Best Accounting Software For Small Business Of 2024 – Forbes Advisor

FreshBooks is one of the easiest accounting software to use. It is designed for small business owners without an accounting background. With just a couple of clicks and by filling out simple forms, you can create and send invoices, track expenses, manage projects and clients and view reports. Most steps offer step-by-step guidance so you always know what to do next. Besides its primary plans, it also offers a custom plan with custom pricing for businesses with complex needs or large client bases.

General Features

FreshBooks offers key features small businesses need to manage their accounting requirements, including invoicing, tax management, reporting and time tracking tools. Here is a deeper look at what you can expect from each.

• Invoicing. FreshBooks offers customizable invoices to which you can add your company logo and adjust fonts and colors to match your brand. You can also schedule recurring invoices for clients who continue to use your services or purchase your products. And, if you’ve sent an estimate, you can convert your estimate into an invoice once your client has committed to buy. Finally, to ensure your invoices don’t go unpaid, FreshBooks offers automated payment reminders. In addition to tools to send invoices, FreshBooks stores all your invoices—both those you send and those you receive—in one organized place for easy access and reference. You can even duplicate an invoice you already sent and adjust it to send to a new client with similar invoicing needs.
• Tax Management Tools. FreshBooks automatically deducts sales tax when you make a sale and applies it to your invoice. You can also track expenses and categorize them for easy filing come tax time. Also access profit and loss statements, sales tax summaries and receipts in an organized fashion for easy access when filing tax documents.
• Time Tracking. FreshBooks offers a timer team members can use to track their time worked automatically. And, if they forget to start or stop the timer, they can log or edit hours to ensure accuracy. Time tracking is available by client and project. You can even add the FreshBooks timer to popular project management apps such as Trello, Asana or Basecamp. Once time has been tracked to a particular project, reports show time worked on the project, relevant project expenses and unbilled hours. With this information always available, you can easily invoice clients for their project expenses.
• Reporting. FreshBooks offers robust reporting features, allowing you to easily generate reports from balance sheets and expense reports to sales tax summaries, cost of goods sold and much more. However, unlike some competitors, FreshBooks does not generate tax time-specific accounting reports.

Pricing and Value

FreshBooks offers four plans, three of which offer transparent pricing and range from $19 to $60 per month. However, those first three plans offer a three-month discount of 70%. For example, the Premium plan costs $18 for the first six months, which is 50% off of its normal price of $60 per month. After the promotional period, you can expect to pay full price. Here is a look at each plan’s pricing and included features:

• Lite: If you have five or fewer clients, you can sign up for FreshBooks’ Lite plan for $19 per month. The plan includes unlimited expense tracking, estimates and invoicing and the ability to accept credit cards and bank transfers and generate tax reports.
• Plus: The Plus plan is $33 per month. It comes with unlimited invoices for up to 50 clients and everything in the Lite plan, plus recurring billing and client retainers, automatic receipt capture, the ability to invite your accountant and financial and accounting reports.
• Premium: The Premium plan is $60 per month and offers all Plus plan features, plus unlimited invoices, unlimited clients, automatic bill capture and receipt data, the ability to track project profitability and customized email templates with dynamic fields.
• Select: With this plan, you must talk to a FreshBooks representative to learn pricing details. Its features cater to larger companies needing a branded product to handle larger client bases. It offers all the features in the Premium plan, plus two team member accounts, the option to remove FreshBooks branding from emails, dedicated support, lower credit card transaction fees, capped bank transfer fees and assistance with data migration.

Add-Ons and Extras

FreshBooks offers three add-on plans, including a team, payment and payroll processing plan. Here are the details surrounding each:

• Team Members: For $11 per user per month, you can invite your team to join you on FreshBooks to stay up to date with the financial standing of projects and company performance. You have full control, meaning you can adjust access permissions. Team members can also track time, expenses and mileage using the app.
• Advanced Payments: For $20 per month, this add-on allows you to accept payments online, in person or by phone using a virtual terminal. To make processing payments easier, you can save clients’ credit card information and set up recurring billing for subscriptions.
• FreshBooks Payroll: Starting at $40, plus $6 per user, this add-on allows you to run payroll, automatically file and remit state and federal payroll taxes and track payroll transactions.

Reputation

FreshBooks has a 4.5 rating on Capterra with 4,379 reviews and a 4.5-star rating on G2 with 688 reviews. Users say it is extremely easy to use and has all the basic features needed to manage small business accounting needs. They like how easy it is to create invoices and access reporting. However, they say the platform could use more automations and more in-depth reporting. They also wish they did not have to pay extra for features such as adding team members, saving credit card information or processing payroll.

