Smalls businesses don’t need to buy expensive business accounting software or even spend hours pouring over complicated financial reports. All accounting software provides the basic tools for accounting tasks, but there are packages that are designed specifically for small business and they tend to simplify the process.

Cloud accounting services are a good option for business owners since they can access their information online. When using such software, business owners don’t have to worry about upgrades or data backup since those tasks are managed by the application vendor.

QuickBooks Online Simple Start

QuickBooks Online Simple Start is a good option for small business owners. The online version is $12.95 a month and it includes a 30-day free trial. This software tracks sales and expenses, creates invoices, downloads banking transactions, and can access business data on any mobile device.

QuickBooks Online also provides add-ons for business owners who want more functionality. The “Payroll Bundle” is one of them, and it provides a merchant service application to accept credit cards, debit and checks in QuickBooks Online.

Kashoo Accounting Service

Kashoo is also a cloud accounting service that is worth looking into. Their features include connecting to online bank accounts, credit cards, debit cards, and other financial merchant services. In addition, they offer their users simple dashboards, professional invoices, options to categorize income, and also let users track expenses for tax reporting. Kashoo also has an double-entry accounting feature for financial statements and bank reconciliation.

The Kashoo software is $16 per month.

Outright Accounting Software

Outright is an accounting software that lets businesses organize and keep track of sales and finance figures all in one place. Business owners can also link existing accounts such as credit cards, banks, eBay, Paypal, and they can also import existing transaction history to keep track of everything. Outright also organizes all of the data into IRS-approved tax categories, which saves business a lot of workload and time.

The Plus Version of Outright is $9.95 per month.

Xero Accounting Software

Xero online accounting lets users share access to the latest financial numbers in real time. Xero also gives users a dashboard so they can quickly view their bank balances, bills, invoices and other expense claims.

One of the best features in Xero is they offer small business the ability to collaborate online so they can work together on business expenses. They can share data with each other, and users can also control what each person can see on the dashboard.

Their invoicing system also lets users customize their invoices and connect to their various customers. Users also have the option to create repeating invoices and schedule all payments.

The price for Xero starts at $19 per month. In addition, there are also mobile apps that are available for Blackberry, Android, and Apple. Some add-ons that can be incorporated include invoicing, job systems, inventory management, and many other business tasks.

Further Reading

1.Beal, Vangie . (2013, February 27). 5 Top Picks for Small Business Cloud-Based Accounting. Retrieved June 6, 2013, from http://www.cio.com/article/729385/5_Top_Picks_for_Small_Business_Cloud_Based_Accounting?page=2&taxonomyId=600009