Upfront Conclusion
The best cheap accounting software right now is FreshBooks and Zoho Books.
Accounting software is the best alternative to the manual mode of accounting to handle the financial aspects of your business. With the advent of the modern computer science era, technology has made its mark on almost all areas of businesses as well and accounting isn’t an exception.
The simplest of accounting software help you do basic accounting activities such as record income/expense, generate and send invoices, pay bills, automate general ledger entries, track revenue, and cash flows, etc. On the other, more advanced accounting software includes other advanced-level accounting modules for reporting, sales tax calculations, sales analysis, inventory management, payroll, etc.
Trending Accounting Solutions
Finding the right tool, however, is a tough task as you have to seek a solution tailored to your business’s needs. Moreover, you have to look for a tool with the best features and low costs, especially when your business is at the early stages. And that is the right policy as well because you don’t need to spend big on account software when there are some remarkable free and cheap options up for grab.
Free and cheap accounting software may seem impossible or a daydream but they are available. Such free and low-cost accounting tools offer enough to enhance your bookkeeping abilities. In this article, we are going to share with you the best cheap accounting software that you can turn to in order to handle the financial aspects of your business.
7 Best Cheap Accounting Software
| Brand | Starting price | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| 1. FreshBooks | $108 – $360/year | Desktop and mobile environments |
| 2. Zoho Books | $15 – $60/month | Business transactions |
| 3. Patriot | $20 – $30/month | Simplicity |
| 4. Bonsai | $17 – $24/Month | Task Organization |
| 5. CloudBooks | $10 – $20/month | Small businesses |
| 6. Wave | Free | Small businesses |
| 7. SlickPie | Free | Simplicity and user-friendly |
| 8. ZipBooks | $15 – $35/month | Simple and complex bookkeeping activities |
| 9. Akaunting | Free | Cost-free |
| 10. Sunrise | $149 – $499/month | Numerous top-quality features |
| 11. GnuCash | Free | Flexible |
1. FreshBooks
FreshBooks is an accounting software built for both desktop and mobile environments. It is designed with business owners in mind making it user-friendly. Over 30 million people use FreshBooks worldwide. Its easy invoicing, expense and time tracking, reporting, and payment collecting can save you time.
FreshBooks’s library of app integrations is continually growing, and support is always one-click away. As always, live support is included in the price of any subscription.
Key features
- Extended live telephone support provided with your subscription.
- Easy and intuitive user interface.
- Invite team members and collaborate with them.
- Fulfill basic reporting needs with one click.
- Hundreds of app integrations.
- Create professional invoices and collect secure payments through an online portal.
Pricing
FreshBooks offers a discount for its annual plans. The company is currently offering 60% off for the first 6 months for new members. If you select the annual option, you will receive an extra 10% off. FreshBooks makes upgrading your plan simple and easy, and you can do so as your business grows. It also offers a free trial with no credit card required.
- The Lite plan starts at $108 per year for the first year.
- The Plus plan starts at $180 per year for the first year.
- The Premium plan starts at $360 per year for the first year.
The Plus plan is the most popular amongst FreshBooks customers. You cannot beat the robust features for the price point. The addition of live support makes this a price-friendly option.
2. Zoho Books
Zoho Books is a cloud-based accounting software that lets you organize your business transactions and keep your accounts up to date, so you can make smart business decisions. Cloud accounting offers you peace of mind with automatic back-ups, and Zoho Books provides an auto-scan feature that automatically converts your documents into an expense, bill, or purchase order, so you don’t have to keep track of it.
Best of all, Zoho Books is well-rounded providing invoicing, journals, expenses, banking, inventory, payments, and reporting all in one place.
Key features
- Create fully customizable and professional invoices and set up recurring invoices and automatic payment reminders.
- Collaborate with your team members with the multi-user interface.
- Auto-scan your documents and eliminate data entry.
- Automatically backup your data and access it even if your subscription expires.
- Easily integrate with a library of over 40 applications to suit your growing business needs.
- Free customer support via email, phone, or chat.
Pricing
Zoho Books offers a free 14-day trial with full capabilities. For those who have an annual revenue of less than $50,000, it provides a free option with limited capabilities. You can save money by choosing an annual subscription over a recurring monthly payment.
- The Free plan has limited capabilities and requires an annual revenue of less than $50,000.
- The Standard plan costs $15 per month when billed annually.
- The Professional plan costs $40 per month annually.
- The Premium plan costs $60 per month annually.
Zoho Book’s free plan has limitations, but it is a great starting point for new businesses. The software is intuitive and user-friendly. Zoho Books was built with small businesses in mind, so no prior accounting knowledge is necessary
3. Patriot
Patriot Accounting is the best cheap accounting software for companies with an easy-to-use interface that allows you to do payroll online in three simple steps. It provides free direct deposits and AP Intego integration for automated payments of workers’ compensation insurance premiums. It also offers cost-effective solutions, including one for companies that choose to file payroll taxes on their own.
