The tools of accounting are of utmost importance for any business. A small business on its journey to success would need to have a variety of small business accounting software free but most importantly the basic tools of accounting for the stability of its business growth.
Online Business Accounting Software. Tools: Function and purpose of tools, Account book as tool, Types of account books, The ledger, Date notation in ledgers, Important financial statements, Trial balance and its use, Double-entry system of accounting
OnPay
Pricing: Starts at $36/month plus an additional $4/user
OnPay can help you automate tax filings, enter payment data, and manage benefits including compensation insurance, health insurance, and 401(k). It also offers unlimited payroll runs for W-2 and 1099 workers.
And, OnPay can estimate your payroll taxes, manage tax form filings, and even pay your taxes. A bonus here? They’ll also take responsibility for any tax filing errors committed while using the product.
Best for Businesses Looking for a Payroll-Centric Solution
OnPay’s area of expertise is reflected in its name. If you’re a small- to medium-sized business that needs help streamlining payroll and entering payment data, you might consider investing in OnPay. That’s not to say the rest of its features aren’t impressive — it’s just to say that the solution fits businesses interested in a payroll-centric solution particularly well.
NetSuite ERP
Pricing: Available upon request
NetSuite’s Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) product helps small businesses with functions like financial management and planning, order management, supply chain, fulfillment, and procurement — integrating these functions into a single streamlined system.
Best for Businesses Anticipating Rapid Growth
NetSuite prides itself on growing with businesses, “from pre-revenue through IPO and beyond” — with functionality that can assist you at every stage of your as it scales and matures. If you anticipate rapid growth, you might want to consider NetSuite ERP.
Accounting Seed
Pricing: Available Upon Request
Accounting Seed offers subscription or recurring billing options, has a secure and reliable API, and works with your company to link critical business applications and bank accounts for real visibility into the financial state of your business. And it automates many of the menial tasks that eat up your day.
Best for Businesses Looking for a Solid Cloud-Based Platform
It’s also a cloud-based platform, meaning you can log in anytime, anywhere — giving you a degree of flexibility and mobility that you might not be able to find with every solution on this list. The platform also lends itself to easy collaboration, offering data visibility to any stakeholders at your business.
FreshBooks
FreshBooks is a fast and robust accounting solution that can make complex financial management more enjoyable without compromising accuracy and compliance. This means that tasks such as the creation of professional-looking invoices can be done even without prior accounting experience since it’s only a few clicks away. There are online payment features as well that will help you and your team get paid faster. Moreover, its seamless integration with a series of external applications means that you can enjoy not only the system’s core functionalities but the extended ones as well.
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Why is FreshBooks suitable for medium-sized businesses?
It has a host of accounting functions. FreshBooks is equipped with more than enough accounting functions for mid-sized businesses. This includes time tracking, billing history, invoice-to-payment, automated billing, and reporting capabilities.
Its pricing plan is SMB-friendly. One look at its pricing scheme and it’s quite obvious that FreshBooks targets small and mid-sized businesses. Packages offered are flexible, full-featured, and only differ in the number of clients. Plus, they have a 30-day free trial that will allow you to thoroughly test the system’s compatibility with your business.
It offers rich integration support. FreshBooks can integrate with a myriad of third-party solutions for a more streamlined workflow. This includes payment solutions, CRM systems, and live chat applications. This lessens the chance of needing to switch to other solutions that the system can work well with.
It’s available on mobile. The system’s mobile app for iOS and Android will ensure that you can do your finance-related activities even on the go. This means that even if you’re away, you can still communicate with your clients or personnel, be on the loop of important things, manage expenses, and more.
It’s easy to deploy and rebrand. The system won’t demand a dedicated IT team to be set up properly as it’s an easy-to-deploy solution that even freelancers can handle. It also allows you to modify various aspects of its design including the colors and logos so that the app could truly reflect your brand.
How much does FreshBooks cost?
FreshBooks is available in three pricing schemes that start at $15 per month. Each plan provides an identical range of functionalities with the main difference being the number of active clients to bill. There’s a free trial included as well.
QuickBooks Online
QuickBooks Online is a cloud-based accounting solution created for small businesses, independent firms, and freelancers. By combining all essential accounting tools in a single platform, this application helps small businesses simplify tedious and time-consuming accounting and financial management routines, thus saving more time to prioritize more urgent tasks. Its features include automated data collection, tax calculations, invoice management, expense tracking, balance sheet reporting, sales monitoring, bill management, and more. Quickbooks Online is also available in multiple devices, which allows for more mobility.
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Why is QuickBooks Online suitable for medium-sized businesses?
All-in-one platform. QuickBooks Online is designed to offer all essential accounting tools in a single platform, including profit and loss reporting, invoice customization, bill payments, and more.
Automated data collection. This accounting solution allows you to automate your data collection process, which ensures that your financial information is always up to date.
