6 Best Accounting Software every Business needs

Business owners have always been bothered by the complex bookkeeping methods. Tax calculations, monthly and annual reports and other legal requirements have remained a headache but not any longer. There are a number of online platforms that can help you keep your books in order or if you need a professional accountant, you can avail their services as well at minimal costs.

This is always a concern for small businesses who have just started and cannot hire a full-time accountant to manage their books. Don’t worry we are here for you!

What you should know about Accounting Software and Services?

An accounting or book-keeping software helps you to record and maintain all activities of your business to keep a track of how much you have invested, what are your returns, the worth and quantity of any stock you have and much more.

Similarly, accounting or bookkeeping services are ones that manage your entire books A to Z. If you have an accounting software, you still need to record your activities in the form of transactions. Unless you have sufficient knowledge of how to maintain your books, a good accounting software can still be a headache at times. Such owners opt for accounting services.

Why use accounting software?

Maintaining proper books and records is important for any kind of business. These records can be summarized to produce financial reports. These reports hold valuable data to track investments, income and expenses that can ultimately affect your profits.

Additionally, taxes are always tricky to handle and when you have no accounts, things get complex to a whole new level. In such a situation, the use of accounting tools can be very handy and provide you following benefits:

• If you have maintained your accounts on an accounting software, you can generate important summaries as balance sheet and income statement immediately with just one-click whenever you need to. You have a complete track of your business all the time.
• Accounting software free or paid, online or on-desktop, all can be used to generate periodic reports. These reports may just show the history of your business for the previous month but these actually are the key to analyze your business. For example, by comparing your sales on monthly basis, you can keep a track of what do your customers like, how much sales you made and what product should you keep in more stocks.
• You cannot remember each and everything that you did in the last month or year. How are you going to face the tax officer when he shows up? Neatly maintained books reduce his time at your place and you can easily answer his queries as well.

So, it is always good to maintain your books in good shape irrespective the size of your business.

6 Accounting services for all types of Businesses

Choosing an accounting service is important because you want to keep it cost effective, preferably free without making any compromise on the quality of service that you get. Out list of ‘best small business accounting product’ will surely help you out to choose the best suited for your needs.

1. Freshbooks

FreshBooks can easily be ranked as ‘the best accounting software for small businesses.’ FreshBooks has been around since 2000 and has been serving its clients well. The company claims to have served over 24 million people and their clients still grow with each passing day.

What is so special about FreshBooks? Instead of focusing on just one feature, FreshBooks ensures that each and every facility in their system is industry-leading. It provides an overall excellent service and is reliable to do the job.

FreshBooks allows you to generate professional invoices as well as time tracking for a services business. You can conveniently track your expenses and keep your hold strong on your cash and liquidity situations.

It even allows you to send proposals and invoices to your customer. This feature is especially useful for contractual based offerings. Integration with other applications including Stripe, MailChimp, Gmail and Bench are simply seamless but the star of the show is yet to come.

Automated bank reconciliations are one feature that FreshBooks nails at. Bank account reconciliations are always a fuss because each and every transaction has to be painstakingly matched in your account with the bank statement to identify any missing ones. Automated reconciliations are a dream come true for any business owner and accountant. Thanks to the amazing accounting software ‘FreshBooks’, your day is saved.

You must be thinking, all of this must cost a fortune but no. FreshBooks starts at $4.5 a month with the base which goes up to a $15 a month for the Premium plan.

If you still have any doubts, feel free to look more for yourself at FreshBooks. Book your one-month free trial now to avail such convenient features of FreshBooks.

2. Bench

Bench is not just an accounting software but a complete accounting service that has been featured in major journals and newspapers including The New York Times, Forbes and The Wall Street Journal.
Working with Bench means you simply outsource your records maintenance and financial reporting to professional accountants who will now take care of all of your business needs. You just have to share details about your activities and they will essentially be managing your business with you.
Bench offers four different varieties of services in consideration with the client’s needs:

1. Monthly Bookkeeping: The bookkeepers from Bench get you all set up with the Bench platform and you keep entering your activities throughout the month in the system. At the end of the month, they extract the data and convert them into financials and present it to you in no time.
2. Bench Tax: For those of you who are looking for a tax consultant, these guys at Bench have the key to your problems. At just $100 a month, they will prepare your tax returns, file them, look out for any changes and revisions and make sure that you remain tension-free.
3. Catchup Bookkeeping: Has your accountant left the job recently or did you not find enough time to keep your records? Not a problem because Bench offers Catchup Bookkeeping for such clients in which Bench delivers tax-ready neat and clean financials. This way you can easily get on track once again.
4. Bench Retro: Bench Retro offers all clients who never maintained any records the opportunity to be a part of the formal economy. This is very important especially if you want to upscale your business or looking for a loan. Bench can be very useful in this situation.

