The Best Accounting Software To Use (Free & Paid)

Finances are a crucial part of your business. Most deals include transactions, so it’s essential to manage your accounts accurately. Moreover, your finances reflect the success value of your business.

However, accounting and bookkeeping are tedious and error-prone operations. With a dedicated accounting tool, you can automate the manual entry tasks and swiftly categorize your transactions.

Accounting tools empower your business and improve financial health by offering precise tax filing, insightful reporting and time-tracking. Additionally, you can monitor the project budgets and make changes to the intrinsic plan timely.

In this article, we’ll enlist the must-have features of an accounting tool. We will also provide a descriptive list of the best options.

What features to look for in Accounting Software?

An accounting platform is crucial for every business to maintain tax compliance, manage payables and receivables and organize bills or invoices. Building a successful business requires understanding your company’s financial status, future revenue generation estimates and expenditures. Accounting software provides you with a complete in-depth overview of banking and bookkeeping.

Any accounting software worth using should offer reporting, tax calculation, invoice creation, vendor and client management, and swift reconciliation.

However, quality accounting tools offer advanced functionalities to accelerate your business growth. Here are some advanced attributes you should consider while buying accounting software:

• Time-Tracking. You should be able to log hours spent on a project and include them in the invoices.
• Banking. If you use multiple accounts for your business purposes, you should be able to connect your accounting platform with your banks to record all transactions.
• Automation. Repetitive tasks are a significant obstacle in most business processes. An intelligent accounting platform that automates manual entry tasks and identifies recurring transactions can do wonders for your business.
• Digital Signature. Your accounting platform should offer an added layer of authenticity by allowing you, vendors and clients to digitally sign the invoices.
• Project Tracking. You should be able to track the project profitability and manage the budgets beforehand.

With the above-enlisted features, you’ll have all the necessary tools in your arsenal to adequately account for your business finances.

What are the Best Accounting Tools?

Honestly, it depends on your business size, objectives and budget. Some companies prefer an all-in-one platform, while others with stringent budgets look for value-for-money. However, we have prepared this guide with all factors in mind to help you pick the best accounting software.

Here are the best accounting software options in 2022.

1. AccountingSuite

AccountingSuite is a San Francisco-based company that offers scalable accounting tools for businesses to evolve from infancy to maturity by increasing the market potential and firm value. It supports multitasking and provides a cloud-based accounting platform for you to check your financial status on the go.

AccountingSuite Features

Here are some exclusive features of AccountingSuite:

Cloud Banking: AccountingSuite offers Cloud Banking and connects you to more than 10,000 financial institutions. You can synchronize transactions to remove manual entries and manage your data faster. Additionally, AccountingSuite constantly reconciles transactions with its database to avoid duplicate entries and provide an accurate overview.

Accounting & Reporting: AccountingSuite allows you to make data-backed business decisions to stay in control. It offers an accounting and reporting module to provide business owners with swift, customizable access to financial details. Additionally, you can use the reporting tools to make critical decisions and instantaneously analyze, adjust or close the books.

Inventory Management: AccountingSuite reduces the time and effort spent on operations management by reducing the inefficiencies in your business infrastructure. You can control real-time inventory and track items in multiple locations. AccountingSuite lets you define assemblies inside your list and handle return management.

Project & Time Tracking: AccountingSuite streamlines project and time tracking by allowing you to manage project costs and income and create billable invoices efficiently. You can use the project profitability matrix to analyze your execution strategies and run comprehensive project transaction reports.

Sales & Purchases: AccountingSuite’s Sales and purchase module offer business owners and entrepreneurs flexibility in invoicing, accepting payments and initiating refunds. You can close deals faster with clients and provide accurate answers to sales questions. AccountingSuite eliminates the tax headache by automating the calculations.

AccountingSuite Pricing

AccountingSuite offers 4 Pricing options for its accounting and project management tools.

The “Start-up” plan is priced at $19/month and provides one user account. Additionally, it offers banking accounting, time tracking and reporting capabilities.

The “Business” plan is priced at $25/month and provides two user accounts. Additionally, it offers sales and purchasing modules plus tax calculations.

The “Professional” plan is priced at $55/month and provides five user accounts. Additionally, it offers a price matrix, inventory management and project profitability tracking.

The “Pro W/E-commerce” plan is priced at $129/month and provides ten user accounts. Additionally, it offers ShipStation integration and advanced check voiding.

AccountingSuite Discounts and Coupons

AccountingSuite currently does not offer any discounts or coupons for its accounting platform.

AccountingSuite Free Trial

AccountingSuite offers a 30 Day free trial for its subscription plans. You can avail the offer by using your Google account or inputting an email address.

AccountingSuite, A short how-to guide

Once you login to your AccountingSuite account, you’ll be redirected to the “Homepage” section. Here, you can navigate to different areas within AccountingSuite.

Click on “Admin Panel” to handle data import, integrations, security log, conversions and intrinsic settings. Go to “Lists” to access the chart of accounts, payment terms, price levels and expense report categories.

Click on “Bank” to manage deposits, payments, bank transfers and reconciliations. Go to “Accounting” to see budgets, general ledger and trial balance.

Click on “Reports” to enter the analytical section inside AccountingSuite. You can monitor project financials and business pulse and create report packages here. Go to “Project & Time” to see time tracking detail and the project profitability matrix.

Click on “Sales” to access relevant documents like quotations, sales orders, invoices, customer credits and drop ship deliveries. Go to “Purchases” to see vendor details and item classes.

2. Cryptio

Cryptio is a crypto accounting platform that offers enterprise-grade accounting and auditing for your digital assets. It integrates with several DeFi wallets and exchanges, making it easier to capture a complete overview of your digital asset activity. Cryptio lets you stay in touch with your holdings and see the total profit over time in recent trades.

