Accounting Tools for Small Businesses

Updated: August 6, 2026

Well-organized accounting and financial management are essential to the successful operation of any business. Today, a wide variety of software programs and applications are available to help simplify these processes. Below is a summary of some of the options available for small businesses.

---

Quicken

Quicken offers solutions for personal finance, self-employed professionals, and small business owners. Its applications are designed to help users manage budgets, track expenses, monitor investments, invoice clients, and organize both personal and business finances.

1. Quicken Simplifi is a personal finance application designed for individuals and couples who manage a budget, savings, investments, and more.

Key Features

• View your bank accounts, expenses, and investments on a single dashboard.

• Cash flow projections, spending analysis, and savings goals.

• Identify trends through reports and projections.

• Track your investments and plan for retirement.

2. Quicken Business & Personal is an application designed for freelancers, self-employed professionals, and small business owners.
   

Key Features

• Keep and organize your personal and business finances in a single application.

• Save time during tax season with built-in Schedules A, C, E, and F.

• Invoice your clients and get paid faster with invoicing tools.

• Make more informed decisions by tracking profit and loss, cash flow, budgets, investments, and retirement planning.

Manager

Manager is accounting software that offers a free version with full functionality, as well as cloud and server editions. It is an alternative for businesses seeking a flexible accounting solution, with options for local access, self-hosting, or cloud hosting.

Desktop and Laptop Version: Compatible with Windows, Linux, and Mac. It includes all accounting features, can be used offline, and the accounting database created on Windows is compatible with other operating systems.

Cloud Edition: Includes all the features of the free version, unlimited users, unlimited businesses, full-featured accounting, easy setup, compatibility with desktop and laptop computers, tablets, and mobile phones, remote access, multi-user access, user permissions, automatic backups, and automatic updates.

Manager also offers a Server Edition, which is available through a one-time purchase and allows unlimited users and unlimited businesses.

Wave

Wave offers accounting solutions for self-employed professionals and small businesses. Its plans are designed to help users manage income and expenses, create invoices, track cash flow, and simplify day-to-day accounting tasks. This provider offers annual and monthly plans.

STARTER Plan: Allows you to create unlimited estimates, customer invoices, vendor bills, and accounting records, invoice from anywhere using the mobile app, and manage cash flow and customers from a single dashboard. (Recommended for individuals who are starting a business or looking for basic features.)

PRO Plan: Includes everything in the STARTER Plan, plus automatic bank transaction import, automatic matching and categorization of bank transactions, unlimited digital receipt capture and expense tracking, unlimited users, among other features.

FreshBooks

This provider offers options for small businesses based on either business size or industry.

Industries: Marketing and agencies, creative professionals, construction and specialty trades, consulting, information technology (IT) and technology, legal services, and business and professional services.

Business Type: Freelancers, self-employed professionals, small businesses, businesses with employees, and businesses with independent contractors.

Plans:

• Lite: Allows you to send invoices to up to 5 clients, track expenses in real time, create and send estimates, accept credit and debit card payments, ACH bank transfers, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Buy Now, Pay Later payments, and generate reports for tax season. (Recommended for freelancers or self-employed professionals.)

• Plus: Includes the ability to send invoices to up to 50 clients, track expenses in real time, create and send estimates and proposals, receive client retainers, accept credit and debit card payments, ACH bank transfers, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Buy Now, Pay Later payments, generate reports for tax season, generate financial and accounting reports, scan expense receipts, and grant access to your accountant. (Recommended for freelancers or self-employed professionals.)

• Premium: Allows you to send invoices to an unlimited number of clients, track expenses in real time, create and send estimates and proposals, receive client retainers, accept credit and debit card payments, ACH bank transfers, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Buy Now, Pay Later payments, generate reports for tax season, generate financial and accounting reports, scan receipts and expense invoices with the ability to add individual line items, grant access to your accountant, analyze project profitability, and customize your email templates. (Recommended for self-employed professionals.)

