12 Best Accounting Software for Small Businesses

You cannot improve something if you do not track it; your business is not any different.

Accounting, when done right, serves as a pedestal on which your business’ earnings stand.

It determines if your small business’ earnings are accurate and up to the standard. Additionally, accounting makes sure that your business keeps its tax obligations in check.

From Fortune 500 companies to small new businesses, accounting is essential for every business across industries.

Nonetheless, with the number of tasks that a team at a small business carries, getting into the nitty-gritty of accounting is not possible.

Nearly all businesses and startups have already adopted automated accounting and shifted to cloud-based solutions. It’s time you joined the club, too, and leverage all the benefits.

We’ve reviewed 12 of the best accounting software to help you pick the best one for your business.

1. Wave Accounting

Pricing: Free

Wave Accounting is a cloud-based and fully-functional double-entry accounting software that is completely free. This is the best fit for the accounting needs of freelancers and small businesses with 9 employees or fewer.

It comes with a single login feature and is accessible on a desktop, mobile, or tablet. You can generate invoices using the customizable templates and collect payment through its payment processing portal.

Wave’s accounting tools allow you to have insights into where the money is going, so you can decide how to proceed with your business activities.

As digitization is becoming the ground of most businesses, Wave Accounting offers integration with services like Gmail, Outlook, Stripe, HubSpot CRM, Zapier, and more.

Pros

• Customizable invoicing process.
• Very easy to use for non-IT departments.

Cons

• Does not offer synchronization with UK banks.
• PayPal’s import is no longer supported.

2. Zoho Books

Pricing: Free for businesses with revenue under 25 lakhs per annum. 

Zoho Books is online accounting software that is designed to streamline back-office operations, automate business workflows, and help you collaborate securely with your accountants online.

It is accessible on desktop, mobile, or tablet. This accounting software is suitable for a wide range of users from freelancers, small businesses to mid-sized businesses, and large enterprises.

Zoho Books has excellent features like invoicing (including generation of recurring invoices), cash flow management, balance sheet management, purchase order management, expense tracking, automated workflow creation, and many more.

It offers integration with platforms like PayPal, Evernote Teams, HubSpot, Zoho CRM, Zapier, Google Drive, OneDrive, Microsoft 365, and more.

Pros

• Impeccable invoicing feature.
• Available in 11 languages (making it easy for you to scale worldwide).

Cons

• Does not have a cash flow prediction feature.
• XML export of invoices is not available.

3. Sage Business Cloud Accounting

Pricing: Starts at $10 per month. Offers a free 30-day trial period.

Sage Business Cloud Accounting is accounting software designed for freelancers and small businesses. It is accessible on desktop, mobile, or tablet.

This easy-to-comprehensive accounting software has features that allow you to forecast cash flows, send and track invoices, act based on real-time reporting, and eventually become a much-needed helping hand for your business.

Sage Accounting also enables you to create quotes, estimates, invoices, and statements, as well as track the amount each customer owes at-a-glance, and chase overdue balances.

It allows you to link your bank account with your profile to have a seamless flow of all your transactions.

You can integrate your Sage Business Cloud Accounting profile with other platforms: Mailchimp, Stripe, Xero, BigTime, ExpensePoint, Veryfi Receipts OCR, and Expenses, to name a few.

Pros

• Real-time report generation.
• Insight on profit and loss, trial balance, balance sheet, and more.

Cons

• Less functional than its competitors.
• Lacks the feature to custom group GL accounts.

4. Quickbooks

Pricing: Starts at $6.94 per month. Offers a free 30-day trial period.

Quickbooks offers accounting solutions that help you manage bookkeeping, income and expense tracking, payroll management, and more.

It also has a mobile application version that allows you to keep a live track of sales receipt capture, expense tracking, account balance tracking, and purchase order management.

It provides you with a complete, synchronized finance profile of your business on a user-friendly dashboard.

