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5 Best Accounting Software Programs for Freelancers in 2023

by Lovel Howard
January 12, 2023
in Business


The best accounting software for freelancers and self-employed workers must be easy to use since many don’t have extensive knowledge of accounting and have more valuable things to do than bookkeeping. Moreover, it should have essential general accounting functions, like expense tracking and reporting, and features useful to freelancers, such as tax calculation, mileage tracking, and invoice tracking.

  • Zoho Books: Best overall accounting software for freelancers
  • FreshBooks: Best for service-based freelancers who track hourly labor
  • QuickBooks Online: Best for freelancers who want to outsource to a local bookkeeping expert as the business grows
  • Wave: Best free accounting software for freelancers
  • QuickBooks Self-Employed: Best for tracking profits and preparing tax returns

Comparison of Best Accounting Software for Freelancers

Answer a few questions about your business, and we’ll give you a personalized product match.

Question 1

Do you want your software to organize and track your inventory?

Question 2

Do you need your software to calculate the sales tax rate based on your customer or client’s address?

Question 3

How important is it to you to be able to contact customer support by telephone?

Question 4

What is your annual gross receipts?




Zoho Books: Best Overall Accounting Software for Freelancers

Zoho Books

Zoho Books logo.

RATING CRITERIA Pricing 5.00 / 5
General Features 4.70 / 5
Project Accounting 4.60 / 5
Ease of Use 3.50 / 5
User Reviews 4.50 / 5
Mobile App 5.00 / 5

What We Like

  • Customer service by telephone
  • Manage sales tax collections
  • Track time and expenses and add easily to an invoice
  • Track project profitability

Drawbacks

  • Additional charge for receipt capture
  • Cannot transfer income/expense to Schedule C
  • Cannot calculate quarterly estimated tax pa

Read our Zoho Books review

Features

  • Up to 1,000 invoices under the free plan or 5,000 invoices per year in the Standard Plan
  • Client portal
  • Online and offline payments
  • Mileage and expense tracking
  • Project tasks for individual tasks in a project
  • Manual journals and reports
  • Invoice customization
  • Mobile app: Zoho Books has a functional mobile app, which is useful for freelancers who often work out of their home or office space. The app lets you enter bills, send invoices, capture expense receipts, and record time worked using your smartphone.
  • Project tracking: Keep track of billable hours and bill clients for expenses incurred in projects. With Zoho Book’s project tracking, you can monitor costs and profits arising from each project accurately.
  • Telephone support: With other similar software like QuickBooks Online, you’ll have to submit a ticket first and wait for a call from an agent. With Zoho Books, you can directly make a call, which is helpful if you encounter serious issues that need to be resolved immediately.

Zoho Books has six plans:

  • Free: For businesses with less than $50,000 in annual revenues (includes one user plus one accountant and up to 1,000 invoices per year)
  • Standard: $20 per month; limited to three users and 5,000 invoices
  • Professional: $50 per month; limited to five users with unlimited invoices
  • Premium: $70 per month; limited to 10 users
  • Elite: $150 per month; limited to 10 users (includes advanced inventory)
  • Ultimate: $275 per month; limited to 15 users

Add-ons:

  • Additional users: $3 per user monthly
  • Receipts scanning: $10 for 50 scans per month
  • Snail mail credits for sending invoices: $2 per credit

Zoho Books is suitable for:

  • Freelancers with less than $50,000 in annual revenues
  • Project-based freelancers
  • Freelancers that want an affordable alternative to QuickBooks Online

FreshBooks: Best for Service- or Project-Based Freelancers Who Track Hourly Labor

FreshBooks

FreshBooks logo.

RATING CRITERIA Pricing 3.00 / 5
General Features 3.20 / 5
Project Accounting 4.50 / 5
Ease of Use 3.30 / 5
User Reviews 4.50 / 5
Mobile App 3.40 / 5

What We Like

  • Excellent project management tool
  • Track mileage on mobile app
  • Customer service by telephone
  • Track hours and expenses and add to invoices

Drawbacks

  • Requires pricey premium plan subscription for unlimited billable customers
  • No expense or income tracking by class
  • Receipt capture doesn’t generate new transactions
  • Must connect bank account to track checking transactions accurately

Read our FreshBooks review

Features

  • Unlimited invoices, expenses, and estimates
  • Sales tax tracking
  • Recurring billing and client retainers
  • Double-entry accounting reports
  • Project management
  • Time and project tracking: FreshBooks’ time and project tracking features are among the reasons we recommend this software for freelancers. In addition to monitoring billable time, you can communicate with team members and compare actual versus estimated costs per project to evaluate your efficiency in performing work.
  • Customizable and recurring invoices: You can personalize your invoices before submitting them to clients. Moreover, you can let FreshBooks handle recurring invoices so that you won’t have to do it on a monthly or weekly basis.
  • Payment reminders: There’s no need to send hundreds of emails or spend hours calling your clients—FreshBooks will automatically send them customized reminders.

