Proper bookkeeping might be tedious, but it is essential for any enterprise. Fortunately, there are numerous types of small business bookkeeping software to help you organize and present your books in a more efficient and accessible manner. Accounting software also makes it easier for you to plan your business activity in the future by analyzing the potential consequences of different executive decisions that you could make.
Accounting software becomes virtually indispensable for small businesses with limited resources. As a sole proprietor or director of a small company, you cannot employ a sufficiently big accounting department to manage your books and help you in your financial planning. Yet, you cannot just let your accounting go with the flow, hoping it will all take care of itself somehow.
You can solve the problem by investing in an efficient and reputable online accounting tool that will help you keep your business better organized and stay on track with the ongoing events. Using small business bookkeeping software, you will be able to free a lot of energy and time to concentrate on your enterprise more fully and regularly upgrade it to an increasingly more advanced level.
There are so many types of bookkeeping software for small business purposes on the internet these days that choosing the best one may seem like a daunting task. Keep in mind, however, that various bookkeeping apps focus on different business functions, so settling on an optimal one for you is a question of identifying what your business requires, first of all.
Once you know what you are looking for, you will have no problem choosing the most appropriate app for your enterprise. What follows is a list of the most popular and functional bookkeeping applications to date.
Of all bookkeeping applications, QuickBooks is probably the most successful one commercially. Currently, it serves almost 30 million profiles, 80% of which are in small business operations. QuickBooks is optimal for small businesses ranging from a sole proprietorship to a company of up to 50 employees.
Essential Features
1. It combines perfect reliability with high functionality.
2. It provides easy and continuous access to your account to help you manage your taxes, invoices, and sales receipts.
3. It supports online integration with your bank accounts and payment systems, like Square, Shopify, Stripe, and PayPal.
4. It uses permissions and roles to ensure convenient control over your accounts.
5. It runs more than 50 built-in reports and creates custom reports.
6. It customizes your dashboard and reports.
7. It aligns your cash flow with the seller's payments.
8. It tracks your time and inventories.
9. It conducts full payroll accounting.
10. It provides an efficient ecosystem and multiple user-friendly mobile applications for different functions.
Advantages |
Disadvantages |
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No transaction limits |
Low limits on the number of users on one account
|
|
Comparatively popular, which makes it easier to find employees who know how to use it |
Comparatively expensive at higher levels |
|
Quick and easy to set up |
Only supports a single entity |
|
Affordable at lower levels |
Payrolls require additional expenses |
|
Multiple mobile apps |
|
|
Cloud-based software |
|
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Free trial and helpful online training programs |
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Pricing
● 50% discount for the first three months
Typically, service-oriented enterprises are content with Simple Start.
|
Free trial |
Simple Start |
Essentials |
Plus |
Advanced |
|
One month |
12.5 |
25 |
40 |
90 |
* All prices are quoted in USD per month.
Xero is quite popular worldwide, especially in Australia, New Zealand, and the UK. The number of their North American customers is rapidly increasing too. Xero is particularly famous for its excellent integration abilities and mobile applications since virtually all its functionality is available from mobile devices.
Essential Features
1. It provides an optimal solution for business integration.
2. It customizes all your business performance in one dashboard.
3. It sends invoices via online payment systems and tracks money flow between your bank accounts.
4. It manages bills and receipts and provides financial reports on them.
5. It registers and analyzes profits and losses across several currencies.
Advantages |
Disadvantages |
|
Virtually complete automation |
Poor Live Support |
|
Versatile mobile apps |
Limited options for Starter Plan |
|
Over 700 available integrations |
Additional fees for ACH transactions |
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Quick and easy to set up even without bookkeeping experience |
|
|
Simple tools to manage your business transactions |
|
|
Affordable |
|
|
Unlimited number of users on one account |
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Pricing
|
Free trial |
Starter |
Standard |
Premium |
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One month |
20 |
30 |
40 |
* All prices are quoted in USD per month.
FreshBooks provides better invoice customization than any other service on the internet. Moreover, it is very flexible, inexpensive, and easy to access. Freshbooks is an optimal accounting software platform for service-oriented independent contractors and freelancers.
