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5 Best Alternatives to Quickbooks

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featured image: 5 Best Alternatives to Quickbooks

Are you looking for a fresh approach to managing your business finances? As one of the most popular accounting software options for small and medium-sized businesses, QuickBooks has long been the go-to choice for many entrepreneurs. However, with an ever-evolving business landscape and diverse needs, it’s essential to explore other alternatives that may better suit your unique requirements.

In this article, we’ll dive into some of the top QuickBooks alternatives on the market, highlighting their key features, benefits, and pricing to help you make an informed decision for your financial management needs. Say goodbye to settling for the status quo and hello to a world of accounting possibilities.

Overview of Quickbooks

quickbooks homepage

Quickbooks is a software that helps small businesses and freelancers create and send professional invoices, track payments, and expenses, manage taxes, and more. It is designed to make invoicing and accounting easy and fast by automating various tasks and integrating them with other tools.

Features

quickbooks dashboard

Quickbooks has different features for different parts of invoicing and accounting. Some of the main features are:

  • Invoicing: Create and send customized invoices with your logo, terms, and payment options. Accept payments from various methods (including credit card payments, bank transfers, PayPal, etc.). Send automatic payment reminders and late fees. Track invoice status and history.
  • Accounting: Generate financial reports like income statements, balance sheets, cash flow statements, etc. Categorize transactions automatically or manually. Connect with your bank accounts and credit cards. Track sales tax and file returns.
  • Expenses: Capture receipts with your phone camera or email. Track mileage with GPS or manual entry. Categorize expenses by project or client.
  • Projects: Create projects for each client or job. Track time, expenses, invoices, payments, profitability, etc. Collaborate with your team members or contractors. Set budgets and deadlines.

Benefits

Quickbooks’ main benefits are:

  • It saves time by automating invoicing and accounting tasks
  • It integrates well with other tools like TSheets (for time tracking), and Expensify (for expense tracking)
  • It helps you get paid faster by offering multiple payment options

You can learn more about Quickbook’s benefits and features in our full Quickbooks review.

Pricing

quickbooks pricing page

Quickbooks has four pricing plans to suit different needs:

  • Simple Start plan ($30/month): This plan includes invoices, unlimited estimates, expense tracking, sales tax tracking & filing, and income & expense reports.
  • Essentials plan ($55/month): This plan includes everything in the Simple Start plan plus bill management & payment (with no fees), time tracking by project or client, 3 user access & permissions.
  • Plus plan ($85/month): This plan includes everything in the Essentials plan plus project profitability tracking & reports, inventory tracking & reports, and multiple users access & permissions (up to five users).
  • Advanced plan ($200/month): This plan includes everything in the Plus plan plus custom user roles & permissions (up to twenty-five users), advanced reporting & analytics, and batch invoicing & expenses.

Support

Get in touch with support using:

  • Help Center: A collection of articles that answer common questions about using Quickbooks’ features
  • Chat Support: A live chat option that connects users with Quickbooks’ support team
  • Phone Support: A phone number that users can call for any issues or inquiries

Quickbooks also how-to tutorials, plus useful tools like a sales tax calculator

Best Quickbooks alternatives

QuickBooks Online is a popular accounting software, but it’s not the only option available. There are several other software programs that offer similar features and can be used as alternatives to QuickBooks. Here are some of the best QuickBooks alternatives:

  • Freshbooks: FreshBooks is an accounting software that offers an easy-to-use interface and is targeted toward freelancers and service-based businesses. It offers features such as time tracking, project management, and expense tracking.
  • Wave: Wave is a free accounting software that offers unlimited invoicing and accounting, receipt capture and organization, and the ability to accept payments. It’s designed to be easy for freelancers and small business owners to use, while also providing robust reports and functionality for accountants.
  • Zoho Books: Zoho Books is a cloud-based accounting software that offers features such as invoicing, expense tracking, time tracking, and payroll. It’s popular for its affordability and user-friendly bookkeeping features for small businesses.
  • Bonsai: Bonsai is an all-in-one integrated software suite targeted at freelancers. It offers smart automation to save you time, plus makes it super easy to get paid quickly.
  • Sage: Sage offers two cloud-based accounting software options: Sage 50cloud Accounting and Sage Business Cloud Accounting. Sage 50cloud Accounting is designed for growing businesses and offers features such as inventory management and job costing. Sage Business Cloud Accounting is designed for small businesses and offers features such as invoicing, cash flow management, and automation.

