Kathy Yakal The Best Small Business Accounting Software of 2018 If you're running a small business, keeping a tight grip on your finances is critical to success. These are the best online accounting apps and services that can help keep your company in the black. Keep Your Books With an Online Accounting Service More than 30 years after the first small business accounting applications were introduced for the PC, there's still no shortage of options available for small and midsize businesses.

Apptivo is a collection of small business management apps, including: CRM, project management, invoicing, and more. The free Starter plan includes up to three users and 50 apps, with contact sharing. The Premium plan is $10/month/user. This plan includes everything in the Starter plan plus Google integration, unlimited customization, all mobile apps, email and payment integration.

Today, all the new solutions are cloud-based, though you can still buy desktop accounting software, we'll explain below. In general, however, accounting services are mostly online, and they've benefited from the transition, thanks to their availability anywhere via the internet, and the drastic simplification and improvement in usability that most of them have made in the course of the move online. This new set of reviews focuses on applications that microbusinesses could use, but which are more appropriate for businesses that are more complex, larger, and/or have employees. Note that we also include the best services suited to use by freelancers, as we'll explain below. Newer solutions like ZipBooks are working quickly to add features, while much older websites like QuickBooks Online are concentrating on the usability factor.

Double-entry accounting is a complicated system governed by many rules, so a simple, understandable user experience is critical here. What Does an Online Accounting Service Do? Although each of these applications has its own distinct look and feature set, they have much in common, including: • Friendly user interface and navigation. Cloud-based accounting applications—for the most part—look great. They're not as graphically rich as some types of online services, but they don't need to be.

Graphics are used where it makes sense, like for displaying charts and graphs, and for invoice forms. Navigation and data entry take their cues from desktop software, using static and drop-down lists, icons and buttons, fill-in-the-blank fields, and toolbars.

• The subscription model. Desktop software was and is expensive, a few hundred dollars for a product you're probably not sure upfront that you'll end up using, and that you'll be asked to upgrade in 12 months. The online model is very much pay as you go, and pay for just the seats you need. Generally, you can sign up for a free trial and pay anywhere from roughly $5 to $70 per month for an accounting website, and you're not usually locked into a contract. Furthermore, all the upgrades are built in, and your data is all backed up in the cloud.

Of course, if the service (or your internet connection) goes down, you're out of luck, however. • Multiple versions. Some of the best web-based accounting solutions make more than one level of service available—at different prices—so you can buy the version that most closely matches your needs. When you need more power, you can keep it in the family.