It is not a secret that it is challenging to find free accounting software for small business. I am not talking only about the money that you save on your products or services, but also about the time you spend producing rebates, complicated invoices, and long reports of receipts. Having to deal with these complicated tasks can cause some businesses to close their doors before they get the chance to get off the ground.
If you’re searching for the best free accounting software, then you’ve landed in the right spot. As a small business owner, you probably spent hundreds of dollars on accounting programs that didn’t live up to expectations. This set out to help small-business owners find the top affordable accounting software.
Xero
Websitewww.xero.comPrice from$9.00/moFree Trial30 days
Best cloud accounting software for mobile users.
Best for:
With no technical or accounting skills required, any small- or medium-sized business would benefit from Xero’s comprehensive feature set. Though it isn’t technically designed for accountants, its built-in accountant access allows accountants to work with their customers easily without having to download and share files. In addition, freelancers will find Xero to be a simple solution for tracking income and expenses.
Key features:
As with most of the accounting software on this list, Xero is available at multiple subscription levels with increasing functionality at each price point. At its core, Xero is a double-entry accounting platform with a customizable chart of accounts. It also has more than 700 third party integrations available, making it the most versatile product on this list in terms of integration-based functionality.
The Early plan, which is the lowest-priced, includes a fairly limited feature set, allowing users to send up to 20 invoices and quotes, enter up to five bills, reconcile bank transactions, and use Hubdoc’s receipt and bill capture. At the Growing plan level, users can send unlimited invoices and quotes and enter unlimited bills. The Established plan includes all features of the lower two subscription tiers plus multi-currency tracking, capture and management of expense claims, and project times and cost tracking.
Payroll is available through an integration to Gusto, and there is an Expensify integration to facilitate receipt, mileage, and company credit card tracking; both products incur an additional monthly cost. Xero also integrates with other project management packages, including Trello, retail sales platforms, such as Shopify, and CRM packages, including Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive, Mailchimp, and Agile CRM.
Inventory management also costs extra, but it’s a native Xero product, and there’s a handy purchase order management feature, too. Users who need a more robust order, shipping, and inventory management platform will appreciate the Orderhive integration in the Xero App Marketplace, as well.
Xero’s mobile apps are available for iOS (including iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch) and Android. The mobile app functionality tends to be less robust than the web-based version, but users will still be able to send invoices, enter bills, and complete bank reconciliations, as well as view the real-time dashboard data for cash flow and profit and loss.
Unlike other software products on this list, Xero doesn’t restrict the number of users per subscription. As many users as necessary can be added, and specific permissions can be set per user. However, Xero only supports a single entity per subscription, so business owners with more than one entity will have to subscribe multiple times. Xero also isn’t as scalable as other products on this list.
The clean, intuitive dashboard simplifies the reporting process—most of the necessary information is right there, readily available in real-time. All reports are customizable, and Xero includes a drag-and-drop feature that makes the customization process quick and painless. Reporting is limited from within the mobile app, but the sharing features in the cloud-based version make up for that shortcoming.
Ease of use:
Because of its simple and straightforward design, Xero is one of the easiest cloud-based accounting software platforms to use. Anyone can set it up and navigate the interface with just a little bit of effort—even with no accounting skills or background at all. Automated bank integrations make managing transactions easier than ever because the built-in machine learning functionality allows Xero to learn the transactions that are downloaded, reducing the volume of data entry over time. Customer support doesn’t appear to be the best, but Xero Central is available, and includes both support and self-service learning sections with quite a few guides and very good training materials.
Cost:
Prospective users should know that Xero plans to increase its subscription fees at the beginning of 2021, according to the website, but even with those rate increases, Xero is considered quite affordable overall. Of its three plans, Growing is likely to be the one most businesses start with, and its monthly cost won’t break the bank. The 30-day free trial that Xero offers should be enough to help most users determine whether they want to move forward with a subscription.
Things we liked:
- Over 700 app integrations
- Ease of use
- Unlimited users with user-level permissions
- Intuitive, clean dashboard
- Affordable
Things we didn’t like:
- Not the greatest customer support
- No multi-currency functionality except at top-tier pricing
- Single-entity support
AccountingSuite
AccountingSuite offers the features that small businesses have come to expect from any software application, including cloud accessibility and solid accounting capability. Bank connectivity is also offered in AccountingSuite, with the application able to connect to over 9,000 financial institutions.