Now let’s dive into the details for each.

FreshBooksfreshbooks homepage

FreshBooks is a software that helps small businesses and freelancers create and send invoices, manage expenses, track time, accept payments, and more. It is designed to make invoicing and accounting easy and professional by offering various features and integrations.

Features

freshbooks features dashboard

FreshBooks’ best features for freelancers are:

  • One-click document generation: You can create professional-looking invoices, estimates, and proposals with just a few clicks.
  • Time tracking: You can track your time spent on projects and tasks and automatically add them to your invoices.
  • Online payments: You can accept payments online through various methods, such as credit cards, PayPal, Stripe and more. You can also automate recurring billing and charge late fees for overdue invoices.
  • Multi-currency invoicing: You can bill your clients in their local currency and get paid in yours without any hassle.
  • Customizable invoice messages: You can personalize your invoice messages with your own branding, logo, terms, and thank you notes

Benefits

Some of the benefits of using FreshBooks are:

  • Integrated financial management: You can handle invoices, expenses, reports and payments on the same platform.
  • Simple and clear interface: You can easily navigate and use FreshBooks without any hassle or confusion.
  • Strong reporting: You can generate detailed and customizable reports on your income, expenses, taxes, and more with FreshBooks and get insights for making better decisions

Read our full FreshBooks review here.

  • Lack of some advanced features
  • Limited integration options
  • Small pool of accountant partners

Zoho Books as a Quickbooks Alternative

Zoho Books is a cloud-based accounting software and an affordable QuickBooks alternative, offering invoicing, expense tracking, time tracking, and payroll features. With a free plan for low-revenue businesses, it’s popular among small businesses for its user-friendliness.

QuickBooks provides more versatility and customization but costs $5-$75/month. Zoho Books suits simple bookkeeping and tight budgets, while QuickBooks is ideal for advanced features like inventory management.

Pricing

FreshBooks has four pricing plans to suit different needs

  • Lite plan ($17/month): This plan includes unlimited invoices, unlimited estimates (with 2.9% + 30¢ fee per transaction), unlimited expense tracking, time tracking & projects, and up to five billable clients.
  • Plus plan ($30/month): This plan includes everything in the Lite plan plus bill management & payment, advanced reports & insights, and up to 50 billable clients.
  • Premium plan ($55/month): This plan includes everything in the Plus plan plus custom functionality & workflows, and unlimited clients.
  • Select plan ($Custom): This plan includes everything in the Premium plan plus a dedicated account manager & support team.

Try FreshBooks for Free

Support

FreshBooks offers customer support by phone, email, and online chat. They have different toll-free numbers for different regions and countries12. Their support hours are Mondays through Fridays from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. ET.

FreshBooks has a YouTube channel where they host their current webinars on various topics such as getting started, invoicing, expenses, reports, and more. You can also sign up for future webinars on their website.

Pros and Cons

Pros

  • Intuitive and easy to use interface
  • Affordable prices at a lower tier
  • Double-entry accounting reports feature

Cons

  • Limits on users and clients per plan
  • Higher fees for additional users and clients
  • Ideal solution for small enterprises only

Try FreshBooks today

FreshBooks as a Quickbooks alternative

FreshBooks is an accounting software often considered as a QuickBooks alternative, offering an easy-to-use interface targeted towards freelancers and service-based businesses. It provides time tracking, project management, and expense tracking, with better invoicing customization and customer service than QuickBooks. On the other hand, QuickBooks has more features for project accounting, cash-flow, and inventory management but costs $5-$75/month depending on the plan.

