Are you curious about desktop accounting software for small businesses? Or about the best desktop accounting software? Read this article on desktop accounting software free and see if it can help you. Desktop accounting software, also known as bookkeeping software, or simply accounting software, is a category of business application software intended to enable companies’ financial process management on their computers.
Accounting applications differ from general ledgers and management accounts systems in that they are specially tailored to the needs of managing sales and purchases and recording financial transactions which vary from general-purpose generic business applications.
Desktop accounting software is a cost-efficient and dependable tool for small business operations. It helps in making accurate, timely, and informed decisions on day-to-day operations which eventually results in increasing the efficiency of small businesses.
A proper accounting system is critical to the success of your small business. It will help you organize your finances, maximize your profits and grow your company. With today’s accounting software it doesn’t have to be complex or expensive. This article explains what accounting software is, why it’s important for small businesses, and how you can find the best desktop accounting software for a reasonable price.
Why Do Businesses Need Accounting Software?
In our increasingly mobile world, all businesses should be using accounting software instead of keeping track of finances on paper or a spreadsheet. Not only is accounting software more accurate, but it also helps ensure double entries are set up correctly.
Accounting software helps businesses better manage and track their finances. It also includes automated features that organize receipts, reconciles data, and integrate with your financial institution so you don’t have to balance your business account or worry about adding the numbers correctly.
It also saves time, increases productivity, improves efficiency, promotes the organization of documents, and can be used by multiple users including a bookkeeper or accountant. Additionally, accounting software makes it possible for financial data to become visible and transparent. If you want to find out how your company is doing financially, all you need to do is generate a report.
Some of this software include;
Zoho Books
Zoho Corporation was founded in 1996 in India and is represented around the world.7 It’s online accounting software lets you track your finances, create invoices, collaborate with your accountant in real-time, and more. It includes multiple products including accounting software, customer relationship management (CRM), inventory control, and human resource management software.
We chose Zoho Books as our best accounting software for automation because it offers robust accounting features and automation for bank feeds, categorizing, invoices, and more. It also has nearly 40 app integrations so it can be used with the software you’re already using. Zoho Books requires no accounting knowledge and can be easily set up. However, it only offers payroll features to companies in India, so if you need payroll solutions, you will have to choose another accounting software.
Zoho Books’ features include:
- Tax compliance and audit reports
- Sales orders
- Invoicing
- End-to-end accounting
- Reconcile bank transactions
- Client portal
- Reports and schedules
- Automatic tax calculations
- 1099 forms and sales tax reports that can be exported
Pricing for Zoho Books is tiered as follows:
- Basic: free annual subscription for businesses with up to $50,000 in annual revenue and includes two users, up to 1,000 invoices per year, payment gateways, and expenses and mileage tracking; with email support only
- Standard: $15 per month billed annually and includes up to three users, up to 5,000 invoices, and recurring expenses; with email, voice, and chat support
- Professional: $40 per month billed annually and includes up to 5 users, up to 10 automated workflows, timesheet tools, project profitability and retainer invoices; with email, voice, and chat support
- Premium: $60 per month billed annually and includes up to 10 users; up to 200 automated workflows, vendor portal, budgeting tools, and premium integrations; with email, voice, and chat support
Sage Intacct
Sage Intacct includes support for core accounting, financial reporting, billing, purchasing, sales and use tax, inventory management, and project accounting. The financial management system offers a suite of accounting features that could serve medium and large-sized businesses with consolidated ERP and e-commerce features.
Most of Sage Intacct’s applications are financial-based, including accounts payable, accounts receivable, cash management, a general ledger, order management, purchasing, and reporting, and dashboards. Intacct also includes support for financial reporting, billing, sales and use tax, inventory management, and project accounting.
The Intacct solution is particularly popular with professional services companies based on extensive support of time-based billing, ease of use for remote professionals, and strong project accounting features.
FreshBooks
FreshBooks is a Canadian-based company that was founded in Toronto in 2003. It uses cloud-based accounting and invoice software that can be accessed via iPhone, Android, and iPad apps.
It is our choice for the best overall accounting software because it’s easy to use for business owners with little or no accounting experience, offers robust features and helpful functions, is reasonably priced, and can be used on the go.
FreshBooks’ features include:
- Payment reminders
- Recurring invoices with customizable options including due dates and discounts
- Online credit card payments
- Multi-currency and language billing
- Automatic tax calculations for sales tax
- Tax-friendly expense categories
- Remembered vendors
- Time tracking with a Chrome browser extension
- Bank deposits, recurring payments, and auto bills with bank integration
- Tax help integrations with tax apps, estimates, deductions, and filing tools
- Easily integrates with other products including GSuite and Gusto
FreshBooks’ pricing is tiered as follows:
- Lite: $15 per month for the self-employed business owner with five billable clients
- Plus: $25 per month for businesses with 50 billable clients
- Premium: $50 per month for growing businesses supporting unlimited billable clients
- Select: Custom features and pricing for businesses with unlimited billable clients
FreshBooks may also offer discounts or bundled pricing if you pre-pay, so make sure you check the website for any offers before you sign up.
Wave
A free product (yes, free!), Wave is cloud-based, offers a simple interface and easy setup, and allows for project-based accounting and fixed asset management. The goal is to help the business owner prep for tax time. It’s simple, reliable, and secure with a lot of focus on data security protocols.
Wave is a forever-free accounting solution that offers to account, invoicing, payments, payroll, and receipts. Wave is very transparent in its pricing structure. The accounting, invoicing, and receipt scanning is 100% free. Collecting payments via credit card or bank transfers, or running payroll for your employees does come at a price, however.
