However, keep in mind that the entry-level Early plan only supports 20 invoices and five bills per month, so if you regularly exceed that, then you’ll need to upgrade. All of the QuickBooks plans allow you to create unlimited invoices and quotes and customize them to reflect your company branding. QuickBooks also allows you to accept payments from debit or credit cards, as well as ACH payments, Apple Pay, PayPal and Venmo. QuickBooks Online is a cloud-based invoicing and accounting software for small businesses and their accountants, bookkeepers, or small business owners, with a fast-growing worldwide user base. Intuit, a U.S.-based company that also makes TurboTax, owns QuickBooks.
Live Bookkeeping
We encourage you to research and compare multiple accounting software products before choosing one. With a research score of 5/5 for software attributes and 5/5 for its accounts receivable features, the complimentary software gives Quickbooks and Xero a run for their money too. However, despite Wave’s advantages, its overall offering is pretty basic and support tools leave a lot to be desired, giving it a 4/5 score overall. With this in mind, if you’re after feature-rich software and can afford to pay a slight premium, QuickBooks and Xero will be more reliable options. Unlike QuickBooks, Xero users do not have any phone support options.
The more categories you create, the more reports you can run to get a better idea of how your business functions and where there’s room to grow. Feature set includes an excellent mobile app and suite of reports, capable invoicing features, plus automated bill and receipt capture through Hubdoc. Xero and QuickBooks are two of our best-rated accounting tools, but Wave is undoubtedly the safest bet for businesses watching the bottom line. Unlike Xero and QuickBooks, businesses can get started on Wave for completely free and the software is also available to an unlimited number of users — extending its use even further. Both services do offer an app marketplace, for both in-house mobile apps and integrations or extensions offered by third-party services. Xero offers more integrations overall, but both are very comprehensive.
- Both Xero and QuickBooks Online offer excellent integration with hundreds of apps.
- Xero and QuickBooks Online both offer a ton of features all designed for small business owners.
- Xero uses third-party add-on connections allowing users to accept payments online.
- Both offer great accounting features and integrations, but which one is better for small businesses?
- The software integrates with your bank accounts, credit cards, and other financial services, allowing you to import transactions automatically.
- FreshBooks can be a good option for freelancers and contractors looking for an affordable, simple accounting software.
Best Small Business Accounting Software in 2024
The rating of this company or service is based on the author’s expert opinion and analysis of the product, and assessed and seconded by another subject matter expert on staff before publication. Merchant Maverick’s ratings are not influenced by affiliate partnerships. QuickBooks Online does offer phone support for its customers but doesn’t have email support. Phone wait times are often short, but the helpfulness and knowledge of representatives vary, so resolving your issue may take some time.
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QuickBooks is generally praised for having a more intuitive user interface, especially for users without an accounting background. Xero, on the other hand, might be slightly more suited to accountants and bookkeepers due to its design. QuickBooks Online’s customer support is better than Xero’s since you can interact with an agent through a phone call. You can’t initiate a call, but you can submit a ticket and wait for an agent to call you.
Premium includes scheduling for jobs and shifts, real-time reporting, custom alerts, and time-off management. Elite offers types of revenue all of Premium’s features, plus a project activity feed for better control, project estimates that can be easily compared with actuals, geofencing, and support for timesheet signatures. The base fee for both plans is half off for the first three months.
And if you need assistance, QuickBooks offers robust live customer support to help you along the way. QuickBooks offers live phone and chat support six days a week, providing you with a direct line to experts whenever you need them. With personalized assistance, you can tackle any accounting challenge with confidence and keep what is an upfront investment upfront investment in ecommerce your business on track.
Wave Accounting is a free accounting solution for very small service-based businesses, contractors, freelancers and consultants. If you can’t justify paying for QuickBooks Online or Xero or they have too many features your business doesn’t need, Wave might be an ideal alternative. It has comparable invoicing features, but lacks an audit trail and doesn’t integrate with third-party apps. If you need to give accounting access to more than five people, Xero could be the better option for you. QuickBooks Online’s most popular Plus plan tops out at five users; its highest-tier Advanced plan allows up to 25 users, but that plan is expensive at $235 per month. In contrast, all Xero plans offer unlimited users and its highest-tier Established plan is a more affordable $78 per month.
You might prefer QuickBooks for invoicing and A/R management, and it earned a perfect mark in this category. It offers plenty of customization options, which can be how financial report readers can detect problems in overstated assets a great deal for those wanting to present and maintain a professional brand image. On the other hand, Xero lets you add your company logo and edit fields, but you can’t change the invoice colors.