Deciding between QuickBooks and FreshBooks depends on your business size, industry, and desired features. FreshBooks is ideal for simple bookkeeping and service-based businesses, while QuickBooks suits those needing advanced features like inventory management or time tracking.

Wave: An all-round invoicing and accounting software

wave homepage

Wave is a free invoicing software that comes with accounting, invoicing, payroll, and online payment processing for small businesses. It was founded in 2010 and has over 4 million users worldwide. Wave Financial is ideal for freelancers, solopreneurs, consultants, and other service-based businesses that need a simple and affordable way to manage their finances.

Features

wave features dashboard

Wave’s best features include:

  • Accounting: You can track your income and expenses, connect your bank accounts and credit cards, and generate reports such as balance sheets, income statements, etc.
  • Invoicing: You can create professional invoices with your own logo and branding. You can also send reminders, and accept online payments via credit card or bank transfer.
  • Payroll: You can pay your employees or contractors with direct deposit or check. You can also handle taxes, deductions etc.
  • Payments: You can accept online payments from your customers via credit card or bank transfer. You can also track payment status and fees etc.

Benefits

Some of the benefits of using Wave Financial are:

  • Free: Wave Financial does not charge any monthly fees for its accounting and invoicing features. It only charges transaction fees for online payments and payroll fees ($40 per month plus $6 per employee/contractor)
wave pricing page
  • Easy to use: Wave Financial has a user-friendly interface that makes it easy to set up and use. It also has a mobile app that lets you manage your finances on the go.
  • Secure: Wave Financial uses encryption, SSL certificates, etc. to protect your data. It also complies with PCI-DSS standards for online payments

Pros and cons

Pros

  • Free accounting and invoicing features
  • Easy-to-use interface
  • Secure data protection
  • Multiple currency support

Cons

  • Limited customization options
  • No inventory management
  • No phone support

Try out Wave for free

Wave as a Quickbooks alternative

Wave is a free accounting software that is often considered as an alternative to QuickBooks. It offers a suite of features for small businesses, including unlimited invoicing and accounting, receipt capture and organization, and the ability to accept payments. Wave is designed to be easy for freelancers and small business owners to use, while also providing robust reports and functionality for accountants.

QuickBooks, on the other hand, offers a more advanced set of features, including budgeting and inventory management functions¹. However, it comes at a cost, with pricing ranging from $5-$75/month depending on the plan you choose.

Deciding between QuickBooks and Wave as your accounting system depends on your business size, industry, and the features that matter most to you. If you’re just after a simple bookkeeping tool to manage your finances, Wave will do more than meet your needs. Since Wave is free for life, it’s a better choice than QuickBooks for new businesses on a strict budget. However, if you need more advanced features such as inventory management or time tracking, QuickBooks may be a better fit for your business.

Zoho Books

zoho homepage

Zoho Books is an online accounting software that helps you manage your finances, automate business workflows, and collaborate with your team and accountant. It is part of the Zoho suite of apps that offers a range of solutions for different business needs. Zoho Books is designed for freelancers, small and medium-sized businesses that want to streamline their accounting processes and stay compliant with tax regulations.

Features

zoho features dashboard

Some of the best features of Zoho Books are:

  • Invoicing: Create professional invoices in seconds, customize them with your logo and branding, send them via email or SMS, and track their status. 
  • Expenses: You can record and categorize your expenses, attach receipts, set up recurring expenses, and automate expense approvals. 
  • Banking: You can connect your bank and credit card accounts to Zoho Books and automatically import your transactions. You can also create bank rules to categorize them and reconcile them with your books. 
  • Contacts: You can manage all your customers and vendors in one place, view their transaction history and outstanding balances, send statements and payment receipts, and enable customer portal and vendor portal for online collaboration.

