Best Alternatives for QuickBooks. Accounting and QuickBooks just seem to go hand-in-hand. While QuickBooks does have the experience and many available programs, there are other options to consider. QuickBooks Online is robust in its offerings, which we highlight below. But then keep reading to learn the features you may get from alternatives to. Why Consider a QuickBooks Alternative? QuickBooks is the go-to accounting software for small businesses. It’s arguably the biggest bookkeeping solution out there with over 5.6 million customers globally. However, QuickBooks is not the only player on the market.
Quickbooks is hands down the most popular accounting software package in the market for small and medium-sized businesses. It’s an online tool that allows recording income and expenses, send custom invoices, receipts and many more, but it’s a paid software. I have listed some of the best alternatives to Quickbooks which are free and paid, and work with Windows, Mac, and Online.
Nonetheless, there could be many reasons why users may want to opt for an alternative. One of the most important reasons for the same is the cost. The basic plan of Quickbooks itself may exceed a small business’s budget. Another reason could be the absence of some features that may be found in its alternatives.
Top Alternatives to Quicbooks
So, without waiting any further, let us look into the 10 best Quickbooks accounting software alternatives. These similar softwares have been listed according to their pricing, features, and advantages over Quickbooks:
Xero
Xero is a cloud-based accounting utility that is best suited for large to medium-sized businesses that have multiple users.
Pricing
Xero has the following three price points:
- Xero Early: This is a starter pack that charges USD 9/ month from its users
- Xero Growing: A higher price tier charging USD 30/ month
- Xero Established: This is the topmost tier with many additional features charging USD 60/ month.
Features:
Xero has many features. Some of the notable ones are-
- Simple, user-friendly interface
- No limit on the number of users unlike QuickBooks
- Easy to comprehend language: No technical financial jargons
- A large number of seamless integration: Xero can integrate with 700 + applications in total, which is a lot more than QuickBooks
- E-mail support available, however, phone support is not
- Allows creation of lists and groups for ease of management
- Allows management of customers, contractors and vendors through one central point of contact
- For providing payroll facilities to the user, Xero can integrate with Gusto, a Payroll solution app.
- Unlimited Accounts payable, invoicing and bank transactions available for Xero Growing users
- Xero Established extends its service for more than 160 currencies and offers project cost and time tracking.
Pros:
- Xero has better contact management than QuickBooks
- It has unlimited user add-ons without forcing any price surge
- Xero offers a larger number of app integrations than QuickBooks
- It provides depreciation schedules, which is absent in QuickBooks
Cons:
The number of experts affiliated with Xero is much lesser than that of Quickbooks. This inhibits the availability of Bookkeepers and Accountants needed for expert opinion and accounting management when it comes to using Xero.
Official link: https://www.xero.com/
System supports: Web-based, Windows, Android, and macOS
FreshBooks
Freshbooks is an accounting software best suited for self-employed persons and freelancers who wish to get seamless, automatic payment and invoicing.
Pricing
Freshbooks offers the following four pricing plans-
- Freshbooks Lite: The most basic plan offered by Freshbooks is at USD 7.50/ month
- Freshbooks Plus: This is an upgraded version of Freshbooks allowing 50 customers at maximum for USD 12.50/ month
- Freshbooks Premium: With up to 500 customers allowance, this is a premium version available at USD 25/ month
- Freshbooks Select: This is a Customized Pricing plan offering an account manager for the business and inexpensive credit card transaction rates.
Features
Few of the many features of Freshbooks are-
- Project feature that helps in collaborating with clients and employees
- Non-complex user interface
- Automated tax calculations
- Income and expenditure tracking in multiple currencies
- Project management
- Estimates & proposals
- Expense and time tracking
- Seamless integration with third-party applications
Pros:
- Freshbooks offers better customer service than Quickbooks.
Cons:
- Freshbooks does not allow users the luxury of paying their accounts payables through its software
- It also does not provide tracking of stock quantity and cost.
Download link: https://www.freshbooks.com/
System supports: Windows, macOS, Linux, Solaris, Unix, IBM
Zip Books
Zip Books is an accounting, time tracking and invoicing utility best suited for small businesses that do not have the resources to do bookkeeping on their own.
Pricing
Zip books work on a freemium model and offer the following four pricing points to its customers-
- Starter: This plan is available for free. It is suitable for providing advanced bookkeeping facilities to freelancers or very small businesses that are looking for sophisticated bookkeeping for free.
- Smarter: This Zipbooks plan is suitable for those smaller businesses which need system embedded billing and employee hours tracking. It sells for USD 15/ month and offers a 5 users access.
