QuickBooks vs FreshBooks – Which Accounting Tool is Best?

Both QuickBooks and FreshBooks are powerful accounting tools that work best in different use cases and are best suited for small-to-mid-sized businesses with different business goals.

QuickBooks will provide any small-to-mid-sized business with the tools to keep track of their expenses, organize their budget, and balance the profit and loss while keeping up with a growing business no matter how fast it scales up.

FreshBooks will give any sole proprietors and freelancers access to a simplistic, beginner-friendly interface, industry-leading, responsive customer service, as well as time tracking, invoicing, and billing features that will help you monitor and process their finances without accounting expertise.

But, how do these two accounting software square up in the ease of use, pricing plans, integrations, reporting, and other categories?

Throughout this article, you will find out what's the better solution if you are selling retail goods, looking for an accountant-preferred solution, starting a business for the first time, operating a project-based business, and so on.

Read on, and find out whether QuickBooks or FreshBooks is the accounting tool that will help you reach your business goals.

QuickBooks vs FreshBooks: A Quick Overview

Both QuickBooks and FreshBooks fall under the category of web-based accounting software, but they have their differences.

Along with the ability to integrate with a wide variety of third-party apps, you can expand your functionality using QuickBooks or Freshbooks with a mobile accounting app for iOS and Android.

No matter which accounting tool from these two you choose, you will have elite accounting software handling your accounting, banking, invoicing, and expenses.

If you are a freelancer, a small business, or an agency, you can monitor your cash flow, bill your customers, manage time and resources spent on specific projects, and process your finances when the time is due.

Both invoicing software, respectively, offer a highly-intuitive design, multiple plans, and excellent reporting and customer support capabilities.

Indeed, FreshBooks works best for project-based businesses and freelancers offering services that require them to track expenses, revenue, and billable hours.

And, Quickbooks is best suited for product-based operations for a great variety of small businesses requiring an across the board accounting software.

While they have similarities, QuickBooks and FreshBooks differ with QuickBooks providing an accounting software suitable for all sizes and FreshBooks offering invoice tracking for small businesses and solopreneurs.

As you read through the article, you will find explanations for all sorts of differences between the two, like FreshBooks being easier for start-ups and less complex, has a fast-responding support team, and offers native integrations with your other tools.

On the other hand, you will explore QuickBooks's advantages like scalability, being the preferred tool of accountants, advanced reconciliation, taxes, reporting, and inventory management features.

Now that we have established that there is no clear winner for a robust feature set, user-friendliness, and variety of plan choices in the QuickBooks vs FreshBooks battle, we can break down the differences to help you choose the best solution for you.

When to Choose QuickBooks Online

1. For selling products and retail goods

Just like FreshBooks is a perfect choice for managing clients and billing as a freelancer, QuickBooks is the perfect accounting software for selling products and retail goods.

Document your sales from all channels and sync everything through PayPal, Square, and Shopify.

Connect your banking institutions in QuickBooks Online to access automatic reconciliation, and assign automatic classification rules for specific accounts.

Apart from time tracking and bill payment capabilities, QuickBooks's Simple Start plan offers inventory management functionality that allows you to maintain optimal stock and vendor numbers.

Track account numbers, billing rates, terms, vendor and contractor payments for year-end 1099 processing.

2. For a more all-around solution with customer account details and elaborate integrations

Retainer management allows you to set up upfront deposit and retainer accounts and apply upfront deposits and retainers to invoices.

Unlike FreshBooks, QuickBooks allows you to enter billing and shipping addresses, tax information, payment and billing details, language preferences, and different notes for different accounts.

Also, you can attach invoices, statements, and other documents to customer accounts.

While FreshBooks narrows down the focus of its audience with simplistic software and the need to connect it with other tools to achieve complete invoicing and accounting goals, QuickBooks's more all-around solution allows you to use a smaller app deck.

You can still connect QuickBooks with highly-valuable integrations like QuickBooks Point of Sale that simplifies in-person sales and displays your POS purchases along with other accounting data.

3. For the accountant-preferred solution with country-specific features

Through QuickBooks Online, you can access the Accountant option and share your account with your accountant or CPA.

Being the preferred accounting software of most accountants, QuickBooks allows you to align the accounting tools for the best possible results.

While FreshBooks is very much North America-oriented, QuickBooks offers more flexible bank feeds, integrations, tax compliance, and other country-specific features which make for faster tax return capability.

