Our mission is to help consumers make informed purchase decisions. While we strive to keep our reviews as unbiased as possible, we do receive affiliate compensation through some of our links.
This can affect which services appear on our site and where we rank them. Our affiliate compensation allows us to maintain an ad-free website and provide a free service to our readers. For more information, please see our Privacy Policy Page. We may earn money when you click on our links. Learn More. The Best Free Accounting Software of We reviewed a dozen of the best free accounting software options, then rated their user-friendliness, features, limitations, accessibility, and customer service to bring you the year's best free solutions for small-business owners like you.
Best overall. Free for life. Free expense tracking and invoicing. Unlimited users and businesses. See Plans. Best for freelancers. Zoho Invoice. Free expense tracking, invoicing, and estimates. Unlimited billable customers. Best for beginners. Starting from. Free invoicing. Digital payment acceptance via Square or PayPal. Best open-source software.
Free invoicing, bill payment, and budgeting. Unlimited bank transaction reconciliation. Best corporate expense tracking. Free invoicing, expense tracking, and employee reimbursement. Corporate card access Expensify Card. Offers and availability may vary by location and are subject to change. By Kylie McQuarrie. Business Accounting Staff Writer. Published on December 08, Share Article. Best free accounting software Best free accounting software for small businesses Brand name.
Wave Accounting: Best overall. Wave Accounting. Invoicing, account reconciliation, expense management. Unlimited users. No mobile app. Get Started with Wave. Read Our Wave Review.
Zoho Invoice: Best for freelancers. Invoicing, account reconciliation, time tracking, project management, client portal. Multiple users. Highly rated mobile app. While it's not quite as fully featured as Zoho Books , Zoho's accounting-specific product, Zoho Invoice has more than enough features to recommend it—and, obviously, they're entirely free: Professional, customizable invoices with multi-currency and multi-language support Automatic recurring invoicing and customer payment reminders Estimates easily convertible to invoices Expense tracking, receipt scanning, and time tracking Thanks to its its built-in time tracking which syncs easily with invoices , estimate-to-invoice conversion, and client portal for straightforward collaboration, Zoho Invoice is ideal for freelancers who frequently collaborate with customers.
Get Started with Zoho Invoice. Read Our Zoho Books Review. Track time and expenses Create custom invoices Accept online payments. Get Started. ZipBooks: Best for beginners.
Invoicing and digital payment acceptance PayPal or Square only. Unlimited billable clients and vendors. Limited reporting, users, and bank account connections. Instead, it sticks to the basics, offering just a few accounting features for free: Unlimited customizable invoices, estimates, and quotes Multi-currency payment acceptance Expense and receipt tracking Chart of accounts generation We know, we know—that doesn't look like much, especially when compared to Wave and Zoho Invoice.
Get Started with ZipBooks. Expensify: Best corporate expense management. Thorough individual, freelancer, and corporate expense tracking. Corporate card management included with free plan. Limited accounting features. Get Started with Expensify. Read Our Expensify Review. GnuCash: Best open-source software. Income and expense tracking.
Customizable open-source software with solid community support. Fairly basic features with limited support. Get Started with GnuCash. Get business accounting right the first time.
Learn all about business accounting with our free ultimate guide. Sign Up. Still not sure which accounting software is best for you?
Honorable mentions. NCH Software. Best free accounting software: Honorable mentions. Odoo: Best open-source software runner-up. Basic invoicing, expense tracking, and financial reports. One aspect of a fully integrated, free CRM solution. Limited third-party integration and customer support.
Get Started with Odoo. Invoicing, accounts payable, and sales tracking. Thorough financial reports. Available for Mac users only. Limited accounting and bookkeeping features. General ledger and invoicing. Basic spreadsheet-based payroll tracking. Limited features and outdated interface.
The takeaway. But if Wave isn't your thing, a few other options could work even better: Zoho Invoice's automatic invoicing, simple customer portal, and multi-currency support are just right for freelancers who want basic accounting with stand-out customer collaboration tools.
ZipBooks ' customizable invoices, simple payment acceptance, and basic financial reports are ideal for first-time business owners who want free software without too much complexity. GnuCash is a solid open-source solution for code-literate business owners who want a free, customizable accounting program. Expensify's free corporate plan works well for larger businesses that need affordable company card management and fantastic expense tracking.
Related content. Money Market vs. Free accounting software FAQ. Is there a free alternative to QuickBooks? The program boasts a user base of over 2 million subscribers and has a suite of capabilities that cover invoicing, time-tracking, reporting, and payment needs — among others. The platform is an invoice management solution, above all else — and that can be a benefit or drawback in its own right, depending on what you need.
While CloudBooks has features extending beyond that functionality, invoicing appears to be its main selling point — meaning it's not quite as fully fleshed out with accounting functionality as other programs listed here. So if you're looking for exceptional invoice creation and management software, you should check out Cloudbooks. If you need a more robust accounting-specific solution, you might want to look elsewhere.
