For businesses looking for easy accounting software, Xero delivers with features that simplify complex financial tasks. The dashboard gives you a quick overview of your financial situation at a glance. Kashoo offers a single pricing plan with all features included, making budgeting simple. Its use of AI to categorize transactions and real-time bank feeds makes it ideal for solo entrepreneurs and very small teams. To help make your decision easier, we’ve ranked the top accounting software platforms for small businesses in 2025 based on features, flexibility, pricing, and overall value.
If you plan on only using your free accounting software from a single computer, though, a desktop-based option may work as well. There’s also a mobile app that allows you to send invoices through iMessage or add widgets to your iPhone’s home screen so that you can easily access overdue free desktop accounting software invoices. Sage is a solid pick for startups managing tangible products—like retail, e-commerce, or hardware—thanks to its built-in inventory tracking and VAT/GST support.
BEST FOR ZOHO USERS
Run multiple businesses from the same account, check your dashboard to see how business is doing and collaborate with unlimited partners and accountants. QuickBooks Online remains the gold standard in small business accounting. With millions of users worldwide, it offers robust features like income/expense tracking, payroll add-ons, tax prep tools, inventory management, and bank syncing. Cloud-based and mobile-friendly, it’s suitable for both beginners and seasoned professionals. Accounting software is a way for businesses to track income and expenses, send invoices, track sales tax and create reports.
If you’re looking for free accounting software that can grow with your business, Odoo is one of the best options on this list. Odoo makes it easy to send professional invoices and receive online payments. Once you’ve sent your invoice, you can monitor its progress and send automated reminders to customers. You can also use Odoo to monitor your point of sale transactions, expenses, and inventory. You can use the software to create customized invoice templates, set up recurring invoices, and set automatic payment reminders. But the free version is only available for one user, so it’s a better option for small businesses with limited bookkeeping needs.
Is Zoho Books really free?
- Personal Finance is a free accounting software for your computer.
- If you’re looking for a QuickBooks-esque solution at a lower price point, we recommend Zoho Invoice (for a free option).
- Simple Accountz is a free accounting software for your computer.
- In other words, everything was where you would’ve expected it to be.
- This makes it versatile enough for very small startups as well as growing companies with larger teams.
Read the fine print carefully to ensure that when you purchase this software you get the license you’re expecting. The industry-specific versions turn on additional reports and features that apply to those industries, some of which aren’t available in the Pro version. Take your financing wherever you go with the mobile integration. It allows you to send invoices, track your employees and even get real-time reports on the project’s progress. It strictly follows the rule of double-entry accounting which might only favor accountants.
His work has been featured in outlets such as Keypoint Intelligence, FitSmallBusiness and PCMag. Vast library of directly integrated apps means the software can grow with your business. GnuCash is appealing for its fully free software and benefits that come with open-source technology, like faster iteration and improvement due to its crowdsourced development and testing. However, GnuCash will also require some familiarity with coding, as well as some comfort with using a checkbook-style register and entering transactions manually. Among other capabilities, you can split transactions and customize how the register is displayed.
Best for Financial Analysis
In comparison to Wave and Zipbooks, GnuCash was one of the least intuitive platforms tested — the mobile support isn’t great, and the interface was pretty hard to navigate. The Akaunting free plan is very limited, so much so that it may force your hand into upgrading to its Plus plan ($24 per month). Once your 20 invoices are exhausted, there isn’t really anywhere else for you to go. For individuals working on temporary projects, this might be sufficient. I took ZipBooks for a spin, and I was impressed by how clearly laid out it was. Previous accounting software that I’ve tested (Xero springs to mind) hasn’t always had the most logical site-mapping, but this was not an issue with ZipBooks.
- If you want more extensive accounting features, Zoho Books has a free plan for businesses with under $50K USD in annual revenue.
- Manager is another free accounting option, and it offers software both for desktop and cloud access.
- NerdWallet independently reviewed 12 free accounting software products, and Zoho Books tops our list.
- Free plan includes direct integration with Square and PayPal for payment processing.
- While human error will always play some role in security breaches, you can be confident in your accounting platform when it comes to keeping your information safe.
Money Manager Ex
At Business.org, our research is meant to offer general product and service recommendations. We don’t guarantee that our suggestions will work best for each individual or business, so consider your unique needs when choosing products and services. So, there you have it, Wave comes in first, thanks to its unlimited users and invoicing, with Zipbooks not far behind. If you want to know not just where your business has been, but where it’s going, forecasting can help you out.
Pricing is straightforward with just one main plan that includes all features. This makes it easier for business owners to budget for their accounting software. Beyond accounting, Patriot also offers payroll software solutions that have received high rankings from users. According to Capterra, their payroll product ranked first overall based on customer reviews. The software connects with bank accounts to import transactions automatically.
If you run a business and are looking for good and free accounting software for small business, then GnuCash is perfect for you. It is a free and open-source accounting software and comes with a double-entry book-keeping system. Staying on top of your bookkeeping doesn’t have to be expensive or time-consuming. Check out these 10 free accounting tools for your small business. With the help of this freeware small trade owners handle their finance and accounts such as sales analysis, inventory, general ledger, accounts receivable and payable etc. This freeware works with all the types of currencies for the purpose of export and import.
Free plan includes direct integration with Square and PayPal for payment processing. GnuCash is desktop-based, meaning it must be locally installed on your computer. It’s compatible with both Windows and Mac operating systems, but it cannot be accessed remotely like cloud-based software can. Zoho Books tops our list because of its feature-packed free plan and scalability. FreeAgent is a great option for UK-based startups, as this tool can automatically handle Self-Assessment, RTI payroll, and MTD VAT filings.
These plans are the Simple Start, Essentials, Plus, and Advanced plans, as well as the limited Self Employed plan. You can sign up for any of them using their free 30-day trial. With over a decade of editorial experience, Rob Watts breaks down complex topics for small businesses that want to grow and succeed.
If you’re considering a paid option, you can always test them with a free trial, a service offered by many paid accounting software, like Zoho Books, FreshBooks, or Xero. Katherine Haan, MBA, is a Senior Staff Writer for Forbes Advisor’s SMB team, where she covers small business strategy, entrepreneurship, and business software. Her background includes work as a financial advisor and business coach, where she helped small businesses grow and scale their companies.
Commonly, free accounting software limits the amount of users per account. Some software will also cap the amount of customers you can invoice or the amount of invoices you can send per month. If your small business is growing fast, you might want to look at a paid service that allows you to handle higher numbers.
How to prove to investors you have product-market fit?
With TrulySmall Invoices, you can send invoices and estimates, accept digital payments and send automatic reminders and invoice status updates via a desktop platform or mobile app. NCH free accounting software is best for small businesses that want to be able to generate various financial reports. Other common tools, like online bank connections, help speed up the reconciliation process.