Wave is not only one of the most popular free accounting solutions, it can also be thought of as one of the most popular accounting solutions periods. Because of this, it’s a great choice for freelancers and start-ups who are strapped for cash.
Sage 50cloud Accounting
While some business owners are content with reporting basics, others desire more comprehensive reporting options. If that’s you, check out Sage 50cloud Accounting, which offers some of the best reporting options around.
Sage 50cloud Accounting offers excellent reporting tools. Source: Sage 50cloud Accounting software.
Along with complete financial statements, including balance sheet reporting, Sage 50cloud Accounting also includes general ledger, payroll, accounts payable, and accounts receivable reports.
All reports are fully customizable and can be exported to Excel for further customization. Good for small and growing businesses alike, Sage 50cloud Accounting also includes optional bank connectivity, customer and vendor management, and payroll capability.
The customer management feature allows you to effectively manage customer information, such as establishing credit limits, offering customer-specific discounts, and the ability to create customer quotes and full proposals.
Sage 50cloud Accounting also includes good inventory management capability, with the Premium and Quantum plan to offer product assemblies as well.
One of the biggest benefits of using Sage 50cloud Accounting is its scalability. Another benefit is good budgeting capability for creating financial projections.
Product support options are good: Telephone, email, and chat support options are available to all registered users, with complete access to all product updates and enhancements.
Sage 50cloud Accounting is scalable, with three plans available: Pro, which is a single-user system and is available for $299.95/year; Premium, which supports five users and is available for $1,105.95/year; and Quantum, which supports up to 40 users, with a 10-user system available for $1,978.95/year.
AccountEdge Pro
AccountEdge Pro is desktop accounting software for small businesses founded in 1989 and has developed new features and enhancements over the years. If you need to access your finances on the go or from your smartphone, you can use their cloud-based app or their hosting platform. It’s geared toward small to medium-sized businesses, has a basic version and a pro version, and offers comprehensive accounting solutions full of customizations.
We chose AccountEdge Pro as our best accounting software for experienced accountants because of its robust features and reporting capability. It’s a bit more complex than some of the other software, so this software works best if you’re already familiar with accounting terminology.
AccountEdge Pro’s features include:
- Bank feeds with integration
- Direct deposit
- Inventory management
- Payment processing
- Turn quotes into invoices
- Customer and vendor management
- Full-service payroll
- Free accountant copy
- Unique sales tax code per line item on a single invoice
- Data sync with company files
- Email support
Pricing for AccountEdge Pro is as follows:
AccountEdge Basic (Windows only): $149 one-time fee for one user, and $199 fee for phone support
AccountEdge Pro (Windows or Mac): $499 one-time fee or $15 per month for multiple users, $199 fee for phone support, and additional fees for licenses, payroll services, and more.
To find out more about what features are included and how much add-ons cost or to add custom features, it’s best to contact the company directly.
Tipalti
Tipalti is an account payable automation solution that prioritizes efficiency across an end-to-end global payables workflow. Supporting AP and payment management in their cloud platform, Tipalti helps users scale and adapt to their business’ changing needs.
Invoice-based supplier payments are the heart of Tipalti, helping growing companies focus on improving their AP workflow. Larger companies can enjoy global and performance-based mass payments to partners depending on their marketplaces, networks, or communities.
Tipalti lets vendors register on your Supplier Hub, helping your business reduce data entry and ensure supplier identity with tax IDs. Vendors can then upload invoices and allow you as the payer to review what has been keyed in and approve any invoices and schedule future payments.
Types of Accounting Software
Spreadsheets to Manage Financial Data
To help with bookkeeping, small businesses often use spreadsheet programs such as Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets, or OpenOffice. You can adapt a spreadsheet to almost any basic accounting need. For example, you can use spreadsheet programs to list expenses, sales or other relevant financial data, and even to handle more advanced accounting functions. Generally, only a very simple business should rely solely on spreadsheets to handle accounting; for most others, spreadsheets usually compliment other accounting processes.
Commercial Accounting Software
Commercial accounting software such as QuickBooks, TurboCash, or FreshBooks can handle most, if not all, of a small- to mid-size business’s accounting needs. Accounting software work with almost any business, and allow you to create customized functions to fit your specific needs. Commercial accounting software often includes graphs that summarize data, as well as reports that provide a picture of a business’s health and the forms needed for taxes. Each type of commercial accounting software has strengths and weaknesses.
Enterprise Accounting Software
Larger companies may have enormously complex operations, and enterprise accounting software helps in managing this complexity. Accounting software for larger enterprises often integrates accounting with other services provided by the software, such as workflow management, business intelligence, and project planning.
Often, when a large business selects this type of accounting software, it follows a multistage protocol that includes a request for information from accounting software vendors, a product demonstration, and communication with other companies that use the software. Rather than using two-dimensional spreadsheets, enterprise software is often based on relational databases that can show the relationships between diverse sets of information, like showing sales volume from all customers compared to their regions, or the number of employees each company has. Common accounting software for enterprises includes Oracle, SAP, or Microsoft Dynamics GP.
Custom Accounting Software
Sometimes, a business creates its own accounting software. This often happens almost by accident: as the business grows, knowledgeable staff may be asked to write software to handle various accounting situations until, after a time, the business may find it has created its own custom accounting software. In other situations, a business creates custom software because there are no commercial accounting programs that meet its needs.
Conclusion:
Desktop accounting software is computer software designed to be used on the desktop, rather than through a web browser. A desktop accounting program is typically a small business version of enterprise-level accounting solutions and offers similar functionality.
This accounting software covers all aspects of home or small business accounting from tracking cash flow, managing inventories, creating invoices, and quoting jobs to paying bills, paying employees, and much more. In addition, this accounting software helps you analyze your financial data including Profit loss statements, Balance sheets,s, etc.