Cryptio Features

Here are some exclusive features of Cryptio:

Aggregate all your transactions and assets in one place

Cryptio offers real-time, automated retrieval of entire transaction history from your crypto wallets, custody or exchange accounts. Moreover, you can use automated DeFi tracking and auto-audit your transactions to ensure every profit or loss appears in your books.

GAAP IFRS-compliant valuation system

Cryptio sources prices directly from exchanges at the exact transaction time and provides rich information regarding every trade. Additionally, Cryptio has partnered with Kaiko, a leading innovative crypto company and provides historical trade data from exchange addresses.

Automated labelling and transaction reconciliation

Cryptio lets you set rules to instinctively assign transactions to the correct account for staking rewards or payroll expenses. You can identify the counterparties of your transactions and reconcile assets in case of a failed transfer. Additionally, Cryptio allows you to attach invoices to your transactions, set a payment status and track future payments.

Seamless Sync with your fiat accounting and ERP system

Cryptio offers One-click integrations with leading accounting platforms like Xero and QuickBooks, automatically mapping your chart of accounts with your Cryptio activity. Additionally, it provides powerful real-time integrations to core systems with light and cogent API.

Visualize and Report on your Crypto activity

Cryptio generates asset-roll forward, historical balances and transaction history reports instantly. You can track intangible impairments on your digital assets and generate IRS & SEC-compliant reports. Moreover, Cryptio offers real-time insights from its dashboard into which trades you should make to increase your tax refund.

Cryptio Pricing

Cryptio offers 3 Pricing options for its crypto accounting platform.

The “Basic” plan is priced at $199/month and offers unlimited history coverage. Additionally, you can label transactions, do invoice management and cost-basis calculation, and track realized gains or losses.

The “Pro” plan is priced at $550/month and offers custody solution integrations. Additionally, you can see asset and wallet-based breakdowns, track inventory and interact programmatically with the Cryptio platform.

The “Enterprise” plan offers an on-demand pricing quote and provides technical audit assistance plus impairment testing reports.

Cryptio Discounts and Coupons

Cryptio currently offers a 12% discount on its subscription plans upon annual billing. However, there are no coupons available for monthly pricing options.

Cryptio Free Trial

Cryptio offers a 14 Day Free Trial for its crypto accounting platform. You can avail the offer by inputting your email, name, and company title and joining or creating a workspace.

Cryptio, A short how-to guide

Once you login to your Cryptio account, you’ll enter the dashboard section. You’ll see your recent transactions from all digital exchanges or decentralized wallets here. Click on “Imports” to integrate your wallet or exchanges with Cryptio.

Click on “Transactions” to get a detailed history of your wallet transactions. Go to “Business” to see integrations, unidentified addresses, contacts and labels.

Click on “Accounting” to see the net profit or loss from your crypto holdings and trading in your accounting books. Go to “Reports” to analyze your recent trades and identify the market patterns.

3. Akaunting

Akaunting is a free cloud accounting platform that offers bookkeeping tools for SMEs. It provides feature-rich software that tracks your transactions and invoices constantly. With Akaunting, you can make the portal accessible for your clients and share receipts or accept bulk payments.

Akaunting Features

Here are some exclusive features of Akaunting:

Free and Open-source Platform: Akaunting does not involve any hidden set-up fees and offers an entirely free accounting platform without any limitations. Moreover, due to its open-source nature, you can install Akaunting on your host and make changes to intrinsic features. Akaunting enables you to see and assess your financial situation online from anywhere.

Customer and Vendor Management: Akaunting allows you to create vendors and assign them bills or payments. Similarly, you can generate client contacts and send them invoices. You can also set up a client portal for your customers so they can view their assets and account books. Akaunting lets you filter the transactions easily and file them under the correct address.

Powerful Reporting: Akaunting offers detailed financial reports to help you visualize the relevant information to improve your business. You can see a graphical depiction of your account books to analyze the current economic affairs of your business. Akaunting provides quality insights that help you file accurate returns.

Customer Summary: Akaunting integrates with several CRM and project management tools to help you import client addresses. Moreover, Akaunting automatically created the customer profile with the correct address, list of transactions and paid, open or overdue totals at a glance.

Multi-Currency: With Akaunting, you can send invoices or add expenses in any currency and let the system convert the balance into your main denomination. It allows you to get the exact exchange rate and accept payments globally. Moreover, Akaunting automatically comprehends repetitive actions and executes them in a precise fashion periodically.

Akaunting Pricing

Akaunting offers 2 Pricing options for its accounting platform.

The “Free Cloud” plan offers one user account and is priced at $0. Additionally, it provides live currency rates, a billing calendar, a dedicated accountant profile and community support.

The “Premium Cloud” plan is priced at $36/month and offers unlimited user accounts. Additionally, it provides bank feeds, balance sheet and trial balance, general ledger, manual journals, chart of accounts and a client portal.

Akaunting Discounts and Coupons

Akaunting currently does not offer discounts or coupons for its accounting platform subscription. However, you can get a 33% off by opting for annual billing.

Akaunting, Free Trial

Akaunting does not offer a free trial for its “Premium Cloud” plan. However, you can use the “Free Cloud” without any limitations.

Akaunting, A short how-to guide

Once you login to your Akaunting account, you’ll be redirected to the dashboard section. Here you’ll see the cash flow, receivables, payables and expenses by category.

Click on “Items” to view your inventory. Here, you can add products or services with a quotation. You can mark the items in the list whenever a client places an order.

