What free accounting software should I use for my small business? I hear you ask. As a small business, choosing the right software can be a challenge. There is so much out there, and you really want to make sure you get the most ouf it! But, how do you know which one to choose?
It’s no secret that Software For Small Business is essential for any business, large or small. We all want something that is simple to use, but very effective for our needs. At the same time, we also want the best value. But sometimes you don’t have to spend a fortune to get what you need. If you have a small business, check out this list of free accounting software options.
BEST FREE SOFTWAREWave Accounting
Wave Accounting was created in 2010 by co-founders Kirk Simpson and James Lochrie who were frustrated by the lack of free and easy-to-use financial software for small businesses. Today Wave has more than 250 employees serving small businesses around the world. We chose it as the best accounting software because it lets small businesses track income and expenses, send invoices, scan receipts, track sales taxes, and more, all for free.
Wave helps users connect multiple bank accounts and credit cards and set up profiles for multiple businesses to help keep track of income and expenses. The software organizes accounts, payments, and invoices to make tax time easier and also offers robust reports to help identify cash flow trends.
Users can create and send professional, branded invoices from Wave’s dashboard or mobile app. The invoicing software can set up recurring invoices and automatic credit card payments for repeat customers and automatically syncs invoice and payment information with its accounting software.
Wave’s mobile app lets users scan receipts anywhere and sync them seamlessly with their Wave account to help keep track of business expenses. Users can also email invoices to their Wave account or scan receipts offline to be synced the next time the device is online.
Although Wave is completely free to use, it also offers additional paid services, including accepting credit cards and bank payments and setting up payroll for employees and contractors.
Wave Accounting
- Free accounting
- Free invoicing
- Free receipt scanning
Wave Payments
- All Wave Accounting features
- 2.9% + 30¢ per transaction for Visa, Mastercard, Discover
- 3.4% + 30¢ per transaction for American Express
- 1% per ACH transaction ($1 minimum fee)
Wave Payroll
- All Wave Accounting features
- $35 plus $6 per employee/contractor per month (tax-service states)
- $20 plus $6 per employee/contractor per month (self-service states)
BEST WEBSITE BUILDERWix
Wix was founded in 2006 by three entrepreneurs frustrated with the difficulty and expense of creating a website. Today, the company has a staff of 5,000 employees worldwide and 200 million users in 190 countries. We chose it for the best website builder since it lets users create professional-looking websites with no coding knowledge for an affordable price.
Wix comes with hundreds of professional templates and a drag-and-drop editor, making it easy to create a professional business site in just minutes. Every website is designed to look great on mobile devices and features engaging effects including animation, video backgrounds, and scrolling.
Businesses that want to sell online can take advantage of Wix’s advanced e-commerce features. Users can set up an online store, manage inventory and orders, and get revenue and conversion rate reports using a simple, intuitive dashboard. Wix also lets store owners accept payments via Wix Payments, PayPal, and Stripe and integrates with Instagram and Facebook.
Although creating a basic website is free, upgrading to a paid plan is the only way to unlock Wix’s business and e-commerce features. All of Wix’s paid plans include a 14-day free trial, free hosting, Google Analytics, and the ability to link a custom domain.
Business Basic Plan
- $23 per month
- Accept online payments
- Unlimited bandwidth
- 20GB storage
- Connect your domain
- Remove Wix ads
- Five video hours
- Google Analytics
- Free domain for one year
- $300 ad vouchers
- Site Booster app
- Visitor Analytics app
Business Unlimited Plan
- $27 per month
- 35GB storage
- All Business Basic Plan features
- 10 video hours
- Professional logo
- Social media logo files
Business VIP Plan
- $49 per month
- Accept online payments
- Unlimited bandwidth
- 500GB storage
- All Business Unlimited Plan features
- Unlimited video hours
- Priority Response
- VIP Support
BEST EMAIL MARKETING SOFTWAREMailChimp
MailChimp was created in 2001 by web design agency owners Ben Chestnut and Dan Kurzius who wanted to create an affordable email marketing service for small businesses. It has grown into a full-fledged marketing platform offering landing pages, websites, postcards, and more. We chose it as the best email marketing software because it offers small businesses high-level email marketing with both free and affordable paid plans.
