If you've been in business for long, you realize that it's not only about serving your customers. There's a lot of work about the work too. A host of documentation, information going back and forth, quotes to approve, invoices that need to be paid—and at the end of the year, the government wants to see if you've done your homework.

That's why having powerful accounting software is so important. It can help you handle your finances, see how your business is performing, and even help you sleep at night during tax season.

I tested dozens of accounting apps to find the best ones for your business. I've been updating this list for the past couple years, re-testing the apps each time. Because it's an established category, there's not a ton of movement—but maybe that's comforting? With that, here's the list of the best accounting software.

The best accounting software

• QuickBooks Online for an all-around solution

• Wave for free accounting software

• Xero for project tracking with your accounting

• LessAccounting for tracking vehicles and mileage

• OneUp for integrating accounting and sales

• Sage Accounting for in-depth reporting

• Zoho Books for software suite integration

• Manager for open source accounting software

What makes the best accounting software?

Accounting software has been around for a long time, so it's no surprise there are lots of viable options. Once you weed out the duds, the major differences you'll find are in user experience and in the collection of special features or add-ons that each app offers.

At minimum, online accounting software will handle your bookkeeping, provide a useful dashboard to give you an idea of your income and expenses, have basic sales tax features, and offer a collection of reports so you can look at your business from different angles. More advanced software can also help with inventory tracking, in-depth reporting, automated payroll, bank integration, budgeting, and eCommerce.

As I was testing every small business accounting software I could get my hands on, here's what I was looking for: 

• Small business emphasis. I was looking for all-in-one tools that could be used by a small business owner or an accounting team at a small or medium business. I didn't consider anything that was purpose-built for freelancers or was just for invoicing. If you're looking for that kind of solution, here are Zapier's picks for the best accounting and bookkeeping apps for freelancers and the best invoicing software. 

• Usability. Is the app easy to use? Is the interface intuitive? Is it fast? Is your data secure?

• Bookkeeping features. The best small business accounting software should have everything to help you handle invoices, expenses, and all bookkeeping documentation.

• Reports and dashboards. All the apps on this list have at least a basic set of reports and one easy-to-use dashboard to give you an overview of where your business stands at each moment.

• Tax preparation. Tax filing apps belong in a different category, but some of these accounting tools can help you get ready for the tax season by keeping track of things like 1099s, configuring sales tax, and allowing you to invite your accountant into the app.

• Extra (useful) features: I kept my eye out for relevant bells and whistles: projects, time tracking, inventory tracking, bank integration, payment portals, automatic reconciliation, CRMs, capturing receipts via mobile app, and more.

I considered and tested dozens of accounting apps, using all the features as if I were running a small business: adding contacts, creating invoices, logging expenses, and so on. (I have thousands and thousands of fictional dollars coming my way sometime soon.) I tested the integrations with payment portals, added data to populate reports, and took a tour of any interesting extra features to see if they were useful. Here are the results.

Best all-around accounting software for small business

QuickBooks Online (Web, Windows, Mac, iOS, Android)

Intuit has been in business for a long time, and it shows: QuickBooks is one of the strongest and most complete accounting apps on the market. Its greatest strength lies in how it supports you all the way from step one of onboarding to running complex payroll automation, with simple and direct help content.

The first setup is organized in a step-by-step process. Work gets done as you customize. While you're creating your first invoice, there's a step to edit the template, another to enter all the information appearing on all future invoices, and a final one to configure a payment portal to let your customers pay online.

The dashboard has all the information you need, with a set of beautiful graphs, showing that professionalism and aesthetics aren't as divorced as we think. The whole platform strikes a great balance between these two qualities, with some nice animations that shake up the rhythm without weighing on the app's speed.

QuickBooks handles your sales tax (and even payroll tax, if you subscribe to the payroll feature), but it doesn't file taxes for you (if you want to take that extra step, you can use Intuit's TurboTax). Some extra features include a cash flow planner, where you can play with the numbers without it affecting the real data, bank reconciliation, and eCommerce integrations.

If you have some extra budget, you can also explore QuickBooks add-ons, such as Payroll, which I already mentioned, or Workforce, which allows your employees to input and update their details for payslips and tax compliance (HR will thank you). 

