As technology evolves, so does our way of running our business, as new solutions offer opportunities to streamline how it operates while saving money.

To never miss such opportunities, it’s a good practice to keep a close eye on new software that may help your business grow in economy, size, or reach.

So, to give you a taste of what the latest technology can do for you, here are the best accounting tools for the small business of 2020.

Accounting

According to A. W. Johnson, “Accounting may be defined as the collection, compilation and systematic recording of business transactions in terms of money, the preparation of financial reports, the analysis and interpretation of these reports and the use of these reports for the information and guidance of management.”

Large companies that move a lot of money tend to leave this part of their business to a dedicated department, and a small business may hire a single accountant to do the same job. However, even this may be too big of a cost for some small business owners, leaving the duty of accounting to their own hands, a task made easier by tools like:

Zoho

What makes Zoho Books such a great choice in terms of accounting software is its user-friendly interface and the sheer amount of features it offers. It even allows you to create template-based reports that clearly display the necessary data for decision-making, which can also be seen right away from its dashboard.

AccountEdge Pro

If you see no problem in going mobile, Account Edge might be one of the best accounting solutions for you. It provides a series of useful tools from time billing to inventory management. It is also one of the few accounting software out there that is not subscription-based.

Budgeting

Another essential aspect of financial administration, budgeting is what determines when your business can take the next step and the length of its stride.

To make sure your business can always move upwards, a precise and updated budget is a mandatory requirement, and many developers have focused on proportioning just that.

The result of this effort is software like the ones below:

YNAB (You Need a Budget)

Out of the three budgeting software we are featuring here, YNAB is the most friendly for new users. It swiftly imports transactions and allows you to categorize them while seeing all your financial goals at a single glance from the dashboard.

Mint

Although it lacks the categorization features of YNAB, Mint still is a name of great weight among budgeting software as it offers many of its features for free.

It also offers you a complete snapshot of your finances with bills, assets, debt, credit score, and much more right at your dashboard in a reasonably comprehensive manner.

Clarity Money

Another free app, Clarity Money offers a plethora of features that allow you to organize expenses, link your accounts, and track spending. However, one of its absolute best features is giving you the ability to seamlessly cancel subscriptions you don’t really use to save money, making it one of the few budgeting apps that offer a straightforward way to cut costs.

Billing and Invoicing

Bills and invoices are at the core of all modern commercial activity; they allow businesses of sizes to provide and get paid for products and services.

Although the two terms refer to what is essentially the same type of document, they usually are employed under different contexts, with “bill” referring to a recurring payment and "invoice" to the request for a single one.

This only goes to show the importance of having billing software that is flexible enough to attend to different needs related to this process, among which the best ones are:

Housecall Pro

As the name suggests, Housecall Pro is a software focused on attending the type of business specialized in providing services at people’s homes. It offers invoicing solutions and job scheduling, customer database, payment processing, and technician dispatch. Overall, if you are a carpenter, painter, or run a business that offers similar services, housecall pro is one of the best options for your business, that is, if you don’t mind paying $39 per month.

Xero

The Main Strength of Xero is that it is entirely cloud-based; in other words, you can run it from any device as long as it has an internet connection and a web browser.

Although it offers a wide variety of accounting services, its invoicing and billing feature stands out from other software because right on the dashboard, you can already see your outstanding invoices and upcoming bills in a visually innovative way.

The pricing is also among the most friendly out there as it charges only a monthly fee of $20 while offering a good number of features.

Pabbly

While Homecall specialized on in-site service providers, Pabbly is a software which specializes in subscription-based billing, that is on a business model very similar to Netflix or magazines. It offers a real-time interactive report on your monthly payment revenue while also providing statistics on active customers and new subscriptions.

All of these features come at the price of $9 per month, at the tradeoff of being a more specific service than the other two on this list, which, if you own a subscription-based business, should be a great deal.

Bookkeeping

It is unnecessary to lecture a business owner on the necessity of keeping track of the money that comes in and out of their enterprise, as that is already one of their primary concerns.

And while in days of old, bookkeeping was done on an actual book with a pen, today we have a series of digital solutions that seek to make this task a lot easier.

While most accounting software offer booking features, some excel in their solutions. Here are some of the best we found:

Wave

The ideal software, if you are a freelancer or have a business that is still in its liftoff stage, Wave offers you one of the best initial software options. What makes this such an excellent tool for “beginners” is not just the fact this software is free, but also because it syncs all the data that goes through it, so you can always be sure of the preciseness of your bookkeeping.

However, that is not to say that Wave is not lacking in specific fields; for example, if you need an application with inventory tracking, you may want to skip this one over.

Godaddy Bookkeeping

A low-cost option that integrates with the data of PayPal, eBay, and your own bank account, Godaddy is one of the most popular bookkeeping solutions in the market. Besides bookkeeping, it also uses the data you input to create invoices and calculate quarterly tax estimates. If your business has a particular lean for the digital, selling either products or services online, this may be one of the best options for you.

Intuit QuickBooks Online

Another popular choice, Intuit QuickBooks Online allows accurate tracking of your income and expenses from several categorizable sources. These Bookkeeping features are available at all payment plans, allowing you to elaborate reports on the money coming in and out, track taxes, send invoices, receive payments, run reports, send estimates, track sales capture, organize receipts, and much more.

Another great selling point of QuickBooks is the wide variety of E-Commerce tools that it supports like Shopify and Square.

Conclusion

Although the tools presented in this article come to facilitate the lives of small business owners, it’s not hard to get lost among features and pricing when trying to discern what would work best for your business,

This is why, along with the right tools, it’s always a good idea to seek out the best good counseling on making your business grow and flourish.

If you agree, why not give the folks at Small Business Mentor the time of day? We offer guidance on administration, promotion, and all things that your business needs to succeed. All you need to do is contact us through our website, so waste no time!