- Sophisticated: This plan is suitable for those businesses which have multiple branches across different locations and are in need of elaborate project and income & expenditure tracking. It sells for USD 35/ month.
- Accountant: Zipbooks offers a customized plan for small accounting firms only.
Features
While Zipbook Starter & Smarter plans give access to one user and 5 users respectively, the premium versions give access to unlimited users and include-
- Bank reconciliation
- Smart tag Book-keeping
- Integration with third-party software like Gusto and Slack amongst others
- Multiple bank account connections.
The ZipBooks customizable plan is tailor-made for accounting services offered by small businesses. It helps them organize and manage all the processes and files of their clients from one system. It includes:
- Modifying multiple transactions
- Firm branding
- File migrations
- Time tracking
- Sharing any financial packages
Pros:
- Zip books offer Income and expenditure tracking free of cost.
Cons:
- Zip books do not offer inventory or accounts payable tracking
- It does not offer consolidated report making of transactions involving multiple currencies
- Zip books also do not offer live customer support.
Official link: https://zipbooks.com/
System supports: iOS
Zoho Books
Zoho Books is a web-based accounting utility that is best suited for users already using other applications under the Zoho suite.
Pricing
Zoho Books offers three price plans. The Standard plan costs USD 9/ month, Professional costs USD 19/ month & the Premium plan costs USD 29/ month.
Features:
- Zoho books support multiple currencies
- It offers invoicing and estimates
- It offers time, expense and customer order tracking
- Zoho books integrate with software under the Zoho suite along with some third-party applications like Square POS and Zapier.
- It lets users create more than 50 reports
- It offers Inventory accounting
- It also manages purchase and sales orders.
Pros:
- Zoho Books is easier to use than QuickBooks
- It has better after-sales service
- It is quite inexpensive compared to QuickBooks for the same features.
Cons:
- Zoho Books does not accept any online transfer or payment facilities from its user.
Official link: https://www.zoho.com/books/
System supports: Web-based and Windows
Wave
Wave is a fully integrated accounting software for small businesses and is a free alternative to QuickBooks.
Pricing:
Wave charges no monthly or registration fees to its users. If you want to have the additional feature of payment processors and payroll services in the USA and Canada, then you can avail of the paid version of Wave. The fees is 1% for payments related to banks and 2.9% +30 cents for most of the credit card processing.
Features:
- Number of customers and users can be unlimited in Wave
- Wave accepts payments online by customers
- It also allows users to connect all credit card and bank accounts
- It manages account receivables and payables
- Wave has over 2500 certified advisors
- It provides automatic payment reminders
- All financial reports can be run using Wave.
Pros:
- Wave has a better client portal than Quickbooks
- It offers a seamless distinction between business and personal expenditures.
Cons:
- Wave does not provide project management tools
- It does not offer any budgeting tools
- Its integration with third-party applications is very limited
- Wave does not track the history of deductions
- It offers customer support via e-mail only.
Official link: https://www.waveapps.com/
System supports: Web-based
Pandle
Pandle is an accounting software specializing in bookkeeping and is best suited for small businesses.
Pricing
The Pandle pricing plan has two variants-
Pandle Free Features:
This is the free version having the following features:
- Creation of invoices along with the facility to upload a logo
- Offering a payment gateway, Pandle Pay for accepting payments
- Supporting Multiple Currencies
- Allowing Custom and bank imports
- Reminders for payments and taxes
- Availability of Data export option
Pandle Pro:
This is a premium version of Pandle, costing USD 7 per month. It offers all the features of the free version along with some additional ones that are given below:
- It offers a Mobile app
- Allows receipts to be uploaded
- Allows creation of Projects
- Generates reports of Sales tax
- Allows an unlimited number of users
- Integrates feeds from Banks & PayPal
- It offers multiple company management.
Pros:
- Pandle is helpful for small businesses that have little or no bookkeeping experience
- It is easy to use
- Pandle also has an efficient customer support service with an interactive help feature
- It offers value for money
- It offers features such as fixed asset management and project accounting which are not available in QuickBooks.
Cons:
- Pandle is not suitable for medium and large businesses.
Official link: https://www.pandle.com/
System supports: Web-based
SlickPie
SlickPie is a free accounting alternative to Quickbooks. It has its own automated data entry utility, ‘MagicBot’ with automatic receipt scanning ability.
Pricing: SlickPie operates on a basic freemium model with a free “Starter” pack and a “Pro” pack at USD 39.95/ month. Both the plans have all the features in common except the following:
- The premium version has phone support in addition to the email support offered in the free version
- The premium version offers support for up to 50 companies as opposed to the free version which offers support for 10 companies.