If you value a strong tool with a proven track record, QuickBooks is a great choice. Want to integrate it with the rest of your tech stack? You can automate QuickBooks with Zapier. Check out some ideas for automating QuickBooks with Zapier, or try one of these examples.

QuickBooks Online pricing: Plans start at $30/month and increase based on number of users and extra features.

Best free accounting software

Wave (Web, iOS, Android)

Wave makes accounting look easy. More than that, it has a business model that's great if you don't want to add an extra subscription to your monthly bill: most of the core features are completely free.

So, how does Wave keep the lights on? The app processes your online payments and, as it does so, keeps a percentage of the invoice amount, the same way that platforms like Stripe or PayPal do. At the time of writing, this fee is at 2.9% + $0.60 for credit card transactions and 1% for each bank transaction + $1 minimum fee. If you receive most of your payments via other means, Wave may turn out to be easy on your wallet.

There are two other ways that Wave makes money, too. The first one is by offering an automated payroll plugin, letting you pay yourself and your team while keeping all the paperwork up to date. The other one is letting you book time with bookkeeping experts and access accounting coaching, so you'll reach the tax season feeling confident and ready. To boost this feeling, you can invite your accountant into your account, and they'll be pleased to see that Wave handles details like 1099s.

Painted in vibrant greens and tech dark blues, the app has all the basic tools to run your business. The dashboard provides a simple big-picture view of your cash flow and invoice information. There are a few reports that'll help you look into profit and loss, see balance sheets, and get deeper insights into cash flow. The only snag? It's not available outside the U.S. and Canada.

Wave makes the list as the best free accounting software for small business due to its great user experience, strong features, and generous plan. If you're on the right side of the ocean, give it a try. And connect Wave to Zapier, so it can talk to all the other apps you use. Here are some examples of how to automate Wave.

Wave pricing: Free; online payments charged at a percentage plus a fixed rate.

Best accounting software for project tracking

Xero (Web, Windows, Mac, iOS, Android)

Hailing from New Zealand, Xero wants you to "do beautiful business." And with all the features Xero offers, you can do that and much more, especially when tackling your projects.

You can see projects in three stages: draft, in progress, and complete. Clicking on a project will take you to the project dashboard, with the estimate, the amount invoiced, time and expenses, and the deadline. A thorough approach, while at the same time helping you focus on all the relevant metrics.

Projects are the main course, but there's a lot more. Xero's main dashboard is very well designed. In addition to providing general information about your business, it acts as an onboarding tool: it lists all the tasks you still have to do to configure the platform, so you can take advantage of all the features it has to offer. You can use it to get started in configuring your invoices, creating accounting categories, connecting your bank account, and much more. If there's something you won't need, you can edit the dashboard to control what you don't want to see.

The bookkeeping features are top-notch. In addition to basic invoices and expenses, you can also create purchase orders, file expense claims, and print checks. All these features are peppered with reports and local dashboards to help you see what's going on with your business.

The accounting section is filled with lots of pre-made reports, and you can create your own. Your accountant will be pleased with all the features. Don't forget to mark your 1099 contractors in the contacts section, and you'll be able to generate reports on that as well.

Xero has its own app store, allowing you to integrate it with hundreds of apps across many categories. From the automotive industry to tourism, there's a lot to explore and to help you connect Xero to every part of your business. And if you don't find what you need, Zapier has you covered: connect Xero to Zapier, so you can integrate Xero with thousands of other apps. Here are some examples.

Xero pricing: Paid plans start at $13/month. To get the project tracking, you'll need the $65/month Established plan.

Best accounting software for integrating accounting and sales

OneUp (Web, Android)

OneUp is an appealing tool, with a fresh and uncluttered interface. Its features are split into a series of "apps": a CRM, invoicing, projects, expenses and purchasing, inventory, and accounting.

We'll get deeper into these features, but there's something that I really liked here: a search box where I could type what I wanted to do, and it showed a dropdown list of pages and actions I could take. This can save you a lot of time clicking through menus, especially if you like to jump directly to the action.

I activated all the apps OneUp had to offer (but you can leave out the ones you don't need, so the platform can be as lean or as full-featured as you want). I liked how the CRM feature integrates well with all the others—after all, it makes sense to track leads, calls, offers, and opportunities along with invoices in the same platform.