4. For a more scalable accounting tool to match your core bookkeeping knowledge

It is much easier to outgrow FreshBooks than QuickBooks, as the latter offers mid-sized and fast-growing businesses a more diverse set of features that will adjust to your business's increase in volume.

While QuickBooks offers time tracking and invoicing capabilities, their Simple Start plan doesn't offer any time tracking tools.

Time tracking functionality in QuickBooks is more catered towards employee time tracking and it is best utilized when integrating with paid-for apps like TSheets.

Unlike the manual categorization system in FreshBooks, QuickBooks automatically imports and categorizes your transactions when you connect your accounts to QuickBooks Online.

Apart from a chart of accounts, QuickBooks allows you to easily coordinate transactions from multiple bank accounts and credit cards with the capability to enter expense types for specific transactions.

Besides the automation and bank feed capabilities, QuickBooks offers many advanced bill payments, invoice scheduling, sales tax management, and a lot of different advanced features.

This includes having a versatile payment structure and connecting your accounting tool with a variety of best credit card payment processors, and other payment processing companies.

While QuickBooks has been criticized for a more complex set of accounting features, it is no doubt that their toolkit allows you to organize your cash flow with moderate bookkeeping knowledge.

QuickBooks offers an abundance of integrations for all accounting software categories to help you gain maximum control over your financial data and optimize your sales processes.

When to Choose FreshBooks

1. For sole proprietors, first-time business owners, and small business owners

Just like QuickBooks is adored by accountants, FreshBooks is an accounting software you will find prevalent in marketing and advertising as well as among the self-employed consultants.

Catered towards small business owners, especially freelancers, FreshBooks is also designed for sole proprietors like attorneys, architects, designers, and other service professionals.

No matter in which field you offer your expert services, it's sometimes best to check out how small businesses operate for inspiration, and this includes the website they present themselves through and the accounting tools they use.

Another great role for FreshBooks to fill is one of the accounting tool for first-time business owners.

The simplicity of its software makes it easily approachable for newcomers without any prior accounting experience, with the system being super user-friendly and easy to set up.

You get the core bookkeeping and accounting features that you need to manage and streamline your finances without the overwhelming advanced functions that require more expertise.

2. For project-based businesses requiring a simplistic time-tracking, billing, invoicing software

Track time spent on a client or project easily, and transfer hours into invoices or mark the hours as billed without creating invoices.

Regardless of the plan you choose, FreshBooks provides you with the capability to track time and record it based on specific clients, and bill everything automatically.

If you work within a team that handles a couple of individual projects, you can make use of FreshBooks's weekly and monthly-based time tracking, team and individual project time tracking, as well as the option to add detailed entry notes.

In all FreshBooks plans, you can send automated and manual invoice reminders with Late Payment Reminders and Late Fees to remind your clients about their unpaid bills.

Automating your invoices and accounting procedures with the optimal billing and invoicing software will contribute to your company's financial growth.

Apart from the reminder emails, you can charge a percentage or a flat fee for invoices past their due date.

FreshBooks simplifies the whole process of operating, billing, and delegating payments, connecting the time tracking tools to the intuitive and well-rounded invoicing software.

3. For small-time businesses in need of reputable accounting software with superb customer support and pricing

Another circumstance in which you can benefit from FreshBooks is if you want accounting software that has continuously received high praise for ease of set-up and admin.

With the G2 rating of 9.2/10, you will eliminate the complexity in your daily accounting processes as much as possible.

Apart from the relevant time tracking benefits and simplicity it offers, FreshBooks will be a great choice for you if you want an accounting tool that stands out with its pricing options and attentive customer support.

FreshBooks might be the perfect choice for you if you are looking for reputable accounting software with a great refund policy, highly-praised and knowledgeable support team with enhanced support features you won't find in your run-of-the-mill support team.

4. For self-employed professionals that prioritize stellar syncing and connection options, and CRM benefits

Lastly, if you prioritize connecting your accounting tool with your existing app stack, you will find FreshBooks more than fitting for you.

The mobile accounting app contributes to FreshBooks's success in offering an all-around solution for self-employed professionals.

Apart from the two-way PieSync functionality allowing you to access any additional function your small business requires at the moment, the integrations library will display the best-rated tools for every occasion.