Sunrise is one of the more prominent bookkeeping applications available for small businesses. Users can leverage the program to easily search and categorize business expenses, send customized invoices, and receive recurring payments. It offers a free, self-service plan that provides businesses with a decent suite of features and a fair amount of flexibility when it comes to bookkeeping — allowing for unlimited invoices and transactions.
Sunrise sets itself apart from other bookkeeping solutions with its dedicated bookkeeper services, but those services come at a hefty premium. As I mentioned, its free plan is self-service — which works for small businesses but might not be sustainable as your business expands. Ultimately, Sunrise is a straightforward, effective bookkeeping software with a free plan that can suit the needs of several small businesses. If you need a relatively short-term bookkeeping solution with a reasonable upgrade fee, Sunrise's free plan is worth checking out.
Brightbook is a web-based accounting solution tailored to suit the needs of independent contractors, freelancers, and small business owners — though it tends to work better for the former two. The program is essentially designed to democratize accounting software. It has an extensive suite of features available for free — including resources for invoicing, visibility into your cash flow, financial reporting, and drafting financial statements — along with some paid features available for one-time fees.
One area where Brightbook struggles is its lack of mobile support. The program doesn't have a mobile application, and it can't be accessed via mobile browsers. And the application itself isn't quite as sophisticated as some of the more well-established options. Still, Brightbook is a solid option for freelancers or independent contractors — specifically creative professionals.
It's a little bare-bones, but it still covers a lot of bases that other options on this list might have stuck behind paywalls. If you're looking for a comprehensive suite of accounting features and don't mind working with a relatively stripped-back program, consider checking Brightbook out.
Akaunting is a free, open-source accounting solution for small businesses and freelancers with a global reach and sizable user base. The program's full suite of features is available for free — making it one of the few "one-stop-shop" solutions on this list.
The platform is entirely online, meaning you can access it from any desktop, tablet, or mobile device anytime, anywhere.
It offers resources that help you manage cash flow, track expenses, deal with invoicing, and set transaction categories. It also features a client portal — allowing you to share the transactions and invoices with your clients and accept bulk payments. Akaunting boasts a base of over , users and is available in over 50 languages, making it one of the most popular, wide-reaching open-source solutions on this list.
Some users report trouble with Akaunting's support department's responsiveness. The application also seems to be one of the less accessible ones on this list when it comes to ease of use. But if you're in the market for a free, comprehensive accounting solution and are willing to tough those issues out, look into Akaunting. Zoho Books is a robustly featured accounting solution tailored to help small businesses.
The platform has end-to-end accounting resources to handle the more monotonous, frustrating elements of this side of your business — including invoicing and raising sales orders. The program also has a client portal to help you seamlessly connect with your customers. With a user-friendly interface and a solid mobile application, Zoho Books is one of the more straightforward, accessible solutions listed here.
But it still comes with its share of limitations, including a lack of payroll management resources. The free plan also only gives you access to email support — not chat or voice. But apart from those issues, Zoho Books is a pretty sound application. If its suite of features covers your needs and your business meets its revenue requirements, consider looking into Zoho Books' free plan.
If you're in the market for free accounting software, odds are you're not an accountant. You're trying to grow a business, and if you want to make that happen, you need to focus on your long-term plans and day-to-day operations.
You don't want to exhaust too much time and energy learning a convoluted, overly technical accounting software — at least not yet. As your business expands, leveraging an accounting platform with an accessible interface and straightforward functionality is in your best interest.
So when you're trying to pin down the right free accounting software for your company, prioritize accessibility. Manual receipt entry can be a massive time drain for businesses — particularly ones with a high transaction volume. So finding free accounting software that can connect with your credit cards and bank accounts to help automate that process is always a good call when exploring your options. As your business expands, it's almost bound to scale out of your free accounting software's limited capabilities.
When you see that kind of growth, you'll probably want to upgrade to a paid accounting application. But moving on from your free solution doesn't mean moving on from the data you accrued in it. You need to maintain the historical records contained in your free program as you make the shift to a new application.
Plan for that process ahead of time by leveraging a program that will let you seamlessly export and migrate those existing records to a paid platform. At the end of the day, your business is your business — and you have specific needs and priorities that will dictate what you want out of an accounting solution.
When you're selecting yours, make sure you understand what those needs and priorities are, and seek out programs with the features required to accommodate them. Many free accounting software solutions only allow you to grant access to a fixed number of users — and that "fixed number" is often one.
If you need to have multiple people within your organization regularly leverage the solution, you might want to explore the possibility of leveraging a paid option. Several free accounting applications limit the number of transactions you can carry out or the number of records you're allowed to maintain — as your business scales, you'll likely be dealing with more of both.
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