When it comes to service charges, Bench offers very flexible pricing plans which are proportional to your monthly expenses. Starting with the Starter plan which costs $159 a month if you have expenses ranging between $0 and $3000. This keeps on increasing to the Corporate plan at $419 per month for monthly expenses between $100,000 to $1,000,000.

Opt for Bench here and do away with your accounting mess for good!

3. Quaderno

We can easily rank Quaderno as your best Sales Tax consultant ever. How are we so confident? Quaderno integrates with your business and automatically calculates all applicable taxes on any invoice to be sent to and from any jurisdiction around the world.

Quaderno has become a favorite of entrepreneurs who are too busy scaling their business that they do not have time to waste on tax calculations. Quaderno saves their valuable time by taking away their tax worries and jurisdiction compliance problems.

When you are running an online business, you are practically talking to the entire world as your customer but you can not memorize tax laws of all of these countries. Quaderno understands your needs and comes in handy. It can easily integrate with all major shopping carts and payment methods and generates customized invoices for businesses with automatically calculated tax added. All you have to do is print or email it and you are done!

You can always check the automated reports whenever you want and all of your details will be there cleanly written for you.

Quaderno is not a very highly charging tax consultant either. The Startup package starts at $49 a month and processes up to 250 transactions. However, their recommended plan is the Business Plan at $99 for up to 1000 transactions.

Visit Quaderno here and know more about this incredible tax solution.

4. More Than Accountants

More than Accountants is a UK-based accountant organization that offers bookkeeping, accounting and quarterly reporting service. They are an accounting service provider that you outsource your bookkeeping to. With their own award-winning software, More than Accountants ensure that all of your records are in place and easily accessible in time for any reports. They ensure that your business complies with all relevant laws and regulations and your tax returns are correctly prepared. Additionally, they also provide valuable insights for your business to help it grow and get out of any difficult situations.

About their pricing, they do not have any fixed price plans. Their offers are on a quotation basis depending upon the needs of their client so you will always get what is suited for your business at a price just right for you.

Just one thing that their services are limited to UK only so you might not be able to benefit from them elsewhere.

Contact More than Accountants here on their website and know more about these highly qualified professionals.

5. ZarMoney

ZarMoney is a US based organization that provides accounting software on cloud. Recommended by thousands of users around the world, ZarMoney promises to offer the best bookkeeping platform.

With its intuitive interface, ZarMoney makes bookkeeping and accounting look like a piece of cake. Generating invoices, processing online payments, preparing quotes and managing your inventory are very easy.

The useability of the platform is further enhanced by integration of other marketing and payment software. But the most significant feature is the insightful reports that it generates so you keep up-to-date on your business. You can even customize these reports and get tailored insights according to business’s needs.

ZarMoney stands true as a small business accounting software and offers unlimited transactions with 2 users at $20 only.

Register with ZarMoney now and get helpful insights on your business right away.

6. Less Accounting

Less Accounting gets to be the best bookkeeping software for self employed because it is packed with features that can help a self-employed person or a freelancer in uncountable ways.

You can generate proposals and invoices fast, all customized and branded to your business. The accounting part is always ready. Whenever you need them, two clicks and your financial reports are right in front of you.

Now instead of relying on your accountant for each and everything, you can collaborate with him and share your own insights as well.

That is all very good but if that is not enough for you to rely on, Less Accounting offers a Free plan as well to gain your trust. However, the more interesting one is their Lite for Self-Employed at $24 a month. Now that is more like it, right?
Head to Less Accounting here and smoothen your bookkeeping right away!

Final Verdict

So, what is our final recommendation? You see, each of these software serves a different purpose so let me lay them out for you.

• If you are a small business looking for an all-around reliable accounting software, FreshBooks is just the way to go.
• Need to outsource your long-pending bookkeeping and accounting? Go ahead for Bench confidently.
• You are an online business and has to deal with tax requirements internationally, integrate Quaderno into your operations.
• More than Accountants is your go-to place if you are any small, medium or large enterprise based in UK and are looking to outsource your accounting function.
• Less Accounting is built for self-employed persons who may or may not be permanently working from home such as freelancers but need to handle their business professionally irrespective of their work and clients.

What are your views on our recommendations? Do you approve of these or would you like to add to it?

Feel free to interact with us. We would love to hear from you.