Want to equip your accounting team with the best software to manage your finances smoothly? Are you looking for ways to automate invoicing, billing, bookkeeping, and tax calculations? Do you need to get a handle on your accounts payable and receivable? Check out these 8 software applications designed to work for all types of accounting needs.
1. Intuit Quickbooks Online
Quickbooks is perhaps the most well-known accounting programs on the market and for good reason. Quickbooks hauls a significant portion of your accounting load. Now using a cloud-based model, Quickbooks makes it easy to:
- Capture receipts
- Track income and expenses
- Send invoices
- Receive payments
- Run financial reports
- Send estimates
- Track sales and taxes
- Track inventory
- Manage your 1099 contractors
- Track time worked
- Run a full-service payroll
You can download the desktop application or use the Quickbooks mobile app on iOS and Android. The best part is every download of Quickbooks comes with a free 30-day trial.
Further reading: What Are the Best Accounting Software Options for Contractors?
2. Freshbooks
Freshbooks is accounting software with standard accounting functions best suited for those who send out recurring invoices with the least amount of effort. Once a client is in the system, you don’t need to recreate invoices from scratch each time.
Freshbooks offers some unique features; for example, clients can pay you directly from the invoice and once you set up a client in your system, invoice amounts will auto-populate based on the data you input. You can also know exactly when and where a client opened your invoice so they can’t get away with saying they never got it.
Freshbooks integrates with PayPal, Hubspot, Shopify, Square, Bench, Harvest, and more.
The cloud-based service comes with regular, secure backups and a mobile app so you can manage your finances anywhere you go. When you sign up, you’ll get a free trial – no credit card required.
3. Xero
Xero is a software package for mobile devices that allows you to send custom invoices, create purchase orders, and track your inventory on the go. Xero doesn’t offer payroll services but does have a partnership with a payroll services provider called Gusto.
This particular accounting program is affordable and easy to use, but doesn’t come with live support. Xero is best suited for people and businesses with limited accounting needs.
The Xero app is available for iOS and Android.
4. OnPay
OnPay helps small-to-medium sized businesses streamline their payroll tasks, automate tax filings, and manage benefits like health insurance and 401(k) plans. This small business accounting software can estimate your payroll taxes, manage your tax form filings, and can even pay your taxes. They also offer essential HR tools like automated onboarding flows, e-signing, online I-9 and W-4 forms, document storage, and an HR resource library.
OnPay integrates with other popular accounting software such as Quickbooks Online and Xero, and will integrate with Freshbooks in the near future.The customer service from OnPay is phenomenal. Their reps are trained by the American Payroll Association and are available weekdays with special emergency email support on weekends.
5. Zoho Books
Zoho Books takes the cake when it comes to usability. The user interface is clean and easy to use. Zoho is perfect for small businesses to manage your cash flow and create balance sheets. If you get stuck, you’ll have all your questions answered with excellent support from the Zoho team.
Zoho is an excellent way to track and manage your account receivables and account payables to keep your cash flow in check.You can get a 14-day free trial of Zoho Books or schedule a demo.
6. Wave
Wave is best for freelancers and small businesses with a handful of employees. The best part is, several services are free like invoicing, receipt scanning, and transaction management. You can use Wave to run online payments for a small fee similar to PayPal, and Payroll can be run for a small monthly fee.The Wave app works on both iOS and Android.
7. Sage 50cloud
Sage 50cloud is everything you need to send invoices, track payments and expenses, and calculate your taxes. If all you need is basic payment and expense tracking without any frills, this application will do the job.
This application will sync your Microsoft Outlook contacts, and you can access customer information in the cloud. You’ll also be able to control your stock and inventory levels so you know when stock is running low.
Further reading: What Is Cloud-Based Accounting Software?
8. Accounting Seed
Accounting Seed is a high-end business accounting application that increases data visibility for all stakeholders with custom dashboards and reports. With this accounting application, you can set clients up with recurring billing or subscriptions, create PDF purchasing forms, and streamline your sales order process.
This application also lets you track customer engagements, and track and manage the lifecycle of your projects so you don’t go over budget.
Accounting Seed integrates with Salesforce to run your entire back office in one environment if you wish. As one of the industry’s most elite accounting software solution providers, Accounting Seed is an official Salesforce partner.
Created by an experienced CPA, Accounting Seed challenges other applications by presenting a better way to manage your accounting needs.
Which accounting software is right for you?
Before jumping into the first piece of software you find useful, make a list of all your needs and test out as many options as you can. If any piece of software doesn’t fit your needs, or can’t be combined with another application to supplement where it falls short – skip it.
Take advantage of all the free trials you can find and don’t judge the software by the developer’s website. A website isn’t necessarily an indication of how the application will look or how it will function.
The only way to know which software is right for your business is to dive into those free trials and experiment with every possible feature. Ask support staff as many questions as you can. Schedule all the demos you can. Don’t get locked into a contract until you know for sure an application will meet your needs.