Benefits

Some of the benefits of using Zoho Books for a freelancer are:

  • create and send professional invoices in multiple languages and currencies, and accept online payments from various gateways.
  • track your time and expenses for each project and bill your clients accordingly.
  • You can connect your bank and credit card accounts and import your transactions automatically, saving you time and hassle.
  • access your accounting data from anywhere using the mobile app or the web browser.
  • You can use the free plan if your revenue is less than $50,000 per annum, 

Zoho Books Pricing

zoho pricing page

Zoho Books has 6 pricing tiers:

  • Free with 1 user account
  • Standard ($20/mo) with 3 users and up to 5000 invoices a month
  • Professional ($50/mo) with 5 users, unlimited invoices and custom reports
  • Premium ($70/mo) with 10 users and custom domain support
  • Elite ($150/mo) with 10 users, and advanced currency and inventory handling tools
  • Ultimate ($275/mo) with 15 users, advanced analytics and 25 custom modules.

Zoho Books also offers a free trial where you can experiment with all its features to get a feel for the software.

Get signed up for Zoho today

Support

You can connect with Zoho’s customer support over email, phone or their social channels. They have a solid collection of resources on their website to help customers as well. Find help documentation, FAQs, product videos and customer forums, from some of the other helpful options.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

  • Ease of use
  • Affordability
  • Integrations
  • Free plan option
  • Robust mobile app

Cons:

Bonsai

bonsai homepage

Bonsai is software that helps freelancers manage their finances, contracts, proposals, projects, and more. It is designed to save time and get paid faster by automating invoicing, banking, accounting, and tax preparation.

Features

bonsai features dashboard

Bonsai has several features that help with different parts of being a freelancer. Some of the main features are:

  • Invoicing: Create and send professional invoices in seconds, accept payments from various methods (including credit cards), send automatic reminders and late fees, track payments and expenses, and sync with accounting software.
  • Banking: Open a dedicated account and card for all business expenses, get FDIC-insured up to $250,000, access instant payouts and cashback rewards, and manage your cash flow with smart insights.
  • Accounting: Generate income statements, balance sheets, tax reports, and 1099 forms, categorize transactions automatically or manually, and integrate with popular accounting tools like QuickBooks.
  • Contracts: Create and send legally binding contracts in minutes using templates or customizing your own terms. Get signatures online or via email. Track contract status and revisions.
  • Proposals: Create and send stunning proposals that showcase your work and value proposition. Track proposal views and conversions.

Benefits

Bonsai has many advantages over other software or manual methods for freelancers. Some of them are:

  • It simplifies invoicing as you can charge your customer the credit card processing fees, saving you money on transaction costs.
  • It streamlines banking by providing you with a separate account and card for your business expenses, making it easier to track your income and spending.
  • It simplifies accounting by generating reports and forms automatically based on your transactions, saving you time on bookkeeping and tax preparation.
  • It protects you legally by providing you with templates of contracts that are compliant with local laws, reducing the risk of disputes or lawsuits.
  • It helps you win more clients by providing you with tools to create impressive proposals that highlight your skills, increasing your conversion rate.

Pricing

bonsai pricing page

Bonsai has three pricing plans to suit different needs:

  • Starter plan ($24/month): This plan includes clients, unlimited projects, time-tracking, client CRM, expense tracking, reporting & analytics.
  • Plus plan ($39/month): This plan includes everything in the Starter plan plus workflow automations, Client Portal, QuickBooks integration, and custom branding.
  • Premium plan ($79/month): This plan includes everything in the Plus plan and hiring agreement templates, subcontractor management, multiple bank connections, and unlimited project collaborators.

Start Using Bonsai for Free

Support

Bonsai offers a help center, where you can quickly find clearly explained articles related to various topics on Bonsai.

There’s also a live chat support function so that you can get in touch with the support team directly in real time. Plus, if you prefer email, the Bonsai team is available via email at [email protected].

Pros and Cons

Pros

  • easy to use and user-friendly,
  • automates many tasks that would otherwise take a lot of time,
  • integrates well with other tools like Zapier
  • great free plan

Cons

  • no phone support or live webinars for training
  • simple automations compared to some other invoice software

Try Bonsai for free

Bonsai as a Quickbooks alternative

Bonsai is an all-in-one integrated software suite tailored for freelancers, offering smart automation and easy payment processing as a QuickBooks alternative. It is ideal for self-employed individuals seeking a simple bookkeeping tool to manage their finances. In contrast, QuickBooks provides a more versatile and customizable set of features, including budgeting and inventory management, with pricing ranging from $5-$75/month depending on the plan.