If you are looking to obtain the various CRM benefits for your finances, FreshBooks will enable you to integrate and sync with HubSpot, Capsule, and AgileCRM safely.

Ease of Use

QuickBooks and FreshBooks both offer intuitive and simplistic interface systems along with help and guidance options for their functions.

QuickBooks

The UI of QuickBooks is intuitively-designed with a vertical menu bar with a built-in help button making it easy to discover what you are looking for.

Some hidden settings features do compromise the organization a little bit, but the easy set-up process, which allows you to jump into work with just basics entered and add the details later, more than makes up for it.

Left of the screen, you will access all the system functions and the data entry sections include look-up options for all fields.

FreshBooks

FreshBooks does encourage you to set up the system before using it, but you can adjust to add the intricacies later if you want to jump straight into your work.

The welcome screen displays your set-up progress, while the main navigation screen offers a vertical menu of all the components within the category selected from the menu.

For all categories like clients, invoices, expenses, the interface will display everything from recent activity, various options to conduct different actions, as well as the summary of all activity.

There are compatible look-up options for data entry screens that will help you handle data entry without confusion.

If you are one of the bunch, you can address the general feeling that most self-employed professionals and small business owners have of not being knowledgeable enough to handle bookkeeping and finances by choosing from the best accounting software tools.

Winner: FreshBooks.

The activity summaries and versatile task options sorted in each category along with recent activity help you realize the best next step during all stages of set-up and data entry.

QuickBooks Online vs FreshBooks: Feature Comparison

QuickBooks

Regardless of the plan you choose, QuickBooks will provide you with a lot of core accounting features.

1. Bank feeds and expenses

QuickBooks allows you to easily track business expenses, and connect your bank accounts, credit cards, PayPal, or Square after which an automatic import and categorization will be conducted.

In the Simple Start plan alone, you can track expenses, sales, and profits, send unlimited invoices, track and manage your sales team.

2. Mobile app and reports

Run your entire business on your phone through the QuickBooks mobile app by completing transactions, recording expenses, invoicing customers, sending reports while automatically backing up your data on the cloud, and syncing to all devices.

Snap receipts with the mobile app, stay ready for the tax deduction, manage your cash flow with the built-in cash flow statement, access and share built-in expense reports.

Display a snapshot of your business's financial state with reports that can focus on sales, spending, or the general state, but they will help you understand different aspects of your business and how they relate to your overall profit and loss.

With the help of manual entry, tagging, and detailed records, you can access a variety of reports and sub-reports that include accounts payable and receivable, products and inventory, expenses and purchases, sales tax reporting, and employee reports.

3. Invoicing

Create professional-looking invoices and utilize automated templates and schedules to streamline payments.

Convert estimates into invoices after a customer accepts your estimate, or send your customer a progress invoice to request partial payments.

QuickBooks allows you to quickly create invoices, set the invoices up as recurring, and customize the invoices on the entry screen directly in the software.

Allow your clients to pay directly from the invoice by adding the click-to-pay button.

4. Scalability and access to different features

The Essentials and the Plus plans will give you access to versatile bill management, sales quote generation, multi-currency transactions, inventory tracking, order purchasing, and many more capabilities.

The Essentials plan builds on the Simple Start plan by adding valuable features like integration with TSheets, customizable access levels for three users, time tracking by client or employee.

The Plus plan extends the Essentials plan in the same way by adding 5. users, project profitability tracking, as well as inventory tracking.

Sorting out your inventory-related costs and losses with the ultimate inventory management software can help your product-based business solve your financial setbacks along with an elaborate accounting tool like QuickBooks.

5. Forecasting and mileage tracking

The project and job profitability tracking features allow you to calculate your profits and costs with QuickBooks separating your hourly labor from other project costs.

Automatic GPS tracking allows QuickBooks to track your mileage, but you can add a trip route manually also.

You can easily categorize individual trips as business or personal and receive detailed mileage reports.

This GPS tracking can be of high value for trucking companies looking to facilitate the best financial solutions for fuel and tolls, and other unpredictable costs, which is why they will extend further invoice factoring companies for handling unpaid invoices.

6. Security

Back up your data up automatically with bank-level security with data saved on two different hard drives each time whenever there are changes to your company files, periodical data copy to a third-party hard drive, and automatic nightly back-ups.

Each person you invite to QuickBooks Online must create a unique password and will only gain access to the data you authorize.