You can use Quickbooks to view in-depth reports of the finances of your company. It also provides you with a customization feature, using which you can generate custom reports as required.

With the help of Quickbooks, you can keep track of your payments, invoice details, and users.

QuickBooks is completely integrated with other Quickbooks software like QuickBooks Online Payroll and Intuit GoPayment. You can also integrate it with other third-party software like Shopify, Salesforce, PayPal, XeroSquare POS, and more.

Pros

• Expense tracking.
• Time tracking.
• Automatic billing.

Cons

• Not a regular accounting software UI.
• Difficult learning curve.

5. Xero

Pricing: Starts at $12 per month/per user. 

Xero is cloud-based accounting software that comes along with user-friendly and intuitive features, which helps you to get paid faster. It also enables a reduction in data entry, which saves time (which is crucial for small businesses).

It provides you with tools to manage your invoicing, bank reconciliation, inventory, purchasing, expenses, bookkeeping, and more.

It has a feature for customizing your invoice, and you can add a ‘pay now’ feature to your invoice that allows your customers to directly pay via various payment portals. This accounting application certainly makes it easier to keep track of ongoing cash flow.

As for bank feeds, it imports the bank statement details for you by reconciling statements with existing translations and adding new transactions, keeping your financial reports updated in real-time.

Pros

• Send automated payment reminders.
• Separate mobile apps for expense management and project management.
• Short-term cash flow and business snapshot.

Cons

• It no longer includes the payroll feature.
• Limited accessibility via mobile app.
• Its customer service could use some improvement.

6. FreshBooks

Pricing: 30-day free trial, paid plan starts at $21.00/month (Lite plan)

FreshBooks is an accounting software solution for service-based businesses or freelancers. This implies designers, marketing agencies, plumbers, IT professionals, lawyers, architects, web professionals, and other roles in the service sector.

Features include time tracking, project management, proposals management, understanding of estimates, invoices generation, retainers, payments, and expense tracking.

To help you have a bird’s-eye view of your business, it also provides you with reports such as balance sheets, profit and loss statements, and more.

FreshBooks has a very user-friendly interface and is very easy to set up. It enables you to integrate with other FreshBooks services; you can also integrate with other third-party software like Bench for bookkeeping and Gusto for payroll.

Pros

• Comes with a useful set of templates.
• Prompt generation of outbound invoices.

Cons

• Does include timesheet tracking.
• The mobile app does not have limited features.

7. AccountEdge Pro

Pricing: Starts at a $499 one-time fee.

AccountEdge Pro is powerful accounting software designed to fit small and mid-sized businesses.

The majority of the businesses using AccountEdge Pro are companies that are engaged in selling, building and managing inventory items, and providing professional services such as billing for time spent on projects.

It is accessible on a desktop and supports both Mac and Windows OS.

It provides you with tools to process and report financial information. AccountEdge Pro comes with features that allow you to manage accounts, integrate payroll, manage sales and purchases contact, track inventory, manage online orders, conduct time billing activities, and more.

You can integrate your AccountEdge Pro profile with other software such as Shopify, TimeSolv Legal Billing, and Rerun.

Pros

• Quite a seamless and structured user interface.
• Easy setup and learning curve.

Cons

• Fewer features are offered than its competitors.
• Difficult to track transactions from prior years.

8. FreeAgent

Pricing: Starts at $10 per month. Offers a free 30-day trial period.

FreeAgent is an award-winning online accounting solution. It has been ranked as the UK’s number one accounting software. FreeAgent best suits the accounting needs of freelancers and small businesses.

You can use it on desktop, mobile, or tablet, allowing you to access it on the go.

It has features that allow you to manage expenses, organize employee payrolls, track time, create invoices, and monitor the cash flow.

You can set a personalized timeline to meet your upcoming deadlines and dues. It’s an easy-to-use dashboard, that shows you how your business is performing at a glance.

FreeAgent offers you integration with other services like Google, PayPal, Basecamp, Stripe, and more. This makes it easy to carry out multiple activities in an efficient manner.