MailChimp’s free email software makes it easy for business owners new to email marketing to get started. The platform offers premade email templates, opt-in popups and signup forms, audience segmentation, and basic personalization. Users also get a mobile app that lets them view campaign performance and send emails with just a few clicks.
MailChimp’s drag-and-drop templates let users create professional, branded emails with no design skills. A built-in analytics tool also keeps track of open rates and clicks, and segments data to help show what’s working and what’s not. Users can automatically send out targeted emails based on user behaviors, like a welcome message for new signups or a related product recommendation for a recent buyer.
Most small businesses can get pretty far using MailChimp’s free plan. The paid plans add more subscribers and lists as well as more detailed automations:
Free Plan
- FREE
- 2,000 subscriber limit
- 10,000 emails per month
- Basic email templates
- Integrations with 250+ apps
- Landing pages and popup forms
- Google, Facebook, and Instagram retargeting ads
- Single-step automations
- Segmentation
- Basic reports
Essentials Plan
- $9.99 per month (based on the number of subscribers)*
- 500 subscriber limit
- 5,000 emails per month
- All Free Plan features
- Access to all email templates
- A/B testing
- Remove Mailchimp footer
- 24/7 email and chat support
Standard Plan
- $14.99 per month (based on the number of subscribers)*
- 500 subscriber limit
- 6,000 million emails per month
- All Essentials Plan features
- Behavior-based automations
- Multi-step automations
- Send time optimization
- Delivery by time zone
* Use the MailChimp calculator to determine pricing based on the size of the email list.
BEST PROJECT MANAGEMENT SOFTWARETrello
In 2011, a company called Fog Creek Software launched a prototype of a project management tool designed to solve high-level planning issues. Later named Trello, the software grew to over 500,000 users in just one year and 4.75 million by 2014. We chose it as the best project management software because it offers a free, flexible, and visual way to manage projects.
Trello uses Kanban-style boards for task and project tracking and makes it easy to manage both individual projects and ongoing workflows. Its simple and intuitive interface lets users create custom boards and lists with cards that can include images, files, links, checklists, due dates, and more.
Users can get started in seconds with a blank board or choose from hundreds of categorized templates created by other users that can be modified as needed. Trello offers integrations with Slack, Google Drive, Dropbox, and dozens of other third-party platforms as well as mobile apps to streamline collaboration and workflows.
Trello offers a lot with its free plan including unlimited personal boards, lists, and cards. The free plan is limited to 10MB per file attachment, 10 team boards, and one third-party integration (Power-Up) per board. The Business Class plan comes with expanded features and a 14-day free trial:
Free Plan
- FREE
- Unlimited personal boards
- Unlimited cards
- Unlimited lists
- 10MB per file attachment
- 10 team boards
- One Power-Up per board
Business Class Plan
- $10 per user per month
- All Free Plan features
- 250MB per file attachment
- Unlimited team boards
- Unlimited Power-Ups
BEST TEAM COMMUNICATION SOFTWARESlack
Slack was originally built as an internal communication tool for a game development company started by Flickr co-founder Stewart Butterfield in 2009. Launched publicly in 2013, it currently has over 12 million users in over 150 countries. We chose it as the best team communication software because it offers real-time messaging, feedback, and collaboration in a free, online platform.
Slack was developed to eliminate the inefficiencies and delays of email communication. The software lets users create channels that can be organized around a topic, team, project, or even a client. Channels can be public and open to all users of a Slack account or private and accessed by invitation only.
Besides communicating in real-time, Slack offers tons of integrations letting teams share files, create polls, schedule meetings, and connect to third-party project management, cloud storage, and productivity tools. The platform offers free, one-click voice and video calls and even lets users spin-off discussion threads to keep larger conversations focused and uncluttered.