FreshBooks has four plans:

  • Lite: $15 per month for five billable clients
  • Plus: $30 per month for 50 billable clients
  • Premium: $55 per month unlimited billable clients
  • Select: Custom pricing for unlimited billable clients and specialized features

The platform is offered at 70% off for three months for new users.

Add-ons:

  • Additional team members: $10 per person monthly
  • Gusto payroll (billed separately by Gusto)
  • Advanced payments: $20 per month (for Plus, Premium, and Select plans only)

FreshBooks is suitable for:

  • Freelancers looking for an easy-to-use accounting software for managing client programs
  • Designing invoices with business branding
  • Service-based freelancers tracking hourly labor

QuickBooks Online: Best for Freelancers Who Want to Outsource Bookkeeping When the Business Grows

QuickBooks Online

QuickBooks logo that links to the QuickBooks homepage in a new tab.

RATING CRITERIA Pricing 3.00 / 5
General Features 4.70 / 5
Project Accounting 4.30 / 5
Ease of Use 4.30 / 5
User Reviews 4.70 / 5
Mobile App 3.50 / 5

What We Like

  • Manage sales tax with automatic sales tax rates based on the customer address
  • Includes receipt capture to generate transactions from uploaded receipts
  • Track time and expenses and add to customer invoices (requires Essentials)
  • Track miles with mobile app automatically

Drawbacks

  • No customer service telephone number
  • Must subscribe to expensive Plus version to track project profitability
  • Cannot calculate quarterly tax payments or transfer information to Schedule C

Read our QuickBooks Online review

Features

  • Class and location tracking
  • Access to vast network of certified public accountants (CPAs) and bookkeepers with ProAdvisor certification
  • Sales tax calculation per invoice
  • Integration with numerous third-party services in ecommerce, restaurant management, and payroll
  • Excellent bank reconciliation features
  • Receipt scanning: With QuickBooks Online, you can scan receipts for operating expenses and billable expenses and attach actual receipts to your expense entries for documentation purposes. With just your smartphone camera, you can capture receipts and match them with expense entries easily.
  • Sales tax tracking: With QuickBooks, you can track and manage your sales taxes in every transaction. QuickBooks will apply the correct sales tax automatically based on the transaction address you provide.
  • Mileage tracking: As a freelancer, you need to travel to give the best service to your clients. You can use QuickBooks Online’s mileage tracking to stay on top of your mileage expenses for client billing. You can also account for non-billable mileage expenses to track your expenses and profit.
  • QuickBooks ProAdvisors: If you don’t have time to maintain your books, you can hire an independent QuickBooks ProAdvisor who is trained and certified by QuickBooks.

QuickBooks Online has four plans, but our most recommended plan for freelancers is Simple Start.

  • Simple Start: $30 per month for one user
  • Essentials: $55 per month for three users
  • Plus: $85 per month for five users
  • Advanced: $200 per month for 25 users

New users can choose between 50% off for three months or a 30-day free trial with no credit card required.

As our best small business accounting software, QuickBooks Online is ideal for:

  • Freelancers that want help from a local bookkeeper familiar with QuickBooks
  • Freelancers that want additional features in the bookkeeping program as their business scales
  • Contractors that need to submit estimates

Wave: Best Free Accounting Software for Freelancers

Wave

Wave logo.

RATING CRITERIA Pricing 5.00 / 5
General Features 2.50 / 5
Project Accounting 1.00 / 5
Ease of Use 2.40 / 5
User Reviews 4.40 / 5
Mobile App 1.80 / 5

What We Like

  • Forever free for unlimited users
  • Easy to use
  • Straightforward to set up

Drawbacks

  • Not scalable
  • Doesn’t separate income and expense by class or location
  • Limited customer support

Features

  • Receipt scanning
  • Free accounting and invoicing
  • Bill and invoice recording
  • Clean interface
  • Free accounting and invoicing: Wave is a convenient solution for freelancers that don’t want to pay monthly subscription fees. The basic features of Wave are more than enough for freelancers who want to track income and expenses of their freelance services.
  • Assisted bookkeeping: For freelancers who are willing to outsource bookkeeping, the Wave Advisor program offers bookkeeping support at $149 per month. This price point is more affordable than other online bookkeeping services.

Wave is forever free for accounting and invoice. However, it charges transaction fees for:

  • Credit card payments: 2.9% plus 60 cents per transaction or 3.4% plus 60 cents per AMEX transaction.
  • Bank payments: 1% per transaction but a minimum of $1 fee

It also offers auxiliary services like:

  • Wave Payroll: Fixed monthly cost of $35 for tax service states or $20 for self-service states. There is also an additional $6 per month per active employee or independent contractor.
  • Wave Advisor: $149 per month for bookkeeping support
  • Accounting and payroll coaching: $329 per coaching session and email support

Wave is suitable for:

  • New freelancers who want to track income and expenses
  • Freelancers looking for easy-to-use accounting software to do-it-yourself (DIY) bookkeeping
  • Freelancers on a tight budget

QuickBooks Self-Employed: Best for Tracking Profit & Preparing Tax Returns

QuickBooks Self-Employed

Self - Employed logo.