7. Accountant access

You can send up to two invites (3 in the Advanced plan) to your accountants, and your accountants will receive an email with a link to sign in to your account with administrator privileges to all areas of your company.

8. Sales tax, vendor, and contractor expenses

QuickBooks helps you keep records of sales taxes for certain goods and services you offer, which you can use to forward to your chosen tax collecting agency.

Send, track, and file 1099 forms for independent contractors and stay compliant with the IRS norms.

Track the equipment rental and supplies costs that you pay contractor and vendor and categorize them as separate vendor expenses.

QuickBooks will walk you through the process of mapping out contractor payments to correct boxes on the 1099 form.

9. Timekeeping and payroll tracking

As far as timekeeping goes, QuickBooks offers an additional payroll tracking feature for full and part-time employees.

To activate the payroll tracking function, you can access their payroll or time clock software and eliminate the tedious categorizing of services as products.

Overall, QuickBooks offers more enhanced contractor, vendor, and customer management, as well as easier app connection.

FreshBooks

FreshBooks is known for the abundance of substantial invoicing capabilities with plans varying depending on the number of possible billable clients, the volume of features, and fewer limitations that go with them as you scale up the plans.

QuickBooks and FreshBooks share the same approach of offering core accounting features regardless of the plan you choose.

1. Invoicing

FreshBooks invoice generator makes creating high-end invoices super easy and accessible to anyone with rich customization options that include a personal logo, thank you email customization, and much more.

2. Automation and bank feeds

Automate everything from sending reminder emails to charging credit cards and everything else.

Let your clients choose their preferred payment option through FreshBooks Payments or Stripe whether it's through credit cards, ACH, online, and get paid up to 11 days faster.

Connect all your transactions to your bank account with automated import.

3. Tax forms, project management, and team collaboration

With double-entry accounting, you can collaborate with your accountant on Trial Balance, Balance Sheets, General Ledger, or Chart of Accounts.

Prepare the paperwork for your employees and contractors to pay their taxes, with W2s for full-time employees and 1099 forms for contractors.

Access the Profit and Loss and the Expense reports in multiple currencies.

Forecast your future finances with estimates and proposals, streamlining your billing throughout the projects.

Forecast the upcoming workload and income by negotiating fixed pricing with your clients upfront for specific timelines and projects, and establish a stable cash flow.
Outline your project's scope, timeline, and deliverables with customizable proposals.

4. Expense tracking, receipts, and sales tax summary

Document business-related purchases and track your expenses, and record recurring expenses perfect for subscription-related costs.

Upload receipts, and mark expenses for rebilling your clients.

Capture every transaction and track taxes filing them in categories, and access the Sales Tax Summary Report to determine how much you owe in sales taxes.

5. Deposit requests and estimate-to-invoice conversion

Request deposits on your invoices, and choose the percentage of the invoice value or the full amount.

Add your tracked times and expenses to your invoices, and charge for investments you incurred marking everything you need as billable.

Convert your custom estimates into ready-to-pay invoices and allow your clients to accept estimates online.

6. Time tracking, breakdown, and billable hours

FreshBooks enables you to track time on your clients or projects and bill clients based on your tracked hours.

Display easy-to-read breakdowns of your hours and see how long your tasks take at a glance, and log accurate working times for invoices.

Bank every billable hour with the mobile app or the FreshBooks Chrome Timer, as well as through the apps like Asana, Basecamp, Trello, and Teamwork.

Besides utilizing every working hour to the most of its advantage, there is another side of optimizing your cash flow and this includes having a clear vision and setting clear financial goals once you have improved the financial state of your business.

7. Collaboration, cloud storage, client information, and historical timelines

Apart from being an all-in-one accounting tool, FreshBooks comes with a versatile project management and team collaboration toolkit.

Invite your contractors, employees, and partners and approve which files they will have access to.

With project execution, file sharing, budget planning, due date setting, FreshBooks also allows your clients to give you feedback throughout the process with updates being stored on the cloud automatically.

Add client information with internal notes, and utilize the API calls for each staff member to create, view, and edit clients they are assigned to.

Build and improve your client relationships through the relationship feed providing you historical timelines of all interactions with your clients.

Streamline digital and manual filing, email replying, payroll and employee scheduling, invoice management, expense logging, and other tedious tasks through business automation.