Click on “Sales” and select “Invoices” to start accepting online payments from your clients. Go to “Customers” to enter new profiles into your addresses database. You can add Akaunting’s CRM app for an additional $5 from the app store to handle relations.

Click on “Purchases” and select “Bills” to see what you owe to the vendors for shipments or services. Go to “Banking” to see the pending reconciliations, historical transactions or bank account activities.

Click on “Reports” to enter the analytical section inside Akaunting and get a tax summary for the quarterly period.

4. FreshBooks

FreshBooks offers Bookkeeping and Accounting features to help businesses and freelancers organize their finances. It provides an easy-to-use interface built for regular users and accountants. FreshBooks is made for all business sizes and adapts according to your company’s accounting needs.

FreshBooks Features

Here are some exclusive features of FreshBooks:

Accounting and Reporting: FreshBooks offers double-entry accounting tools to ensure tax compliance and accuracy. It helps you comprehend the financial status of your business and make intelligent choices to grow your brand further. FreshBooks identifies revenue items and expenses, providing an accurate profit-loss margin. Moreover, your accountant can access intrinsic financial information and reporting whenever needed.

Payments and Estimates: FreshBooks seamlessly links with several online payment channels like Stripe. It lets your clients pay directly through the invoice without additional hidden fees. Additionally, FreshBooks allows you to set realistic expectations by eliminating the guesswork and doing data-driven estimates. You can convert your estimates into an invoice or create new proposals to win projects.

Time-Tracking: FreshBooks provides an inbuilt time-tracker that helps you accurately determine the task duration. FreshBooks automatically logs the time spent on the client project and enables you to prepare detailed invoices or keep track of employees’ working hours.

Mileage Tracking: FreshBooks offers a tracking application that automatically logs your business trips and saves your travel history. You can claim business trips as expenses during tax filings. FreshBooks records the total distance travelled by your business vehicle and various professional trips taken by you.

Client Management: FreshBooks enables you to prepare client estimates and build better relations by accurate billing. You can inform clients about the latest expenses and increase trust by improving connectivity. FreshBooks allows you to track loyalty discounts and foster loyalty with clients.

FreshBooks Pricing

FreshBooks offers 4 Pricing options for its accounting software.

The “Lite” plan is priced at $4.50/month and offers unlimited invoices to 5 clients. Additionally, you can track expenses and sales tax, send total estimates and get paid with credit cards or bank transfers.

The “Plus” plan is priced at $7.50/month and offers unlimited invoices to 50 clients. Additionally, you can automatically capture receipt data, send endless proposals, run business health reports and set up recurring billing or client retainers.

The “Premium” plan is priced at $15/month and removes all limitations on invoice recipients. Additionally, you can track project profitability, customize email signatures, run accounting reports and get paid with checkout links.

The “Custom” pricing option offers an on-demand quote. It removes the FreshBooks branding from the client emails and provides a dedicated account manager.

FreshBooks Discounts and Coupons

FreshBooks is currently offering a 70% discount on its quarterly subscription plans.

FreshBooks Free Trial

FreshBooks offers a 30 Day free trial for its accounting software. You can get started by inputting your email or using your Google account. Moreover, there are no buying obligations with the trial offer.

FreshBooks, A short how-to guide

Once you set up and login into your FreshBooks account, you’ll be redirected to the dashboard. You’ll see total profit, revenue streams, outstanding payments and company settings here.

You can add clients, create invoices or include items or services inside the dashboard section. When you’re creating an invoice, you have the option of switching to online payments. You can connect your Stripe account or any other payment service.

Scrolling down the screen, you can see the analytical details regarding your accounting and finances in the dashboard. You can customize the parameters to get more targeted results and make better estimates for the next cycle.

5. Kashoo

Kashoo is the world’s most straightforward accounting software that offers integrated technologies, simplifying bookkeeping and financial management. Kashoo offers business and solution-specific tools to help freelancers and companies automate their accounting tasks. It is the ideal solution for first-timers looking for an easy-to-use accounting platform.

Kashoo Features

Here are some exclusive features of Kashoo:

Advanced Accounting: Kashoo offers an automatic bank feed tool that sorts transactions plus maximizes deductions. It ensures you can quickly enter recurring expenses, reconcile faster, upload receipts or attachments and check status. Additionally, Kashoo connects with multiple accounts and auto imports bank transactions.

KashooPay: With Kashoo, you don’t have to leave your accounting software to create or send invoices. Kashoo offers KashooPay, which lets you accept online payments from clients. Alternatively, you can integrate your Stripe account and use it with Kashoo invoices. You can connect with over 5000 banks and credit unions and seamlessly run your business with full encryption.

Critical Reporting: Kashoo offers crítical statistics and reporting tools to help you analyze the cash flow, income statement, balance sheet, accounts receivable and payable, trial balance and bank reconciliation. With Kashoo, you can accurately plan your project budgets and ensure you don’t overcommit your finances.

Automated Accounting: Kashoo maximizes your tax deductions with computerized data entry, machine learning-powered auto-categorization and alignment with IRS & CRA. It automates contact creation and reconciliation plus offers a point & click receipt capture. Additionally, you can create contacts directly from your transactions. It ensures you don’t mix up or lose new vendor contacts.

Simplified Invoicing: Kashoo lets you invoice your clients, get paid digitally and track your payments. Moreover, the learning curve is minimal due to the simplistic interface of Kashoo. Once you send invoices with Kashoo, it stores the record, so you never have to input the details again manually.

Kashoo Pricing

Kashoo offers 3 Pricing options for its invoicing and accounting tools.

The “Trulysmall Invoices” plan is priced at $0/month and allows you to send invoices. Additionally, you can accept payments, send estimates and track income or clients.

