Contrary to popular belief, small business accounting can be done in easy steps by utilizing the best offline accounting software. Based on my experience using different accounting softwares, I have seen that some of the widely used accounting software are actually not worth using if you’re a startup or micro business owner.
When it comes to small business accounting software, we have many choices: Quickbooks, Sage 50 accounting, Xero, Wave and FreshBooks. But some of them are not free and only for personal use. Luckily there are some FREE offline accounting software for small business but in general I don’t want to work without internet connection or by using desktop application in my laptop or desktop computers. Today, I will share with you the list of best accounting software available freely to download and use in your computers.
AvidXchange
AvidXchange is a finance platform designed to assist B2B companies in managing their accounts payable and bills payments. With this, you can effectively eliminate paper invoices. On top of that, you can save time by automating what would instead be protracted payment processes.
There are various other components as well that make the software holistic and capable of assisting you with all of your accounts and finances. A couple of examples are AvidXchange’s purchase order module and approval workflow. You can leverage the purchase order application to ensure that your business’s backend runs smoothly continuously with a steady supply of important materials. Meanwhile, you can utilize the approval workflow to make sure that your workforce gets the supplies they need quickly.
What is unique about AvidXchange?
- Made for B2B. The solution is popular among B2B organizations because it is designed for their use, specifically.
- Electronic invoicing. Paper invoices are wasteful, prone to errors, and can be easily misplaced or lost. AvidXchange resolves that with its electronic invoicing function, which saves you cost and helps you keep accurate records.
- Automatic bills payments. If you miss paying your bill even for a day, you can already incur penalties. You can avoid that by using the solution’s automatic payments function.
- Platform security. AvidXchange assures you that your data is safe in the event of system failures and natural disasters.
Sage Business Cloud Accounting
Sage Business Cloud Accounting, formerly known as Sage One, is a global brand that offers online accounting and business services. It was founded in 1981 in Newcastle, England, as a way to develop estimating and accounting software specifically for small businesses.2 It’s now cloud-based and allows you to choose your industry, company size, and needs. It will match you with specific accounting solutions and is used by over six million businesses.
Sage Business Cloud Accounting is a reputable company, provides software that doesn’t require any accounting knowledge, and is set up for use by multiple users. Your accountant can use the software and access your books for no additional fees.
Sage Business Cloud Accounting’s features include:
- Manage business finances and cash flow
- Accept and receive payments
- Create and send invoices
- Manage payroll
- Available on all devices so you can check your financials on the go
- Integrate with your financial institution and other apps including AutoEntry, Zync, and more
- Tax compliance tools
- Dashboard view with easy-to-read financial reports and analysis
- Inventory control
- Forecast cash flow
- Share access with your accountant in real-time on any device
- Add-ons such as human resources management and estimating
Pricing is tiered for Sage Business Cloud Accounting as follows:
- Accounting Start: $10 per month for entry-level accounting to help manage cashflow
- Accounting: $25 per month for powerful cloud accounting with cashflow tools, invoice management, and quote/estimate capabilities for unlimited users
Contact the company directly for specific features your business may need.
Akaunting
You should also consider a free accounting software called Akaunting. This option offers many of the most necessary features that a small business accounting software should. Within this technology, you’ll be able to invoice, sync accounts, track expenses, set up recurring bills, manage customers, and manage vendors. However, to access more advanced features like online payments, for example, you’ll have to download third-party apps that will cost you a yearly fee on top of whatever fees you have to pay for this third-party account.
Long story short, creating an Akaunting account won’t cost you anything, but as you navigate this software, you’ll realize that all the capabilities that you might expect to be ready-to-use will rely on your purchasing these third-party apps.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Conclusion:
There are two kinds of businesses: online and offline. Online businesses are “easier” to grow, because no matter where you are, your customers can still reach you. Offline businesses tend to see profits decrease as time progresses (because there is a physical location involved). One day, however, you might get the desire to go online, which means you need to learn about the different accounting software solutions out there.