Best Accounting Software for Small Business
Bank reconciliation, profit and loss statements, balance sheet reports! These can be a nightmare for most small business owners. They’re crucial, however, to knowing the health of your business. So relax – the answer to your day-to-day accounting, bookkeeping, and reports and more is finding the best accounting software for your small business.
They say numbers don’t lie. Having an accounting software for your small business that can spit out these reports with the click of a few buttons is priceless. But how do you chose the best accounting software for your small business? In this article, we give you a list of our top accounting softwares for small business.
Why You Need an Accounting Software For Your Small Business
Accounting software helps you to manage your business accounts and perform various accounting operations. The decision of choosing the right accounting software is vital for your business. The software will not only handle your day-to-day transaction report but will also generate crucial business reports. Some accounting softwares also let you do invoicing, offer credit card processing and may even have add ons for payroll.
The choice of the accounting software for your business will depend on the type of business you manage. It is important that the software supports all the transactions you do. It should be easy to use and be affordable. In the early stages of a business, you don’t need invest heavily in complex accounting software. Also, it has to be easily upgradable. Once your business expands it should be able to support the increase in volume of business. You shouldn’t be stuck with old software which is no longer useful to your business.
Best Accounting Software for Small Business in 2020
Taking all the above factors into consideration, let’s go through the best accounting software for small businesses.
Intuit Quickbooks Online Review – Easiest Accounting Software for Small Businesses
This is one of the easiest, most popular, and all around best software for small businesses. The software is available online hence you don’t need additional software on your desktop to access it. The information is stored on the cloud computing system and can be downloaded in Excel format. The basic plan can perform transactions like tracking daily expenses and income, generating invoices, calculating estimates, keeping track of sales and organizing receipts. The advanced plans come with stock management, management of contractors and support payroll system. It integrates easily with payment gateways like PayPal, Shopify, and Square. Easy upgrades are available. The plan starts with $7 per month for 1 user. If you have 3 users you can opt for Essentials for $17 per month. For users more than 5 you can choose the Plus plan at $30 per month.
FreshBooks Review – Best Accounting Software for Small Businesses with a Subscription Model
FreshBooks is best suited for businesses that are based on a subscription model. You can send and track multiple invoices sent to the same customer or multiple customers. It sends an acknowledgment for invoices sent. This helps you to confirm that the customer has received the invoice. No more invoices getting lost in your clients email inbox. In short, this software is a good combination of invoicing and accounting rolled into one. This software integrates seamlessly with other business apps and functions from a single dashboard. You can regularly secure your data by using its backup function.
The monthly plan starts at $15 per month for 5 clients and premium plan at $50 per month for 500 clients.
Wave Review – Best Accounting Software for Freelancers
Wave offers free invoice generation, free receipt scanning and many more services. In short, management of invoice and transaction services are free in Wave software. Wave is best suited for businesses having a low employee count or if you are a freelancer. Wave provides bookkeeping functions. For other features like inventory management you will need separate software.
Since most of the accounting functions are free with the basic plan you will need to pay only 2.9% + 0.30 per transaction for online payments. You will get Payroll services at a base fee of $35 per month.
Zoho Books Review- Best Customer Support in Accounting Software
Zoho Books is known for its ease of use. It is an excellent tool to manage cash flow and organize your finances. You will be able to send professional invoices and also accept payments online. It helps you to create financial reports like balance sheets, profit and loss statements and cash flow statements. The attractive dashboard gives you an overview of your financial standing in figures and graph format. It also can function as a back-office assistant. The excellent contact support and robust security areadditional strong reasons to opt for Zoho books.
The price plan is economical. The basic plan is $9 per company. The standard plan is for $19 per company and the professional one with more functions is for $29 per company. All the stated rates are monthly rates.
Xero Review – Most Accessible and User-Friendly Accounting Software for Small Business
Xero is very user-friendly. This software can be accessed through your mobile or tablet easily. Hence you get your financial updates and accounting information while you travel. You can integrate it with your banking application seamlessly. It not only sends a custom invoice but can also create purchase orders. These orders can be attached to your bills and sent it to your customers. All of these functions can be handled even by a newbie in accounting. For payroll, Xero has partnered with Gusto which provides excellent payroll services.
The basic starter plan is for $9 per month and standard is for $30 per month. If you need Xero to handle complicated tasks like multi-currency invoice and transaction, preparation of bills and quotes, then you can opt for the Premium package. Premium package starts at $70 per month.
Conclusion: What’s the best accounting software for small business?
There are many players in the accounting software market. All are excellent for accounting and bookkeeping purposes. Few come with attractive in-built features whereas few are economical choices for small businesses. All the above-listed software are compatible with iOS and Android operating systems. You can access most of them through your mobile as well. The software also comes with an easy upgrade option so that your accounting software is up-to-date with your latest business developments.
Intuit Quickbooks is designed exclusively for small businesses. It offers all in one solution with its accounting software and can be seamlessly integrated with its payroll, POS application without any up-gradation of software.
Freshbook is economical, especially for subscription-based model business. The best feature is its ability to create multiple invoices.
Wave is best for new start-ups and freelancing type of small businesses. This is excellent pocket-friendly software. Most of its basic functions are free of cost. The charges you need to incur are only on online transactions. In case of business expansion and diversification, you can add additional software as per your requirements.
Zoho Books and Xero are advanced software with an economical pricing plan. They come with multi- invoicing options in multiple currencies.