Keep your projects and employees on the right track with the dashboard and project views of the tracked billable hours, with the built-in time tracking tool catered towards project-based businesses.

8. Reporting

Reporting-wise, FreshBooks displays the profit margin efficiently, through the central dashboard with periodic input.

Build more granular reports through filters, with a special focus on payment collection and time-based reports.

9. Special features

Activate special expense features like expense tracking, project time tracking, and sales tax management, and fill out your balance sheets through manual data entry.

Apart from the recurring invoice, automatic billable hours, overdue payment reminder automation, FreshBooks provides you with the click-to-pay button option for online invoices.

Winner: QuickBooks.

With a greater choice of integration, versatile automation capabilities, customer, contractor, and vendor management, and many more features connecting and advancing the accounting functions, QuickBooks takes the win.

Pricing Plans and Fees

You can find a lot of similarities in this round of QuickBooks vs FreshBooks battle, with FreshBooks offering more capacity for billable clients and QuickBooks for system users as you scale up the plans.

You will be required to pay an additional fee per user account in all FreshBooks plans, while QuickBooks offers a fixed number of users depending on the plan.

QuickBooks

You can save up to 50% for the first three months in QuickBooks Online through discount codes.

QuickBooks offers a 30-day free trial after which you can choose one of the following plans:

Simple Start plan ($8 per month)

• Income and expense tracking
• Custom invoices and quotes
• Bank connection
• VAT tracking
• One user plus your accountant

Essentials plan ($12.50 per month) offers everything from the Simple Start plan, plus

• Insights and reports
• Employee management
• Multi-currency functionality
• Three users plus your accountant

Plus plan ($17 per month) will give you everything from the Essentials plan, with the additional

• Recurring transactions
• Inventory tracking
• Project and location tracking
• Budget management
• Five users plus your accountant

Check out the transaction fees in QuickBooks on the image below

Take into account the fees and the features each plan offers, and select the QuickBooks plan that fits your business and complements your growth stage the best.

FreshBooks

For new users skipping the 30-day free trial period, FreshBooks has prepared a 70% discount for the first three months.

FreshBooks offers three pricing plans (and an advanced, customized one), and with the monthly billing, offers the following features:

Lite plan ($6 per month)

• Unlimited invoices for up to 5 clients
• Unlimited expenses
• Unlimited estimates
• Credit card payments and bank transfers
• Sales tax tracking and reporting
• iOS and Android accessibility

Plus plan ($10 per month) offers everything like in the Lite plan, plus

• Additional 45 clients to send unlimited invoices to
• Recurring billing and client retainers
• Business health reports
• Double-entry accounting reports
• Accountant invitation
• Mobile mileage tracking

Premium plan ($20 per month) offers everything from the Plus plan, and

• Unlimited invoices for up to 500 clients
• Automatic late payment reminder
• Automatic late fee billing
• Checkout link payments
• Bill, bill payment, and vendor tracking with accounts payable
• Financial and accounting reports
• Project profitability tracking
• Email template customization with dynamic fields
• Email signature customization

The transaction fees in FreshBooks are displayed below

The chargeback fee is $15.

Winner: FreshBooks.

Although QuickBooks and FreshBooks are close in this one, FreshBooks's

non-fluctuating prices have a bigger money-saving impact than QuickBooks's slightly cheaper initial prices.

Integrations and Add-ons

QuickBooks

Connect with different apps from within the QuickBooks accounting tool, searching for specific apps, popular apps, or recommended apps.

Integrate with Method: CRM to convert leads, BigTime to manage projects of your professional service company, TSheets to simplify payroll and invoicing, PayPal to streamline transactions, and much more.

Optimizing your payroll processing with the best payroll software like TSheets can elevate your small business's financial state, and contribute along with CRM, project & time management, and other apps to your company's development.

QuickBooks allows you to integrate with over 650 popular business apps designed to accommodate your financial state through comprehensive payment software, CRM, eCommerce, project & time management, POS, email marketing, and various other services.

Integrations in QuickBooks Online will help you attain control over your finances and balance your profit with investments, with apps like Receipt-Bank being a good example of an accounting tool that updates your transactions.

Cloud-based CRM software like Salesforce will provide you with personalized marketing tools and deep customer insights, Zoho will help you attract more leads and sales, while Expensify will manage your receipts and expenses expertly.

FreshBooks

Apart from over 200 native app integrations, FreshBooks allows you to connect with 1,500 different apps through Zapier.