• Select: Allows you to send invoices to an unlimited number of clients, track expenses in real time, create and send estimates and proposals, receive client retainers, access preferred credit card processing rates and capped ACH transfer fees, generate reports for tax season, generate financial and accounting reports, scan receipts and invoices with automatic capture of individual line items, grant access to your accountant, analyze project profitability, customize email templates, remove FreshBooks branding, import your data using Easy Switch, access dedicated phone support, and add two team member accounts at no additional cost. (Recommended for businesses with independent contractors and/or employees.)

Zoho Books

Zoho Books is a provider that offers plans based on business size, including startups, small businesses, and nonprofit organizations.

Free Edition: Allows you to create invoices, estimates, expenses, and journal entries, automatically scan receipts, manage vendors, track mileage, accept online payments, manage credits and refunds, enable a self-service customer portal, automate payment reminders, perform bank reconciliations, set up recurring invoices, manage W-9 forms, maintain records for independent contractors (1099), prepare and file Forms 1099, generate income and expense reports, balance sheets, and more than 50 additional reports, among other features.

Standard: Includes everything in the Free Edition, plus progress invoicing, sales tax tracking and management, electronic filing of Forms 1099-MISC and 1099-NEC, bank account connections for importing transactions, recurring expense management, accounting period lock, custom fields, custom reports, journal entry templates, API access for custom integrations, among other features.

Professional: Includes everything in the Standard plan, plus sales order and purchase order tracking, multi-currency transaction recording, billable time invoicing, project profitability tracking, customer retainer management, inventory tracking, price list creation, approval workflows for sales and purchases, workflow automation, user collaboration (chat, voice calls, video calls, and screen sharing), custom user roles, among other features.

Premium: Includes everything in the Professional plan, plus basic revenue recognition, fixed asset management, profit margin analysis, budget management, cash flow forecasting, a self-service vendor portal, custom domain configuration, custom business modules, custom buttons, validation rules for custom fields, embedded web pages and applications within Zoho Books, custom functions, among other features.

Xero

This provider offers plans based on business type, industry, or business stage.

In this article, we focus on applications for small businesses and self-employed individuals.

Plans by Small Business Stage:

• Early: Includes sending quotes and up to 20 invoices, accepting online invoice payments, up to 5 vendor bills, reconciling bank transactions, Smart Document Capture, viewing real-time reports, W-9 and 1099 management, sales tax management, basic performance graphs, a 30-day cash flow forecast, online bill payments within the United States through free ACH transfers, and online bill payments to international recipients.

• Growing: Includes sending invoices and quotes, accepting online invoice payments, automated vendor bill entry and tracking, automatic bank reconciliation (Beta), Smart Document Capture, access to real-time reports, W-9 and 1099 management, sales tax management, a 60-day cash flow forecast, online bill payments within the United States through free ACH transfers, online bill payments to international recipients, customizable performance dashboards, and tailored financial health scorecards.

• Established: Includes sending invoices and quotes, accepting online invoice payments, automated vendor bill entry and tracking, automatic bank reconciliation (Beta), Smart Document Capture, access to real-time reports, W-9 and 1099 management, sales tax management, performance visualization through charts, a 180-day cash flow forecast, online bill payments within the United States through free ACH transfers, online bill payments to international recipients, customizable performance dashboards, tailored financial health scorecards, key performance indicator (KPI) and financial ratio analysis, multi-currency support, project time and cost tracking, employee expense and mileage claims, and benchmarking against industry standards.

Intuit QuickBooks

This provider offers plans based on business type, either by industry or business stage.

By Industry

• Nonprofit

• Manufacturing

• Construction

• Professional Services

• Wholesale or Retail

• Restaurants

• Churches

By Business Stage

• Small Business

• Medium-Sized Business

• New Business

• Self-Employed

In this article, we focus on the applications designed for small businesses.

1. Intuit QuickBooks Self-Employed Business

Intuit QuickBooks Self-Employed Business is a business solution designed for self-employed individuals. It offers three options:

a. Free: 1 user, with limited features, including invoicing, reports, receipts, mileage tracking, management of 1 contractor, income and expense tracking, and payment acceptance.

b. Lite: 1 user. Includes everything in the Free plan, plus unlimited invoicing, unlimited receipts and mileage tracking, management of up to 3 independent contractors, a mobile app, automated bill payments, automated sales and sales tax, instant deposits, and integration with third-party applications.

c. Simple Start: Includes everything in the Lite plan, plus general business reports, cash flow history, in-person payment acceptance, recurring payment setup, access to lending options, connection to one sales channel, integration with QuickBooks Payroll and other QuickBooks services, and management of an unlimited number of independent contractors.

