Accounting is an integral part of managing a business.

It helps in creating and controlling the budget, making major purchase decisions, and also track expenses. Without accounting, your business will always remain a little deficient when it comes to growth.

However, accounting can be complicated and time-consuming. Sometimes business owners find it challenging enough to handle the bare minimum tasks like paying bills and keeping track of income, so answering critical questions like “Is my business profitable?” and “Can we make required tax payments?” is certainly out of the way.

Accounting is best done when handled by software rather than a human. Sure, having a real accountant on standby is great and necessary, but the major chunk of handling shall be done by software.

Using software can save you a massive amount of time and money while being legally sorted on the financial areas. It also helps you get a better idea of what’s your business’s standing by generating on-demand reports.

There are so many things which you wouldn’t have been able to do manually, taking “chance of errors” as an example. An accounting solution has little to no chance of errors.

To give you a better perspective of what to use, let’s have a look at the different ways to manage accounting. There are quite a few good ways to do it, and 3 of them are discussed below.

Traditional software

There’s a ton of traditional software available that lets you do the heavy-work of accounting. You can download them to your computer/laptop and carry out the calculations. The good thing about this type of accounting is, you don’t necessarily need an active internet connection to use the software and access your data. Everything can be done offline.

However, that doesn’t make it the best option. It has its own drawbacks. In fact, everything has drawbacks, so you’d want to have a look at the below options as well.

Hiring an accountant

As stated above, having an actual accountant on standby is quite necessary. But, should you entirely depend on them? That wouldn’t be ideal because there’s very little an accountant can do when compared to a full-blown solution.

An accountant shall only be used for:

  • Having personal financial advice
  • Having security when you don’t know what to do
  • Outsourcing tiresome accounting tasks

If you keep your accountant just for these things, then it’s totally fine. Or else, you should opt for a cloud-based solution if you want more.

Cloud-based solution

Probably the best choice to handle accounting, a cloud-based solution can massively ease the burden off your shoulders. Also, it has a lot of benefits and features attached to it, which will make you truly consider it. By using cloud-based accounting solution, you can:

  • Save upfront on costs and on the long-run
  • Save a massive amount of bandwidth on various fronts
  • Access the solution from any device, since it’s online
  • Enjoy more security

Not to forget features like ability to collaborate and automation of workflows. If all that sounds something like you could use, then you’d love this list of cloud-based accounting solution I’ve compiled below.

FreshBooks

One of the most popular in this list, FreshBooks is another amazing all-in-one invoicing and accounting solution that is widely used. You can automate a bunch of tasks, such as invoice reminders and collecting payments to save yourself some time and concentrate on areas that require your attention.

Other than that, you can:

  • View detailed reports
  • Enable various online payment options
  • Collaborate with your team to improve workflow
  • Use the solution on mobile as well

They have an award-winning support team that’s raring to solve your problems and doubts.

Sage

With over a 3 million customer base, Sage allows you to manage accounting, finance, people, payroll, and various aspects of your business. You can access the departments from any device and take care of a bunch of areas all within one cloud solution.

If you’re a fan of keeping everything in one place, I believe you’re going to love Sage. They’ve won several awards over the years for their great service, so you’d definitely want to check it out.

Zoho Books

A solution with some power-packed features, Zoho Books has been a prominent name in the industry for a long now, and they’ve always been stepping up their game. By using this software, you can manage your finances, automate business workflows, and also collaborate with your team members to work collectively.

It can look after a variety of tasks, such as invoicing, negotiating deals, and raising sales orders. Also, if you’re from India, you can be compliant with GST as well.

Since the requirement grows over time, Zoho Books allows you to integrate over 40 apps in order to manage every aspect of your business.

Bonsai

Bonsai is an Accounting and Taxes solution ideal for a solo business. It lets you keep a track of your business’s finances such as expenses, income reports, tax reminders, and much more.

It lets you:

  • Import your expenses automatically save your taxes while filing
  • Keep a track of your profit or loss along with the totals of your income and expenses
  • Offers you quarterly or annual tax reminder
  • Keep track of the number of hours you work on a project
  • Offers you contract templates approved by several contract attorneys

With Bonsai’s accounting and tax solutions, you can rest assured that you will never miss your upcoming tax payment. You can start with its 2 months free trial. After the trial, you can choose the plan as per your requirement.