Our Experience

I signed up for a free trial of FreshBooks’ accounting software and tested it on a Mac laptop using the Safari browser. Overall, I found the experience to be incredibly easy. All action items were clearly labeled and I was walked through how to complete all tasks.

Signing up for the free trial required I simply provide my name and email, then retrieve a code from my email address to verify my identity. From there, I was asked a few questions about my business, such as the types of services I offer and how big my team is.

Once through the setup process, I was taken to the FreshBooks dashboard. The dashboard had a handful of reports, including:

• Outstanding invoices
• Revenue and expenses
• Total profit
• Revenue streams
• Spending
• Unbilled time

I clicked “edit dashboard” and was given the means to deselect reports I didn’t want to appear on the dashboard. Unfortunately, I was not able to add reports that I wanted to see there. Overall, the dashboard seemed very basic compared to some competitors. Still, it was uncluttered and easy to interpret and navigate.

At the top of the screen appeared a set of action items to further set up and begin using my account, such as “add a client” and “create an invoice.” I simply had to click on the action item and fill out simple forms to proceed. Once I had completed the action, I could click the X on the action item to remove it from the to-do list.

A large green button at the top of the account interface was labeled “create new.” This button appeared at the top of all pages. When I clicked on it, it offered a drop-down selection of common action items, such as the option to add:

• A client
• A retainer
• An invoice
• A recurring invoice template
• Other income
• An expense
• An estimate
• A proposal
• A credit
• A bill
• A vendor

When I clicked “invoice” from this drop-down, I was taken to an invoice template with my company information already populated. I was invited to upload my logo to create a branded invoice. A drop-down field allowed me to select a client. It was easy to click fields to add items and adjust invoiced amounts. Designated fields allowed me to choose due dates, list terms and conditions and input notes to the client. I could also attach a document, such as a contract.

Once I finalized the invoice, I could click the “send to” button at the top of the invoice and input an email address, a subject and a message to send the invoice. Or, I could click “share via link” to generate an invoice link sendable via text, social media or some other communication channel.

Next, I clicked on the “Projects” menu item from the left-hand menu. On the “projects” page, I clicked on “create new” and was given the option to create a flat-rate or hourly project. After clicking the “hourly project” option, I was taken to a new project template and prompted to enter a client, total hours worked, a project name, a project end date and the service rendered. I could also invite team members to join the project and assign and invite a client with just a couple of clicks.

After creating the project, I was taken to a page designated to that project. Here, I could post updates on the project’s status, track hours worked and view project invoices, estimates, expenses and profitability reports, all from the project’s page. By clicking “more actions,” then “generate invoice” from the top of the page, I could also easily bill a client.

On the project discussion forum accessible from a project’s page, I could even attach documents such as checklists, and the entire team could discuss the project via a chat-like feed.

The time tracking menu item took me to a time tracking tool. This tool allowed me to start a timer and allocate the time to a client or project and even specify the tasks worked on during the logged time. At the top of this time tracking screen was a “generate invoice” button that allowed me to bill for logged time by quickly finalizing an invoice that was already almost completely pre-populated with necessary information. I was able to complete and send the invoice in less than 30 seconds.

I then clicked on the “accounting” menu item and was taken to the accounting page. I was immediately prompted to connect my bank account. An explanation told me that doing so would allow me to automatically import transactions into FreshBooks, then match them with income and expenses in FreshBooks. When I opted to add my bank account, I was walked step-by-step through the process.

Relevant reports were also available from the accounting page with just a click of a button, including the following reports:

• Cash flow
• General ledger
• Bank reconciliation summary
• Profit and loss
• Sales tax summary
• Cash flow
• Journal entry
• Trial balance

Finally, I clicked on the “reports” menu item in FreshBooks. I was given a list of over 20 reports to choose from. I could star my favorite reports to add to my “favorite reports” list at the top of the page. When I clicked on a report, it was already populated with all my relevant data points. I only had to click the “send” button at the top of the page and specify an email recipient to share the report.

Overall, the user experience was beyond easy. I was walked through how to use all features. However, to allow for this ease of use, the software was not very customizable and did not have some of the automation features that other providers offer, such as mileage tracking, multi-currency support or expense auto-categorizations.

Marguerita Cheng, CFP & RICP, who is on our advisory board, added her thoughts about FreshBooks: “My clients who are freelancers and independent contractors with a limited number of clients may prefer FreshBooks because it offers the integrations and features at the right price.”

Who Should Use It?

FreshBooks is a good choice for small business owners who want easy-to-use accounting software. The software is also a good fit for service-based businesses, such as consultants, web designers and photographers.

Learn more: Read our full FreshBooks review.