7 Awesome Accounting Apps for Small Business Owners
The past decade or so has seen businesses get smaller in one important way: screen size. While for decades, most businesses relied heavily on traditional desktops and monitors to get things done, nowadays, work is getting done on mobile – and that even includes managing the books via accounting apps.
Sure, it might seem next to impossible to run a business’s finances on a screen that fits in your hand. But it’s not just possible – it’s prevalent. Depending on the survey, anywhere between 60% to 70% of accounting software providers offer at least one mobile app.
There are many excellent mobile and tablet apps out there that can help small business owners streamline their accounting responsibilities and cut down on bookkeeping mistakes. The following are some of the top mobile accounting apps you should consider using, as well as some features they offer.
Note: Accounting apps frequently change pricing tiers and promotions. All prices listed do not include promotions and are accurate as of the publishing date. Some prices reflect monthly cost when billed annually. Check the provider websites to learn about pricing depending on payment frequency as well as any current promotions.
7 Accounting Apps to Consider
QuickBooks Online
- Pricing: Free 30-day trial. Simple Start: $38/month. Essentials: $75/month. Plus: $115/month. Advanced: $275/ month.
If you use QuickBooks, and would like to continue doing so while on the road, the QuickBooks Online mobile accounting app is built for you.
The app has a number of capabilities, including entering transactions, recording expenses, invoicing customers, processing credit cards, scanning receipts, run P&L reports and more. For instance, you can use the app to create professional estimates with photos, plans, or contracts, then either send the estimates via email or let customers agree to them and sign right on your phone. Or you can use the QuickBooks mobile card reader to let a customer swipe, insert or tap a credit card, and QuickBooks will record the transaction and send the money to your bank account.
QuickBooks Online isn’t a separate service, but instead an app that comes with any QuickBooks subscription. However, potential users should take note of something QuickBooks itself says: “QuickBooks Online Simple Start works best with the mobile app because all its features are available,” whereas many features available in the other plans are only available on the web.
You should still get whatever plan best fits your business’s needs. Just understand that you won’t necessarily be able to do everything you need to away from your desk.
Expensify
- Pricing: Free 30-day trial. New Expensify: Certain functions free. Collect: $5/member/month. Custom pricing: As low as $9/member/month.
Expensify bills itself as “the fastest way to do your expenses.” But it’s also cost-friendly.
Expensify offers a wide variety of features, including expense management, receipt scanning, corporate card import, reimbursements, travel, and more. It also offers an Expensify Visa Commercial Card with cash-back rewards on purchases and unlimited virtual cards. And as of our last check, Expensify will reduce your monthly bill by 50% if you use the card for at least half your organization’s monthly purchases.
Users can always complete a few functions for free, but most of the accounting mobile app’s uses are covered under the company’s paid plans. For instance, the Collect plan includes receipt scanning, corporate card management, expensing, travel booking, QuickBooks/Xero integrations, and more. The Control plan includes everything in Collect, as well as multiple approval flows, ERP integration (with NetSuite and Sage Intacct, among others), human-resources integrations with Workday and Certinia, and more.
Xero
- Pricing: Free 30-day trial. Early: $20/month. Growing: $47/month. Established: $80/month.
Xero is another well-rounded accounting app with a focus on small businesses. It lets companies pay bills, claim expenses, make bank connections, accept payments and more. And regardless of your plan, it allows unlimited users at no additional charge.
Features vary by subscription tier. Xero Early allows users to send quotes and 20 invoices, enter bills, reconcile bank transactions, capture bills and receipts with Hubdoc, and includes other features such as W-9 and 1099 management, sales tax, 30-day cash-flow forecast and more. Higher-tiered plans offer additional features, such as unlimited invoicing, custom graphs and dashboards, project tracking, expense claiming, advanced KPI analysis, use of multiple currencies and more.
Xero also offers an optional inventory software add-on that lets you track stock levels, see what’s selling, add items to invoices, and more.
Zoho Books
- Pricing: Free 14-day trial. Early: $20/month. Growing: $47/month. Established: $80/month. Elite: $150/month. Ultimate: $275/month.
