8 BEST QuickBooks Alternatives For Small Businesses in 2024

List of Top QuickBooks Alternatives With Features And Comparison. Read this Detailed Review To Choose The Best Alternative To QuickBooks For Your Business:

Most of us have heard about the QuickBooks accounting software which has gained high popularity in the small business market worldwide. Small business owners and entrepreneurs are highly dependent on QuickBooks for managing their accounts.

There are several reasons for their dependency on QuickBooks software. Some reasons are it’s easy to use, abound accounting training, and it manages your sales & expenses at an affordable price.

What is QuickBooks?

QuickBooks accounting software was developed and introduced by Intuit after the success of their Quicken software (Personal Financial Management App).

Recommended reading =>> QuickBooks  vs Quicken – Which one to choose

It was specially developed for small to midsize businesses to save their time and increase productivity. QuickBooks provides both on-premises as well as Cloud-based services to its users.

Here’s a video from QuickBooks which claims that over 98% of their customers are running a business more easily with the help of QuickBooks:

QuickBooks manages to work the way you want and helps you understand where you stand. It combines all the features that you need for accounting and is simpler than a spreadsheet. With QuickBooks, you always know how your business is doing and how you will grow.

Now let’s have a look at QuickBooks in detail!!

QuickBooks Dashboard

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The dashboard is very simple and easy to use with a clean and neat interface. It provides users with all the features they need, like income, expenses, profit & loss, customers, vendors, reports, taxes, bank accounts, etc.

Moreover, it visualizes your data in the form of Graphs, Pie charts, and Bar graphs so you can easily know where you are saving and where you need to spend it.

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QuickBooks Features

Enlisted below are some of the notable features of QuickBooks.

#1) Track Project Profitability

With QuickBooks, you can easily manage business accounting the way you want. It helps you stay out of the box with clearer reports and dashboards to know exactly how to make a profit with your current projects.

You can also track details like Labor costs, Expenses, Taxes paid and watch your Income & Profitability with timely solutions in QuickBooks.

#2) Manage Bills, Invoicing, and Payments

You can easily track your Billing Status, Record Payments, and Generate Invoices without any stress. QuickBooks also lets you pay to multiple vendors at the same time and create cheques from anywhere you wish to.

In addition, it easily accepts money from any source of payment and directly invoices the customer from your smartphone.

#3) Income & Expenses

You can know where you stand and where you are going by easily tracking your income and expenses. Find out where your money is going by importing transactions from your Bank Accounts, Online Wallets, Credit Cards, and much more. Also, your transactions will automatically get sorted into tax categories.

#4) Multiple Users

Collaborate with your peers and accountants on a project when required by granting them access to your files and documents.

You can also specifically give access to your members for certain features and to protect your sensitive data through user authentication. Auto-sync helps you to reduce errors and work seamlessly.

#5) Reporting, Sales, & Tax

Make better decisions with accurate Reports & Insights and avoid unnecessary shocks by easily tracking cash flow and expenses on the dashboard. QuickBooks always keeps your sales in sync and automatically calculates taxes based on your sales.

QuickBooks Pricing

For Managing Books:

It offers four different pricing plans with a free trial of 30 days to manage your books:

• Simple Start: For Basic necessities ($10 per month per user).
• Essentials: For all the essentials that you need ($20 per month up to 3 users).
• Plus: For Higher needs ($35 per month up to 5 users).
• Advanced: For Mid-sized growing businesses ($60 per month up to 25 users).

For Managing Expenses:

The plan also offers a free trial for 30 days and is specifically built for self-employed people. The pricing is $5 per month.

QuickBooks Cons (Reasons to Select Alternatives)

Given below are some of the limitations of QuickBooks.

• Although QuickBooks is a great option for small and mid-scale businesses, this tool could be a disadvantage for growing business as it lacks industry and business-specific features.
• It is good for maintaining daily accounting transactions but it cannot provide key reports outside accounting.
• You also have limitations on the number of users, hence when you are working with a large team it doesn’t fit your needs.
• QuickBooks is good for those who have a lack of formal accounting knowledge but is not suitable for those who already have or require professional support.
• There is no fixed asset section in QuickBooks for the users and the price keeps increasing each time when the upgrade comes.
• QuickBooks lacks integration and automation with other tools and there are file size issues too.

Remember that almost all tools offer a Free Trial option. Hence, initially select two or three tools according to your requirements and then use their free trial version and after analyzing all the tools you can make your final decision.