RATING CRITERIA Pricing 3.00 / 5
General Features 2.70 / 5
Project Accounting 1.00 / 5
Ease of Use 4.20 / 5
User Reviews 4.00 / 5
Mobile App 4.00 / 5

What We Like

  • Inexpensive and easy to use
  • Calculate quarterly estimated tax payments
  • Transfers income and loss information to TurboTax (requires the TurboTax bundle)
  • Mobile app tracks miles and saves receipt images

Drawbacks

  • Invoice functionality is very limited
  • No telephone number for customer service
  • Doesn’t track assets and liabilities for a balance sheet

Read our QuickBooks Self-Employed review

Features

  • Separating income and expenses as to business and personal
  • Reports that make Schedule C filing easier
  • Mileage tracking
  • Credit card statement imports
  • Sales tax tracking: QuickBooks Self-Employed will help you track sales tax collected so you know how much to pay the state or local government. While it has an assisted filing feature, it doesn’t mean that it files your tax returns. Instead, it provides information that you can include in your tax returns upon completion of the forms.
  • Income tax tracking: QuickBooks Self-Employed estimates how much income tax you should pay to the IRS each quarter and then will automatically transfer your information to TurboTax to you in the preparation of your return.
  • Expense tracking: Expenses pile up and eat away most of your profit if you don’t track them properly. With QuickBooks Self-Employed, you can track your expenses by category and auto-sort them in search of tax-deductible expenses. With this feature, you can maximize your deductions and pay less tax.
  • Mileage tracking: Tracking mileage is tedious if done manually. However, you get a mileage tracker with QuickBooks Self-Employed. Using automatic mileage tracking, you can use your smartphone’s GPS to track your miles. You can also classify business and personal trips with just a swipe.

QuickBooks Self-employed offers its plan with and without tax services:

  • Self-Employed: $15 per month for one user
  • Self-Employed Tax Bundle (recommended for most freelancers): $25 per month for one user
    • Includes Intuit TurboTax Self-Employed, online quarterly tax payments, and transfer of income/loss information
  • Self-Employed Live Tax Bundle: $35 per month for one user
    • Includes Intuit TurboTax Live Self-Employed, which provides unlimited year-round advice from a live certified public accountant (CPA), enrolled agent, or lawyer.

Bundling with TurboTax allows for easier tax return preparation, but subscribing to the base self-employed package and choosing different business tax software could save you some money. It offers a 30-day free trial.

QuickBooks Self-employed is best for:

  • Freelancers who want to track income and expense only for tax purposes
  • Freelancers who don’t want accounting features
  • Freelancers looking for a software that emphasizes tax compliance

How We Evaluated Accounting Software for Freelancers

We evaluated freelancing accounting software based on the needs of most freelancers.

10% of Overall Score

The price of the software is considered in the evaluation but we didn’t place a heavy weight in this criterion. Since freelancers don’t need advanced accounting features, we believe that most freelancers would benefit greatly from the lowest or lower tier plans of most software products.

20% of Overall Score

General accounting features are still important, especially the software’s ability to manage accounts payable (A/P), accounts receivable (A/R), and cash. As much as possible, the software must-have features to track outstanding obligations and receivables. However, simple invoice and bill tracking will suffice for some freelancers. We also considered the tax and reporting features since most freelancers would be more concerned about tax compliance.

30% of Overall Score

Project accounting has the highest weight in the evaluation because most freelancers handle project-based transactions with clients. We like to give more credit to software programs that allow freelancers to assign expenses and income by project, assign billable expenses to projects, and manage project costs.

20% of Overall Score

Ease of use is a top concern since most freelancers might not have the time to learn complicated software. An easy-to-use software is a big plus in our evaluation. However, we also considered the availability of support channels since some freelancers might need assistance in using the software.

10% of Overall Score

We included user ratings from popular review websites to capture the overall impact of the software to actual users.

10% of Overall Score

A mobile app is important for freelancers who work across different devices. The mobile app must also have the same features as the desktop or web-based app for accessibility.

*Percentages of overall score

Features to Look For in Freelance Accounting Software

As self-employed individuals providing services to multiple companies, freelancers have different requirements for accounting software than most businesses. For example, since freelancers don’t generally have employees, they don’t value integrated payroll when evaluating accounting software. Other features are especially important for freelancers, such as the ability to track time and expenses to bill clients.


Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Can I use QuickBooks as a freelancer?

Yes, QuickBooks Self-Employed at $15 per month is designed exclusively for freelancers. However, you may wish to use QuickBooks Online Simple Start for $30 per month if you send many invoices to customers.

What is the simplest bookkeeping software?

While not as feature-packed as QuickBooks Online, many freelancers love FreshBooks for its simplicity and great customer service.

Bottom Line

While Zoho Books is our highest-rated accounting software for freelancers, QuickBooks Online might be better for freelancers who want to outsource bookkeeping through the QuickBooks ProAdvisor network. FreshBooks is great for project or service-based freelancers, whereas Wave is a totally free alternative. Finally, for freelancers who only want to compile their income and expenses and file a tax return, QuickBooks Self-Employed may be optimal.



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