Key features
Patriot primary features are as follows:
- Unlimited Payments to Vendors
- Accept Credit Card Payments
- Payroll Integration
- Import Bank Transactions Automatically
- Invoice Payment Reminders
- Custom Invoice Templates
- Unlimited Users With Permissions
- Manage Receipts & Documents
Pricing
Patriot accounting pricing plan includes:
- Patriot offers 30-day free trial
- Patriot Basic Accounting costs $20 per month (unlimited use)
- Patriot Premium Accounting costs $30 per month (unlimited use).
Patriot Accounting is an excellent solution for businesses and companies searching for a low-cost method of processing employee salaries. It offers affordable full-service accounting solutions as well as a cheap option. A number of other benefits are also provided for free, such as direct payments, payroll setting, professional help, and an online employee portal.
4. Bonsai
You might think that automation is not within reach when it comes to your accounting tasks, but you might be wrong. Bonsai is one of the top platforms that provide you with an affordable solution for your accounting and finance needs. The endless features can easily help you automate the accounting department without any issues.
Besides that, you can also use it to organize client communication and enhance their experience. After all, client retention is important in any business. So, make sure you do your part in retaining your clients by selecting the right tool.
Key Features
Some of the top accounting features of Bonsai include:
- Automatic reminders
- Smart invoices
- Set up global payments
- Income reports
- Track expenses
- Get reminders for tax
- Real-time reporting
- And much more
Pricing
The pricing plan of the company will differ in price and features. The cheapest plan starts at $24 per month and the most expensive one is $79 per month. You can check each plan and decide which one will fit best for your business.
There are also some additional services you can add for an extra cost. Once you do, you will have a complete solution at your disposal.
5. CloudBooks
CloudBooks is among the best cheap accounting software available in the market. This small business invoicing and accounting tool is user-friendly, professional, and meets the requirements of small businesses. CloudBooks currently claims to have more than 2 million users that is evidence of the usefulness of this tool.
You can generate and send unlimited invoices and build strong foundations for your business for the future. CloudBooks offers a lot of features that are enticing for you if you run a small business of any type or if you are a freelancer.
Key features
- Offers the best way to track your spending and expenses that enable you to keep control over your expenses.
- Includes project management software that helps you manage your projects easily and effectively.
- Creates professional invoices within seconds. That means you can spend less time on invoicing while generating more revenue and grow your business.
- Also allows you to create reports and analyze your business’s performance regularly.
- Easily integrates with PayPal, Stripe, and other popular payment gateways.
- Also offers features like Client Management, billing details placed in one place, and much more.
Pricing
CloudBooks offers a free plan with a lot of remarkable features. You can also upgrade your plan whenever your business requires it. The good thing is – paid plans are also very cheap and charge low fees as compared to industry standards and a 30-day free trial is also available on both paid plans. CloudBooks has the following two plans besides free one.
- The Team plan starts at just $10 per month
- The Agency plan starts at just $20 per month
Although the free plan has limitations, it is a good option for new small businesses. We recommend CloudBooks not because of its free plan but for the cheap and competitive prices of its paid plans.
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6. Wave
Wave is another great option for small businesses to take good care of their accounting needs. It is an award-winning accounting software yet absolutely free. You can get almost all features you need for business accounting totally free. Wave allows you to do simple to more advanced accounting activities such as income/expense recording and tracking, sending invoices, etc.
You can also avail yourself of superb features like payroll processing and scanning receipts through Wave mobile application. Wave also allows you to reconcile bank accounts and also allows you to record old expenses you failed to record in the past through uploading old bank statements.
Key features
- Offers exceptional features to handle your accounting requirements effortless, easy, more efficient, and effective.
- Enables you to create and send professional invoices within seconds.
- Empowers you to scan receipts from anywhere, anytime through Wave mobile app.
- Allows you to track unlimited income/expenses and get paid easily.
- Also makes your accounting efforts smarts and highly professional through offering to add various collaborators, accountants, and partners.
- It has all the potential to generate professional reports that clearly display due bills and invoices, profit and loss reports, cash flow reports, etc.
- Permits you to reconcile multiple bank accounts and credit cards.
Pricing
Wave is accounting software for small businesses that is absolutely free. It is among the best cheap accounting software not only for being free but also for its remarkable features. It lets you scale up by presenting numerous collaborators if you want an expert to handle your accounts, manage payroll and payroll taxes, run more than one business from a single Wave account, and much more.
Overall, Wave is the best option for small businesses of any type and freelancers to handle their accounting requirements without spending a penny on software that charges a lot each month.
7. SlickPie
SlickPie is another accounting tool that can easily book its place in the list of the best cheap accounting software. It is one of the simplest and user-friendly accounting software that is a good choice for those who don’t know much about bookkeeping.
The most praiseworthy feature of the SlickPie is its automated data entry. Its MagicBot, a built-in app, automates the recurring invoicing process as well as automatically adds receipts and bills.
Key features
- Comes with MagicBot that automates data entry and other transactions.
- Can create quotes and estimates to help you bid on different projects.
- Allows you to reconcile bank transactions and lets you receive live bank feeds.
- Empowers you to run your business on any sort of device besides offering other numerous remarkable features such as late payment reminders, recurring invoices, transaction history, and much more.
