Choosing the right accounting software for your business is an important step in the initial stage of starting a company or launching a new product. We’ve compared and reviewed our top picks for best free online accounting software and cloud-based software, as well as reviewed top traditional and alternative options (for those who don’t want to go the cloud way). Let’s dive right in shall we?
Here, I give you the best 2 accounting softwares with full detail of why i feel they are the best.
Zoho Books
Zoho Books is yet another accounting solution aimed primarily at small business enterprises. In many respects its bears resemblance to FreshBooks, with its neat, friendly user interface and an ethos of innovation that make it a lot more presentable to modern business enterprises. Even the Zoho pricing structure is similar to FreshBooks, and it seems to be in direct competition with its “older” competitor. Zoho Books offers 3 packages:
- Basic – $8 a month, up to 50 contacts, 2 users, 5 workflows).
- Standard – $12 a month, up to 500 contacts, 3 users, 10 workflows).
- Professional – $25 a month more than 500 contacts, 10 users, 10 workflows).
The basic package offers:
- Bank Reconciliation
- Custom Invoices
- Expense Tracking
- Projects and Timesheets
- Recurring Transactions
- Sales Approval
- Budgeting
- Zoho Sign Integration
The Standard Package offers the above as well as vendor credits, reporting tags, purchase approval, and Twilio integration. The professional package also offers purchase orders, sales orders, stock tracking. custom domain, vendor portal, in addition to the Standard Package features.
Zoho Books is a rival to FreshBooks when it comes to intuitive and smoothness. But Zoho Books is less expensive, when you take into account the fact that it offers unlimited invoicing From one dashboard, you can manage a massive suite of Zoho products. Zoho has a product for nearly every business need you can imagine. Other items in the Zoho suite include:
- Zoho Books
- Zoho Invoice
- Zoho Inventory
- Zoho Subscriptions
- Zoho Expense
- Zoho Checkout
The Zoho Books invoicing capabilities are exceptional. With 16 templates and tons of invoice customizations, Zoho Books’ invoicing feature is hard to beat. You can send recurring invoices or auto-schedule invoices to be sent in advance. You can add discounts, shipping charges, and attachments. You can also opt to add a salesperson field to each invoice as well as custom fields. Zoho Books offers invoice reminders and the unique option to send your invoices in 13 different languages and encrypt your .pdf invoices for added security. Zoho Books supports retainer invoices as well. Invoices can be sent via email or traditional mail.
On TrustRadius, Zoho Books has a rating of 8.0 stars out of ten. On Capterra, it scores 4.4 out of 5 stars. The customers love this product, and with good reason. We did too. It is our favorite software to use, and we had to knock it down to third because there are a small number of things it won’t do, and the fact that it lacks payroll features, which could result in you needing to purchase a separate application. But you can easily purchase Zoho Invoice or Zoho Inventory, all integrated under the Zoho suite.
This is the real beauty of Zoho. They have specific applications for very specific uses. Most of the competitors have a broad product with multiple additions and add ons. But you can use Zoho for exactly what you need, for a low cost, with an amazing interface. If you check out the Zoho dashboard, we guarantee you will be hooked.
The only major disadvantage of Zoho Books is that they are not suited to larger businesses. Now, most accounting software providers on this list are more orientated towards small businesses, But ZohoBooks is a real “no-no” when it comes to businesses with more than 50 employees, primarily for its limited payroll integration for employees.
Why they don’t implement a simple payroll module remains a mystery when this is what all of its customers are crying out for.
Features
- Unlimited Invoicing
- Bank Reconciliation
- Custom Invoices
- Expense Tracking
- Projects and Timesheets
- Recurring Transactions
- Sales Approval
- Budgeting
- Zoho Sign Integration
- Bills
- Vendor Credits
- Reporting Tags
- Purchase Approval
- Twilio Integration
- Purchase Orders
- Sales Orders
- Stock Tracking
- Custom Domain
- Vendor Portal
Price: $8 a month for the Basic Package, $12 a month for the Standard Package, $25 a month for the Professional Package.Why We Recommend
Superbly intuitive, the cheapest on the market, a pleasure to use, and integrative with the comprehensive suite of Zoho products.Best for…
Small businesses, freelancers, and microbusinesses.Pros
- Affordable.
- Integration with other Zoho products.
