Online bookkeeping software is essential to record and organize the complex financial information of a business. It can also create reports and provide essential metrics on demand to help you make decisions.
Essentially, bookkeeping software allows you to view the health of your business from a broader perspective. Start with our guide to find the best online bookkeeping software now.
What are the Benefits of an Online Bookkeeping Software?
Bookkeeping is a complex and time-consuming process. And due to the evolving work landscape, it has become even more challenging.
People have moved away from the office to work from home or any location they like. It gives all the more reasons to adopt online bookkeeping software.
Here are a few more benefits of online bookkeeping software:
Access from Anywhere, at Anytime on Any Device
Online bookkeeping software means there is no need to worry for an individual to install or maintain everything on his local machine. You can access the data from anywhere, at any time and from any device. Such access is secure and protected by credentials provided only to authorized users for logging in.
User Friendly and Intuitive
A simple benefit of using online bookkeeping software is that it provides users with a comprehensive interface to view business details intuitively. Most online bookkeeping software take modern aesthetics in mind, which reduces the learning curve, even for those who may not have used accounting software in the past. Most software comes with self-assistance resources to help new users get started with the system quickly.
Save Time with Automation
Bookkeeping software can help save time by automating a lot of manual and time-consuming stuff like generating invoices, creating reports, financial statements and more. You can also integrate bookkeeping software with your existing HR and Payroll systems so that you can quickly generate payslips and other HR-related documents for employees.
Collaboration and User Roles
One of the major benefits of online bookkeeping software is that it easily inspires collaborative work. Traditional bookkeeping only allowed 1 person to work on 1 thing at a time.
With online bookkeeping, everyone can access the same data in real-time by simply logging in to the platform. And you don't have to worry about unauthorized access. Through role-based permissions, only the authorized person will access the information, ensuring business data safety.
What Factors Make a Good Online Bookkeeping Software?
There are so many products available in the market to choose from when it comes to online bookkeeping software. We have listed a few essential factors that can help you in choosing an online bookkeeping software.
Basic Features
An online bookkeeping software must provide all the basic utilities required to manage the business's accounting details. The most basic features include tracking sales invoices, purchase bills and transaction records, generating reports and managing inventory.
Bank Feed
Banking transactions provide a reality check for businesses. When you integrate a banking account with your bookkeeping software, you can automate paying salary and expenses, tracking expenses, recording bank payments, creating a journal entry and importing bank transactions. Be sure to check if the bookkeeping software offers this feature.
Dashboard
The online bookkeeping software's dashboards should be easy to use for all users, including for people from a non-accounting background. Apart from being user-friendly, a well-designed interface is intuitive enough for its users. Complex interface designs that are difficult to get around can reduce productivity dramatically.
Affordability
While bookkeeping software could offer extensive and attractive features, its subscription cost is the only way to justify its actual value. Cost is a significant factor for SMEs and startups. Even large businesses who fail to justify the benefit they get from the software for their price will eventually move away to a different solution. Always consider the subscription cost of the software and the value you can generate from it.
Additional Utility Features
When cost is not a concern or 2 competitors have similar pricing plans, any additional or unique feature can become a tiebreaker. For example, businesses that carry transactions across multiple countries will be tempted to go away with the software that offers multi currency support or an e-commerce business will probably favor the software with credit card payments support. Look for that software that provides any additional feature suitable to your business.
The Best Online Bookkeeping Software
Get started now with our list of the best online bookkeeping software.
1. Best for Small Businesses: Intuit Quickbooks
Intuit is among the most popular and best online software for small businesses. It offers a variety of features in each plan.
Intuit Quickbooks has solutions for all platforms, but the cloud-based Quickbooks solution is probably the most flexible and user-friendly bookkeeping software available in the market. Though it comes up with prepacked features, Intuit also offers a custom package for customers who need more tailored solutions.
It has designed a plan for microbusinesses that will set you back $10.50 per month. For large businesses, the plan can cost up to $150 per month. Intuit applies a cap on the number of users according to the plan you choose.
2. Best Mobile App: FreshBooks
FreshBooks has quickly become the 1st choice for many because of its simplicity, context-sensitive settings and in-depth features. It can also be integrated with other services, including PayPal, MailChimp, WordPress and more. And its mobile apps let you access its core feature at any time on-the-go.
FreshBooks pricing starts from $6 per month for up to 5 clients for the Lite plan. The Premium plan costs $15 per month for unlimited clients. For organizations with custom needs, it also offers tailored solutions.
3. Best for Multi Currency Accounting: Xero
Xero provides many great features, such as a good dashboard, interactive business views and smart lists. It also has all the desirable financial components like sales, purchases, bills and expenses, inventory and payroll integrated with Gusto.
Xero also provides exceptional online support and offers support for multi currency accounting. While many online bookkeeping software are struggling with this feature, Xero offers easy and intuitive multi currency support. It also allows the managing of fixed assets.
Xero offers three pricing plans at $5, $16 and $31 per month and allows an unlimited number of users for organizational users. It’s ab affordable option compared to its other competitors in the market like Quickbooks.
4. Best for Multiple Payment Gateway Support: Zoho Books
Zoho Corporation is known for developing great online productivity applications. Its Zoho Books serve the same vision of minimizing the productivity issue related to small business accounting.
Zoho Books provides usability and depth in all the essential bookkeeping needs such as sales and purchases, time and project tracking and inventory management. It also supports multiple payment gateways, making it one of the best online bookkeeping software for businesses that accept payment from different payment sources.
It might not have all the extensive features like integrated payroll support, but Zoho Books provides an exceptional value for small business accounting with its features. It also has a mobile app so you can access your financial data from anywhere at anytime.
The price plan starts from $9 per month for the basic plan, $19 per month for the standard and $29 per month for the professional.
5. Best for Free Accounting Software: Wave
Among the other choices on this list, Wave most certainly appeals to freelancers and independent proprietors because most of its services are free of cost. Unless you sign up for services like payroll or personal technical support, there are absolutely no charges involved.
It provides all the essential services as well, as invoicing and transaction management on a well-designed interface. Its attractive invoice templates could give you another reason to stick with Wave.
Although it offers good services for its value, it doesn’t have sophisticated features like time tracking and inventory tracking. Wave might not be a good choice for large businesses with many transactions.
Find Your Online Bookkeeping Software Now
Bookkeeping is a complex process, whether in a small or large business and bookkeeping software can help with the pain points. Online bookkeeping software has become the go-to choice for all business owners because multiple users can access it anytime and on any device. Not only has it made collaboration easier, but also saved time and helped to secure financial information.
While there are many online bookkeeping software options available in the market, you should choose the software that best matches your business needs. The best bookkeeping software will help you learn more about your business and make better decisions.