And this CRM works really well with the projects feature, where you keep track of not only the billables (invoices, estimates, and so on) but also the client calls and other contact data. This is great to combine your sales team with accounting, helping you follow everything that's happening at each stage of each deal with your clients.

There's manual time tracking support—by that, I mean you have to add billable hours without a stopwatch, which makes sense if you're running a bigger operation. The tax preparation features are in line with the basics for this category, and if you handle inventory, OneUp has an interesting feature as well: in addition to tracking what you have and what you're selling, you can also set up automatic inventory ordering, so you'll never run out of key products you sell frequently. 

OneUp Accounting pricing: Plans start at $9/month; you'll need at least the $19/month plan to invite your business partner or accountant and have access to support. Prices increase based on the number of users.

Best accounting software for in-depth reports

Sage Accounting (Web, iOS, Android)

Like Intuit, Sage has been around since the '80s. It's a giant company with an accounting software offer for every part of the business spectrum, from small operations to corporate behemoths. It's no wonder that everything in the app has a distinctly professional and corporate vibe, a no-nonsense approach to your accounting needs.

The reports are the best part about it. Audit trails and cash flow statements, two examples from the 23 available, can be customized to your liking by applying filters or date ranges. But if you want even more insight into your data, you can send it to Sage Business Cloud Intelligence, a report-building platform that will give you lots of new angles to play around with. There's a learning curve here, but if you're dealing with lots of data, getting acquainted with it may help you make sharper decisions in the long run.

The dashboard is very detailed, introducing cash flow statements, forecasting, and views into the balances of your bank accounts. Integrating your bank accounts is easy, and you can set up automation to categorize transactions. You can identify transactions by source, name, or value, and then set Sage to apply the categories automatically. The tax features are also in line with the category. In addition to sales tax tracking, there are also 1099 vendor reports, which can simplify your accountant's life (you can invite them in, by the way).

Unlike other tools that have mobile apps that capture receipts for free, this is a paid feature in Sage (called AutoEntry). But it doesn't only take care of receipts: once you set up rules to import data, you can upload any relevant documents, and Sage will take care of sorting it out, extracting data, and having it available for you when you need it. It's definitely a step up from the classic capture receipts feature, so if you're handling a lot of paperwork, this could cut the sweat from the blood and tears equation.

Sage integrates with 31 additional apps in the Sage marketplace, including Stripe, CRM solutions, time tracking tools, and payroll platforms. Some of these may come with extra costs, so keep an eye out for subscription expenses. To integrate Sage with even more of your tech stack, connect Sage to Zapier. Here are some suggestions to get started.

Sage Accounting pricing: Plans start at $10/month, but you'll want the $25/month plan to have more than one user and access to robust features.

Best accounting app for software suite integration

Zoho Books (Web, Windows, Mac, iOS, Android)

Zoho has a robust software suite. From app-building to project management, there's a tool for every corporate task, and accounting is no exception. I've used Zoho Books, tested Zoho Creator in the past, and have tried Zoho Invoices as well. The company cares about quality as much as it does about quantity.

Zoho Books focuses on the professional side of things. The interface can be cluttered at times (especially the further away you move from the dashboard into creating invoices, or when you find yourself in the maze of the settings section), but there's a lot of power here.

All the core bookkeeping features are there, including projects, time, and inventory tracking. These are easy to use once you get used to the amount of information and input fields on each page. There's a budgeting feature where you can set limits for the accounts you choose, and even include asset, liability, and equity accounts in the mix. It's not the intuitive personal finance approach, but it makes sense for business budgets. The reports section has a lot of variety, and you can mark your favorites and even configure report layouts.

The accounting features are great, both for your accountant (whom you can invite) and for you. There's a whole section dedicated to tracking tax payments and tax adjustments over time, and a journal section to record all other accounting events.

Zoho integrates with nine different payment portals to let your customers pay invoices online, and it even separates the Stripe transaction costs as its own expense category, so you can see how much you're spending on fees. Since we're talking about a software suite, there are also integrations you can explore with other Zoho apps. Or integrate it with thousands of other apps by connecting Zoho Books to Zapier. Here are some ideas to get you started.

Zoho Books feels like the quiet kid in class who dazzles everyone whenever there's an interesting topic to talk about. It doesn't waste your time with glitter and sparkles—it cuts straight to the chase and doesn't let you down.

