Best Small Business Accounting Software

QuickBooks Online offers four pricing plans ranging from $35-$235/month. The larger the plan, the more features you can access, and the more users you can have.

Payroll services cost an additional $50/month + $6/employee – $130/month + $11/employee. Other services including payment processing, live bookkeeping services, and tax filing are also available for an additional fee.

Read our QuickBooks Online pricing post to learn more, and don’t forget to check if Intuit is running any sales promotions.

QuickBooks offers business accounting essential features, but the platform also offers some advanced accounting features that come in handy when automating your business’s accounting processes.

Top QuickBooks features include:

• Supports both double and single-entry bookkeeping (cash and accrual-basis accounting)
• Extensive invoicing features with real-time bill tracking, customizable invoices, billable hour tracking, and recurring invoicing
• Inventory management with real-time updates, low stock notifications, and robust inventory reports
• Reporting, including balance sheets, job costing, and profit and loss reports
• Contact management with the ability to add notes, attachments, tax rates, languages, preferred payment methods, and more
• Client portal to simplify the payment process for your customers
• Tax support, including creating 1099s for contractors
• Create and manage multiple budgets and run budget reports

Xero offers three price plans ranging from $20-$80/month. As you move up through the pricing tiers, you get more features, invoices, and accounting management tools.

While built-in payroll isn’t available, a Gusto integration is available for an additional fee.

Xero is a full-bodied accounting software solution with a host of features that range from the basics, such as invoicing, accounts payable, and reports, to the advanced, such as multiple currency support, email templates, and tax forms and support.

The sheer volume of Xero’s app integrations means it will likely complement any system you are currently using or be compatible with any new solutions you add in the future.

Here’s a look at Xero’s top features:

• Bill pay support, with due date overviews, payment scheduling, and secure online bill storage
• Expense management, including receipt photos, reimbursements, expense reports, and mileage tracking
• Business bank account connections with automatic bank feeds, transaction tracking categories, and bank reconciliation
• Invoicing with payment acceptance, fraud protection, support for multiple payment methods and currencies, and automated payment reminders
• Create quotes, estimates, and purchase orders
• Strong analytics and reporting features, including customizable reports, formula applications, and cash flow charts
• Secure document storage and file sharing
• Contact management with transaction records
• Project tracking via time and location-based tracking and project cost tracking

FreshBooks offers three pricing plans ranging from $21-$65/month.

However, FreshBooks’ lowest pricing tier doesn’t support double-entry accounting and functions more similarly to basic invoicing and bookkeeping software. If you need double-entry accounting support, you’ll need to subscribe to FreshBooks Plus or a higher tier, which starts at $38/month ($410.40/year billed annually).

FreshBooks only supports 1 user (additional users cost an extra $11/month per user). Additional features such as advanced payments and payroll are offered as plan add-ons.

Comparatively, Wave offers a simpler feature set than FreshBooks but may be ideal for businesses that only need basic accounting features for unlimited users and relatively cheap payroll options baked in.

FreshBooks boasts a straightforward user experience and has an attractive UI. The setup is simple, and the software takes very little time to learn. FreshBooks’s customer support sets it apart from the competition, but the software also hosts a ton of useful accounting features. Here’s a look at FreshBooks’s top features:

• Simple and easy-to-use UI with accessible customer support
• Project management with the ability to assign cost rates, billable rates, and hours to individuals and a comprehensive project dashboard
• Billing support with unlimited estimates, eSigning, recurring invoices, customizable invoices, deposit acceptance, project budgets, retainers, and proposals
• Time tracking via mobile or desktop timer tracker and Chrome web browser extension
• Accounts payable with bill tracking, profit and loss statements, and a simplified bill upload process
• Provide your accountant with easy access to your business’s accounting dashboard
• Bank sync and reconciliation with automatically imported transactions and categorization
• Reports, including tax-specific reports
• 100+ integrations
• Expense tracking and management

Wave has a free plan, with no gimmicks or strings attached. With a Wave account, you get access to all Wave features and unlimited users.

Wave recently added a paid plan that costs $16/month. This includes everything from the free plan plus additional features including auto-categorization of bank transactions, auto imports, digital receipt captures, automated late payment reminders, and discounts on payment processing.

Add-on costs include payroll, payment processing, and professional bookkeeping services.

Wave is well-developed software that rivals even some paid programs in terms of features. The software covers all of the accounting basics, including invoicing, expense tracking, accounts payable, bank reconciliation, and more.

Wave also has several unique features. In Wave, users can separate personal and business expenses, which is ideal for freelancers or side hustlers who don’t have a separate business bank account.

