If you’re like most business owners, you need to know how to record, track, and manage your business finances. Regardless of how small or large your company is, you still need to manage your cash flow. And when it comes to accounting software, the amount of available options can be overwhelming. But you don’t have to worry because we have tested different business accounting software solutions and have come up with the best.
Here are the free business accounting softwares out there!
CloudBooks: Best for Freelancers and Small Businesses
Best for Freelancers and Small Businesses
CloudBooks is a free accounting and invoicing solution tailored to accommodate small businesses and freelancers. The program boasts a user base of over 2 million subscribers and has a suite of capabilities that cover invoicing, time-tracking, reporting, and payment needs — among others.
The platform is an invoice management solution, above all else — and that can be a benefit or drawback in its own right, depending on what you need.
While CloudBooks has features extending beyond that functionality, invoicing appears to be its main selling point — meaning it’s not quite as fully fleshed out with accounting functionality as other programs listed here.
So if you’re looking for exceptional invoice creation and management software, you should check out Cloudbooks. If you need a more robust accounting-specific solution, you might want to look elsewhere.
CloudBooks’ Key Benefits
- Allows for unlimited users
- Features email support
- Offers free cloud data storage
- Upgraded plans are reasonably priced
CloudBooks’ Key Drawbacks
- Only lets you bill one client
- Caps your number of invoices at five
- Lacks phone or chat support
Sunrise: Best for Small Businesses Looking for a Bookkeeping Solution
Best for Small Businesses Looking for a Bookkeeping Solution
Sunrise is one of the more prominent bookkeeping applications available for small businesses. Users can leverage the program to easily search and categorize business expenses, send customized invoices, and receive recurring payments.
It offers a free, self-service plan that provides businesses with a decent suite of features and a fair amount of flexibility when it comes to bookkeeping — allowing for unlimited invoices and transactions.
Sunrise sets itself apart from other bookkeeping solutions with its dedicated bookkeeper services, but those services come at a hefty premium. As I mentioned, its free plan is self-service — which works for small businesses but might not be sustainable as your business expands.
Ultimately, Sunrise is a straightforward, effective bookkeeping software with a free plan that can suit the needs of several small businesses. If you need a relatively short-term bookkeeping solution with a reasonable upgrade fee, Sunrise’s free plan is worth checking out.
Sunrise’s Key Benefits
- Lets you manage income and expenses
- Lets you send unlimited invoices
- Lets you generate profits and losses
Sunrise’s Key Drawbacks
- Suite of features is pretty restricted, relative to that of its paid plan
- Lacks payment integrations
- No cash flow insights or alerts
Inv24
Inv24 is a free inventory management and invoicing software, which enables small businesses to automatically organize and invoice their customers. With Inv24, business owners can download PDF versions of invoices or send them by email.
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.
TurboCash
TurboCash 4 provides free accounting software that is recommended for people earning less than $10 an hour. TurboCash 5 is recommended for small businesses, with cash book, general ledger, stock, debtors, creditors and invoicing features. TurboCash 5 is now available as a Cloud Service. Unlike TurboCash which is free, TurboCash 5 costs $60 a year.
Inveezy
Inveezy is a free invoicing tool for small businesses. Users can customize their invoices with their own logos and use the service to send repeated invoices. Businesses can get paid with PayPal or credit cards with the Inveezy system. Businesses also have the option to send an invoice as a quote as opposed to an actual bill.
GnuCash
GnuCash provides a simple approach to bookkeeping and accounting for small businesses. This free accounting software is available for Android, Linux, Windows, OS X, FreeBSDm GNU and OpenBSD. The software manages invoices, accounts payable and receivable, as well as employee expenses and some payroll features.
CloudBooks
CloudBooks provides businesses with an effective invoicing tool designed to create efficient and timely billing. The CloudBooks’ Free Forever is a free tool for a single client. Businesses can take advantage of CloudBooks’ dedicated team, which can provide an integrated assistance and priority support to meet the needs of their business.
Akaunting®
Akaunting is an open-source free accounting solution designed for small business use. You can use Akaunting as a downloadable platform, an option that Akaunting says 270,000 users have opted for. Another 150,000 customers use Akaunting’s cloud-based free accounting software.
