If you are an entrepreneur, you know the importance of having a good accounting software. Such software will help you manage all the financial aspects of your business more effectively. It can automate most of your accounting processes which means it will free up time for other tasks.
Here are the best softwares out there!
Wave
Wave is probably the most popular free accounting app available online. And it’s also one of the most user-friendly and easy to get stuck into.
It’s an all-in-one package that’s designed to cover all of the basics: Accounting, Invoicing, Payments, and Receipts.
From the clean and simple dashboard on the home page, you can get immediate insights into income and expenses, expected payments and upcoming deadlines, as well as some useful suggestions to help you take action when it’s needed – like sending out automated reminders when your invoices become overdue.
It’s especially good for anyone who wants to:
- Jump straight into sending out professional estimates and invoices with your company logo and brand colours – with options for sending customisable reminders on certain dates.
- Avoid the manual entry of expenses. You can take a picture of a receipt with the free companion app for your smartphone, and all of the relevant details will be uploaded into your accounts on Wave.
- Keep a record of your customers, products and services, and prices. Whenever you create an invoice, Wave saves each customer and their details, as well as each thing you sold and the price you charged for it. So when you create the next invoice, you can fill out the whole thing in seconds with a few quick clicks.
Wave is a massively popular service, and that means you can rely on it to be continually updated and improved as the months and years go by.
But it does have its limitations.
While it’s great for smaller businesses and freelancers, some of the features might be a bit too basic for medium-sized companies and anything larger.
And although the vast majority of the features and services are free, you’ll have to fork out for things like:
- Payroll services (which are also only available in the US and Canada)
- Live chat support
- And taking payments online (there’s a small per-use fee for processing credit cards and bank payments).
Adminsoft Accounts
If you need a little more functionality than something like Wave – but you’re still not ready to commit to a paid service – Adminsoft offers an in-depth package that’s 100% free to use.
As well as the usual invoicing, ledgers, and expense software, Adminsoft also comes with:
- Stock Control and Purchase Order tools
- Human Resources and Payroll options – including holidays and absences, and records of employee communication
- Room for different users, different departments, multiple companies and multiple currencies
- Specialised software extensions for both the retail and car-trading industries.
So if you’re running a café, bar, restaurant or shop, Adminsoft can give you an exhaustive answer to everything you need in one self-contained piece of software. It can handle refunds, customer tabs, and gift vouchers – and you can also connect it to receipt printers, cash drawers and bar code scanners.
As far as accounting apps go, this one has almost no limitations to its free services.
But if you don’t want to shell out for a paid version, you will have to put up with a few minor inconveniences, such as:
- Background adverts
- The addition of the Adminsoft URL to any emails you send out with the software
- The opening of a browser displaying the Adminsoft website when you close down the accounting app.
Invoice Ninja
Some freelancers or smaller businesses won’t always need a full suite of bookkeeping and accounting tools.
They just need something to help them with their client-side activities – sending out professional estimates and invoices, and tracking time and expenses on their projects.
That’s where a specialised app like Invoice Ninja becomes useful. The free version is perfect for anyone who wants to:
- Automate their invoicing – create proposals and recurring bills from templates, request deposits, send automatic reminders, and get alerts when your clients view or pay your invoices.
- Jump straight into taking online payments – the free version integrates with over 40 different payment gateways, including PayPal, Stripe and Bitcoin.
- Automate their expenses – track the hours you spend on each project, import your expenses data, or link the app to your bank account or credit card so you can add your expenses onto each invoice as you go.
Invoice Ninja offers a huge range of powerful tools with its free version. But there’s also a lot that’s locked behind two further tiers of paid packages. If you’re sticking to the free version, you won’t be able to:
- Have a custom URL (or fully customisable design) for your invoices
- Have more than 100 clients
- Use multiple companies or multiple users
- Customise your emails or your automatic payment reminders.
GnuCash
It may not have the prettiest interface, but GnuCash has been happily serving small businesses as a free, open-source accounting platform for more than twenty years.
It’s based on double-entry bookkeeping, which sounds scary, but actually helps to ensure your accounts always balance.
It also works completely offline – which makes it great for anyone who’s not keen on the idea of having their data stored in the cloud.
GnuCash has a huge list of features (and a huge amount of helpful documentation to go with it), including:
- A checkbook-style register, which will be familiar to anyone who’s used similar accounting software in the past
- Customisable reports and graphs, such as Profit & Loss, Balance Sheet, and Portfolio Valuation
- Customer and Vendor tracking, Invoicing and Bill management, and Payroll options.
For a new freelancer or first-time business owner, it might take some time to get used to all of the functions and accounting terminology.
But because it’s an open-source project, there’s plenty of online tutorials, documentation and helpful community forums that can keep you on track while you learn the basics.
And importantly, there don’t seem to be any limitations locked behind a paywall. Donations are encouraged, but optional – so you can have a fully functional accounting package up and running from day one for free.