Zoho Books is the focused accounting offering within Zoho’s exhaustive family of business applications. And its subscription plan set is among the most granular in the industry – a group of six different tiers that range from free to several hundred dollars per month.
The free version, aimed at “solopreneurs” and microbusinesses, has plenty of functionality, including creating invoices, expensing, sales receipts, mileage tracking, accepting online payments, bank reconciliation, W-9 management and more. As the tiers go up, so do the number of users and features. More advanced offerings include recurring expenses, divisional reports, API access, customized business workflows, project profitability, cash-flow forecasting, even warehouse management and Shopify store integrations.
Wave
- Pricing: Starter: No monthly fee. Pro: $190/year.
Wave is an exceptionally easy-to-use small-business accounting app that’s best for extremely small businesses given its (relatively) limited feature list.
The Starter plan allows you to send invoices, estimates and other documents, invoice and estimate in the mobile app, create unlimited bookkeeping records, get insights via your dashboards, and more. However, the Starter plan requires you to pay for different add-ons to unlock several features. The Pro plan includes many more features, including auto-import of bank transactions, auto-merging and categorizing transactions, adding users to your account and third-party integrations, among others.
If you want to accept online payments, you’ll pay 2.9% (or 3.4% for Amex) plus 60 cents per credit card transaction in the Starter plan, or 2.9% (or 3.4% for Amex) in the Pro plan. Payroll is an add-on at $40 per month. Unlimited digital receipt capture comes with Pro but is $8/month or $72/year with Starter.
Patriot Software
- Pricing: Accounting Basic: $20/month. Accounting Premium: $30/month. Basic Payroll: $17/month plus $4/worker. Full Service Payroll: $37/month plus $5/worker.
Patriot Software is really two offerings: accounting software, and payroll software, both with their own individual plans.
On the accounting side, the Basic plan provides unlimited customers, vendors, contractors, invoices, and payments; automatic bank imports; income and expense tracking; accepting credit card payments; and account reconciliation. Premium adds on creating and sending estimates, recurring invoices, payment reminders, receipt management, and more. Bookkeeping is also available as an add-on at $100/month with a one-time onboarding fee.
For payroll, Basic comes with free direct deposit and employee portals, unlimited payrolls, contractor payment, 401(k) integration, workers’ comp integration and payroll reports. Full Service adds federal, state and local tax filings and deposits; year-end payroll tax filings; and guaranteed tax filing reliability. Paid add-ons include time and attendance and HR software.
Patriot’s pricing is very competitive, and it’s accessible to less-savvy software users. But it’s missing features of higher-polish apps, including inventory tracking and time tracking.
Rydoo
- Pricing: Essentials: $9/user/month. Pro: $11/user/month. Business: Custom. Enterprise: Custom.
Expense management app Rydoo is a smart expense management platform. Rydoo’s tiers are divided by “online self-service” and “personalized guidance.” Essentials and Pro, each of which start at five users, include features such as a mobile app with a receipt scanner, unlimited expenses, mileage expenses, local legal and tax compliance, per diems (Pro only), automated transaction reconciliation (Pro only) and more.
Business and Enterprise, which start at 30 active users, enjoy Rydoo corporate expense cards, API access, custom bank transactions feed, priority ticket support service, advanced approval workflows (Enterprise only), an Insights Management dashboard (Enterprise only) and more.
Its artificial intelligence platform will then extract all the pertinent details and turn it into an expense report. Rydoo isn’t a full-service accounting app, but it can integrate with other accounting software and enterprise resource planning systems. The company claims its app reduces time spent on expenses by 50%, and it boasts a 95% employee satisfaction rate. Plans start at $12/month.
What Are the Best Accounting Apps for You?
McManamon & Co. is an accounting, tax, fraud, forensic and consulting firm that offers custom services to companies across a broad spectrum of industries. And while experienced accountants can help you balance the books, we also can point out which accounting apps can help you take your business paperless – and even show you how to use them.
Learn more about what we can do for your small or midsize business. Call us at 440.892.8900 or contact us online today.
Tags: accounting, accounting apps, accounting software, McManamon, McManamon & Co., small business, small business accounting | Posted in accounting, McManamon & Co., small business