finalized the invoice, I could click the “send to” button at the top of the invoice and input an email address, a subject and a message to send the invoice. Or, I could click “share via link” to generate an invoice link sendable via text, social media or some other communication channel. We weighted each category equally to derive our star ratings, along with our accounting expert’s opinion and advice.

Cassie is a deputy editor collaborating with teams around the world while living in the beautiful hills of Kentucky. Prior to joining the team at Forbes Advisor, Cassie was a content operations manager and copywriting manager. Even for payroll, which has a huge tax liability, taxes are calculated automatically every cycle. If you operate in multiple international locations QuickBooks allows you to accept payment in local currencies.

Sage Accounting makes a good first impression with its clear and gimmick-free pricing. The top Sage Accounting plan offers decent value and there is also a 30-day free trial with no credit card requirement. It offers cross platform support as it is a native cloud based software offering, to be used via any web browser, and connections to Android and iOS apps. We think most users will outgrow these limitations far too quickly.

You can also use bookkeeping softwares like QuickBooks, Xero, or FreshBooks to get hands-on experience. When deciding whether to hire a bookkeeper or an accountant, consider your financial complexity and available resources. These reports act like financial storytellers, giving you details about your business’s health, performance, and insights for the future. For example, if you receive payment for a service in January, you record the income in January, even if the service was provided in December. Similarly, if you pay for office supplies in February, you record the expense in February, regardless of when you actually used the supplies.

Additionally, there are third-party apps that can integrate with QuickBooks Online to share data seamlessly. Alternately, accountants who are registered with QuickBooks are able to offer their clients preferred subscription pricing. The fee varies, depending on whether the client or the accountant is billed.

All in all, once I got past the learning curve surrounding account navigation in Zoho Books, I found the software to be feature-rich and with plenty of convenient tools to make completing tasks intuitive. From there, once I landed on the dashboard, I received a checklist of items to complete account setup and customization. I could also access a continually updating list of shortcuts to tools I most use in the platform. You can purchase tax and bookkeeping assistance for an added one-time or monthly fee, respectively. If you’re using tax filing software, you may have the option to organize and store receipts electronically. Small businesses that are required to pay estimated quarterly taxes but fail to do so may be assessed a penalty by the IRS.