The best accounting software has positive user reviews on customer review sites and app stores. Accounting software companies should provide customers with fast and reliable support. Using a combination of phone support, live chat and knowledge bases, customers should be able to quickly resolve issues 24/7.
First, they should be assigned a category, such as office expenses, utilities, and travel. That way, you know where your money is coming from and where it’s going. Every accounting solution guesses how at least some transactions should be categorized. Diligent categorization gives you more accurate reports and income tax returns. Once you have completed an invoice, for example, you have several options.
Basic Though Limited Billing for Freelancers
QuickBooks offers users a free 30-day trial and then has various plans depending on your needs. Plans start from $17 a month for solo users (and their accountant) and go up to $200/month for up to 25 users on the Advanced Plan. This is handy if your business grows exponentially, and you end up employing staff.
Also, while Zoho Invoice integrates with most other Zoho products, it doesn’t connect with Zoho Inventory, which we found a bit surprising since inventory and invoicing are closely linked for most companies. Zoho Invoice is our recommendation for a totally free invoicing software, making it suitable for very small businesses, startups, and freelancers new to invoicing. Despite being free, it earned high scores in terms of invoice customization and general invoicing features. If you haven’t, you can learn about the provider’s offerings through our guide on what Square is and how it works.
What is the easiest accounting software to use?
Wave delivers an excellent double-entry accounting service for very small businesses that want to import transactions from online bank accounts, and most of its features are free. Small business accounting software can generate them, but you may need an accounting professional to analyze them and tell you in concrete terms what they mean for your company. You can do a lot with these transactions once they appear in a register.
- Read below to learn more about the benefits of having accounting software for your business.
- In general, our top pick is Zoho Invoice, which lets you send up to 1,000 invoices a year and fully automates the entire invoice and billing process.
- ZipBooks‘ paid plan starts at $15 a month and offers better bookkeeping and automation features than its free accounting plan.
- TurboTax Free Edition supports Form 1040 and limited tax credits only; roughly 37% of taxpayers qualify.
- But, as with a credit card, this fee is a business expense and may be worthwhile at reducing or eliminating the receivables.
Wave also offers a few paid add-on extensions, including monthly payroll and bookkeeping support if you need expert advice. Zoho Billing is an end-to-end billing solution designed to streamline the billing and invoicing process. It’s part of Zoho’s suite of financial applications, offering tools for creating and managing invoices, tracking expenses, and handling payments. For exactly $0, Wave presents you with a slick, user-friendly dashboard and a slew of features that rival those of paid accounting systems.
The takeaway: Best billing and invoicing software for small businesses
With a basic billing and invoice plan that costs as much as FreshBooks’ cheapest accounting plan, Hiveage works best for larger teams with a bigger invoicing budget. But it isn’t particularly scalable—since it has just one plan, Wave’s not the best choice for businesses planning on growth. Wave doesn’t offer as many payment gateways as other options (especially Hiveage)—crucially, Wave doesn’t work with Stripe. While it began in the accounting realm, the software now has hooks to project management, time tracking, and even human resources. How much time would you save if you didn’t have to manually enter, code and verify each business banking and credit card transaction to keep your books accurate and up to date? OneUp’s accounting software takes much of the manual bookkeeping process off your plate so you can better spend your time on other business needs.
- Square Invoices, included in your free Square account, lets you offer multi-package estimates.
- PayPal Invoice allows businesses to accept PayPal, Venmo, and Pay Later installment plans in addition to traditional credit or debit cards.
- Xero is first and foremost an accounting software, but its lower-priced plans give you enough of what a smaller business would need for an invoicing solution.
- In addition, BILL recently acquired Divvy and now offers BILL Spend & Expense with unlimited virtual cards making it a well-rounded income and expense management business suite.
Then, you need to sign up with a payment processor such as PayPal or Stripe. For example, do you plan to use specific features such as purchase orders and inventory tracking? You can usually turn tools on or off, which can help you either simplify the user interface or best billing software for small business maximize the functions. Wave Accounting has been making waves with small business owners because its completely free software doesn’t have many limitations on its features. Wave software includes invoicing, but it’s not invoicing software — it’s accounting software.