Our TOP 3 Recommendations For QuickBooks Alternatives:

FreshBooks	Zoho Books	Oracle NetSuite
• Invoicing • Expenses • Payments	• Invoicing • Client portal • Reporting	• Accounts Receivable • Accounts Payable • Cash management
Price: $6 monthly Trial version: Available	Free Plan Price: Starts at $15/month	Price: Get a quote.
Visit Site >>	Visit Site >>	Visit Site >>

List of the Best QuickBooks Alternatives

While QuickBooks easily maintains your daily transactions and workflows, it cannot be used for high-end accounting functionalities. However, it still stands to be a great tool that is easy to use and probably the best option for small and mid-sized businesses.

Given below is a list of the Top QuickBooks Competitors.

1. Xero
2. FreshBooks
3. Joiin
4. Zoho Books
5. Oracle NetSuite
6. Quicken
7. Sage
8. Bonsai
9. Bill.com
10. ZipBooks
11. Wave
12. Billy
13. SlickPie

Comparison Chart of QuickBooks Competitors

Tool Name	Free Trial	Suitable For	Pricing per Month	Multiple Currencies	Cloud-based	Our Ratings
QuickBooks	Free trial for 30 days.	Daily accounting	$10 to $60	Not available	Yes	5/5
Xero	Free trial for 30 days.	Small businesses, accountants, and bookkeepers	$6.50/month to $35/month	—	Yes	4.5/5
FreshBooks	Free trial available.	Accounting with integration.	$15 to $50	Not available	Yes	4.5/5
Joiin	14 days	Small to large businesses as well as accounting and finance professionals	Starts at $19/month	Yes	Yes	4.5/5
Zoho Books	Available for 14 days	Managing finances & automating business workflows.	$15-$60	Yes	Yes	5/5
Quicken	Free Trial for 30 days	Small businesses	Starts at $2.39/month	—	Yes	4.5/5
Oracle NetSuite	Free product tour available.	Daily financial transactions.	Get a quote	—	Yes	5/5
Sage	Available for 30 days.	Business’s Accounting, finances, payments, & operations.	It starts at $10/month	Available	Yes	5/5
Bonsai	Available	Accounting and tax estimate	$17	Yes	Yes	4.5/5
Bill.com	Available	Accounts Payable & Accounts Receivable Automation.	It starts at $39 per user per month.	Supported	Yes	4.5/5
ZipBooks	Free trial for 30 days.	Smart work and intelligence accounting.	$15 to $35	Not available	Yes	4/5
Wave	Completely Free	Managing finances	Free	Not available	Yes	4/5

We have seen the cons of QuickBooks which makes the users switch from QuickBooks to the other tools available in the market.

Let us explore its competitors!!

#1) Xero

Best for Small businesses, accountants, and bookkeepers.

With Xero, you get a comprehensive financial management software that simplifies various finance-related operations of your businesses. You can be used to pay and track your bills. It also automates several time-consuming tasks like invoice processing and bank reconciliation. The software keeps all your finance-related data in a secure database.

This data can be accessed anytime by the authorized individuals. The software also streamlines the entire process of paying employees their wages and salaries. The software allows you to keep your pay records online. You can very easily reconcile salaries and wages in Xero. Xero also comes with a mobile app, which only makes it easier to perform all of its functions on the go.

Features:

• Invoice Processing
• Bank Reconciliation
• Mobile Application
• Track Project Profitability
• Capture data automatically

Price:

• Early Plan: $6.50/month
• Growing Plan: $18.50/month
• Established Plan: $35/month

Verdict: Xero is a fantastic accounting software that’s bolstered with advanced features, a flexible pricing structure, and support delivered by a team of seasoned accountants and bookkeepers.

#2) FreshBooks

Best for Small businesses.

FreshBooks is an all-in-one small business accounting software that helps in running small businesses easily, swiftly, and securely. With FreshBooks, you just need to spend less time on accounting and more time on doing your personal work.

This software is featured in Forbes, CNET, CNN, The New York Times, TechCrunch, Mashable, etc. and is suggested by every small business owner.

Features

• Run your business from anywhere with FreshBooks mobile apps no matter where you are, you can perform each and every task at your fingertips.
• The best part is that you can connect with outside industry-leading apps like G-Suite, Shopify, Gusto, etc. for your ease of accounting.
• FreshBooks has great and superior customer support with quick service and is really helpful for each and every customer.
• FreshBooks provides invoicing software that saves you time and lets you create professional invoices for your business.
• It’s so easy as it automatically gets updated on a regular basis and doesn’t have to do any manual entry for your expenses. FreshBooks will automatically do that for you.
• FreshBooks is a Project Management as well as Team Collaboration Software.