Top Wave features include:

• Unlimited users, including adding your accountant
• Accounting dashboard with chart of accounts and overdue payment notices
• Solid reports, including balance sheets, cash flow, and profit and lost statements
• Receipt management
• Contact management
• Unlimited bank and credit card connections

With good customer support and a well-designed UI, Zoho Books is easy to learn and use. Zoho Books has all the features you’d expect from a fully-developed accounting solution, including invoicing, contact management, expense tracking, time tracking, inventory, project management, and even tax support.

The best part about Zoho Books is its invoicing offerings. Zoho Books offers 16 customizable invoice templates, a client portal where customers can pay invoices directly online, recurring invoices, and the unique ability to encrypt invoices. Here’s a look at some of Zoho Books’ other top features:

• Invoicing with customizable invoices and quotes, multi-currency support, eSigning, and automated payment reminders
• Billing support with recurring bills, landed cost tracking, transaction approval, vendor credits, and bill creation from purchase orders
• Inventory management with customizable product details and rates
• Tax support, including the ability to set default and custom tax rates, Alvara integration, contractor payment tracking, and robust reports
• Project tracking with time tracking, task creation, expense tracking, automatic retainer payments, and customizable role-based permissions
• Bank integration with transaction fetching, statement import, auto-categorization, reconciliation, and bulk editing
• Detailed reports, including essentials such as profit and loss reporting
• Payment acceptance with multiple payment gateway options, recurring payments, automated reminders, a customer payment portal, and payment tracking
• 40+ integrations

QuickBooks Solopreneur is available for $20/month. A discount is available if you purchase an annual subscription.

While QuickBooks Solopreneur is a great option for contractors who want to simplify their taxes, we think that Wave’s essential accounting features plus double-entry accounting make it a better choice for freelancers looking to keep costs down.

QuickBooks Solopreneur is well-organized and easy to use. The features help simplify estimated quarterly taxes and allow freelancers to manage their expenses and track deductions. This software also makes it easy to separate personal and business expenses, which is ideal for freelancers who don’t have a designated business bank account.

Additionally, QuickBooks Solopreneur offers:

• Expense management, including receipt photos and automatically matched expenses
• Expert tax support
• Invoicing and payment processing
• Automatic mileage tracking
• Turbo Tax integration
• Checking account with 5.00% APY

ZipBooks offers three pricing plans ranging from $0-$35/month. Each plan comes with unlimited invoicing. ZipBooks’ Accountant pricing tier offers more advanced accounting features for you and your clients at a custom price rate.

Each pricing level adds more features and users, with the most expensive plan supporting unlimited users.

ZipBooks offers a good number of features that are easy to use and has one of the most attractive interfaces out there. The software’s design is simple and intuitive, using automations to save you time. The UI is even color-coded to make navigation a breeze. ZipBooks offers the basics you’d expect from accounting software, including invoicing, contact management, and expense tracking.

Additionally, ZipBooks offers:

• Project management with expense and time tracking
• Chart of accounts with the ability to set custom accounts
• Built-in auto-categorization that learns from your updates
• Tracking via automatic bank sync, statement import, and bank reconciliation
• Accounts receivable with payment tracking and specialized account age reports
• Add your accountant as a team member for direct access to your business’s accounts
• Business health score and recommendations
• Strong, customizable reports features

Patriot Accounting is priced at $20-$30/month, with the higher priced tier adding in features like recurring invoices, payment reminders, estimates, and account reconciliation.

Adding on Patriot Payroll costs $17/month +$4/month per person – $37/month + $4/month per person. The more expensive payroll plan is full-service, automatically filing and paying payroll taxes for your business. Time tracking and attendance can be added to your plan, each at a cost of $6/month + $2 per employee/contractor.

Compared to other services that offer both accounting and payroll services, Patriot tends to be on the lower end of the pricing spectrum.

Patriot software offers a nice set of features in its software that’s clean, modern, and easy to navigate, making it simple for even beginners to track their income and expenses.

Although Patriot isn’t loaded with tons of automations, such as Xero, you’ll still speed up your accounting processes while using the software, since it’s so easy to use and streamlines tedious accounting tasks.

Notable features include:

• Create unlimited invoice and estimates with custom invoice templates
• Track payments to unlimited customers
• Document management with receipt handling
• Account reconciliation
• 1099 e-Filing and printing
• Automatic payroll tax filings & deposits
• Chart of accounts
• Expense management with department breakdowns
• Filing accuracy guarantee
• Unlimited vendor payments
• Unlimited users with the ability to add your accountant
• Support for both cash-basis and accrual accounting