One of Slack’s most useful features is its search function. No more sorting through emails or written notes hoping to find that one valuable piece of information. Slack lets users search for a conversation, mention, or user and share or bookmark it no matter how long ago it took place.
Businesses that only need a single workspace, one-on-one video calls, and only a few app integrations can get by with a free Slack account. The free account also limits searches to 10,000 messages:
Free Plan
- FREE
- Search up to 10,000 messages
- Up to 10 third-party app integrations
- One-to-one video and voice calls
- 5GB storage per workspace
Pro Plan
- About $7 per user per month
- Unlimited message search
- Unlimited third-party app integrations
- One-to-one video and voice calls
- Group video calls up to 15 people
- Screen sharing
- 10GB storage per user
- Guest accounts and shared channels
- 24/7 support
Business+ Plan
- About $12 per user per month
- All Pro Plan features
- 20GB storage per user
- User management
- 24/7 support with four-hour first response time
Odoo
Best Free All-in-one ERP Software.
Odoo serves as both a customer relationship management (CRM) and an enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform. In other words, it allows you to easily manage your customers, sales, and resources from a single platform.
Odoo offers tons of productivity features that’ll help you automate certain tasks and run your business smoothly. For instance, you can use the communication apps on the platform to maintain a stable relationship with your customers.
You can also use the marketing features that Odoo offers to spread the word about your business and increase your reach.
There’s a sales module on Odoo to boost and manage sales in an efficient way. Some of the sales apps you’ll have access to on Odoo include the invoicing app, point-of-sale app, etc.
The financial management module on Odoo offers features that cover budgeting, financial planning & reporting, auditing, and procurement.
Odoo simply does it all.
Pricing
Odoo’s pricing is quite straightforward; after the 15-day free trial, you only pay for the apps you use. Each user costs $6 monthly.
Pros
- The modules are well integrated
- Highly customizable
- Highly responsive customer support team
- Only pay for what you use
Cons
- Can get expensive very quickly.
5. GnuCash
Best Free Accounting Software for Bookkeeping.
GnuCash stands out among free accounting software for several reasons. As with any other accounting software, it helps you keep track of your expenses, cash flow, your stock market investments, and all your bank accounts. But it also offers a lot more.
For starters, it features double-entry accounting. With the Checkbook register feature, the platform seamlessly records every transaction you make from moving cash from one account to the other to purchasing stock, credit card transactions, etc.
If a transaction you made is inconclusive, you can record it on this register. Then, you can update it later to reflect that it’s been reconciled.
The reporting features are the best part. You can get a weekly or monthly summary of all the financial transactions you engaged in. The report and graph would reflect your profit and loss, balance sheet, your investment portfolio, etc.
Pricing
GnuCash is completely free to use. But the creators accept donations via the donation page on the website.
Pros
- It offers an effective way to track your finances
- You can automate recurring payments
- The double-entry feature ensures you make no mistake when inputting your financial statements.
- You’ll have access to your financial reports so you can track your business cash flow, portfolio, etc.
Cons
- Setting up this software might be a bit confusing.
6. CloudBooks
Best Invoicing Software for Freelancers.
CloudBooks’ core strengths are billing and invoicing. The platform offers invoice templates and can automatically create and send invoices to your clients on your behalf.
That said, billing and invoicing is not all that this software has to offer. There are also features for expense tracking, project management, collaboration, and automated recurring payments.
Pricing
There are three packages. There’s the Freelancer package that goes for $2/month. The Team package goes for $10/month while the Agency package goes for $20 monthly. You can also use the free version or start a free trial of what the app is about before you invest.
Pros
- Generates invoices quickly
- You can get a financial report whenever you need one
- You can access it from any device, from any location around the world
Cons
- It can be difficult to select names and items when processing invoices.
- The free account is quite limited
Conclusion
Accounting software is an important essential for any small business. Even if you don’t have employees. A software can help save time, lower costs, and help you operate your business more efficiently. When choosing a software for your small business, there are several things that must be considered, depending on the kind of business you have.