Pricing

FreshBooks offers excellent pricing plans with a free trial without a credit card:

• Lite: For Self-employed ($15 per month).
• Plus: For Small business ($25 per month).
• Premium: For Growing businesses ($50 per month).
• Select: For Thriving Business Needs (Custom Pricing).

Verdict: Obviously, a great alternative to QuickBooks with powerful features like integration, mobile apps, superior customer support, and is much easier than QuickBooks.

#3) Joiin

Best for small to large businesses as well as accounting and finance professionals.

Joiin is a good alternative to QuickBooks when it comes to reporting. This software is best known for helping accounting teams consolidate key financial data from multiple platforms like Xero and QuickBooks itself. It presents businesses with all of their key financial reports like profit and loss statements or balance sheets in one place. 

Perhaps the best aspect of this tool is its ability to create custom reports. You’ll be able to customize professional-looking consolidated reports in a variety of formats with the help of a click. The software is also great for budgeting and forecasting. You can use the software to display your budgets alongside actual amounts within your reports. 

Features:

• Intercompany management
• Multi-currency reporting
• Financial consolidation
• Custom reporting
• Multi-client management

Verdict: Joiin earns a spot on our list because of its ability to automate the financial consolidation process. It can easily pull data from multiple financial platforms and present you with key reports in a comprehensive fashion. 

Price: Joiin is available in 6 editions. They are as follows:

• Starter: $19/month
• Small: $35/month
• Medium: $58/month
• Large: $91/month
• X-Large: $175/month
• XX-Large: $280/month

All plans are billed annually.

#4) Zoho Books

Best for Small organizations.

Zoho Books is online web-based accounting software that helps business owners to manage their finances, workflows, and thereby allows them to work collectively across different departments.

Zoho Books provides end-to-end accounting, tax compliance, and an integrated business platform that helps you to manage and run each and every aspect of your business from wherever you want.

Features

• Zoho Books keeps receivables within books, creates estimates for customers, converts them to invoices, and gets you paid online easily.
• It keeps your business stay Sales tax compliant with Tax-compliant transactions, Automatic tax calculations, Tax payments, and Reconciliation.
• Stay on top of your purchases by creating and sending Purchase Orders, uploading Expense Receipts, and keeping a track of the payments made.
• With Zoho Books, you can get all your contacts in one place for faster and smoother communication.
• Zoho Books offers more than 50 different business reports like Profit and Loss statements, Inventory summary, Sales Tax reports, etc. for the smooth running of your business.

Pricing

Zoho Books offers three paid pricing plans with a 14-day free trial:

• Basic: For Basic work ($9 per organization per month for 2 users).
• Standard: For Higher needs ($19 per organization per month for 3 users).
• Professional: For Advanced needs ($29 per organization per month for 10 users).

Zoho Books also offers some add-ons for higher requirements:

• Add a User: For $2 per month.
• Snail Mail Credits: For $2 per credit.
• Auto Scans: $5 per month for 50 scans.

Verdict: In terms of pricing as well as in terms of Reporting and Accounting, Zoho Books is a great alternative for QuickBooks.

#5) Oracle NetSuite

Best for small to large businesses.

Oracle NetSuite offers a cloud financial management solution. This will give you complete real-time visibility into the financial performance of your business, from the consolidated level down to the individual transactions.

It has seamless integration with all NetSuite order management, inventory, CRM, and e-commerce functions hence your critical business processes will be streamlined.

Features:

• Oracle NetSuite has billing management capabilities that will integrate with your sales, finance, and fulfillment teams. This will improve accuracy and eliminate billing errors.
• It provides Revenue Recognition management features to comply with accounting standards and report financial results on time.
• It provides intuitive planning, budgeting, and forecasting solutions that will shorten cycle times, engage business users, and enrich your planning process.
• Oracle NetSuite has unprecedented “close to disclose” capabilities.
• It provides GRC (Governance, Risk, and Compliance) solution.

Pricing: You can get a quote for pricing details. You can get Oracle NetSuite Free Product Tour.

Verdict: Oracle NetSuite provides a complete picture of your business on-demand and in real-time through reporting, analytics, insights, and decision making, etc.

#6) Quicken

Best for Customized financial management.

Quicken is a personal finance software that can easily go toe-to-toe with some of the best features QuickBooks offers. The tool consolidates your finances. Simply put, it lets you view and manage your finances across multiple bank accounts, credit cards, income sources, etc. via a single, intuitive dashboard. 

