Software for Small Business Nowadays, one can find hundreds of software for small businesses online. All of them are promising different things and it is not easy to choose. Here are some tips on how to choose the best accounting software for your small business. From determining whether you need general or specific financial software, to evaluating general “buzzwords” that are often found in financial software product specifications. Also, below are descriptions of some of the best small business financial software products currently on the market today.
In this post, we shall be looking at those software that are good for home based or small businesses.
Accounting software
With careful bookkeeping and good accounting software, you can access information about your business’s revenue, profit margins and overall financial health. It can also help you answer important questions, like, “How much can I afford to spend on marketing this month?”
QuickBooks Online
Cost: $25 and up (50% off for first three months).
Why we like it: Because QuickBooks is the industry leader for small-business accounting software, it’s easy to find an accountant or bookkeeper who will support it. Its multiple tiers of service can easily scale with your company, too. QuickBooks Online, the cloud-based version, can also be accessed anywhere. Read the full review.
| QuickBooks OnlineSHOP NOWon QuickBooks’s website |
Xero
Cost: $11 and up per month (50% off for first two months).
Why we like it: Xero is easy to use, rich with features and also widely supported by bookkeepers and accountants. Unlike some competitors, it doesn’t place any limit on the number of users you can add. Read the full review.
FreshBooks
Cost: $4.50 per month and up (billed annually).
Why we like it: With FreshBooks’ mobile app, you can complete basic accounting functions and send messages to clients to remind them about invoices or late payments. It’s a helpful feature for entrepreneurs on the go. Read the full review.
| FreshBooks AccountingSHOP NOWon FreshBooks’s website |
Wave
Cost: Free (Wave makes money through payment processing).
Why we like it: Unlike its competitors, Wave’s accounting software is completely free. With it, you can add unlimited users and unlimited bank and credit card connections. It’s also possible to run multiple businesses from the same account. Read the full review.
Zoho Books
Cost: $10 per month and up (with discounts for annual billing).
Why we like it: Zoho Books offers plenty of useful features at an affordable price. It also gives you the option to set up automated workflows, for example, if you want to send email notifications to yourself when a bill the business receives exceeds a certain amount. Read the full review. Back to top
Point-of-sale software
Point-of-sale software allows you to ring up customers and complete sales and can be customized to fit your business needs. Restaurants, for example, need POS systems that allow for table management and coordination. Retail shops, meanwhile, require robust inventory management features.
Square
Software cost: Free and up. (Additional hardware and payment processing are additional costs.)
Why we like it: Square features transparent pricing, live support and easy-to-use flows. It’s also mobile-friendly and works on iPhones, iPads and Androids. For small businesses that don’t need advanced functionality, there’s also a free plan. Read the full review.
| Square POSSHOP NOWon Square’s website |
Toast
Software cost: Free and up. (Additional hardware and payment processing are additional costs.)
Why we like it: Toast’s restaurant-specific design prioritizes features that make the back-of-house and front-of-house operate smoothly. You can manage menus and tables easily, get useful reporting and analytics and accept orders from multiple platforms. Read the full review.
Lightspeed
Software cost: $69 per month (billed annually) and up. (Hardware and payment processing are additional costs.)
Why we like it: Lightspeed’s inventory management system sets it apart from the competition. That makes it an ideal choice for large businesses with complicated inventory management needs — for example, businesses with inventory in multiple locations, with various discount rules or tax classes. Read the full review.
Shopify
Software cost: $29 per month and up. (Hardware and payment processing are additional costs.)
Why we like it: Shopify makes it possible to almost instantly set up and run an e-commerce store. It also offers helpful features, such as a way to email shoppers who abandon their virtual shopping carts. It also offers software and hardware for accepting payments in store.
| Shopify EcommerceSHOP NOWon Shopify’s website |
Vend
Software cost: $99 per month (billed annually) and up. (Hardware and payment processing are additional costs.)
Why we like it: Vend is a retail-specific POS that allows you to set sales targets for your team, manage inventory easily and forecast purchasing trends. It also doesn’t come bundled with hardware and payment processing services; you can select these separately from a variety of compatible options. Back to top
Payroll software
Paying your employees is a must, and good payroll software can make it easier to manage and track wages, withholdings and tax filings. Many programs also give employees access to a portal so they can view their pay history.
Gusto
Cost: $39 per month plus $6 per person for the basic package, which includes tax filings and payments.
Why we like it: Gusto gives employees access to self-service portals for payroll- and benefit-related information that’s accessible even after they leave a company, unlike most competitors. It also administers full-service payroll across 50 states and offers phone support. Read the full review.
| Gusto PayrollSHOP NOWon Gusto’s website |
QuickBooks Payroll
Cost: $45 per month (50% off for first three months) plus $4 per employee per month for the basic package, which includes tax filings and payments.
Why we like it: QuickBooks Payroll offers full-service payroll services in all 50 states with a direct connection to QuickBooks Online, unlimited payroll runs and next-day or same-day deposits. Also nice: Employees can view pay stubs, withholdings and remaining vacation day balances.
| QuickBooks PayrollSHOP NOWon QuickBooks’s website |
Patriot Payroll
Cost: $10 per month plus $4 per employee or contractor for basic payroll (tax filings and payments not included).