Bonsai is well-suited for freelancers needing straightforward financial management, while QuickBooks is a better fit for businesses requiring advanced features like inventory management or time tracking.

Sage

sage homepage

Sage is a software that helps small businesses create and send personalized invoices, track payments, and expenses, manage taxes, and more. It is designed to make invoicing fast, secure, and seamless by offering various features and integrations.

Accounting Features

sage features dashboard
  • Invoicing tracking: Sage lets you organize and automate invoice tracking, making it easy to track payments, create invoices with automated payment links, manage taxes, and more
  • Accounting: Create financial reports like income statements, balance sheets, cash flow statements, etc. Categorise transactions automatically or manually.
  • Expenses: Sync with your bank accounts with Sage Accounting. Import transactions automatically and get an accurate, real-time view of your accounts.

Benefits

Sage’s top advantages are:

  • Easy invoicing
  • Multiple payment options
  • It keeps you compliant by calculating sales tax accurately
  • It offers cloud-based access to your data from any device.

Pricing

sage pricing page

Sage has two pricing plans to suit different needs:

  • Accounting Start plan ($10/month): This plan includes invoices, estimates, expense tracking, sales tax tracking & filing, and income & expense reports.
  • Accounting plan ($25/month): This plan includes everything in the Accounting Start plan plus bill management & payment, time tracking by project or client, unlimited user access & permissions.

Use Sage Free for 3 Months

Support

Sage offers various options for customer support, such as:

  • Phone: You can call their toll-free number (for US customers) or visit their website to find the phone number for your country.
  • Email: You can email them at [email protected] or use their online form to submit a request.
  • Website and chat: You can visit their website and access their resource center, where you can find articles, videos, webinars, tutorials, and more. You can also chat with a support agent online.

Pros and Cons

Sage invoicing is a feature that allows you to create, send and track invoices automatically to improve your accounting process and cash flow. Some of the pros and cons of using Sage invoicing are:

Pros

  • Low price: Sage invoicing is included in all Sage Business Cloud Accounting plans, which start from $10 per month.
  •  Easy to use: Sage invoicing has a simple and intuitive interface that lets you create invoices quickly and easily.
  •  Customizable: You can choose from nine different invoice templates and add your own logo, colors, headings and footer details.

Cons

  •  Basic plan: The cheapest plan only allows you to create up to five invoices per month. If you need more, you have to upgrade to a higher plan.

Try Sage for free

Sage as a Quickbooks alternative

Sage is an accounting software often considered as a QuickBooks alternative, providing solutions for larger companies and enterprises, with features such as HR, inventory management, expense tracking, cash flow management, invoicing, and reporting. Sage Business Cloud Accounting is designed for small businesses and offers two plans: a light version for freelancers at $10 per month and a small business plan at $25 per month. QuickBooks targets small to medium-sized businesses, offering features like a mobile app, invoicing, income tracking, and cash flow management, with plans starting at $30 per month.

Sage is better suited for large businesses or those with robust inventory needs and project management tools, while QuickBooks is more user-friendly for small to mid-sized businesses that use bookkeepers.

Quickbooks Alternatives Wrap Up

These 5 accounting solutions serve as alternatives to QuickBooks accounting software, including Zoho Books, Wave, FreshBooks, Bonsai, and Sage. Each small business accounting software offers unique features and benefits tailored to different business needs. Whether you’re a freelancer, small business owner, or part of a larger enterprise, there’s an accounting solution available to meet your requirements. Take the time to research and compare the various options to find the best fit for your business.

Still curious? We have dedicated articles for invoicing software for freelancers, along with a piece on best business budgeting software, for you to make fully informed decisions on your business software decisions.

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