Whichever pricing plan you sign up for, you will receive an invaluable and easily affordable assistance tool for efficient and safe business management, online and from your smartphone.
Essential Features
1. It generates proposals and sends invoices to clients, requests deposits, and receives payments.
2. It facilitates collaboration and tracks time on projects.
3. It automatically budgets business projects and provides comprehensive financial reports.
4. It integrates with multiple business applications on one dashboard.
5. It performs regular security checks and backups.
Advantages |
Disadvantages |
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Integrated with numerous payment systems |
No stock management |
|
Cloud-based |
Low scalability on some plans |
|
Easy to set up and use |
No quarterly income tax estimates |
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Convenient and simple interface |
No payroll service |
|
Supports multiple projects |
Poor mobile functionality |
|
competitive pricing plans |
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|
Advanced invoicing services
|
|
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Excellent customer support
|
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Pricing
|
Free trial Lite Plus Premium Selec |
Lite |
Plus |
Premium |
Select |
|
One month |
7.5 |
12.5 |
25 |
Available after a demo tour |
* All prices are quoted in USD per month.
Bitrix24 is unique accounting software as it provides the most comprehensive set of social integration, management, and communication tools for your enterprise, namely:
● Customer relationship management
● Human resource management
● Social collaboration
● Project management
● Time management
● Documentation management
Bitrix24 is available on Android, IOS, macOS, Linux, Windows, and all online browsers.
Essential Features
1. It automates sales and marketing processes.
2. It schedules business tasks and facilitates productive teamwork.
3. It analyzes employees' performance and provides progress reports.
4. It streamlines legal processes.
5. It applies an advanced contact management system to generate new leads.
6. It provides continuous live streaming of all organizational changes.
7. It integrates customer support across multiple correspondence channels.
8. It creates corporate and closed social networks and facilitates their operation via event scheduling, chats, and IP telephony.
9. It defines organizational tasks, supervises their execution, and provides final reports.
10. It uses Kanban and Gantt Charts to facilitate efficient project management.
11. It builds websites with unlimited hosting bandwidth.
Advantages |
Disadvantages |
|
|
|
|
Facilitates internal communication |
Not easy to set up and use |
|
Improves conversion rates |
User-unfriendly interface |
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Provides functional and convenient mobile apps |
Very expensive at higher levels |
|
Runs a 24/7 live customer support chat free of charge |
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Pricing
|
Free |
Basic |
Standard |
Professional |
|
Unspecified |
30 |
60 |
120 |
* All prices are quoted in USD per month and apply if paying for two years.
Wave differs from all other accounting software in that its bookkeeping services are 100% free. Apart from that, the platform focuses on being very easy to use and providing complete syncing. Wave is ideal for a sole proprietorship and small companies.
Essential Features
1. It links your bank accounts and credit cards.
2. It manages your invoices and transactions.
Advantages |
Disadvantages |
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100% free |
Lack of support for multiple users |
|
Easy to set up and use |
Low scalability |
|
Convenient interface |
Poor mobile functionality |
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Exceptional workflow automation |
Poor mobile functionalityPoor services concerning project management, time tracking, and inventory tracking |
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Many users on one account |
|
|
Professional and responsive customer support |
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Pricing
The accounting software is free. Wave makes money as a payment gateway, and it provides payroll services in North America at a very competitive price. The following are its payment transaction fees:
|
All credit cards, except for American Express |
2.9% + 30¢ |
|
American Express |
3.4% + 30¢ |
|
American Express |
1% (minimum 1%) |
Zoho is a cloud-based bookkeeping software for small business purposes that provides the highest level of security available. It is one of the best tools for managing finances, and it is ideal for mobile business management, especially if the business is service-oriented.
Zoho provides top-class tools for inventory management, banking, time-tracking, and financial reports. The platform protects your accounts by using advanced SSL encryption and two-factor authentication and complying with the General Data Protection Regulation.