Why we like it: Patriot’s payroll software is a relatively affordable payroll option that offers direct deposits, employee portals, unlimited payrolls and multiple locations and pay frequencies. There’s also phone support available.
Payroll4Free
Cost: Free (a monthly fee applies for making tax filings on your behalf and year-end processing such as W-2s).
Why we like it: Payroll4Free is one of the few payroll companies that allows you to run payroll at no cost — though you’ll have to pay extra for additional services such as tax filing and W-2 processing. It supports vacation time-tracking, direct deposit and paper checks. It also offers live support and employee portals. Read the full review.
Other great tools
Wix – Best Free Software For Creating Websites
With Wix, you can design and build your own high-quality websites. Whether you’re promoting your business, showcasing your work, opening your store or starting a blog, Wix can help you do it all.
Wix also offers an excellent drag-and-drop site builder to create small websites. There are 100s of free templates available. Wix provides its own web hosting as well as domain names (free and paid). The App Market makes it easy to add extra functionality such as photo galleries or e-commerce.
Some key features of Wix software include:
- Landing page templates
- Mobile-ready
- Website builder
- Drag-and-drop capability
- Web hosting
- One-pager website
- Custom domain
- App market
- Image editor
- 40+ galleries
- Stock images
Mailerlite – Best Free Software For Email Marketing
MailerLite is an email marketing directed towards small businesses, giving them a robust and powerful platform that is easy to use and easily complements existing content marketing platforms and strategies. This simple and straightforward application comes with all features professional email marketers look for in an email marketing software.
Some of Mailerlite’s key features include:
- Drag-and-drop Editor
- Custom HTML Editor
- Rich Text Editor
- Free Newsletter Design Templates
- Built-in Photo Editing Feature
- File Manager
- Subscriber Management
- Popups
- Landing Pages
ProfitBooks – Top Free Accounting Software
ProfitBooks is a fast-growing and amazingly simple to use free accounting software. It lets you create beautiful invoices, track expenses and manage inventory without any accounting knowledge.
With ProfitBooks accounting software, you can create professional estimates or invoices and track outstanding payments due with few clicks.
Whether you are manufacturing, distributing, selling, servicing, or just managing the inventory, ProfitBooks can handle all your business processes with ease.You can easily share the transaction data with your accountant and know what’s going on with your business with just a few clicks and take better decisions.Some of the key features of Profitbooks:
- Create beautiful invoices
- Receive online payments using payment gateway
- Record advance payments
- Track accounts receivables with sales reports
- Simplify purchase workflow with POs
- Track manufacturing processes
- Maintain product batches
- Track inventory flow at multiple warehouses
- Easily find low stock using powerful reports
- Generate detailed tax reports
- Collaborate with your accountant online
- Record manual journals
- Track business expenses
Google Docs – Best Free Office Suite
Google Docs is an online word processing program by Google.
Google Docs brings your documents to life with smart editing and styling tools to help you easily format text and paragraphs. You can choose from hundreds of fonts, add links, images, and drawings.
Google Docs also enables collaboration between colleagues. As the document is saved in the cloud, the creator can share the link to the file for editing to other people.
With Google Docs, users also do not have to worry about hitting the save button every time they make changes. The application automatically saves the document at regular intervals so even when the internet connection is lost, users can still find their additions and modifications.
Some key features of Google Docs:
- Editing
- Comments
- Styling
- Fonts
- Linking
- Images
- Drawings
- Templates
- Built-In Google Search
- Add-Ons
Hubspot – Best Free CRM Software
HubSpot CRM is built to be a platform that allows sales teams to get started quickly without making much of a change in their existing workflow. It is a solution ideal for companies that are still starting to recognize the value of CRM and want to try it out or for enterprises that are not using their existing CRM systems to their fullest potential.
HubSpot CRM is a smart and easy option that carries all the necessary basic features but without the often confusing complexity, many other CRM platforms have.
HubSpot will help you easily create beautiful contact and company profiles, as it can neatly organize every single detail from your customers’ communication with you. It effectively assigns and tracks your deals, controls the performance of your agents, and offers a single, detailed dashboard where all team members can keep track of the company’s activities.
Some of the key features of Hubspot CRM:
- Customize views
- Deal and Task Board
- Drag and Drop Communicator
- Email Integration
- Phone Integration
- Website Integration
- Enrichment
- Social Media
- Company Database
- Website Visitors
- Email Connections
Slack – Best Free Tool For Team Communication
Slack is a messaging app that gives you one platform for all your communications, offering real-time messaging, file sharing, archiving, and search. It’s built for modern teams so you can have all your communication in one online location, instantly searchable, and immediately accessible from whatever connected device.
Slack works with more than 1,500 external apps and services, giving you one fully flexible and extendable platform. It has several internal and external sharing options so you can receive and share files with anyone. It offers advanced search, filters and sorting that make it easy to get the right files that you need. You can set filters by variables such as recent type, relevance or file type.
Some of the key features of Slack;
- Conversation channels
- Private groups
- Messaging
- File sharing
- File browsing
- Voice/video calls
- Feedback
- Progress archive
- Notifications
- Integrations
- Open API
- iOS & Android apps
- Data security
- Data encryption
- Single Sign-On
- Two-factor authentication
Conclusion
Software is becoming increasingly important to the success of small businesses. More and more small business owners are choosing to settle for nothing but the best when it comes to their accounting software.