2. Intuit Small Business

Intuit Small Business is a business solution designed to help small businesses manage their income, expenses, invoicing, and other financial operations.

a. Free Version: Includes 1 user, income and expense tracking, up to 2 invoices per month, profit and loss reporting, connection to one bank account, and chat support.

b. Simple Start: Includes 1 user and everything in the Free plan, plus Intuit Intelligence, expert-guided setup and onboarding (Beta), AI Chat for instant insights and answers, automatic expense categorization, tax deduction maximization, general business reports, automated bookkeeping, invoicing and payment collection, and automated bill payments through free ACH transfers.

c. Plus: Includes everything in the Simple Start plan, plus Intuit Intelligence, expert-guided setup and onboarding (Beta), AI Chat for instant insights (limited capacity – Beta), book reconciliation, profit and loss insights, anomaly detection and correction, discrepancy detection before filing through Sales Tax AI, customer lead identification and follow-up assistance through Customer AI, comprehensive reporting, budget planning, project profitability tracking, inventory tracking and management, and class and location tracking for up to 40 classes and locations.

d. Advanced: Includes everything in the Plus plan, plus Intuit Intelligence, expert-guided setup and onboarding (Beta), AI Chat for instant insights with a limit of 25 questions per month (Beta), automatic project creation and cost allocation through Project Management AI (Beta), personalized financial insights through Finance AI, customizable dashboards with key performance indicators (KPIs) and business-specific metrics, performance tracking through unlimited classes, locations, and custom KPIs, custom management reports, workflow automation, Excel data synchronization, customizable user permissions and access levels, cash flow and profit forecasting, batch processing of invoices and expenses, data backup and restoration, priority support and training, and unlimited class and location tracking.

Sage 50 Cloud Accounting

Sage 50 is accounting software for small businesses that combines advanced accounting features with cloud access and collaboration. It includes tools for managing inventory, accounts receivable, accounts payable, cash flow, and financial reporting..

  Key Features

• Accounting for small businesses.

• Advanced inventory tracking.

• Real-time collaboration and access to information.

• Accounts receivable and accounts payable management.

• Financial reports and dashboards.

• Free trial available to evaluate Sage 50 Premium.

• Formerly known as Peachtree.

Sage 50 Cloud Plans Available with Annual or Monthly Subscriptions

Pro Accounting

For small businesses that need essential accounting features.

• 1 user.

• Customer invoice and vendor bill tracking.

• Purchase orders and approval processes.

• Income, expense, and payment management.

• Accounts receivable and accounts payable.

• Bank reconciliation.

• Financial reporting.

• Basic inventory and cash flow management.

• Job and project management.

• Fraud protection through Sage Security Shield.

• Automatic updates and backups.

• Real-time collaboration.

• Access anytime, anywhere.

Premium Accounting

Includes everything in Pro Accounting, plus:

• 1 to 5 users.

• Multiple company management.

• Purchase orders and change orders.

• Advanced budgeting and reporting.

• Inventory tracking by serial numbers.

• Advanced project costing.

• Audit trail.

Quantum Accounting

Includes everything in Premium Accounting, plus:

• 1 to 40 users.

• Role-based user permissions.

• Faster processing.

• Order processing workflows.

• Workflow management.

• Project management.

Conclusion

There are numerous software programs and applications designed to simplify business management in an increasingly technology-driven environment. Before selecting a solution, it is important to evaluate your business's specific needs, compare the features available, consider the cost, and choose the option that best fits your operations and business objectives.

Note: This article is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation of any particular product. The features described are based on the information available at the time this article was written and are subject to change. For the most up-to-date information and the complete terms and conditions, please visit each product developer's official website. SOLIDUS CPA, LLC does not receive commissions, compensation, or financial incentives from the companies whose products are mentioned in this article.

Contáctenos