Among the most exciting features of Akaunting are the following:
- Customer management. With Akaunting, you can create files for each customer and grant your customers easy access to your client portal. There, the client can receive and pay your invoices.
- Fee-free payments. When you send invoices through Akaunting, you won’t pay any fees to receive your payments.
- Automated invoices. You can automate your invoices, bills, and other revenue-related processes to keep your cash flow uninterrupted.
- Financial reporting. Akaunting includes reporting tools that provide comprehensive overviews of your business to keep your finances in check.
- Open-source software design. Since Akaunting is open-source, you can tweak its code to bolster your data security and structure the platform however you please.
- Multi-language and multi-currency. Akaunting is available in 50 languages, and you can use it with any currency.
Akaunting’s strength is the throughline among all the above features: versatility. Its drawback is that reaching a customer support agent can be more difficult than with paid platforms.
Zoho® Invoice
Zoho’s free accounting software for small businesses focuses on invoices. Small business owners like yourself can use it to generate and send professional invoices and remind overdue clients to pay you. Zoho Invoice also includes features for expense and time tracking.
The standout features of Zoho Invoice include:
- Customizable invoice templates. Zoho Invoices includes a gallery of templates from which you can build your invoices. You can modify these templates however you please and add your logo to them.
- Multiple invoice sending channels. Through Zoho Invoice, you can send your invoices via SMS, email, or your Zoho client portal.
- Status tracking. Zoho indicates whether your invoice has been sent, received, followed up on, or paid.
- Automated invoices, payments, and reminders. With Zoho, you can save time invoicing your clients, following up on unpaid invoices, and collecting recurring client payments.
- Multiple payment methods. Cash, check, ACH, and credit card are all on the table with Zoho Invoice.
- Multiple currencies and languages. You can use Zoho in a wide variety of currencies and languages, thus allowing you to work with clients from across the globe.
Zoho stands out for its user-friendly, modern interface. It also includes easy integrations with other Zoho tools such as Zoho Books (bookkeeping software) and Zoho Inventory (inventory management software). However, these extra tools will cost you money, so Zoho’s big drawback is that a fully integrated Zoho Invoice experience isn’t free.
Express Accounts®
Express Accounts by NCH Software® is a free accounting platform focused on sales, accounts payable and receivable, and financial reporting. It breaks its features down into four silos:
- Sales and accounts receivable. Track the money you’re owed while creating and automating your recurring orders, invoices, and financial reports. You can create quotes in Express Accounts as well.
- Financial analysis and reports. Create 20 types of reports, generate balance sheets and income statements, streamline your tax return creation, and break sales down by customer, item, or salesperson.
- Accounts payable. Track the money you owe, and then pay it. You can also create purchase orders and checks.
- Additional accounting features. If you opt out of the free version and purchase the commercial version, you’ll get advanced features such as multi-business accounting. The free tier still includes automatic data backup and integration with the inventory management platform Inventoria® .
Express Accounts is a solid pick for small business owners who need solely the basics in their accounting software. If you need more advanced features, Express Accounts might not be an ideal choice. For all business owners, the somewhat clunky and outdated user interface might prove challenging to work with.
Sunrise®
Although Sunrise is primarily a bookkeeping consulting service, it also offers free self-service accounting software. You can use Sunrise to:
- Manage your revenue and expenses. The moment you link your bank and credit card accounts to Sunrise, you can start tracking and categorizing all your transactions.
- Manual and automatic transaction importing. In addition to the above expense and revenue automation, you can manually add new entries whenever you please.
- Customize and track invoices. Add your logo to your organized, visually appealing invoices. You can often create and send your invoices with just a few clicks.
- Online and mobile payments. Through Sunrise’s SunPay ® tool, you can accept online and mobile payments from your clients. The result is fewer barriers between you and your customers when payment time arrives.
Sunrise gives small business owners much of what they need for comprehensive accounting in a free, user-friendly package. However, the only obvious way to contact Sunrise is through an online form, meaning you could find yourself stuck in times of urgent need.
Conclusion
We have selected the best free accounting software for small business, pc, Mac, Linux etc. Accounting is one of the most important aspects of business. The methods of accounting are designed to help ensure that all transactions are accounted for properly, which in turn helps to maintain the financial health of a business or company.