Some of the common features of the Starter and Pro Slickpie pack are:
- ‘MagicBot’ – Automated Receipt Data Entry
- Bank-grade security
- Sending online invoices
- Supporting Multiple currencies
- PayPal, Stripe, and Credit Card processing
- Allowing a business to run on any device
- Tracking expenses and Sales Tax
- Setting up recurring invoices
- Getting live bank feeds
- Reconciling bank transactions.
Pros:
- SlickPie has been reviewed as very user friendly by most of its users on account of its well-designed dashboard and UI.
Cons:
- SlickPie is not suitable for large businesses
- It has limited integration options
- It does not offer enough charts and graphs for abridged visual comprehension.
Official link: https://www.slickpie.com/
System supports: Web-based
OneUp
OneUp is web-based accounting software for small business owners and accountants that are looking for sophisticated inventory features.
Pricing:
OneUp’s pricing does not depend on the additional features but on additional users. It has a 30-day free trial with all the features and unlimited users included and offers the following variants thereafter:
- Self : USD 9/ month
Allows access to 1 user with all the features but provides no support
- Pro: USD 19/ month
Allows access to 2 users with all the features and provides one-on-one support
- Plus: USD 29/ month
Allows access to 3 users with all the features and provides one-on-one support
- Team : USD 69/ month
Allows access to 7 users with all the features and provides one-on-one support
- Unlimited: USD 169/ month
It allows access to unlimited users along with all the features and also provides one-on-one support.
Features:
- OneUp allows its users to enter accounting transactions manually
- It provides customizable invoicing which is seamless and can be sent in a click
- It automates 95% of the accounting by synchronizing with the bank and retrieving the required transactions
- OneUp keeps the inventory up-to-date by automatically adjusting inventory levels and signals when to reorder them
- It simplifies CRM by providing tools to manage leads and opportunities and by setting reminders for timely follow-ups.
Pros:
- OneUp’s pricing management and inventory tools are exceptionally strong
- Good support is provided for double-entry transactions and accounting records
- Sales orders with the seamless conversion of related forms is easily provided for
- OneUp has a very simplified project management structure
- Its pricing options are more flexible than QuickBooks
- The inventory management tools of OneUp are superior to that of QuickBooks as they facilitate two costing methods, offer support for units of measure, item weight & dimension and stock location.
Cons:
- OneUp does not have a dashboard
- Payments cannot be directly attached to invoices by customers
- It does not have time tracking or payroll add-ons
- OneUp is not available as an iPhone app yet.
Official link: https://www.oneup.com/
System supports: Web-based
GnuCash
GnuCash is a financial accounting software for individuals and small businesses. It works on the double-entry bookkeeping system. It is a part of the GNU Project suite running on Unix like operating systems.
Pricing:
GnuCash is open-source software and is completely free.
Features:
- GnuCash facilitates extensive financial calculations
- It maintains Bond / Stock / Mutual Fund Accounts
- It provides efficient double-entry accounting
- GnuCash provides transaction scheduling
- It provides transaction matching & QIF / OFX / HBCI Import
- It provides support for multiple currencies
- GnuCash has a multiplatform interface
- It offers loan payment & mortgage assistant.
Microsoft Alternative For Mac
Check software like GnuCash here.
Pros:
Free Quickbooks Alternative For Mac
- GnuCash is an open-source, free & multi-platform software
- It is perfect for sole-proprietorship and small businesses.
Cons:
- Options for customization of reports in GnuCash are limited
- It has a confusing initial setup
- It has a lack of formal product support options.
Official link: https://www.gnucash.org/
System support: Web-based
Akaunting
Best Quickbooks Alternative For Mac
Akaunting is another open-source accounting software that is free and suitable for small businesses and freelancers.
Pricing: Akaunting charges no fee for its users.
Features: Some of the many features of Akaunting are given below-
- Akaunting offers customer, vendor and inventory management
- It manages to account for multiple companies via a single panel
- It also facilitates expense tracking
- Akaunting comes with a client portal
- It categorizes transactions and accepts bulk payments online
- It offers financial management in multiple languages, which can be chosen by the user.
Pros:
- Since Akaunting is online, open-source software, it ensures complete privacy and security as the financials can be kept on one’s own server.
- It has a friendly user interface.
Cons:
Alternative To Quickbooks For Mac
- Akaunting has incomplete accounting modules
- It is not suitable for large enterprises.
Quickbooks Alternative For Mac
Download link: https://akaunting.com/
System supports: Windows and Web-based
File size: 38.66 MB