Business is all about numbers. Whether you are running a small business or working in a big enterprise, at the end of the day it will come down to dollar figures. It is crucial that you know where is your money going. With best small business accounting software you can get organized and track expenses, so they are not eating into your profits. That’s why you need help of professional software for small business expenses.
Everybody knows that in order to succeed, they have to manage their hosting expenses. But not all people manage to do it and their sites go down. In this article, I will tell you about the most reliable and free online accounting software that allows you to track small business expenses and make your life easier.
FreshBooks
FreshBooks is a Canadian-based company that was founded in Toronto in 2003 for small business accounting needs.2 It uses cloud-based accounting and invoice software that can be accessed via iPhone, Android, and iPad apps.
It is our choice for best overall accounting software for small business because it’s easy to use for business owners with little or no accounting experience, offers robust features and helpful functions, is reasonably priced, and can be used on-the-go and at any time.
FreshBooks’ features include:
- Payment reminders
- Recurring invoices with customizable options including due dates and discounts
- Online credit card payments
- Multi-currency and language billing
- Automatic tax calculations for sales tax
- Tax-friendly expense categories
- Remembered vendors
- Time tracking with a Chrome browser extension
- Bank deposits, recurring payments, and auto bills with bank integration
- Tax help integrations with tax apps, estimates, deductions, and filing tools
- Easily integrates with other products including Goggle Workspace and Gusto
FreshBooks’ pricing is tiered as follows:
- Lite: $4.50 per month for the self-employed business owner with five billable clients
- Plus: $7.50 per month for small businesses with 50 billable clients
- Premium: $15 per month for growing businesses with unlimited billable clients
- Select: Custom features and pricing for businesses with unlimited billable clients
FreshBooks may also offer discounts or bundled pricing if you pre-pay, so make sure you check the website for any offers before you sign up.
Intuit QuickBooks
QuickBooks is an accounting software developed and marketed by Intuit. Its latest cloud-based release was in 2019, but it also offers separate desktop options you can purchase and download. Its products are typically geared toward small and medium-sized businesses, and over seven million businesses use this software.
We chose it as our runner-up for the best overall accounting software for small businesses because it is easy to use for business owners with no accounting experience. It’s also quick to set up, reasonably priced, and offers tools and features that are helpful for small business accounting. It keeps everything organized in one place and keeps your business tax-ready all year long.
Features of QuickBooks include:
- Financial institution integration as well as integration with PayPal, Square, Shopify, and more
- Help to file quarterly and annual tax returns with user guides and exporting tax data
- Sales tax calculations, returns, and recorded tax payments
- Automatically sort transactions and expenses into tax categories
- Track expenses in one place
- Scan receipts and attach them to invoices
- Share with your accountant or export documents
- Create customized reports with cashflow tracking visible on your dashboard
- Track miles with your smartphone’s GPS
QuickBooks offers tiered pricing so you can pick the best plan for your needs:
- Simple Start: $12.50 per month for businesses just getting started
- Essentials: $25 per month for managing growing businesses
- Plus: $40 per month to help you get better organized and manage projects, inventory, and contractors
- Advanced: $90 per month to help your business grow with deeper insights and dedicated support
Contact QuickBooks directly to see which specific features are included in each tier.
Rydoo
Reasons to buy
+Mobile support+Handy integrations
Reasons to avoid
-Won’t be powerful enough for some-Basic expense tracking
Formerly known as Xpenditure, Rydoo positions itself as paperless expense reporting app for growing business and enterprises. It aims to streamline the way you track expenses, and allow you to do so without having to spend money on an accountant.
The app saves you lots of time in this respect, avoiding manual input and paper-based expense reporting. In terms of capabilities, you can upload receipts via the app or email. Once you’ve done that, it’ll extract the most important data and order all this based on projects and categories.
Within the app, there’s the option to log cash advances and mileages, and you can set up offices, branches and groups to organize how you use the software and to improve your financial policy. For your records, you can generate reports in the form of XML, PDF, CSV and XLS files.
Everlance
Everlance does double duty by tracking both your expenses and mileage. This free mileage tracker app is 100 percent automatic, meaning it uses GPS to create mileage logs.