Integrations will help you eliminate the human error aspect of the accounting process through automatic information import.

Gusto will facilitate recurring payment schedules and automatic expense categorization while Fundbox will enable payment advances for outstanding invoices.

Other top-performing FreshBooks integrations include G Suite by Google Cloud which allows Google contact invoicing and client email previews, Stripe for payment processing, Bench which connects you with a team of affordable bookkeeping experts.

There are many partner app categories in FreshBooks that will assist you with analytics, customer support, payments, lead tracking, payroll, marketing, taxes, and a dozen of other categories.

Winner: A tie.

Since QuickBooks and FreshBooks offer an equally-easy connection with a variety of apps from different categories, no one accounting tool outperforms the other in this round.

Reporting and Accounting Analytics

QuickBooks

Get a detailed analysis from more than 50 standard reports from different categories, and export the customized reports to Excel and save them as PDF files.

In QuickBooks Online, you can access your financial data and reports instantly, getting an all-around view of your sales by customer, product, project, or location.

Gain access to up-to-date reports, including balance sheets, cash flow, and profit and loss statements.

Manage overdue invoices, and keep track of the paying clients and the clients that owe you.

Apart from enabling you to produce profit and loss statements in a couple of clicks, this accounting software makes it easy for you to identify trends in your business with the balance sheets showing performance numbers in changing conditions, and much more.

Keep track of your company's performance in real-time with company snapshot charts and graphs that compare year-over-year income and expenses.

Once you have an effective reporting software like QuickBooks, you will need to attain the optimal performance stats you strive for through reporting by defining objectives and key results to increase your team’s productivity.

FreshBooks

Display total income and expenses for a specific period through the profit & loss reports (this and last year, this and last quarter, and custom), by billed or collected income, and select a preferred currency.

Capture a detailed overview of all invoices from a certain period, and customize them with optional filters, choosing between the issue and paid date, all or specific clients, disputed, paid, draft status, and more.

With accounts aging report, you will gain insights into which clients take a long time to pay their invoices and filter by date, outstanding or overdue, different currencies, and more.

Through the accounts payable aging report, you can display which vendors have outstanding bills that aren't paid.

Client account statements allow you to share key details with your clients such as outstanding balance, invoices and payments history, and available credits.

Summarize the credit balance for each client with a detailed breakdown of the issued, applied, and the remaining amount, with the credit balance reports.

Receive a detailed breakdown of all your expenses, including applicable taxes, through the expense reports.

Besides enabling you to see discounts given for each item, the item sales reports will show you how much money you're earning from each item you sell, and how many times you have sold each item.

Winner: FreshBooks.

Although both software will provide you with reports on recurring revenue, profitability, expenses, and profit, FreshBooks has filters that help you create more granular reports and the time-based reports allow you to adapt to your payments due.

Customer Support

QuickBooks

QuickBooks Online will strongly encourage that you utilize other support resources before accessing live support.

Search through the user community and gain valuable insights and advice from other QuickBooks users with similar issues, and query the searchable knowledge base to find categorized answers for different problems.

Select content from videos, webinars, virtual conferences, and in-person events to polish your accounting skills, with training resources and certification exams from ProAdvisor.

Apart from the product training options and in-product help, you can connect with a support agent through email, messaging, or telephone.

FreshBooks

A searchable knowledge base offers a dozen different solutions categorized in posts for a variety of categories like account settings, clients, expenses, estimates, invoices, payments, staff and contractors, and more.

The search query option allows you to access everything from client tips, invoice tricks, and everything else.

Other customer support options in FreshBooks include in-product help, in-product messaging, and FAQs.

You will have access to email and telephone support during extended business hours, with a toll-free number for subscribers.

Winner: FreshBooks.

Unlike QuickBooks, FreshBooks encourages telephone support before searching the knowledge base or looking for the answer through the community, and this includes extended business hours.

Best Alternatives to QuickBooks and FreshBooks

1. Wave Accounting.

Best Double-Entry Accounting Software for a Limited Budget.

This cloud-based accounting tool is a free QuickBooks and FreshBooks alternative that's best suited for freelancers and sole proprietors.

Access everything from accounting, sales, purchases, banking, reporting, invoicing, customer management, and many more services.

Without any inventory tracking and management capability, Wave Accounting is better suited for service than product-based businesses.