Waveapps

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You can take care of accounting, invoicing, and receipt tracking with Waveapps. Without the need to do any data entry, you can generate financial reports and keep track of financial numbers. You can automate almost every single task and even integrate with other Wave products, like payroll and payments.

Their invoicing feature allows you to create and send professional invoices in literally minutes. You can charge on a recurring basis or even automatic. The best part? No trace of their branding on your invoices.

Quickbooks

Though every single solution in this list is great for non-accounting types, Quickbooks is a tad bit more suitable for every person out there. Everything is super organized and within close reach. On top of that, you get easy-to-read reports and dashboards.

You can connect your bank account and cards to easily import and sort expenses into appropriate categories. Syncing with popular apps is also just a click away.

You get invoicing and all the required tools to better manage your accounting. Not to mention, customers of Quickbooks find an average of $3,534 in tax savings per year.

Xero

Integrates with over 800 apps, Xero can help you maintain great financial health of your business. You can use this solution from any device and run the work on the go. From easy reconciliation, creating invoices and expense claims, there’s a lot of stuff you can do with this.

Talking about the “reconcile” feature, it lets you import and categorize your latest bank transactions into Xero and easily take accounts of them. You no longer need to add them manually to each section to determine where they belong and whether to calculate them or not.

You can get started with their 30-day free trial.

Quicken

Highly praised by PCMag, Quicken offers a variety of features to seamlessly manage your finances. You can stay on top of your spending by seeing the amount that is left after the bills are paid, and make precise money decisions with their custom budgets.

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You can set alerts about due dates and manage your bills effortlessly. Other than that, Quicken is great for tracking investments, as it helps you review your portfolio, monitor performance, and see market comparisons.

Most importantly, your data is secured with 256-bit encryption.

Kashoo

You can organize a whole year’s worth of expenses in a jiffy with Kashoo. It has a “smart inbox” feature that separates personal and business data and helps you get ready for taxes. The most impressive thing is, their AI technology will learn your business and make manual expense tracking history so that you don’t have to do it.

Not to mention, analyzing your reports and creating invoices is just a breeze. You can sign up for free and enjoy a plethora of features as well as a great support team.

LessAccounting

You can do everything with LessAccounting that you’d do with other solutions out there, but with a little less effort. It’s a software that works hard for you so that you don’t have to. 😉

You can get started instantly and connect your bank account to see all your transactions automatically appear in your bookkeeping, without entering receipts manually.

Apart from that, you can create recurring billing, manage invoices, and accept payments quicker. All those invoices that are paid will automatically be added to your accounting records. Go ahead and try your first month free.

FreeAgent

Rated 4.5/5 stars on TrustPilot, FreeAgent can help you stay on top of your tax, manage expenses, and create invoices instantly. It has a very tidy dashboard, so you know exactly what you want to work on. Also, you can get automatic tax forecasts and reminders.

They have great UK-based support accountants to guide you whenever needed. Getting started is free. No credit card required.

Chargebee

Chargebee will always keep you in line with the latest tax rules, be it compliance requirements or EU-VAT complications. In fact, by using this solution, you can comply with GAAP & IFRS to easily blend your SaaS Accounting with the ever-changing finance department.

Moreover, you can integrate and sync Chargebee with a bunch of other apps to further streamline your accounting. It lets you constantly keep an eye on the forecast as well, helping you get a better idea of the latest curve.

There are a lot more features waiting to be utilized, so be sure to check them out and see if it’s the right fit for you.

ZipBooks

Simple yet effective, ZipBooks is mashed with features that you didn’t know you needed. For example, you can invite your customers to leave reviews after getting paid. This helps in building your online presence and attracting more customers.

You can create invoices with auto-billing and even set reminders. Bookkeeping and reporting get smarter with ZipBooks, as you can use simple-reconciliation, color coding, auto-categorization, and a whole suite of reports.

ProfitBooks

Great for people with little to no accounting knowledge, ProfitBooks is simple and growing rapidly in the market. You can create gorgeous invoices, track expenses, and manage inventory. After that, you can easily share the data among your team members if required.

This solution is 100% free to use and comes with three different-language chat support, which is mind-blowing. No limitations, no hidden fees, and no strings attached.

Conclusion

I am certain your accounting will get a whole lot easier by using these cloud-based solutions. In fact, you’ll be saving a lot of time, money and energy too.