Essential Features
1. It automates workflows across departments.
2. It provides complete ecosystem integration.
3. It automatically imports bank statements to your accounts.
4. It tracks bills and receipts, calculates general sales taxes, and provides automatic reports.
5. It automatically fetches a bank statement from the bank into your account.
6. It generates and automatically categorizes numerous financial reports.
7. It provides current stock numbers and invoice reminders.
8. It automatically charges customers for regular payments.
9. It analyzes task requirements and distributes assignments and responsibilities among employees.
10. It manages and coordinates business transactions across projects, tasks, and departments.
Advantages |
Disadvantages |
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Cloud-based software |
No fixed assets register |
|
Convenient Mobile apps |
Difficult to customize |
|
Very user-friendly interface |
Excessive feature sets for small business purposes |
|
Easy to set up and use |
|
|
Integrates with numerous payment systems |
|
|
High-level security system |
|
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Excellent customer support |
|
|
Competitive price list |
|
|
Optimal for small businesses |
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Pricing
|
Free trial |
Standard |
Professional |
Premium |
|
14 days |
20 (or 180 per year) |
50 (or 480 per year) |
70 (or 720 per year) |
* All prices are quoted in USD per month.
** You qualify for a free trial only if your annual revenue is less than USD50,000.
When browsing bookkeeping software for small business purposes, there are several significant criteria to help you decide which accounting software you should use.
It is the most important criterion of all, so you will do well to clarify it for yourself as precisely as possible before assessing a bookkeeping app's potential value in your particular case. Ideally, you would answer the question in strictly operational terms. Making a precise list of prioritized needs will simplify your search for optimal small business bookkeeping software for your case.
If possible, it is also a good idea to predict your future business needs. By analyzing the current state of your enterprise and realistically assessing its development, you will understand which additional accounting software features you might need in the short-term future.
The best strategy is to regularly analyze your business needs and compare various bookkeeping software for small business purposes to replace or complement the apps you already have with additional or better ones when the right moment comes.
Various applications are particularly suitable for different purposes or combinations thereof. Some are excellent tools for preparing financial statements or tracking your invoices and receipts. Others are optimal instruments of sound payroll processing or realistic forecasting. Familiarising yourself with an app's essential features, you can decide if it suits the needs and purposes of your enterprise.
You should also decide if the price of a particular bookkeeping app is worth paying, considering the functions it performs. The most relevant questions are:
1. Does the app provider offer a free trial?
2. Is the price negotiable?
A free trial is an excellent way to check if a particular app is indeed what you need, and a good software company will most likely offer you one. Likewise, most software providers will give you a choice of several price packages to suit different accounting needs and budgets.
You want to invest in small business bookkeeping software to save time and energy for other pressing tasks and make your business analysis more convenient and intelligible. Therefore, you should also look at how user-friendly an app's interface is because it will be of little use if you have to spend a long time trying to decipher its output and orientate yourself in its data presentation format.
You might be slightly confused while learning how it works, but if you still feel lost after a couple of weeks, that app might not be a good solution for you personally. Plus, the bookkeeping app's interface should also be sufficiently easy and convenient for your employees and partners who will be using it with you.
Furthermore, a bookkeeping application should provide 24/7 access to friendly, professional, and responsive technical assistance and customer support.
Another relevant feature of a bookkeeping application is how much work it performs for you. It could ask you to enter information manually almost every time, for example, or access appropriate data files and fill the data in automatically. Besides, an optimal application must be compatible with other business software you will be using. In other words, it should integrate well.
Applications of bookkeeping software for small businesses differ in the number of users who can access them concurrently. That is an important feature to consider as you might need the app to be available to more or fewer people, depending on the size and organizational complexity of your company.
Your bookkeeping application will have access to large sectors of your database, and all online too, so the question of confidentiality becomes crucial. Your accounting software operator must guarantee you maximum safety of your personal and financial information by providing a transparent protection policy as well as a high-level security technology based on the most advanced SSL encryption.
Choosing small business bookkeeping software might be an exhausting task, and it could take some time before you find the best one for you. But you can make it easier and quicker by remembering the fundamental criteria, following relevant accounting tips, and, most importantly, always knowing what you want.
Accounting software can help you organize your business and manage your books and accounts more efficiently and productively. It can also help you plan your future more constructively and creatively.
The bookkeeping applications we have mentioned here are all quite accessible, reasonably priced, and functional enough to facilitate any small business operation. We hope our article has helped you better understand your business needs and feel better prepared to choose an optimal bookkeeping application for your enterprise.