8 Online Accounting Softwares for Consultants

If you’re like most independent professionals and consultants, doing your accounting and preparing for tax time is about as exciting as watching grass grow.

Which means you’d rather be doing almost anything else because not only is it time consuming it’s also tedious.

In the Clarity Coaching™ program I share my approach to managing all of this and stress the importance of working with an accountant.

Yet even with an accountant, you still need to have a strong grasp of your own financials throughout the year…rather than waiting until the year has ended and trying to play catch up.

Luckily there are several software programs that make this process more pleasant. Including some that practically automate it for you.

Bonsai

Bonsai is automation and accounting for solo consultants and consulting business owners, helping you manage your time, projects, and payment. Its features include sending invoices, getting paid, tracking your time, managing your projects, contracts, business reporting, and collaboration with clients. It’s designed to save you time and money — and helps you focus on the parts of your business that you enjoy doing the most.

Xero

Xero offers accounting in the cloud so you can access all of your financial information from anywhere. They also provide a mobile app and loads of features. Pricing starts at $19/mo

FreshBooks

FreshBooks made it’s name as an online invoicing tool. Since its start it’s made its system more robust so that it can practically function as your total accounting solution. It’s also cloud based, offers a small free package and paid plans start from $20/mo

Wave Accounting

Wave is still fairly new on the scene. What’s interesting about their solution is that you can connect all of your bank and credit cards to your Wave account and it will automatically pull your data in. Say goodbye to that time consuming data entry. Wave is Free. That’s right, there’s no cost for the service – they do have Payroll options you pay for as well as some ads that show up when you login in.

Mint

Mint which was acquired by Intuit offers a free personal finance tracker. It’s a great system though the focus seems to be on ‘persona’ finanance as opposed to ‘business’ finance. Intuit does offer several other business products in their Quicken line.

Less Accounting

LessAccounting is also an interesting option. They have a great feature set and a strong focus on usability and design. Worthwhile looking into as well.

Outright

Another cloud solution to finances. Outright’s focus is on small business and their plans start from a very reasonable $10/mo. Outright is owned by GoDaddy.

Kashoo

Another new entrant on the scene, Kashoo markets itself as Simple Cloud Accounting. The interface does look straightforward and they heavily promote that their software works well on the iPad. Plans start from $16/mo

Sage

Sage has product offerings for all sizes. If it’s just you in the office, you can look at Sage One. If you’re part of a small team their Small Business solution will likely be a better fit. Probably Sage’s best known product is Simply Account or Peachtree. They’ve released new versions called Sage 50 – which I haven’t used.

Other options?

If you have used other accounting software that you like share them in the comments below…