It also calculates how much you can deduct on your taxes according to current IRS mileage rates. Everlance estimates that subscribers to their mileage tracking app deduct over $6,500 a year on their taxes, which is a considerable savings.
The app is user friendly and simple to use—you can classify each drive with one swipe as business, personal, charity etc. It also integrates with FreshBooks so you can automatically import your mileage.
Everlance also lets you take photos of receipts and integrates with your bank account and credit cards to automatically import expenses.
Everlance is free for iOS and Android but you can get unlimited mileage tracking for $7.99 a month. The subscription price also happens to be tax deductible.
Expensify
Expensify is an expenses app that automatically imports expenses from your bank account and credit card and generates reports. Create accounts for your employees too so they can make expense reports within the app. You can then view and approve the reports and pay back your employees, all in the app.
Expense tracking apps make it that much easier to manage your financial transactions. You can manage your payments with ease and not have to worry about missed payments or deadlines. Keeping an eye on your budget ensures a steadier cash-flow that can be put to use constructively for your business.
Another bonus is its automatic SmartScan receipt scanner software. Take a photo of the receipt and the app takes care of picking out and recording all the important details. Another option is to email digital receipts to an Expensify email address to automatically add the expense or use their Chrome extension.
Expensify is a budget-friendly option for freelancers, small businesses and contractors at $5 per month per user. It’s best suited for businesses with lots of expenses or that want a simpler way to reimburse employees. It integrates with your FreshBooks accounting software, too.
Sage Business Cloud Accounting
Sage Business Cloud Accounting, formerly known as Sage One, is a global brand that offers online accounting and business services for small businesses. It was founded in 1981 in Newcastle, England, as a way to develop estimating and accounting software specifically for small businesses.3 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 three million businesses.
It’s our choice for best accounting software for small businesses with multiple users because it’s 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 invoicing, cash flow, management, and actual entries
The company is currently offering a 50% discount for three months and offers free trials. Contact them directly for specific features your business may need.
Concur Expense
Reasons to buy
+Streamlines expense process+Tax compliant
Reasons to avoid
-May be too advanced for SMEs-Lack of integrations
Concur Expense by SAP is a business finance app that covers a number of areas, from invoicing to expense management. Positioned as an ecosystem and open platform, the app will help you stay compliant with regulations and optimize expense performance.
With the expense side of things in mind specifically, there’s an app that lets you take pictures of receipts and submit them to make expense claims. Bosses can quickly manage and approve them with the software, and everything is tightly organized.
You can add as many business bank cards as you want, and there’s also integrated enterprise resource planning (ERP) to give you a complete view of your budget and forecasts. The software analyses all your data and ensures it’s fully compliant with tax rules and regulations, plus Concur is protected by corporate-grade security, too.
AccountEdge Pro
AccountEdge Pro is desktop accounting software for small businesses founded in 1989 and has developed new features and enhancements over the years.4
If you need to access your finances on the go or from your smartphone, you can use their cloud-based app or their hosting platform. It’s geared toward small to medium-sized businesses, has a basic version and a pro version, and offers comprehensive accounting solutions full of customizations.
We chose AccountEdge Pro as our best accounting software for experienced accountants because of its robust features and reporting capability. It’s a bit more complex than some of the other software, so this software works best if you’re already familiar with accounting terminology.
AccountEdge Pro’s features include:
- Bank feeds with integration
- Direct deposit
- Inventory management
- Payment processing
- Turn quotes into invoices
- Customer and vendor management
- Full-service payroll
- Free accountant copy
- Data sync with company files
Pricing for AccountEdge Pro is as follows:
- AccountEdge Basic: $149 one-time fee, $199 per year for one user
- AccountEdge Pro: $499 one-time fee, $199 per year, and additional fees for licenses and add-ons such as payroll services, checks, and credit card processing
To find out more about what features are included and how much add-ons cost and to add custom features, it’s best to contact the company directly.
Conclusion:
A small business can be a new or established business that has limited features and functions compared to larger corporations. While most of us are used to using software such as Microsoft Office that comes with numerous features and abilities, smaller businesses often do not have the money to afford applications like those. And while some are cheap there are still others that come with a hefty price tag.