Free cloud accounting software for small business: here’s what you’ll find in this guide. I’ve noticed that small business owners sometimes have a hard time finding a reliable cloud-based accounting software. There are hundreds of options, and it can be overwhelming to figure out which offers the best type of solution. This guide is designed to help you choose the best free cloud-based accounting software for small business and start taking advantage of your important accounting data – quickly and easily.
Nowadays, there are a lot of cloud-based accounting software products, which can be quite overwhelming for small business owners. This post will help you to quickly identify the most common characteristics of cloud based accounting software. Along with that, I have also included a list of leading cloud-based accounting software.
CloudBooks
While CloudBooks’ basic features are free, it doesn’t offer as much as the competition.
CloudBooks pros
CloudBooks is an online accounting software program that allows you to manage your online invoices, expenses, and projects. You can also view financial reports from any mobile device with their free app. Their platform allows for unlimited staff users, which means you can share access to your books as needed.
CloudBooks cons
CloudBooks is generally geared towards freelancers with few clients. Unless you are willing to shell out $10-$20 a month, you are limited to only five unbranded invoices per month. There is also no phone support or Paypal integration for the free version.
GnuCash
GnuCash is an open-source accounting program that offers many features to help you manage your small business accounting. Volunteer developers update the software regularly, which means the program is always kept up-to-date.
GnuCash pros
GnuCash’s strength is that it contains advanced features such as customer and vendor tracking, job assignments, invoicing, bill pay, sales tax management, payroll management, and budget creation and management.
The checkbook-style register is an easy-to-use interface for entering all of your checking and credit card transactions. You can also enter income, stock, and currency transactions.
You can split transactions, mark transactions as canceled or reconciled, autofill entered transactions, and display multiple accounts in a single register window.
GnuCash cons
Since GnuCash is not cloud-based and only locally installed on a desktop computer, access to your financial data is limited to only one machine and one user. While GnuCash offers a mobile app, it is only for Android-based devices and requires you to manually import the data, which can be a pretty tedious process.
The interface of the program is also a bit dated and requires some time to get used to. Many users report problems with manually importing their transactions.
GnuCash’s customer support is through a public email-based discussion board, so it may take a while before you get a response to your question. Their chat support uses an obsolete IRC channel system, which can be tedious to set up.
Wave
Starting at $0.00/mo.
If getting free software is your top priority, you quite literally can’t do better than Wave. Wave’s comprehensive software simplifies your financial tracking with automatic journal entries, bank reconciliation, and expense and income tracking.
Even if Wave weren’t completely free, we’d still be blown away by how much it offers. It’s one of our top accounting software picks for small-business owners, and for good reason. With Wave, you get perks like these:
- Automatic bank account and credit card syncing for accurate, up-to-date financial records
- Unlimited bank account and credit card connections
- Easy, customizable income and expense tracking
- Crucial accounting reports and general ledger
- Invoicing and billing reminders
- Automatically generated journal entries
- Customer support (email only)
Wave’s easy-to-read dashboard shows you your most important financial info at a glance. Its billing, invoicing, and expense tracking features make it perfect for freelancers, but the software can work for larger businesses too, especially since Wave doesn’t limit the amount of users you can add (unlike, say, QuickBooks Online). You and the rest of your financial team can jump on your account to check numbers and enter information, free of charge.
Akaunting
Pros:
- Open-source software means you can customize however you want.
- Extensive library of integrations.
- Robust user support via online forums.
Cons:
- Design is not as intuitive as other platforms.
- Advanced features cost extra.
- Not as ready-to-use as other options.
Why we like it:
Akaunting is an open-source accounting platform that has the capability for customization, primarily through its library of add-ons. The primary features are available right out of the box: You can invoice, track receipts and take care of the everyday needs of your company’s finances. Plus, with a robust library of integrations, you can build your own Akaunting setup with a degree of customization other free platforms don’t provide. However, you or someone on your team will likely need some coding knowledge to use this software to its full potential.
ZipBooks
ZipBooks provides powerful and simple-to-use accounting software designed to help small businesses move to the next level. ZipBooks’ free starter option includes unlimited invoicing, unlimited vendors and customers, unlimited bookkeeping, the ability to connect and manage one bank account, and a business health and invoice quality score.
SlickPie
The free accounting software SlickPie is also worth looking into for your small business finances. The free version of this accounting software allows for unlimited automated receipt entries, 10 different companies on one account, and email support. It also allows you to create quotes and estimates that can easily become professional invoices. SlickPie also allows you to connect your PayPal and Stripe accounts for free. That means customers will be able to fulfill their invoices with card or PayPal payments online—and you’ll simply have to pay the standard transaction fees that PayPal and Stripe charge.