The “Trulysmall Accounting” plan is priced at $20/month and offers a complete accounting solution. Additionally, you can track sales tax, do essential reporting and comply with IRS/CRA standards.

The “Kashoo” plan is priced at $30/month and offers advanced accounting for larger firms. Additionally, you can do advance reporting, customize CoA and check printing.

Kashoo Discounts and Coupons

Kashoo currently does not offer any discounts or coupons for its subscription plans.

Kashoo Free Trial

Kashoo offers a 14 Day free trial for its subscription plans. Upon the expiration of the period, you can keep using the invoicing plan for free.

Kashoo, A Short How-To Guide

Once you login to your Kashoo account, you’ll be redirected to the “Income & Expenses” inside the “Workspace” section. Here, you can input the invoicing details into your database. Click on “Invoices” to start creating invoices for clients.

Click on “Banking” to view your saved bank statements. The “List” section shows the contact database segmented into clients, suppliers, items and accounts. 

Go to “Reports” to enter the analytical section inside Kashoo. Click on “History” to view the recent changes made in your Kashoo database.

6. QuickBooks

QuickBooks helps businesses, freelancers, and self-employed people to properly account for their expenses and income. You can make payments to contractors or employees and maintain profitability by auto-tracking the expenditures. QuickBooks provides salient accounting features, enabling you to analyze your profit margins.

QuickBooks Features

Here are some exclusive features of QuickBooks:

Cloud Accounting: QuickBooks offers mobile access to its database and provides online banking integration, automatically updating your transactions and statements. You can monitor the real-time status of your expenses or invoices from anywhere and remotely handle the accounting. 

Business Funding and Income Tracking: QuickBooks syncs the bank transactions and tracks the total cash flow of your business. It helps you properly allocate funds to your business endeavours and maintain profit margins after operating costs. Additionally, you can create Tax-compliant invoices and track unpaid GST bills to remind clients about payment.

Online Banking: QuickBooks brings your banking activities online and offers One-click reconciliations. You can connect different bank accounts with QuickBooks and auto-categorize transactions to match expenses or invoices. QuickBooks enables you; to stay on top of your financial situation and maintain cash flow.

Accounting Reports: QuickBooks offers real-time insight into your business data and generates financial reports showcasing balance sheets, profit margins and cashflow statements. You can track all pending invoices and avoid chasing payments at the last second. QuickBooks offers customized data analysis helping you identify business trends.

Inventory Management: QuickBooks helps you easily handle the business inventory and get a real-time evaluation. Your inventory list is automatically updated whenever you make a sale or add a new product. QuickBooks helps you track your restock orders from the vendors and keep every sale recorded in the database.

QuickBooks Pricing

QuickBooks offers 4 Pricing options for its accounting software.

The “Simple Start” plan is priced at $25/month and offers general reports, receipt capture, plus mileage tracking. Additionally, you can manage tax deductions, incomes and expenses or invoices and payments.

The “Essentials” plan is priced at $50/month and offers enhanced reports, bill management, plus sales tax estimation. Additionally, you get 3 User accounts and can assign vendor payments to contractors.

The “Plus” plan is priced at $80/month and offers inventory management plus project profitability determiner. Additionally, you get 5 User accounts and can convert estimates to invoices.

The “Advanced” plan is priced at $180/month and offers customized access, on-demand training, data restoration, plus workflow automation. Additionally, you get more than 5 User accounts and can do business analytics with Excel or manage employee expenses.

QuickBooks Discounts and Coupons

QuickBooks currently offers a 50% discount on its pricing options. You can avail the offer by opting for the quarterly subscription plan.

QuickBooks Free Trial

QuickBooks currently does not offer a free trial for its accounting software. However, you can contact the sales team and schedule a live demo to see QuickBooks in action.

QuickBooks, A Short How-To Guide

Once you login to your QuickBooks account, you’ll enter the dashboard section. On the top, you’ll see your company name and logo. On the left, you’ll see the navigation bar with a “New” tab. Here, you can run reports, manage expenses or make payments.

In the dashboard, you’ll see the business overview. You can see summaries of your invoices, expenses, profit-loss, sales and bank balance. This data can be a little sensitive, so you can use the “Privacy” button to hide it from prying eyes.

When you click the search button, you’ll see a list of all your most recent transactions. If you’re firing up QuickBooks for the first time, go to the “Settings” option. Here you’ll see 3 Main columns; “Your Company”, “Lists”, and “Tools”.

Under the “Company” section, you can find your accounts and settings. Here, you can add a company logo and change the company name. These changes will show up in your next invoices.

7. Ledgible

Ledgible is a crypto tax and accounting software for professionals that determines crypto liabilities and delivers data to your primary accounting or ERP systems. It removes the complications of recording every trade for tax purposes by storing every transaction and automatically calculating the final tax amount for your crypto holdings.

Ledgible Features

Here are some exclusive features of Ledgible:

Crypto Management: Ledgible integrates with crypto wallets and exchanges, enabling you to manage crypto tax returns. Moreover, if you handle crypto assets of several clients, you can track the asset progress with indicators. Ledgible connects with your current systems and generates necessary forms like IRS form 8949. Ledgible unlocks the crypto tax tools and connects with professional accounting or tax software without any upfront charge.

Enterprise-grade Accounting: Ledgible is built for enterprise-level crypto businesses to properly account for their trades or profits through mining and price fluctuations. Moreover, you can run month-end reporting, analyze balanced and manage crypto funds for a more extensive clientele with Ledgible. It’s the perfect tool for accurately maintaining your crypto tax returns in the accounting books.