You can manage your invoicing in the Sales module, and process and pay bills in the Purchases module. Both project and time tracking capability are offered in the application as well, so you can track projects and profitability, while the time-tracking feature allows you to record the time spent on each individual project.
But AccountingSuite also has some outstanding features not always available in small business accounting software.
Budgeting
Not all small businesses need a budget tool, but if you can get one with your software application, why not take advantage of it? AccountingSuite offers a surprisingly robust budget tool that lets you create budgets for each account in your general ledger.
The budget tool lets you create budgets for the current fiscal year or for any year in the future, and you can choose the account types you wish to include in the budget.
AccountingSuite offers easy budget creation, with quick access to your chart of accounts. Source: AccountingSuite.
There is also a pre-fill option, which can be used to automatically pre-fill the budget with actual data from the application or from an imported file. If you want to see how close you come to budget, run the Budget Report, which calculates actual income and expenses and compares the actual to budgeted totals.
Be sure to read the full review for a full discussion of all of AccountingSuite’s features.
AlignBooks
» Why You Should Buy This:
AlignBooks provides you with a simple user experience to let you handle your accounting, as well as billing needs, without any fuss. It is a carefully designed online accounting software that packs in advanced accounting, reporting, and inventory management functions. You can also depend on it for its intelligent, super-accurate MIS reports.
Apart from that, AlignBooks offers tax compliance so that you neither miss any of your tax deadlines nor make any errors in the filing process. The best part is, you get the option to choose between its cloud-based solution or an on-premise one based on your individual requirements and workflow. Both the options offer thorough security to protect your precious data.
» Who Is It For:
The ideal customers for AlignBooks are MSMEs to help them tackle their business accounting operations without a bit of stress. It is also a perfect solution for any sole entrepreneur or a start-up that needs to handle its accounts on the go. Even freelancers can rely on this software to be in control of their finances.
» Why We Picked It:
We selected AlignBooks in our list of top bookkeeping software owing to its rich set of features suitable for small-to-mid-sized businesses across industries. The system includes a range of modules to handle various aspects of your business with unparalleled efficacy – from bookkeeping to CRM to invoicing and sales to inventory and asset tracking to payroll integration. It supports multiple currencies and provides instant SMS and email alerts.
Interestingly enough, you can define user roles and privileges to restrict access to only those who need to see the crucial financial data. It has a neat dashboard that gives an overview of everything you need to see at a glance. The highlight for us is the way this software simplifies the entire invoicing process. Besides, you get to switch to the offline mode whenever you prefer and still have your data backed up safely after going online.
» Pricing Details:
AlignBooks offers the following plans & packages:
› Basic at INR 2,500 a year
› Premium at INR 6,000 a year
› Ultima at INR 9,000 a year
› ERP at INR 30,000 a year
» Pros and Cons:
Pros:
› Uninterrupted access from wherever you are through web or mobile app
› Advanced accounting functions for error-free books
› Easy imports from excel sheets
› Multi-currency support
› Restriction to data access through user privileges and access rules
› User-friendly dashboard to navigate the operations smoothly
› Intelligent reporting boosting strategic business decisions
› High-level security system to assure information protection
› Real-time backup of transactions and data
› Regular version upgrades without causing any halt to the live systems
Cons:
› The product is meant for Indian users
» Reviews & Ratings:
AlignBooks has made a name for itself among its diverse set of users who seem to love its impeccable functionality wrapped in a simple-to-use form. Let’s explore the ratings it has managed to obtain from consumers on different software review platforms:
» Capterra: 4.1/5 » G2crowd: 4.9/5 » GetApp: 4.1/5
» Conclusion:
AlignBooks seems to fit in with the accounting requirements of small, micro and mid-size businesses effortlessly. Its tax-compliant functions and diverse modules streamline not just the accounting process but the entire business operations, opening up opportunities for growth.
“Thank you for a great training session on AlignBooks accounting software. Great software presentation style with lots of opportunities to ask questions and with realistic examples – which made it really enjoyable and informative session for our accounting team. The software has more than met my expectations- both personally and professionally.”
– Parvinder S.
Conclusion
Every business needs an accounting software program to handle its daily transactions. Small businesses use these programs to track sales, expenses, payroll, and inventory. Accounting software is also able to perform double duty as general office software. Many programs are designed for both small businesses and personal use, so finding free accounting software can be more than just a financial necessity for small business owners.