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11 Best QuickBooks Alternatives for SMEs

Chances are, you’re aware that QuickBooks is one of the most popular accounting software suites for small businesses. There are several reasons why people turn to this software, including that it’s inexpensive and user-friendly, and there are dozens of training resources. But, if you decide that you’d like to try a QuickBooks alternative, they are available and perfect for small business owners.

Even though QuickBooks has many things working in its favor, some small businesses need something more tailored for their specific wants and needs. So, we’re going to list out the best QuickBooks alternatives available on the current market. We’ll compare what both software suites offer so you can make an informed decision on which is the right pick for your small business.

Defining QuickBooks

QuickBooks is one of the most popular accounting software for small businesses available. It allows small business owners to manage any expenses and income while keeping track of their business’s financial health.

It’s easy to use QuickBooks to pay bills, invoice your customers, prepare taxes, and generate several different reports. There are several software suites available in the product line, and they work well for anyone, from a smaller freelancer up to a mid-sized business.

QuickBooks can also integrate with several different software and business applications to streamline your daily financial processes for your business.

Benefits of QuickBooks

  • Can print financial statements for the business
  • Comes with dozens of training resources
  • Allows you to do payroll
  • Various pricing tiers available

Top 11 QuickBooks Alternatives for Your Small Business

Even though QuickBooks offers a host of nice perks and benefits, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s the best option for your particular business. It’s a smart idea to explore the alternatives before you make your final decision to ensure you get the best fit possible.

1. Billdu

Billdu is a cloud-based QuickBooks alternative that features a user-friendly, centralized dashboard that displays all of their services at a glance. This software suite works well to track all of your business’s expenses, and it lets you design and send recurring invoices or regular invoices. Or you can attach delivery notes to your products for your records.

You can create professional-grade estimates and send them out in an effort to beat out your competition and win new bids with new clients, and you can take online payments using several methods, including credit or debit cards and PayPal. You could even make it easier for your clients to pay you by putting a “Pay Now” button right on your invoices, and you can set up exports quickly and easily.

One of the newer features on Billdu is the communication hub with an inbox where you can get notifications from your clients and communicate with them in a timely manner. You’ll get a notification each time a client interacts with anything you send them, including opening estimates or invoices. Your clients can set up appointments and cancel them through the platform too.

Why Use Billdu Instead of QuickBooks

  • Has a communication hub built into the design
  • Allows you to edit your invoices on the go
  • Newly redesigned software with helpful features
  • Very user-friendly and intuitive

Why Use QuickBooks Instead of Billdu

  • Allows you to print financial statements
  • Has time-tracking capabilities
  • Allows you to do payroll
  • Has several software suits

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2. Xero

Xero has features that are comparable to QuickBooks, but it also offers an unlimited number of uses on any price tier, and it costs less overall. It’s a New Zealand-based company that comes as a cloud-based software. The two biggest draws to this QuickBooks alternative is that it offers a reconcile-as-you-go feature to it, and it offers a very simple user interface that avoids loading it with accounting jargon.

There are three pricing tiers with Xero, and the Starter package is just $9.00 a month. The Premium package is the highest tier, and it works well for bigger businesses who need to do payroll and comes in at $70.00 a month. It currently integrates with more than 700 of the most popular apps to make transitions seamless, and it has Xero Central, the comprehensive help center, if you need it.

The dashboard on this software also gives you great financial visibility into all areas of your business at a glance. You can create invoices, track expenses, send estimates, collect payments, categorize transactions, and much more.

Why Use Xero Instead of QuickBooks

  • Integrates with over 700 apps
  • Allows you to categorize transactions
  • Has bank reconciliation
  • Offers inventory management

Why Use QuickBooks Instead of Xero

  • Has excellent customer support
  • Slightly less complex setup
  • More training manuals available
  • Offers receipt capture

3. Sage

Sage is a QuickBooks alternative for small businesses that allows you to reconcile with your bank and produce comprehensive balance sheets for your expenses. There is a tiered pricing package where you get more features as you pay more per month, and it allows you to unlock unlimited estimates, quotes, collaboration, cash flow forecasts, vendor bill tracking, and you can take advantage of HR tools

You can take advantage of eCommerce features, POS integrations, marketing features, and sales features. There are several options to let you scale for your business, including having a partner program with several seminars that help you collaborate and learn how to use the software. You can consolidate multiple companies into a single software suite too.

Sage allows you to track expenses and hours, and you can assign them to customer invoices to give more accurate bills for each project you take on. It’s a very powerful software suite that does have a learning curve to it, but there are several manuals and seminars you can attend along with a dedicated customer support team.

Why Use Sage Instead of QuickBooks

  • Allows you to combine parent and subsidiary companies
  • Assign trackable hours and expenses to invoices
  • Telephone customer service
  • Very powerful and sophisticated

Why Use QuickBooks Instead of Sage

  • Cloud-based software suite
  • Can take online payments without third-party integration
  • QuickBooks Online is very simple and straightforward
  • Less expensive per pricing tier

4. FreshBooks

FreshBooks was originally a time-tracking and invoicing software, and now it’s evolved into a powerful QuickBooks alternative. You can collect payments and invoice your clients, collaborate with all of your subcontractors, and track any expenses. There is a suite of external applications you can use to build a tailored accounting software for your business needs without breaking your budget.

