Easy Accounting Software for Small Business

In this article, you will learn how easy accounting software can help your small business. In particular, you will learn about the best accounting software for small businesses in 2013 and help you choose the right one for your business.

Small businesses and entrepreneurs need an easy and cost-effective accounting software package at their disposal in order to manage their business.

Xero


BUY ON XERO.COM

Xero is the best in our review for micro-businesses that are looking for very simple accounting software. This software has a clean interface and also fully integrates with a third-party payroll service. Businesses can collect payment online from customers through Xero’s integration with Stripe and GoCardless.Pros

  • Cloud-based
  • Mobile app
  • Payroll integration with Gusto
  • Third-party app marketplace
  • Simple inventory management

Cons

  • Limited reporting
  • Fees charged for ACH payments
  • Limited customer service

Xero was founded in 2006 in New Zealand and now has over 2.7 million users worldwide. This accounting software is popular in New Zealand, Australia, and the United Kingdom. Xero has over 3,500 employees and is growing rapidly in the U.S., as well.1

Xero offers three monthly subscription options and a full-service payroll add-on: Early at $11 per month, Growing at $32 per month, and Established at $62 per month. The full-service payroll option is offered through Gusto and is an additional $39 per month, plus $6 per employee. The company offers a 30-day free trial and a promotion for 50% off for two months. 

The Early plan limits usage and only allows entry for five invoices or quotes, five bills, and reconciliation of 20 bank transactions per month. This limited plan may be suitable for a micro-business with high-ticket transactions, but only a few per month, such as a consulting or small service provider. Both the Growing and Established plans offer unlimited invoices, bills, and transactions. The only difference between the two is that the Established plan has additional features like multi-currency, expense management, and project costing. All three plans offer Hubdoc, a bill and receipt capture solution.

QuickBooks Self-Employed


BUY ON INTUIT.COM

QuickBooks Self-Employed accounting software is our top choice for part-time freelancers and independent contractors who primarily want to track their income and expenses for their tax return. This software is designed for business owners who file a Schedule C on their individual tax return. 

Without keeping up with business activity using a software like this, freelancers would need to dig through all of their bank and credit card statements to add up their income and expenses at the end of each year, which can be quite daunting. QuickBooks Self-Employed will total up all business transactions automatically.Pros

  • Cloud-based
  • Mobile app
  • Track mileage
  • Differentiate between business and personal expenses
  • Syncs with TurboTax

Cons

  • Data cannot be easily transferred to other accounting software
  • Limited reporting
  • Limited invoicing functionality and customization

QuickBooks Self-Employed is an Intuit product with a cloud-based online interface and a mobile app. This software was created to help freelancers stay organized each year for tax season. Features of QuickBooks Self-Employed include tracking mileage, sorting expenses, organizing receipts, sending invoices, and estimating and filing taxes seamlessly through TurboTax.

Users can choose between three plan options: Self-Employed at $15 per month, Self-Employed Tax Bundle at $25 per month, and Self-Employed Live Tax Bundle at $35 per month. There is a 50% discount for the first three months. The two tax bundles include a TurboTax subscription for income tax filing. The Self-Employed Live Tax Bundle also gives you access to a CPA to answer questions throughout the year and during tax season. The CPA will also perform a final review of your tax return in TurboTax prior to filing. 

The mobile app makes it easy to track mileage while driving and capture photos of receipts for business expenses. Most accounting software is not designed to separate business transactions from personal transactions, but a special feature of QuickBooks Self-Employed provides an option to mark each transaction as business or personal. This is helpful for freelancers who don’t have a separate bank account for their business activity.

Zoho Books: Best automation

Best automationZoho Books

3.9 out of 5 stars

3.9

  • Starting at $15.00/mo.*
  • CheckMiddle-of-the-road starting price
  • CheckAdditional users for $2.50/user/mo.
  • CheckAutomatic recurring invoicing

View Plans

Data as of 11/5/21. Offers and availability may vary by location and are subject to change.
*When billed annually.

Zoho Books automates the most common (and, let’s face it, boring) bookkeeping tasks—which means you can dedicate more time to your business and customers and less time to the tedious task of data entry. Most notably, it lets you set automatic customer payment reminders, create recurring expense profiles, and manage 1099 contractors.

Plus, Zoho Books is just one piece of software in the larger suite of Zoho products. Each Zoho product integrates easily with the rest, which means that along with accounting, you can use Zoho for project managementinventory management, and customer relationship management (CRM)—just for a start.

Plus, if you make under $50K a year, you can take advantage of Zoho Books’ free plan. Otherwise, Zoho Books starts at $15 a month if you pay annually or $20 if you pay month to month. The cheapest plan includes three users, but you can also pay an extra $2.50 per month for each additional user. That’s a standout bargain, especially compared to FreshBooks’ extra $10 per user per month.

Unfortunately, even though it’s a solid accounting tool, Zoho Books has one huge flaw: Zoho doesn’t offer a payroll plan integration unless you live in California, Texas, or India. And it doesn’t integrate with third-party payroll providers either. Instead, you have to manually update the payroll-related aspects of your books—which detracts from Zoho’s primary perk of automation in a big way.

Similarly, Zoho Books’s cheapest plan doesn’t include automatic journal entry creation. Instead, whenever you debit or credit an account, you’ll have to manually create an entry. If you log more than a few transactions a month, the lack of automation adds major time and hassle—you’ll want the $40 a month (or $50, billed monthly) Professional plan instead.

Sage Business Cloud Accounting: Best user-experience runner-up

Best user experienceSage

3.9 out of 5 stars

3.9

  • Starting at $10.00/mo.
  • CheckLow starting price
  • CheckUnlimited users ($25.00/mo. plan only)
  • CheckAutomatic bank reconciliation

See Plans

Data as of 11/5/21. Offers and availability may vary by location and are subject to change.

Sage Business Cloud Accounting’s cheapest plan lets you create invoices, track amounts owed, and automatically reconcile your bank accounts. If you’re willing to pay a bit more ($25 a month), Sage adds unlimited users, quotes, estimates, cash flow forecasting, and purchase invoice management. Unfortunately, Sage charges extra for receipt scanning, a feature competitors like Wave, FreshBooks, Xero, and QuickBooks include for free. And Sage’s pricier plan has fewer features than, say, Xero’s cheapest plan (though Sage doesn’t limit your monthly invoice amount).

ZarMoney: Best for Transparent Pricing

ZarMoney

ZarMoneyThe ZarMoney website clearly lays out pricing.ZarMoney connects with more than 9,600 banks in the U.S. and Canada to automatically import bank transactions.You can’t send recurring invoices yet.COMPARE QUOTES

With ZarMoney, there are no secrets about pricing. The company’s website states exactly how much you’ll pay monthly, which is why we chose it as our pick for the best accounting software for transparent pricing. Far too often, it’s hard to determine how much an accounting program will cost, making it difficult to comparison-shop. ZarMoney, by contrast, prides itself on being straightforward, and that’s reflected in the clearly laid-out pricing plans.

Editor’s score: 8.25/10

Conclusion

It is all too familiar, business owners looking for accounting software for their small business. However, along with low prices and features like on-screen calculators and easy bookkeeping, many accounting software products lack the very tools that business owners will want to run their businesses: ease of use and workflow integration. By building accounting workflows into the products we support we can ensure that small business owners have the right tools to turn over a profit.

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