Pros

• Links to your bank account to sync your inflows and outflows.
• The easy learning curve for beginners.
• User-friendly and functional user interface.

Cons

• Report adjusting and corrections can be complicated.
• Time tracking features are not very flexible.

9. Kashoo

Pricing: Soon to start for free for small businesses. 

Kashoo is cloud-oriented accounting software designed for freelancers and small businesses to give them the ability to keep all their bookkeeping details on one platform.

Its automation options allow you to run your business at your convenience without having to conduct accounting activities manually. As a versatile accounting software, Kashoo is accessible on desktop, iPhone, or iPad.

You can link your bank account and credit card to your Kashoo profile and it will then use machine learning to categorize and reconcile expenses. Kashoo provides complete and accurate reports in real-time with a few clicks, bringing much-needed efficiency to your small business.

It has the option to let you integrate your account with third-party software such as SurePayroll, Square Point of Sale, Stripe, Pepperi, Payment Evolution, Google, and more.

Pros

• Excellent bank syncing feature.
• Easy-to-use interface and quick learning curve.

Cons

• Android application is not available.
• A limited selection of invoice templates.

10. OneUp

Pricing: Starts at $9 per month. Offers a free 30-day trial period.

OneUp is a powerful online accounting software best suited for small-sized businesses and freelancers. It is accessible on desktop and Android phones and tablets.

It offers you the feature to link your OneUp profile with your bank, which helps in synchronizing the transactions. It also provides you with real-time reports stating the profit and loss statements and balance sheet, making it easier for you to manage your finances.

With more than 700,000 users across the world, OneUp holds a credibility that makes it a must-have software for your business’ accounting needs.

Along with accounting, it comes with features like invoicing, inventory, CRM, sales, and more, which come in handy while running a business. Also, OneUp has complete integration with Google Workspace.

Pros

• Built-in CRM feature.
• Built-in inventory management feature.

Cons

• No time tracking capabilities.
• No payroll feature.
• The iOS application is not available.

11. ProfitBooks

Pricing: Free for startups. Starts at $15/month for SMBs.

ProfitBooks is accounting software that comes along with features such as invoicing, tracking expenses, and managing inventory, and it represents all your financial transactions on a single dashboard.

If you are looking for software to manage your business accounts but are not accounting-savvy as such, ProfitBooks might just be the perfect solution for you.

It is the best fit for freelancers and small-sized businesses and is accessible on desktop, mobile, or tablet.

ProfitBooks allows you to manage all your expenses in a centralized manner. Using the dashboard, you get detailed key metrics.

It has a variety of features, like creating quotes and estimates, a day-to-day expense tracker, purchase and returns records, and vendor payments records.

To leverage it to its best, you can integrate your profile with Stripe, an online payment processing platform.

Pros

• Customer service on call and email.
• A great alternative to ERP solution.

Cons

• Inability to do data analysis.
• No flexibility to change the report formats.

12. ZipBooks

Pricing: Starts free of cost. Offers a free 30-day trial for paid plans.

ZipBooks is a household name for businesses across industries. It has a wide user base that includes freelancers, small-sized businesses, and mid-sized businesses. Similar to many of its competitors, it is accessible on desktop, iPhone, or iPad.

It offers you features such as core accounting, financial reporting, expense tracking, online invoicing, credit card processing, and more. U.S. and Canadian banks can be linked directly to your profile.

This automates the import and synchronization of your transactions. ZipBooks also offers a feature using which you can design and send customized invoices via email.

You can integrate your ZipBooks profile with third-party services like Google Workspace, Google Drive, PayPal, Slack, Asana, Spiceworks, Enrollsy, and Gusto.

Pros

• Impeccable invoicing system.
• Quite affordable as compared to its closest competitors.

Cons

• Android application is not available.
• The reports generated are limited.

We hope our list helped you find the best accounting software for your business.