Zoho Books pricing: Free plan available. Paid plans start at $12/organization/month. You can add additional users to any plan for $3/month.

Best accounting software for tracking vehicles and mileage

LessAccounting (Web)

LessAccounting lands you for the first time on a cute, colorful dashboard with basic information about your business. The design seems to promise what the app's name implies: accounting will somehow get easier, and we'll have to do less of it.

In addition to design, LessAccounting has a lot of written help inside most of the pages on the app. This is useful if there are features that you'll only use once in a while, or if you need a refresher on specific tax rules or accounting tricks. If you need extra help, you can chat with customer service on the bottom-right and search for help topics there.

The bookkeeping features are in line with the category standards, including recurring invoices and proposals. Unlike other options, you can add the company's vehicles to the app and then pin mileage to each one, an interesting feature if you have a whole fleet at your disposal. I added some fictional cars to test, and you can either add the total distance of the trip or the start and end values of the odometer.

You can create your own budgets for each spending category, a bit like the classic personal finance experience. This budgeting feature is the easiest to use out of all the options on this list, so you'll have less trouble planning your spending.

In line with this, LessAccounting sends you "Monday emails," an automated email that you get every (you guessed it) Monday with some stats about your business, as well as reminders in case you're coming dangerously close to breaking your budget.

As for payment integrations, you can choose Stripe, WePay, PayPal, and Square. And you can process payments via a LessAccounting deal at 2.7% and $0.30 per online transaction. LessAccounting has a dedicated team of accountants to help you if you don't have your own, so that could ease your tax season. That, coupled with the great variety of reports, ensures you'll always have multiple angles to look at your business, and have all the information at hand to please the IRS.

LessAccounting pricing: Free plan available for invoicing. Paid plans start at $24/month for accounting features.

Best open source accounting software

Manager (Web, Windows, Mac, Linux)

If you're not ready to commit to a monthly subscription, you like the vibe of open source software, and you don't need lots of advanced features, Manager is a great choice for simple accounting software. It has all the core bookkeeping features, including projects, time tracking (not timer-based), and a wide variety of useful modules.

When you hit Customize in the left menu, you can activate or deactivate all these modules depending on what you need. This ability to control the number of buttons on the menu is something I really like. Need purchase quotes? Add it in. Don't need investments? Uncheck the box. You control the clutter.

There's no onboarding sequence or detailed help within the app. You'll have to refer to the (very complete) documentation section to get up to speed on how everything works. If you already have experience with accounting apps, it shouldn't be too hard to get used to Manager.

Everything is local, so the app's speed is great. Your data is always inside your computer. But that also means there's no bank account integration, no automation, and no integration with other apps. If your accounting is straightforward and you can't automate a lot of it anyway, then Manager is a great option to keep your software expenses under control.

The dashboard is simple, just a list of the key information about your business. The reports section is surprisingly good, including a wide variety of options to see more into your finances.

Collaborating with an accountant isn't as easy as other options, but it's possible. If you're using the desktop app, you have two options: either back up all your information and send it to your accountant (remember to set up a secure way of doing this), or invite them over for a cup of coffee and an afternoon at your computer. If you go with option 2, take some time to chat and figure out how to streamline the tax season—it needs some configuration to get right.

When you visit the site, you'll notice there's an option to purchase hosting at $49 per month, which runs the very same Manager but on a cloud server you can access remotely. You can upgrade and downgrade at will, but let's be honest: if you're willing to pay, why would you do it with so many other attractive options on the market for a lower price?

Manager made this list because it's a free, open-source alternative to other paid apps on offer, with a set of strong core features and a simple user experience. It feels like a sleeper car: stock car on the outside, souped-up engine under the hood. Take it for a spin, and see how it handles.

Manager pricing: Complete desktop version is free. Paid cloud hosting option at $49/month.

Which accounting app should you use?

Honestly, the most important thing is that you toss your Excel sheet out the window and use a real accounting app. All the accounting software programs in this roundup have a free trial or a free tier that you can use to get a feel of the features on offer. Take some time to figure out what you value in an accounting app, and then try out the ones that offer the best package for your business.

This article was originally published in January 2019 by David Harrington. The most recent update was in May 2023.