Crypto Tax Client Workflow: Ledgible’s client-oriented workflow offers visibility into every client’s current stage in the reporting process. Additionally, you can check the latest balances, provide trading or tax reminders and complete returns for your clients. Ledgible enables you to accurately manage funds for your clients and record the trades to file returns on profits.

Team Management: Ledgible allows you to manage access for your tax preparation team members. You can assign tasks to employees, view the ongoing projects and administer the accounts yourself. Ledgible provides a secure, reliable and collaborative interface to manage your crypto funds.

Counterparty Mapping: With Ledgible, you can highlight the blockchain addresses and add them to your contacts. It helps you identify the recurring transactions from these addresses and recognize mass selling or buying events that may affect the overall price of your holdings. Counterparty Mapping offers you an edge over market conditions by prematurely spotting bulk crypto transactions from marked addresses.

Ledgible Pricing

Ledgible offers 2 Pricing options for its crypto tax and accounting tools.

The “Professional and Consumer Tax ” plan starts at $49 for tax-year reporting and upto 200 transactions. You have to pay $50 for transactions between 200-1000 and $100 for each set of 2500 transactions over 1000.

The “Enterprise Accounting” plan offers an on-demand pricing quote. You can contact the sales team to personalize the perfect subscription for your business and accounting requirements.

Ledgible Discounts and Coupons

Ledgible currently does not offer discounts or coupons for its crypto tax and accounting platform. However, it is reasonably priced and perfect for a crypto firm to manage trades in accounting books without splurging too much.

Ledgible Free Trial

Ledgible offers a 30 Day free trial for its tax and accounting platform. You can avail the offer by inputting your email or using your Google account.

Ledgible, A short how-to guide

Once you login to your Ledgible account, you’ll enter the dashboard section, where you’ll see a summary view of your account assets. You can use the As-Of-Date filter to get historical views of your account.

Your current account appears on the topleft. You can click here to switch it or create a new one. The “Wallets” page allows you to arrange and view information for addresses you control.

Click on “Exchanges” to track and organize your accounts with third-party exchanges like Binance or KuCoin. You can go to the “Reports” and choose from various on-demand report downloads about your account assets.

Click on “Integrations” to connect cryptocurrency to your general ledger. You can use the contacts page to map counterparties for wallet addresses. These will populate throughout the application and your downloaded reports.

8. GnuCash

GnuCash is a free accounting platform that allows you to track bank accounts, stocks, income and expenses. It is based on core accounting principles to ensure accurate reporting and bookkeeping. Moreover, GnuCash is downloadable on your device and ideal for every business due to its flexible, powerful, intuitive interface.

GnuCash Features

Here are some exclusive features of GnuCash:

Checkbook-Style Register: GnuCash offers a custom, practical and familiar interface to input financial transactions. Moreover, you can enter split transactions, display multiple accounts in a single register window and customize the display style. GnuCash lets you autofill and marks the transaction as cleared or reconciled.

Scheduled Transactions: GnuCash lets you create recurring transactions and set automatic due reminders. It offers high-level timeline customization and allows you to postpone the scheduled transactions without aborting or inputting them before the set date. GnuCash simplifies banking by providing automation and scheduling.

Reports and Graphs: GnuCash offers an integrated module to display your finances in the form of pie charts, bar charts and scatter plots. Additionally, it provides a full suite of customizable reports like balance sheet, portfolio valuation and profit margin. GnuCash’s reports are personalizable in appearance, parameters and content.

Statement Reconciliation: GnuCash offers a reconciliation tool to compare your inputted transactions against bank statements. It allows you to spot untracked transactions or data entry errors and ensure your accounting books match the bank records. GnuCash automates the reconciling and highlights the discrepancies in your database records.

Contact Tracking and Invoicing: GnuCash offers customer and vendor tracking, invoicing and tax calculation tools within its platform. You can manage employee payroll and plan your financial strategy by organizing your business budget. GnuCash ensures you have all relevant details to connect with the clients and vendors.

GnuCash Pricing

GnuCash is open-source and free accounting software. It does not offer any pricing options; you can download the tool by visiting the GnuCash website.

GnuCash Discounts and Coupons

GnuCash is free, so you don’t require discounts or coupons.

GnuCash Free Trial

GnuCash is free for a lifetime and does not require a trial offer.

GnuCash, A Short How-To Guide

Once you visit the GnuCash website, you’ll see the download screen. You can install the supporting version of GnuCash according to your system’s OS.

Once done, install the setup file, follow the instructions and finish the installation. You can then start using the GnuCash platform on your system for accounting, invoicing, payroll management and bookkeeping.

9. Sage 50 Cloud

Sage 50 Cloud offers robust accounting and finance capabilities to enhance work efficiency. It reduces the time spent on admin tasks and provides substantial clarity on your performance. Moreover, Sage offers a vast ecosystem of business and customer relation tools, making 50 Cloud ideal for ever-growing businesses.

Sage 50 Cloud Features

Here are some exclusive features of Sage 50 Cloud:

Cash Flow and Invoicing: Sage 50 Cloud offers a cash flow manager inside its platform, giving you instant updates on your cash flow. You can see your cash account balance and expected receivables or payables to get a clear image of your gross profit. Moreover, Sage 50 Cloud lets you get a granular look at your finances by customizing the cash flow settings.

Payments and Banking: Sage 50 cloud allows you to see the payable accounts and offers banking features like regular transaction feeds, account reconciliation and online payment. Moreover, you can eliminate the manual entry with Sage 50 Cloud as it’s integrated with a pre-built asset management system.