- Excellent user interface.
- Superior depth in records and transaction forms, including numerous custom fields.
- Multiple payment gateways.
- Document management.
- Generous support options.
- Excellent mobile version.
Cons
- Integrated payroll feature limited to California and Texas.
- Time tracking must be tied to projects.
Read full Zoho Books reviewGo to top
Intuit QuickBooks
Intuit QuickBooks is one of the most highly regarded accountancy services available. QuickBooks is more of a pure accountancy service, similar to Sage Cloud Accounting. Other entries on this list can excel more in the areas of payroll and invoicing. QuickBooks offers 3 pricing packages:
- Simple Start – $7.50 a month, one user along with your accountant.
- Essentials – $11.50 a month, 3 users along with your accountant.
- Plus – $15 a month, 5 users along with your accountant.
The features you receive with the Simple Start package include:
- Track income & expenses
- Send custom invoices & quotes
- Connect your bank
- Track VAT
- For one user, plus your accountant
With the Essentials package, you will also gain access to Insights & reports, manage employees, and Multi-currency. The Plus Package will also allow you access to recurring Transactions, Inventory Tracking, Project Tracking, and Management Budget.
Aside from the price and rich feature set, what else has Intuit QuickBooks got going for it? For one thing, it has more integrations than any other accounting software on the market right now. The customer service team is reported to be exceptional. QuickBooks UK has a rating of 4.6 stars on Trustpilot out of more than 5,500 reviews. PC Magazine has rated it 4.5 Stars, and TrustRadius has given it a score of 8.1 Stars. So it consistently rates highly across social review sites.
Many of the social reviews are from accountants, indicating that QuickBooks is the best out there. This is mainly because QuickBooks has so much functionality and extra features available. It is designed specifically for accounting first, and payroll second. Other providers (like FreshBooks) come at it from the other angle, starting off as a payroll processor and later adding accounting functionality. Because Intuit QuickBooks is an industry-standard (like Sage) your accountant is going to be familiar with it, and so will all the organizations that he/she interacts with.
QuickBooks is not as intuitive as other platforms. So small business owners will need to take the time to get used to it. QuickBooks is not designed for a part-time user. You need to get an accountant to operate it properly or really take the time to get to understand the software. Moreover, there have been recent complaints about non-responsive customer support, but this is common across providers. We encountered no issues when we raised queries and found the customer service to actually be far better than many competitors.
Recently, QuickBooks has disabled its bulk invoice upload features. The problem is that each invoice has to be manually uploaded, which is needlessly time-consuming. A separate service has to be purchased to make use of easy bulk upload.
The other major drawback is that Intuit QuickBooks Online is forcing some clients to upgrade to Enterprise, and there are major backward compatibility issues. This happens to a lot of financial services and accounting companies, however. There are just so many legacy systems and customizations that it can be really difficult to keep everyone satisfied, though it can really lead to a disaster scenario for a number of unfortunate clients.
Features
- Manage budgets
- Accounts Receivable
- Bank Reconciliation
- Billing & Invoicing
- CPA Firms
- Fixed Asset Management
- Track income & expenses
- Connect your bank
- Track VAT
- Insights & reports
- Manage employees
- Multi-currency
- Recurring transactions
- Track inventory
- Track projects & locations
Price: $7.50 for Simple Start, $11.50 for Essentials, $15.00 for PlusWhy We Recommend
Because it is more powerful (by a large margin) than all of its competitors, from the perspective of accounting capabilities.Best for…
Businesses with a lot of advanced accounting requirements, such as an accountancy firm or large business enterprise.Pros
- Very affordable
- Most sophisticated of all accounting software services
- Can easily handle large business and corporate requirements
- Simple to use (though hard to master)
- Massive number of integrations
- Excellent receipt capture feature
Cons
- Can be a little slow
- Steep learning curve for new users
Read full Quickbooks review
List of Quickbooks alternaitvesGo to top
Conclusion
You invest all your time, energy and money in building your startup, so why would you neglect its financial well-being? The last thing you want is to ignore the basics in order to save money. The taxman will not be in your favor when he finds out that you have been depriving your company of vital finance tools. Even though there are hundreds of accounting software available today, it does not necessarily mean that all of them are suitable for your business. It is important to look for an accounting system that focuses on helping businesses grow.