One feature that this free accounting software seems to be lacking is reports—the SlickPie website doesn’t highlight any built-in reporting capabilities. If you’re hoping to extract valuable, high-level insights from your accounting software, then you might want to consider options other than SlickPie.
Brightbook
Brightbook is a free online accounting system, designed to help time-strapped and cash-strapped small businesses with no accounting experience run their business easier. Businesses can send professional-looking invoices in any currency, track bills and find out who owes them money in an instant with the easy-to-use Brightbook system.
NCH Software (Express Accounts)
Starting at $0.00/mo.
With 20 easy-to-generate financial statements, Express Accounts is a perfect fit for business owners who want to focus on keeping their books in order.
Express Accounts, owned and operated by NCH software, has a pretty dated website. While multiple users can log on to your account, the software requires an initial desktop download, which makes it a little less flexible than the cloud-based providers on our list. But if you don’t mind the dated look, Express Accounts can simplify your basic bookkeeping in a big way.
For starters, it offers 20 financial reports (much better than ZipBooks’ two) that help you get a clear picture of your fiscal health. Express Accounts also easily tracks accounts payable and accounts receivable. You can even print checks using the software to streamline bill payments.
Express Accounts’ customer service is much less robust than our other top five picks. You can reach out to technical support over email if you have an issue with your download, but that’s the extent of your support. On the other hand, most customers use Express Accounts solely to track their business’s figures—so you shouldn’t need the kind of support you would with more complex accounting or payroll software.
NetSuite ERP
NetSuite ERP is essentially a customer relationship management (CRM) solution, but the platform can be used for sales and marketing automation, as well as order management and customer support. It offers a myriad of tools and features to make financial management simple.
Standard features include pre-configured dashboards that can be customized by users for their specific needs. NetSuite ERP also offers robust automation and scalability features. It can grow with your company and automate processes such as financial management, order management, revenue management, fixed assets, inventory management, and billing.
The vendor offers a great demo of the product that will introduce you to all key features.
AvidXchange
AvidXchange is a comprehensive invoice management and payment automation system built for businesses of all sizes. It is equipped with features for paperless invoicing, purchase order automation, as well as payment processing to help you streamline accounting operations. It also comes with a highly configurable interface and intelligent approval workflows to boost efficiency and reinforce visibility across your accounts payable processes. In addition, the platform has search and filter tools that make it easy to track invoices as well as review transactions.
Using AvidXchange, businesses can lower the cost of accounts payable processes as well as improve operational productivity. It also makes it easier for companies to pay their suppliers faster because payments can be made securely from the platform. More importantly, as AvidXchange comes with advanced security and fraud detection functionalities so users can prevent unauthorized transactions and payment requests.
GoDaddy
Established in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1997, GoDaddy is a big name in the web hosting and website creation space, but it also offers accounting software for small businesses.7 It has tools to automate and organize your bookkeeping and accounting solutions and requires no prior accounting knowledge. You can automatically create and send invoices, accept online payments, and view business reports.
We chose GoDaddy as our best accounting software for an e-commerce business because this is exactly what the software is designed for. It’s made for e-commerce sellers, so you can get started in a few minutes, and it syncs to Amazon, Etsy, eBay, PayPal, and more. Keep in mind that GoDaddy is great for online sellers, but may fall short if you’re a small business looking for comprehensive accounting solutions including automation, tax forms, and payroll.
GoDaddy’s features include:
- Syncing with online retailers
- Online payment processing
- Track sales and expenses
- Create and send invoices
- Recurring invoices
- View business reports including profit and loss
GoDaddy’s pricing is tiered as follows:
- Get Paid: Starts at $4.99 per month and includes invoices and estimates, accepts payment from your smartphone, tracks mileage and time, and current-year business reports
- Essentials: Starts at $9.99 per month and includes everything from the Get Paid tier plus unlimited business reports, automatic credit card imports, and sales data imports
- Premium: Starts at $14.99 per month and includes everything from the Essentials tier plus recurring invoices
Conclusion:
Do you own a small business? If you do then you probably already know how tricky it is to keep track of your cash flow. A lot of people tend to rely on the old-school method of writing everything down in a notebook or spreadsheet, but that’s not going to cut it for long. In this ever-changing world, many small businesses are switching to cloud-based accounting software for small business.