Advanced Inventory Management: Sage 50 Cloud offers an inventory management system, allowing you to view quantities on hand and execute purchase orders accurately on time. You can track costs and product lists using Sage 50 Cloud to input transactions. Additionally, Sage 50 Cloud automatically computes the price and quantity by item code, adjusting the inventory accordingly.

Job Costing: Sage 50 Cloud offers greater insight into your ongoing jobs and projects, allowing you to see where you’re spending your budget. Moreover, you can estimate the net revenue on every project, set up job records or print project reports for clients. Sage 50 Cloud lets you use cost codes and generate relevant information, enabling you to adjust the budget before the project completion.

Payroll: Sage 50 Cloud simplifies your payroll procedures by offering direct deposits and pay cards. You can monitor employee records and the tax status of the staff under your payroll. Sage 50 Cloud allows you to manage vacations or pay wages at an hourly rate within its accounting platform.

Sage 50 Cloud Pricing

Sage 50 Cloud offers 3 Pricing options for its accounting and payroll management tools.

The “Pro Accounting” plan is priced at $33/month and offers one user account. Additionally, you can use invoice and bill tracking, Reporting tools and Sage Security Shield.

The “Premium Accounting” plan is priced at $55/month/user and is expandable to upto five user accounts. Additionally, you can use advanced budgeting tools, audit trails and industry-specific functionality.

The “Quantum Accounting” plan is priced at $91/month/user and is expandable to upto 40 user accounts. Additionally, you can do workflow management and use advanced job costing.

Sage 50 Cloud Discounts and Coupons

Sage 50 Cloud currently offers a 40% discount for its subscription plans. It’s an unmissable deal for this powerful accounting platform, and we suggest you avail the offer by visiting the website.

Sage 50 Cloud Free Trial

Sage 50 Cloud does not offer a free trial for its accounting platform. However, you can use a cloud-hosted version with sample data.

Sage 50 Cloud, A short how-to guide

Once you login to your Sage 50 Cloud account, you’ll be redirected to the dashboard section. Here you’ll get insightful reports and process workflow of practical actions.

Click “Business Status” to analyze sales or monitor your assets, liabilities and key accounts. Go to “Reports and Forms” to see your financial statements, profitability, cash flow and general ledger.

Click on “Customers & Sales” to manage quotes and sales orders, organize customers and make payments or invoicing. Go to “Vendor & Purchases” to handle your purchase orders and vendors.

Click “Inventory & Services” to manage the inventory items, assemblies and reorders. Go to “Lists” and select “Jobs” to track your project statuses. Click on the “Apps & Services” tab to view the integration capabilities of Sage 50 Cloud.

10. Wave

Wave is a renowned accounting platform that offers free invoicing and accounting features. It offers a user-friendly dashboard, easy to comprehend and work on. Wave helps you stay organized and manage tax billings or invoices like a professional. It provides you with a completely accurate picture of your business’s current financial health.

Wave Features

Here are some exclusive features of Wave:

Invoicing: Wave helps you avoid chasing clients for payments and adopt a more professional approach by sending invoices. You can get paid through credit cards and let Wave handle the payment reminders. Wave automatically syncs the data into your account books and identifies recurring billings for repetitive clients.

Banking: Wave offers built-in bookkeeping and a Wave money bank account for single-owner business owners in the United States with a Wave account. You can avoid the monthly and transfer fees without making long-term commitments. Wave provides faster access to funds, and you can use instant payouts upon qualifying the eligibility criteria.

Payments: Wave enables you to accept online payments for your business. It enhances your brand and provides a more professional outlook when you enable payment. Additionally, you can send personalized invoices to the clients with a link to the payment gateway.

Payroll: Wave offers a simplistic payroll software that allows you to manage tax filings and contractor or employee payments. Moreover, your employees can access the payroll database to view their banking information or pay stubs. Wave allows small business owners to safeguard their business profit margins by simplifying annual audits.

Accounting: Wave saves you from doing manual receipt entry by automatically syncing bank statements with the account books. Wave’s smart dashboard assembles your financial expenditures and earnings with a comprehensive view. Additionally, Wave offers 256-bit encryption to protect your account information and card details.

Wave Pricing

Wave offers 6 Tools for various business accounting requirements.

The “Invoicing” tool is free and allows you to create personalized invoices that reflect your brand.

The “Accounting” tool is free and offers unlimited income and expense tracking. You can view overdue invoices and profit-loss margins.

The “Banking” tool is free and offers transaction segmentation to sort personal and business expenses. 

The “Payments” tool offers pay-per-use pricing. You’ll be charged 2.9% + $0.60 USD per transaction on credit cards, 3.4% + $0.60 USD per Amex transaction and 1% per transaction on bank payments.

The “Payroll” tool is priced: at $35/month in tax service states and $20/month in self-service states.

The “Advisors” tool is priced at $149/month and provides bookkeeping support. Additionally, you can get accounting and payroll coaching for a one-time fee of $329.

Wave Discounts and Coupons

Wave currently does not offer any discounts or coupons for its accounting and payroll management tools.

Wave Free Trial

Wave does not offer a free trial for its Pricing tools. However, you can use invoicing, banking and accounting for free and do basic financial management.

Wave, A short how-to guide 

Once you login to your Wave account, you’ll be redirected to the “Launchpad” section. Here you can initiate your next project.

Click on the “Dashboard” to see a financial overview of your business. You can see the cash flow, create invoices or estimates and invite collaborators.

Click on “Sales” to view the revenue generation of your business through product sales. Go to the “Purchases” section to manage the vendor payments.

Click on the “Accounting” to see all banking transactions and your accounts book. Go to “Payroll” to manage employee payouts.

Click on the “Reports” to analyze your fiscal situation and set personalized indicators. Go to the “Tax Filing” to manage the tax billings accurately.