Also, you don’t have to worry about having to dig through pages of support documents or getting stuck with a software issue with FreshBooks. They have very responsive customer service associates on hand that will typically reply to you in under an hour so you can fix your issue and move on with your day.

You can take advantage of customized templates and an automated bank import list to track your finances. There is a dashboard to help manage all aspects of your account, and this software allows you to do your accounting, invoicing, and time tracking all in one location. You can also print reports and insights and set up project budgets before assigning roles to your staff to ensure you all stay on the same page.

Why Use FreshBooks Instead of QuickBooks

  • Telephone customer support team available
  • Integrates with over 300 eCommerce platforms and apps
  • SSL encryption for secure data storage
  • Offers automated bank imports

Why Use QuickBooks Instead of FreshBooks

  • More users per plan
  • Can track unpaid bills to follow up on them
  • Can create balance sheets
  • Unlimited client billing on some plans

Try Billdu as an alernative
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5. Zoho Books

If you’re a small business owner that wants to manage every aspect of your business’s finances and cash flow, Zoho Books is a nice QuickBooks alternative. You can make decisions based on data regarding your business’s finances, and this can help you improve your enterprise’s overall health. Also, you can use it collectively across each department in your business.

Zoho Books offers an entire product line, and you don’t have to worry about uptime, support, or security when you use it. If you get stuck or have questions, there are customer service representatives available. You can send professional invoices to your customers, and the app allows you to accept online payments for each project you take on.

Also, you can track the time you spend on each portion of a project to give your customer an accurate bill. There is a portal that allows you to track your clients, and you can add your accounting team. It lets you track your inventory, create estimates, generate sales orders, and automate a lot of your day-to-day activities to free up time to use elsewhere.

Why Use Zoho Books Instead of QuickBooks

  • Offers a vendor portal for self-management
  • Expandable suite of products
  • Responsive customer support line
  • Provides inventory management

Why Use QuickBooks Instead of Zoho Books

  • Allows you to prepare for tax season
  • Unlimited number of customers through some plans
  • Offers payroll reporting
  • Integrates with dozens of apps

6. Wave Accounting

This is a totally free accounting software suite for small businesses. But, you do have to pay extra if you want access to every feature it offers. You can pull up your Wave account and connect it directly to your business’s bank account. When you do, the bookkeeping information will automatically appear in your Wave account for you to utilize for your business.

It offers several tools for your small business, including customizable receipt scanning and invoicing, expense and income tracking, exportable accounting reports, guest collaborators, receipt printing, and invoicing. You’re able to connect Wave Accounting to Shoeboxed, PayPal, and Etsy without paying anything for it.

You have to pay to get features like receiving and sending payments or running payroll. There is a tracking feature that is a nice addition to this software that lets you properly bill your clients for your time and resources, and you can add unlimited companies and users without bogging down the software’s capabilities. It’s a nice choice if you’re looking for something simple or just starting out and have a very small business.

Why Use Wave Accounting Instead of QuickBooks

  • More cost-effective for certain situations
  • Very straightforward and simple design
  • Can add credit card processing and payroll without a third party
  • Connects with multiple payment platforms

Why Use QuickBooks Instead of Wave Accounting

  • Has inventory tracking capabilities
  • Offers a mobile app with multiple software suites
  • You don’t have to pay extra for premium features at certain price points
  • Easy to contact customer support or use self-help resources

7. Bonsai

When it comes to accounting or invoicing for freelancers, you need a flexible software suite that you can scale for your needs, and this is where Bonsai comes in. This is a project management software that has several accounting features included. You can easily track any billable expenses by creating the specific expense, assigning it to the correct project, and attaching it all to an invoice to bill your clients the correct amounts per project.

It’s possible to connect Bonsai to your bank account to help import expenses, and the software will generate analytics and expense reports to give you a clear picture of your business expenses from one month to the next. You can use the freelance tax calculator to get ready for tax time, track time, arrange recurring payments, create contracts, and generate custom proposals for your prospective clients.

When it’s time to make a payment, you can choose ACH transfer, credit card, PayPal, or bitcoin. There are two payment tiers available, and the more expensive one offers everything we mentioned with subcontracting, labeling, and the chance to add more users to your account.

Why Use Bonsai Instead of QuickBooks

  • Attach billable expenses right to the invoice
  • Connects right to your bank account
  • Freelance tax calculator included
  • Offers the ability to pay in bitcoin

Why Use QuickBooks Instead of Bonsai

  • Offers more software suite options
  • Scalable as your business grows
  • Several more premium features added
  • Newly designed interface is user-friendly

8. Invoice Simple

There are a few invoice-generating tools available with this software, and it will help you stay on top of your business’s finances. You can seamlessly turn your estimates into customized invoices, and it’s a very simple and straightforward QuickBooks alternative for small business owners to try out. Invoice Simple works well from your phone or desktop to create invoices quickly and get them on the way to your clients.