The tool arms you insightful reports, projected cashflows among many other things so you can take informed financial decisions. It also provides you real-time alerts on spending, which could help you control your expenses. 

Features:

• Customized invoicing
• Built-in reports
• Assistance with taxes
• Easily store business and personal documents

Price: Quicken is available for purchase in two editions. The mobile and web-app based Quicken Simplifi will cost you $2.39/month. The desktop based Quicken Classic’s Deluxe version can be purchased for $2.99/month while its premier counterpart will cost you $4.19/month.

Free Trial available for 30 days, afterward the price will be $5.99/month only. This offer is valid from September 3, 2024 – October 3, 2024.

Verdict: If you are looking for a QuickBooks alternative that can help your small business simplify its finances, then Quicken was tailor-made for you.

#7) Sage

Best for Small to medium-sized businesses and construction & real estate.

Sage is an accounting and business management software. Its accounting features will help you manage invoicing, tax, payments, etc. It is a cloud-based solution and can be used from any device.

Sage 50 cloud has capabilities of the cloud-based solution as well as desktop accounting software. Sage Timeslips is a billing and time tracking software.

Sage Accounting software offers all functionalities to manage your business’s accounting. It has the capabilities of automating workflows, tracking invoices, tracking cash flow, accepting payments, etc. Sage 300cloud offers an accounting solution that will give you a customized tool for your industry.

Features:

• Sage offers solutions like Sage Intacct, Sage X3, Sage 100cloud, Sage 300cloud, and Sage Fixed Assets.
• Sage Accounting has the capabilities of creating & sending invoices and automatic bank reconciliation.
• It offers the features of managing purchase invoices, forecasting cash flows, and sending quotes and estimates.
• Small businesses can use Sage HR for HR-related operations and medium-sized businesses can use People and Sage HRMS for HR and CRM processes.
• For Construction and Real Estate, Sage has tools of Sage Intacct Construction, Sage 100 Contractor, and Sage 300 Construction & Real Estate.

Pricing: Sage Accounting has two pricing plans, Sage Accounting Start ($10 per month) and Sage accounting ($12.50 per month).

Verdict: Sage Intacct can be a perfect QuickBooks alternative that will give you immediate visibility across the entire organization.

It has the capabilities of quickly consolidating multiple entities and easily creating & tracking transactions for all locations. Sage Accounting is a tool for invoicing and automation and is suitable for small businesses.

#8) Bonsai

Best for small businesses and self-employed professionals.

Bonsai is the perfect accounting software for freelancers who do not have massive capital to invest in high-end accounting tools. What makes it even better than Quickbooks, however, is its ability to automate expenses and estimate taxes.

Bonsai will automatically connect with your back account. This makes the software capable of automatically categorizing your expenses. The software can be used to maximize your tax-write offs. Besides this, it is also good at estimating how much tax you need to pay and will send you reminders to make sure your tax obligations are cleared before the due date.

Features:

• Import expenses from your bank account and automatically save them with tax write-offs.
• Get quarterly and annual tax reminders.
• Track profit and loss throughout different times of the year.
• Comprehensive financial reporting.

Price:

Bonsai offers three plans that are all billed annually. There is also a free trial.

• Starter plan: $17 per month
• Professional plan: $32/month
• Business plan: $52/month

The first two months with the annual plan will be free.

Verdict: Bonsai serves as the perfect alternative to Quickbooks if you are operating a small business or are yourself a freelancer. The software simplifies the process of accounting and taxation with robust, easy-to-use, and automated features.

#9) Bill.com

Best for small to medium-sized businesses and accounting firms.

Bill.com is an intelligent bill payment platform with smart features of AP and AR automation. It supports new payment options like ACH, Virtual Cards, and international wire transfers. The platform is powered by machine learning and provides features that will save you time and reduce human errors.

Features:

• Bill.com offers features to automate payments from start to finish. With this automation, you can connect your payment accounts and accounting tools in one place.
• It contains features like detecting duplicate
• It has the features of automatic data entry.

Pricing: Bill.com Accountant Partner Program is available for $49 per month. For business, it offers four pricing plans, Essentials ($39 per user per month), Team ($49 per user per month), Corporate ($69 per user per month), and Enterprise (Get a quote). A free trial is available on the tool.

Verdict: Bill.com is a cloud-based solution for small to medium-sized businesses. It offers all the features and functionalities required for managing payables and receivables. It can be integrated with accounting software like Xero and QuickBooks.