11. ZohoBooks

ZohoBooks is an accounting platform from Zoho that lets you work collectively and manage your finances. Zoho is well-known for its intuitive business tools and offers the ideal connective ecosystem. With ZohoBooks, you can automate business workflows and stay tax compliant. It provides features for all business sizes and powers up your bookkeeping.

ZohoBooks Features

Here are some exclusive features of ZohoBooks:

Invoicing: ZohoBooks offers effortless invoicing and receivables management. You can create polished invoices and accept global payments with a multi-currency platform. Additionally, ZohoBooks lets you create recurring invoices and securely store card information for easy transactions. With ZohoBooks, you can secure your invoices with a digital signature to avoid tampering.

Client and Vendor Portal: ZohoBooks provides a client and vendor portal so you can share recent transactions and accelerate the approval process. Moreover, you can gauge customer satisfaction by asking for feedback and add a layer of authenticity to your estimates by getting digital signatures from your clients.

Banking: With ZohoBooks, you can securely gather transactions from your PayPal and bank accounts, plus do swift reconciliation. You can get accurate cash flow predictions and spot the balance mismatches with ZohoBooks’ banking dashboard. Additionally, it lets you categorize transactions automatically, expedite the matching and streamline the tax filing.

Automation: ZohoBooks is an intelligent accounting platform that allows you to automate tedious, error-prone tasks. You can eliminate the repetitive issues and auto-charge cards for recurring transactions. ZohoBooks boosts your productivity by automating your bookkeeping.

Reporting: ZohoBooks’ Reports cover your finances from all angles and lets you create robust business plans. You can see expenditures and income, generate business reports and make informed decisions. ZohoBooks is ideal for scheduling customizable periodic reports and organizing data with tags.

ZohoBooks Pricing

ZohoBooks offers 6 Pricing options for its accounting platform.

The “Free” plan is priced at $0 and offers payment reminder automation, a client portal, invoice management and a chart of accounts.

The “Standard” plan is priced at $20/month and offers three user accounts. Additionally, it provides custom fields, sales tax tracking, transaction locking and bulk updates.

The “Professional” plan is priced at $50/month and offers five user accounts. Additionally, it provides sales approval, retainer invoices, vendor credits and multi-currency handling.

The “Premium” plan is priced at $70/month and offers ten user accounts. It also provides a custom domain, vendor portal, budgeting, validation, and workflow rules.

The “Elite” plan is priced at $150/month and offers ten user accounts. Additionally, it provides warehouse management, batch tracking, shipment label printing and Shopify integration.

The “Ultimate” plan is priced at $275/month and offers 15 user accounts. Additionally, it provides 25 custom modules, a real-time dashboard, financial metrics tracking and report collaboration.

ZohoBooks Discounts and Coupons

ZohoBooks currently does not offer discounts or coupons for its accounting platform subscription. However, you can get a better deal by opting for annual billing if you’re willing to commit long-term.

ZohoBooks Free Trial

ZohoBooks offers a 14 free trial for its pricing options. Additionally, you can use the free plan and get acquainted with the basic features of ZohoBooks.

ZohoBooks, A Short How-To Guide

Once you login to your ZohoBooks account, you’ll be redirected to the Dashboard section. Here you’ll see the total receivables and payables, income and expenses, projects and account watchlist.

Click on “Items” to enter the inventory management section inside ZohoBooks. Go to “Banking” to view your financial transactions and perform actions.

Click on “Sales” to view the estimates, retainer invoices, credit notes and sales orders. Go to “Purchases” to manage the vendors, expenses, bills and payments.

Click “Time Tracking” to track projects or create a timesheet for billable hours. Go to “Accountant” to manage manual journals, bulk updates, tax payments, currency adjustments, chart of accounts, budgets and transaction locking.

Click on “Reports” to enter the analytical section. Here, you can select between “Business Overview”, “Sales”, “Inventory”, “Receivables”, and “Recurring Invoices”.

12. ZipBooks

ZipBooks is a simple, powerful and intuitive accounting platform that gives you the tools and intelligence to upgrade your business. It saves your time from doing mundane Bookkeeping tasks by offering automation and intelligent insights. ZipBooks is an ideal entry-level solution for freelancers or firms looking for accounting software.

ZipBooks Features

Here are some exclusive features of ZipBooks:

Accounts Receivable: ZipBooks tracks receivable accounts and keeps accurate customer records. Moreover, it automatically updates the revenue earned and amounts owed in your accounts receivable report. You can manually edit any transaction outside ZipBooks into the database and gain thoughtful feedback on which clients regularly pay within a reasonable timeframe.

Bank Connect and Reconciliation: ZipBooks offers Bank connectivity and automatically streams your transactions on its platform after account verification. Moreover, you can view the current balance of your bank account plus the confirmed transactions in ZipBooks to make reconciling easier. 

Auto-Categorization: ZipBooks eliminates the repetitive data entry tasks from the bookkeeping and accounting process. It combines your work with research from other users and best accounting practices. Once done, it automatically categorizes your transactions. ZipBooks is an intelligent platform that uses Machine learning to learn your usage patterns and evolve accordingly.

Chart of Accounts: ZipBooks offers a chart of accounts, organizing everything in one central location. Here you can view the total inventory amount and overdue payments. Moreover, you can personalize additional account categories for your business.

Reporting: ZipBooks offers a snapshot of general payment trends and a balance sheet to document your assets, liabilities and equities. It calculates your profits and creates balance sheets that reflect periodic financial data. Additionally, you can highlight crucial aspects of your report and analyze all categories within your chart of accounts.