FreeAgent
Some of the features and benefits of FreeAgent’s accounting and bookkeeping software.
- Provides accounting software designed for small businesses
- Easy to use software
- Helps manage project finances
- Produces invoices
- Can create estimates
- Track time on clients/projects
- Manage expenses
- Incorporate payroll
- Connect to your bank
- Offers a free trial
FreeAgent is an accountancy software provider that has created its software to support small businesses in managing their finances. They offer three plans that are designed for different business setups – Sole Trader which includes self-assessment filing, Partnership/LLP which includes profit share calculation, and Limited Company which includes self-assessment filing, dividend vouchers and corporate tax forecasting.
FreeAgent’s accounting software is designed to manage their finances through support for managing project finances, producing invoices, creating estimates, tracking time spent on projects/clients, managing expenses, payroll activities and connecting to your bank. They offer a free trial to allow you to sample their software capabilities.
Zoho Books
If you’re a sole proprietor, freelancer, or starting a brand new business, Zoho Books is for you.
Affordable for even the tightest budget, Zoho Books includes a solid inventory management feature and provides new users with step-by-step directions for everything from general setup to writing an invoice, making it easy to get your new business set up and running quickly.
Some of the features and benefits of Zoho Books’ accounting and bookkeeping software.
- Offers online accounting software
- Helps automate business workflows
- Provides end-to-end accounting
- Raising sales orders
- Produces invoices
- Helps prepare VAT
- Import bank transactions
- Time tracking
- Offers a variety of apps that can be integrated into their platform
- Provides a 14-day trial
Zoho is a software provider for businesses to assist them in managing a variety of online resources including CRM, sales and marketing tools, remote working tools, email and finance tools which includes Books for accounting. Zoho Books is an end-to-end accounting software which helps automate business workflows.
Zoho Books helps to manage receivables through sending estimates and converting them into invoices and assisting with payment reminders. Manage payables through the creation of purchase orders and uploading receipts. You can also import your bank account transactions, track time spent on projects, manage contacts and run a wide variety of reports.
Clear Books
Some of the features and benefits of Clear Books’ accounting and bookkeeping software.
- Provides small business bookkeeping and accounting software
- Simple to use tool
- Create and send invoices
- Purchase tracking
- Financial reporting
- Track business bills
- Employee expenses
- Match bank transactions with invoices and bills
- Offers search capabilities
- Produce reports and tax returns
Clear Books offers business accountancy software that is designed for small businesses and is easy to use. Their software allows businesses to take control of their invoicing, purchase tracking and financial reporting. They offer two plans which are Small and Large.
Clear Books’ Small plan provides invoice and quote creator, bill and receipt tracking, bank feeds and uploads, reports, dividend tool and project accounting. The Large plan offers all the Small plan capabilities plus advanced features including HMRC recognised software, making tax digital VAT reporting, CIS and multi-currency. Their software allows you to also track business bills and employee expenses, search by customer/supplier and match bank account transactions.
Pandle
Some of the features and benefits of Pandle’s accounting and bookkeeping software.
- Provides simple bookkeeping software
- Intuitively designed to help save you time
- Offers a free plan
- Automatically pulls out bank accounts transactions
- Helps automate payment reminders
- Create quotes and invoices
- Upload receipts
- Submit compliant VAT returns directly to HMRC
- Control access
- Offers an intuitive mobile app
Pandle is an accountancy software developer who has created simple and easy software that has been designed to support small businesses with their bookkeeping. They offer two plans which are a free plan and a Pro plan. You can try out the Pro plan on their free trial.
Pandle’s free plan includes creating quotes and invoices, payment reminders, accept payments with Pandle Pay, import bank transactions, VAT submissions, run reports and export data. In addition, the Pro plan offers receipt uploads, manage projects, cash flow forecasting, manage user permissions, unlimited users, premium invoice templates and multi-company management.
Bokio
Some of the features and benefits of Bokio’s accounting and bookkeeping software.
- Simple accounting software
- Offers a free account
- Record transactions from your bank
- Automated software reports
- Send and track invoices
- Manage your accounts on the go with mobile-friendly software
- Assists in submitting your VAT return
- HMRC compliant
- Manage expenses
- Cloud-based and secure backups
Bokio is a financial software provider that offers bookkeeping and invoicing software as well as service add-ons. They cater for smaller businesses and the self-employed. They offer three plans which are a Free plan, Priority Support and Hire an Accountant.
Bokio offers cloud-based financial software that is automatically backed up and secure. Their free plan includes recording transactions, templates, unlimited invoicing, automated reports, HMRC compliant VAT returns, automatic bank feeds, management of expenses and support. Priority Support incorporates all the free features but has support to set-up the account and 24-hour support response time on business days.
Conclusion
There are many Free Accounting Software available on the internet. But, not all are free or inexpensive to use. So I created this list of accounting software for entrepreneurs. I have sorted out the best accounting software for small business, medium sized business and large corporation on monthly budget of $15.