#10) ZipBooks

Best for Freelancers, Small, and Growing businesses.

ZipBooks offers a dashboard with a very nice and clean interface showing your Financial Performance, Quick Stats, Business Health Score, etc. ZipBooks is very simple, beautiful, & powerful and give you the tools to power up your work and make you even smarter.

ZipBooks focuses more on smart work and intelligence to make your thoughts clearer and thereby make your business more successful.

Features

• ZipBooks helps you to create your online presence and attract more customers by leaving reviews from your best customers.
• Intelligence like smart insights and reports help you to target your potential customers and get paid more.
• Create and send professional invoices to your customers and get paid easily with all sorts of payments, auto-billing, and automated payment reminders.
• Make sense of your accounting with simple reconciliation, auto-categorization, and intuitive color-coding.
• Actionable insights and data driven intelligence help you in automating, predicting, and advising.

Pricing

ZipBooks offers one free starter and three paid plans:

• Smarter: For Basic work ($15 per month).
• Sophisticated: For a bit higher work ($35 per month).
• Accountant: For Advanced work (custom pricing).

Verdict: ZipBooks focuses more on intelligence and smart work rather than hard work. Its features and automation make it a better alternative to QuickBooks.

#11) Wave

Best for small business owners.

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Wave is a free financial software for small business owners launched in 2010 to empower their work step by step. The Wave team is on a mission to change the way in which small businesses manage their finances.

It is a great tool that is specially developed for modernizing small business trends and a community that is highly constructive.

Features

• Easy and intuitive software designed to keep small business owners with no jargon in mind.
• It provides powerful accounting with a simple dashboard, accountant-friendly software, and unlimited bank and credit card connections.
• Create professional and customizable templates for free and thereby help in saving your time too.
• Creates invoices quickly, Recurring billing, and Gets paid faster.
• You can also do invoicing on your mobile apps for iOS and Android and run your business from anywhere.

Pricing

This includes zero accounting price and zero price for set-up fees. There are no hidden charges and no monthly fees are included. It is completely free to use.

Verdict: Easy to compare with QuickBooks and is a much better option for those who want a free version of accounting and financial software.

#12) Billy

Best for Freelancers and Small Businesses.

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Billy is a Danish accounting and bookkeeping software available in English and is specially developed for small and mid-sized businesses and freelancers.

It is a free and easy to use accounting system where you can send invoices, post bills, and settle VAT with a few clicks. Billy makes accounting fun and includes everything that self needs.

Features

• Financial overview like which customers you sell more, which vendors you spend more, when is your next VAT report, etc.
• With Billy, it’s so easy to create and send invoices to your customers from any location and from any device.
• Billy’s VAT feature follows all SKAT standards so you never get surprised by your next VAT report.
• Less paperwork as it converts receipts into digital form.

Pricing

Billy is free to use software but you can also use a subscription to hire a professional bookkeeper for all your bookkeeping and accounting on a monthly basis.

Verdict: Billy has a slightly different concept of working than the other software. The tool is good and is the best option for those who want VAT and sales management.

#13) SlickPie

Best for Entrepreneurs, Small Businesses, and Non-profit Organizations.

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SlickPie is a simple expense management software for all types of small businesses. This includes online invoicing, billing, automated data entry, financial reports, live bank feeds, faster payments, etc.

Moreover, it has a magic bot, i.e., a tool that automatically pulls information from receipts and then converts it into digital data for streamlining business expenses.

Features

• Send online invoices in multiple currencies, accept payments through various payment modes, and track your expenses.
• Magic Bot for automated receipt data entry, creating quotes and estimates, tracking sales tax, and managing your bills.
• Reconcile bank transactions, get live bank feeds, set up recurring invoices, set up late payment reminders, and see your financial performance reports.
• Add multiple users, see your transaction history, upload and attach any type of file, and run your business from any device.

Pricing

SlickPie offers a free Starter plan for all the basic needs and one paid Pro plan for higher needs at $39.95 per month.

Verdict: For controlling expenses, you can opt for SlickPie as it provides powerful features for your business expense management.

Conclusion

Don’t go for the tools with highly advanced features if your requirements are less and also don’t select the tool with fewer features if you have higher requirements as it can directly affect your business activities.

Suggested reading =>> Top competitors to TurboTax software

You need to make a proper decision for what you are opting for by analyzing, surveying, and looking for all the available options.

In this article, we have reviewed QuickBooks and its alternatives. Select the tool that best suits your business activities and financial goals.

Further reading =>> QuickBooks vs FreshBooks – Side by side comparison