Auto-sync with your devices. QuickBooks Online supports multiple devices and is equipped with automatic data synchronization capabilities, which allows you to access your accounting and finance related data, tasks, reports, and more from your preferred device.
Customized reporting. This application allows you to generate reports based on your preferred data visualizations in order to make it easier for you to get insights into your financial data.
Enhanced data protection. With QuickBooks Online, all confidential data that enters your accounting system on a daily basis will be protected by your choice of intuitive data security feature.
How much does QuickBooks Online cost?
Built for small businesses, QuickBooks Online offers affordable pricing plans, which starts at $10.00/month.
Tipalti
Tipalti is a unified, cloud-based payment automation and management software that challenges the way how money flows for businesses, from onboarding to tax and regulatory compliance requirements. Tipalti helps businesses stay ahead of their game in strategy by streamlining back-office operations. It offers tools for forecasting, cash flow analysis, business productivity, and growing its ventures down the line.
By streamlining the entire AP process, earlier payments are secured and you hit revenue targets more efficiently. Tipalti also has built-in global compliance and regulatory requirements. With integrated audit logs and workflow approvals, you lessen the risk of financial decline, putting your business in a favorable position. The solution gives nuanced reports of payouts and transactions through its integrated ERP system, synchronizing payment procedures, currencies, locations, and other variables. Other than its powerful integrations, the product also offers a comprehensive suite of tools for accounts payable, process enhancement, automation, and risk management.
Why is Tipalti suitable for medium-sized businesses?
Streamlined workflows. Tipalti features a comprehensive suite of tools for streamlining the entire AP process. As such, it helps streamline more than 50% of all manual, global, and mass payment transactions in more than 190 countries. With such powerful AP tools at your disposal, you can cut 80% of the manual grunt work.
Maximum scalability. Regardless of your business size, you can effortlessly scale your AP operations with Tipalti. You no longer waste more resources rebuilding another wheel as Tipalti adapts to your requirements as your business thrives – in the number of customers, your human resources, the bulk of payment procedures, expansion, and other factors.
Maximum revenue generation. By streamlining the entire AP process, you are able to increase revenue margins by facilitating earlier payment transactions. Tipalti has a vast, reliable partner base that can help your business facilitate earlier payments to your suppliers. Your supplier gains better cash flow, and so do you. Everyone leverages this opportunity to generate more growth.
Mitigated risks. Tipalti has built-in audit logs and regulatory and financial compliance requirements embedded in its operations. You get access to a wide array of tools for mitigating financial risks, including digitized tax form collections, updated database of global financial and regulatory requirements, TIN matching, workflow approvals, audit logs, and more. Tipalti has your best interest in mind to ensure that your business does not suffer from heavy losses from risks.
How much does Tipalti cost?
Tipalti services its tools on a quote-based plan. Contact the vendor directly for custom pricing.
Wave
Wave is an ideal accounting software platform for a service-based small business that sends simple invoices and doesn’t need to track inventory or run payroll. For many freelancers or service-based businesses, Wave’s free features will cover all of their accounting needs and is the best free software in our review. At year-end, accountants can pull the necessary reports from Wave to prepare a business’ tax return.Pros
- Free accounting, invoicing, and receipt scanning
- No transaction or billing limits
- Run multiple businesses in one account
- Unlimited number of users
- Mobile app
Cons
- Limited third-party app integrations
- Higher fees for credit cards and ACH payments
- Full-service payroll is limited to only 14 states
- No inventory management
Wave was founded in 2010 and is based in Toronto. The company has over 250 employees and was purchased by H&R Block in 2019. The foundational accounting features that most small businesses need, such as income and expense tracking, financial reporting, invoicing, and scanning receipts, are all included with this free software. These features can be accessed online or on the mobile app. Customer payment processing and payroll are considered premium services that cost extra, but all of the bookkeeping, invoicing, and reporting features are completely free.
Wave makes its money on its payment gateway. To process payment from a customer, Wave charges 2.9% plus 30¢ per transaction for Visa, Mastercard, and Discover, and 3.4% plus 30¢ per transaction for American Express. These fees are slightly higher than other accounting software. Additionally, to process an ACH payment, rather than a credit card, Wave charges 1% per transaction with a $1 minimum fee. This is unique to Wave, as the majority of accounting software does not charge a fee for ACH payment processing.
Wave offers two payroll plans as an add-on service. The first plan is $20 per month plus $6 per employee or contractor. In this plan, Wave will process payroll and prepare payroll tax calculations, but the user is responsible for manually completing payroll tax forms and submitting tax payments. The second plan is $35 per month plus $6 per employee or contractor. In this plan, payroll is full-service, which means that all tax filings and payments are completely managed by Wave. This full-service payroll option is only available in 14 states.
Conclusion
Online business accounting software is the best tool for keeping all your financial data organized. It helps you with tracking sales, expenses and profits and allows you to prepare professional financial reports. For small business owners online accounting software makes it easy to keep track of their cash flow, income and expenses. Online business accounting tools are easy to use and very affordable for any business owner.