Once you make an account, you can choose which document you’d like to create and it’ll give you a template that you can fill in. You can convert it into a PDF to share it, add your logo, and email it to your customers so they get it right away. You can create estimates, have a running product or service list per project, and add clients to each invoice.

You can use checks, PayPal, or banking information to send and receive payments in a timely manner. It offers a tiered payment plan that you can scale to fit your business needs, and it has a very user-friendly and basic design with a very short learning curve. It saves your items like client information so you can automatically fill it in when you work with them again. In turn, this helps save time and reduce your error potential.

Why Use Invoice Simple Instead of QuickBooks

  • Quick learning curve
  • Saves client information to reuse
  • Convert items to PDF to share them
  • Track expenses

Why Use QuickBooks Instead of Invoice Simple

  • Offers more in-depth services
  • Centralized dashboard
  • Has apps and different software suites
  • Easy to scale with a growing business

9. Quicken

Any small business owner who is in the business of owning rental properties should take a look at Quicken. This product’s goal is to keep things as simple as possible for your small business. It does this by focusing solely on your expenses and income instead of trying to also track liabilities and assets too. You can also use it to track any personal expenses you have, including your retirement accounts.

You can easily create invoices, edit lease terms, accept payments, track security deposits, and set rental rates. It allows you to review your portfolio to manage your finances, track your spending, and create a workable budget. There are five software suites you can choose from when you pick up this accounting and invoicing software, and there is a tiered pricing plan available that you can scale to suit your needs.

Your business can benefit from a dedicated support team, including a help center and community, and you can call or live chat with them when you need them. There are Mac and Windows versions available, and there are several resources to help you get started and learn this software.

Why Use Quicken Instead of QuickBooks

  • Allows you to manage lease terms
  • Can track personal expenses too
  • Five software suites available
  • Mac and Windows versions available

Why Use QuickBooks Instead of Quicken

  • More business-oriented features
  • Integrates with dozens of software apps
  • Allows you to invite your accounting team
  • Email custom invoices with online payment collection

10. Spendwise

The next QuickBooks alternative on the list for small business owners is Spendwise. This is a great choice if you have a retail-type small business. The accounting software has a very precise inventory tracking feature included. You can create quotes or sales orders for customers, and it also allows you to create purchase orders for any vendors you work with.

When your vendors fill your purchase orders, the software will automatically update your inventory with the costs and quantities to keep your bookkeeping up to date. You can easily track any unpaid bills, expenses, and sales, and it offers reporting tools. There are multi-currency payment options on the more expensive pricing tiers, and you can scale the software to match your business’s needs as it grows.

It’s possible to schedule transactions with this software so you’re never late paying your vendors, and you can take a hard look at your business’s debts to help make yourself more financially healthy. There is a smart budget feature, and you get a very clean and streamlined dashboard to access all of your tools and track everything related to your business’s finances.

Why Use Spendwise Instead of QuickBooks

  • Cost-effective for the features you get
  • Automatically updates inventory
  • Schedule transactions with vendors or clients
  • Excels for a retail business

Why Use QuickBooks Instead of Spendwise

  • Clearer communication hub
  • Allows you to track paid and unpaid invoices
  • Receipt scanner and organization
  • Better support capabilities

11. EasyFarm

The final option on our list of robust QuickBooks alternatives is EasyFarm. It’s a solid pick for ranchers and farmers, and it gives you software that works well for self-employed operations that do their own bookkeeping. There are unique input screens that switch out traditional accounting terms for farm terminology to make it more user-friendly for this demographic.

This is a relatively inexpensive choice that you can easily use for years once you buy it. You can add your Livestock Manager and Crop and Field Manager to the software too. This can help you collaborate across each section of your farming or ranching operation. The friendly representatives are available by phone if you get stuck or need additional support.

You’ll be able to generate in-depth reports that help you make decisions about your farming operation, track crop and field yields and costs, manage your livestock costs, and more. There is also an Android app that lets you manage your operation while you’re on the go called EasyFarmHand too.

Why Use EasyFarm Instead of QuickBooks

  • Specially designed for farming and ranching operations
  • Uses farm terminology instead of accounting jargon
  • Allows you to add Livestock Manager and Crop and Field Manager positions
  • Android app

Why Use QuickBooks Instead of EasyFarm

  • More robust software available
  • Allows you to track time and expenses more thoroughly
  • More features for your day-to-day operation
  • Sleek interface

Start Your Free Trial of Billdu

If you’re a small business owner and you’re looking for something other than QuickBooks that will help keep your business’s finances on track, try Billdu. We offer a no-obligation free trial that lets you access all of our features and see how well they work for your small business.

Streamline your invoicing
with Billdu invoice maker

Invoicing, expense tracking, quotes, automation. Learn why Billdu is one of the most popular QuickBooks alternatives.

Free 30-day trialNo credit card requiredCancel anytime
Billdu invoice maker and invoicing app

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