Pricing
SlickPie is one of the best free accounting software for small businesses. It also offers a paid plan for advanced accounting features. Pro plan starts at $39.95 per month that is slightly expensive as per industry standards but it offers some unique features such as 50 companies, phone support, etc.
8. ZipBooks
ZipBooks is another one of the best cheap accounting software for small businesses that has all the potential to make your accounting efforts smart and seamlessly easy. It is powerful accounting software with a simple and beautiful user interface to help you reach the next level. Businessmen, entrepreneurs, and freelancers who aren’t good at accounting can take full advantage of user-friendly accounting tools like ZipBooks for simple bookkeeping.
ZipBooks offers a lot of simple and complex bookkeeping activities such as recording and editing income/expenses, bank accounts/credit card reconciliation, pulling transactions automatically, and sending invoices. You can also capture images of invoices, upload them, create, and send either one-off or recurring invoices.
ZipBooks makes accounting and bookkeeping really easy for you by providing an expert to handle your accounting activities. That is why it is the best option for those who don’t have accounting knowledge or don’t want to do it on their own.
Key features
- Sends professional invoices, receive payments through all major credit cards and PayPal, and various other remarkable features. It also enables you never to forget any due bills and payments through auto-billing and payment reminding tools.
- Makes bookkeeping and reporting easy and smarter by offering some astonishing features like remarkably simple reconciliations, reporting, categorization, color-coding, etc.
- Enables you to analyze your business’s performance and compare it to your competitors. It also helps you retain your most valuable customers through smart insights and reports.
- Also helps you grow your business by ensuring you get paid quickly besides smart and automated tracking of your income and expenses.
Pricing
ZipBooks offers four different plans that make it a unique tool to handle transactions ranging from simple to more advanced accounting operations.
- A Free plan
- The Smarter plan starts at $15 per month
- The Sophisticated plan starts at $35 per month
- The Accountant plan offers custom pricing
ZipBooks’s free plan is the top option at the inception of your business that lets you send unlimited invoices, manage unlimited customers, view basic reports, connect one bank account, and accept digital payments from Square and PayPal. You can upgrade to paid plans whenever your business requires scale-up.
Finally, we recommend ZipBooks because its free plan is a really good option for small businesses that cannot afford hefty fees each month. Furthermore, its paid plans are also cheap and affordable.
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9. Akaunting
Akaunting is another one of the best cheap accounting software because it is absolutely free. It offers all the tools to handle basic bookkeeping and accounting activities such as creating and sending professional invoices, tracking expenses, recording revenues, etc. The best feature of Akaunting is its powerful reporting feature that allows you to keep an eye on your business’s performance with the help of all-encompassing reports.
Key features
- Presents a client portal to share invoices and transactions with your customers, get paid quickly, and also accept bulk payments.
- Enables you to organize your income and expenses as it creates categories of incomes and expenses to enable you to see the whole picture at a glance.
- Its ability to generate powerful and all-encompassing reports empower you to analyze your business’s health and make informed decisions.
- Its user-friendly interface enables you to easily track expenses, cash flows, and invoicing activities.
Pricing
Akaunting is free accounting software that lets you do all your accounting and bookkeeping activities online totally free.
10. Sunrise
Sunrise provides one of the best free plans with numerous top-quality features such as processing unlimited transactions, sending unlimited invoices, manually or automatically importing transactions, etc. It is the best and cheap source to simplify your accounting and bookkeeping requirements.
Sunrise also offers custom-sized plans that can enable you to choose plans according to your business’s needs and requirements. You can also upgrade to paid plans but its paid plans are expensive but not for rapidly growing businesses.
Key features
- Provides an option to generate personalized invoices, enables your customers to pay via credit cards, and also allows you to set up recurring schedules so that you don’t miss any due payments from your customers.
- Generates for you reports such as balance sheets, accounts receivable, customer statements, profit and loss statements, etc. that help you better understand your business’s health and performance.
- Enables you to make your expense and income tracking process simple by categorization.
- Makes it extremely easy for you to send quotes and estimates to your customers.
Pricing
Sunrise’s Elf-Service software is absolutely free but offers a lot of key features that can easily meet the needs of fresh and small businesses. You can also upgrade to one of the following advanced plans.
- The Early plan starts at $149 per month
- The Growing plan starts at $299 per month
- The Corporate plan starts at $499 per month
Paid plans of Sunrise are expensive but its free plan is the key. The Self-Service plan of Sunrise offers some remarkable features that you cannot get for free and that is why we have included Sunrise in the list of the best cheap accounting software currently available in the market.
11. GnuCash
GnuCash is another one of the best cheap accounting software solutions that are freely available for Microsoft Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, and BSD. It is a powerful and flexible tool yet extremely easy to use. GnuCash is programmed on professional accounting principles so that it presents accurate reports and balanced books.
Key features
- Allows you to do professional small-business accounting and simple accounting activities like double-entry accounting.
- Also enables you to incorporate stock/bonds/mutual fund accounts.
- Helps you prepare professional reports and graphs.
- Assists you in all sorts of financial calculations and scheduling transactions.
Pricing
GnuCash is remarkable accounting software for small businesses that is absolutely free.
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