ZipBooks Pricing

ZipBooks offers 4 Pricing options for its accounting and reporting platform.

The “Free” plan is priced at $0 and connects with one bank account. Additionally, it offers unlimited invoices, basic reports, vendor and customer management and PayPal integration.

The “Smarter” plan is priced at $15/month and offers 5 team member accounts. Additionally, it provides reminder automation, multiple bank connectivity, time tracking and invoice scheduling.

The “Sophisticated” plan is priced at $35/month and offers unlimited user invitations. Additionally, it provides smart tagging, category customization, quick reconciliation and insightful reports.

The “Accountant” plan offers an on-demand pricing quote. It provides time tracking across client accounts, data migration, dashboard and transaction editing.

ZipBooks Discounts and Coupons

ZipBooks currently does not offer any discounts or coupons for its subscription plans.

ZipBooks Free Trial

ZipBooks offers a 30 Day free trial for its pricing options. You can use your Google account or input a valid email to avail the offer. Upon the expiration, you can continue using the free plan.

ZipBooks, A Short How-To Guide

Once you login to your ZipBooks account, you’ll enter the Home section. Here, you’ll see the financial performance, expenses and tracked time. Click on “Invoices” and tap on the green plus button to create a new invoice.

Click on “Transactions” to see your bank account history. Tap “Connect a Bank” to import transactions from a financial institution. Go to “Categories” to sort your transactions.

Click on “Reports” to enter the analytical section inside ZipBooks. Here you can filter report types by financial statements, accounting & tax, sales, expenses and team tracking. Go to “Contacts” to access the address database.

Click on “Tracking” to create a time entry. Tap the green plus button to manually add a time entry or press the green start button to start tracking. Once you’ve logged time to a project, you can automatically include it in your invoices.

13. Xero

Xero is an intuitive and beautiful accounting software that helps you run the money side of your business. You can create and send quotes, manage bills, sort bank transactions, chase payments and analyze financial data. Xero provides you with a cloud-based accounting platform, accessible invariably from any remote location.

Xero Features

Here are some exclusive features of Xero:

Bill Payments: Xero helps you make timely bill payments by providing a clear overview of accounts payable and cash flow. You can schedule and make batch payments, plus access all bills inside your Xero interface. With Xero, you can build good relations with suppliers by avoiding late payments and keep the money flowing timely.

Claim Expenses: Xero provides an expense manager to help you capture costs to reimburse expense claims. You can monitor employee spending and approve claims without delay. Additionally, you can use OCR technology to scan vital information and auto-fill your claim.

Bank Connections: Xero connects with your bank accounts and sets up a feed where transactions flow securely. You can set multiple feeds for different accounts. Xero lets you reconcile daily and provides; an accurate depiction of your business finances. All your bank transactions are securely imported between the Xero database and Bank.

Invoicing and Payments: Xero lets you accept payments online through Stripe, GoCardless and other integrations. You can generate invoices and add a “Pay Now” button to redirect clients to the payment gateway. Additionally, Xero offers excellent online protection from fraudulent activities and has an unbreachable database.

Project Tracking: Xero offers a job tracker helping you track costs and project profitability. You can prepare budgets by using cost estimates and send customized quotes. Moreover, Xero allows you to do location-based tracking on Mobile and seamlessly link costs to projects.

Xero Pricing

Xero offers 3 Pricing options for its Accounting software.

The “Starter” plan is priced at $22/month and allows you to send upto 20 invoices. You can reconcile bank transactions and capture bills or receipts through Hubdoc.

The “Standard” plan is priced at $35/month and offers bulk reconcile transactions. Moreover, you can manage short-term cash flow and get a business snapshot of your current finances.

The “Premium” plan is priced at $47/month and allows you to send unlimited invoices. You can use multiple currencies and access all accounting features of Xero.

Additionally, Xero offers 3 Add-on packs. The “Claim Expenses” is priced at $4/month, and The “Track Projects” and “Analytics” are priced at $7/month.

Xero Discount and Coupons

Xero currently does not offer any discounts or coupons for its accounting platform. However, you can keep an eye out during the Black Friday sale or the Holiday season to avail a better deal.

Xero Free Trial

Xero offers a 30 Day free trial for its accounting software. You can get started by inputting your name, email, phone and location.

Xero, A short how-to guide

Once you login to your Xero account, you enter the dashboard section. It is completely customizable and allows you to choose personalized key performance indicators for better analysis.

Click on the “Business” tab to see the profit loss margin from all ongoing projects. Go to the “Accounting” section to; manage all incoming payments and expenses.

Click on “Payroll” to manage the employee payments and release milestones periodically. Go to the “Projects” section to see ongoing projects and set budgets. You can click on “Contacts” to view your business contacts inside the QuickBooks database.

What Accounting Software would you recommend?

In short, It’s Melio.com

It provides your business customers with a convenient payment link, enabling them to make quick and hassle-free payments without the need for invoice attachments. They can pay using their preferred method, and the payments will be directly deposited into your bank account each time.

“🚀Try Melio.com For Free, It’s my favorite Accounting Software to use and recommend.” -Scott Max

Melio is an intuitive Accounting software that offers comprehensive solutions through its powerful tools. Designed for businesses of all sizes, Melio simplifies complex financial tasks and delivers impressive outcomes. Melio seamlessly integrates features tailored to your: Billing, Payments, Vendor Management, Expenses, and Financial Reporting needs.

For more details, read our Melio.com Review.

The Best Accounting Software, In Conclusion

Now that you’ve seen our picks for the best accounting software, we’d love to know your opinion.

Have you used any of these tools? If yes, what was your experience? Did we miss any quality accounting software?

Let us know in the comments.

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