Invoicing customization capability is quite satisfying with logo and other marketing detail capabilities.

Wave offers tax-service and self-service payroll options, with the tax-service payroll enabling Wave to handle your payroll and payroll taxes for $35 per month + $6 per month per employee or independent contractor and the self-service costing $20 per month.

2. Sage 50cloud Accounting.

Best Accounting Tool for Growing Business and Tech-Savvy Users.

Equip your small business with state-of-the-art customer management, inventory management, sales tracking, purchase orders, reporting and report customization, and many other types of features.

Besides the automatic bank feeds and vendor payment, Sage will allow you to access the Essentials payroll for up to 15 employees and Full-Service payroll for bigger businesses.

The feature set is exceptional with in-depth contact and item records, powerful inventory management tools, Microsoft 365 integration, flexible scalability, and much more.

With fully-customizable reports for a variety of different categories and well-rounded customer support that includes email, chat, and phone, the only real drawback comes with a price that is quite hefty.

The Pro Accounting plan is $567, but if you're confident that you need the versatile toolkit of Sage, this accounting tool will deliver.

3. AccountEdge Pro.

#1 Accounting Tool for Desktop Systems.

A ton of features it offers make AccountEdge a suitable accounting software for both small-to-mid-sized businesses and growing businesses.

AccountEdge will equip you with comprehensive double-entry accounting tools, simplistic yet prolific inventory, time billing, reporting, account management, banking, sales, purchasing functions.

The robust software provides both self-service and full-service payroll functions, a customer portal functionality, and online payment option.

This on-premise application provides time tracking and product inventory functionalities, as well as fully-customizable reports.

Once you realize what you are looking for that you can't find in the most popular software like with AccountEdge Pro's desktop proficiency, you will find your QuickBooks alternative.

AccountEdge provides you with free email support for every plan but the telephone support option will cost you $199 per year and the payroll module is $249 per year.

A one-time (not annual) fee for a single user is $399 with each subsequent user costing $249.

4. Kashoo.

Best Accounting Tool for Sole Proprietors.

In Kashoo, you will find a solution for your income and expense management, bill payment, contacts, accounts, tax management, and much more.

The enhanced user interface is simple and clean and the quick set-up process allows you to add tax information and connect your bank accounts.

The central repository for current bank transactions will display the imported transactions from your connected accounts.

The reporting features are fairly limited to financial statements, with few customization options except the possibility of Excel export.

Project cost tracking, as well as free email, chat, and phone support are available, but time & inventory tracking, and an Android app are the prominent features that Kashoo lacks.

With an unlimited number of users, you can get Kashoo for a very affordable price of $19.95 per month.

5. Xero.

Accounting Software with the Most Available Integrations.

Equally as ideal for freelancers and small businesses as it is for some niche markets like retail, IT, legal, and e-Commerce businesses.

While the accounting functionality includes powerful account reconciliation, data imports, sales and purchase transactions, and project tracking, Xero is best known for the astonishing variety of apps it allows you to integrate with.

You can find apps from CRM, e-Commerce, time tracking, practice management, payroll, Point of Sale, and numerous other categories.

The dashboard is visually digestible and the set-up process is easy to navigate through.

Notable functionalities include new business views, interactive quotes, smart lists, thorough reconciliation tools, bill and expense management, project tracking, payroll functionality that includes Gusto integration, exceptional online support, and more.

The Starter plan will cost you $20 per month.

QuickBooks vs FreshBooks FAQ

QuickBooks or FreshBooks? Which Accounting Tool Should I Pick?

Choosing between QuickBooks and FreshBooks favorably will depend on your business objectives and priorities.

QuickBooks Online if you are selling products and your ambitions include expanding your traffic surge and growing your business with the assistance of more complex accounting features that can handle the fast-growing tempo.

Also, with QuickBooks, you will have only one financial tool in your stack, with the tools being specially designed to cater to accountants' needs.

While QuickBooks has more powerful all-around accounting features, many of these will be outweighed by the practicality of FreshBooks's quick set-up, native integrations, and simplistic interface.

The simplicity in FreshBooks will not only allow accounting novices to jump straight into their work without a learning hassle, but it will give true service professionals the benefit of focusing on their expertise while the software takes the financial planning into its own hands.

To tie it all together, the customer support team is consistently ranked the best in the industry, which reassures the optimal client experience.

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