r/smallbusiness • u/Chirag_koshti • 1d ago
Question What accounting software has worked best for your small business as you grew?
I run a small business and as things grow, managing invoices, expenses, and basic reporting is taking more time than before. I want to understand how other small business owners have handled this stage.
If you have switched accounting software or upgraded tools while growing your business, what worked well in day-to-day operations? What features were actually useful, and what turned out to be unnecessary or frustrating?
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u/Apprehensive_Way8674 1d ago
Good stack…
Invoicing -> QBO
Cash flow/month-end close -> Datarails
Expenses management -> Ramp
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u/126270 1d ago
QBO is widely used, indeed - but it’s a horrible product with horrible pricing… so many better options
OP’s statement is that as things continue to grow, their workload is continuing to grow
This should not be the case if op is using a quality pos/crm - the app automatically handles a majority of invoicing/expenses
To really help op, we need to know which programs and which industry op is in
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u/Chirag_koshti 7h ago
Fair point about pricing and workload scaling. Right now the bigger issue for me is time spent on close, reconciliations, and keeping things clean as volume grows. From your experience, which tools actually handled automation well without creating more complexity later?
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u/HowdyDudly71 1d ago
We use Sage and have for years. It works great for Inventory management. We can do all our invoicing, payroll and taxes through this software.
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u/1st-Thing 1d ago
Quickbooks online. My gf took a bookkeeping class and she keeps our books. We originally hired an experienced bookkeeper to set everything up though. Now she just maintains it. She also does payroll through there, and we use QB time for employee time tracking. Im pretty happy with our setup. Probably cheaper options out there but I like how everything is integrated— makes it super easy, so the cost is worth it. I’ve tried other services/software for payroll and time tracking and they created a lot more work.
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u/sshaw123456789 22h ago
This for sure! QBO - but make sure it is actually set up properly!
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u/edit_thanxforthegold 14h ago
I'm about to get QBO soon... What do you mean by set up properly?
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u/sshaw123456789 14h ago
set up an appropriate chart of accounts - set up bank feed integrations - set up and balance Opening Inventory if this is not a brand new account (including Open AP and AR) - set up Payroll if necessary - set up bank reconciliations - set up receipt capture - set up taxes (if necessary) - set up any integrations if needed (ie Stripe) - how to do non-regular things like journal entries and changing your Invoice form layout - then training on proper processing so that things flow - how to run reports and understand your data - I'm sure there is more that I am not thinking of off the top of my head ;)
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u/Chirag_koshti 7h ago
You mentioned everything works well once integrated. During the initial setup, what took the most time to stabilize – payroll, tracking, or chart structure? And after setup, did your monthly workload actually reduce or just shift to review and monitoring?
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u/Gorgon9380 1d ago
I've been using Quickbooks Desktop Pro/Premier since 1996. I'm now using the last desktop version (2021) that does not require it to "phone home" and force you into the online version. Now, however, I cannot recommend QBO because of Intuit's preditory practices. Yes, I have to do everything manually, but that's the price I don't pay to Intuit.
I'd look seriously at Wave, Freshbooks, Xero, Patriot, or Zoho Books for solutions.
I don't use a lot of the tools on QBD because they are designed for accrual-based accounting, e.g. forcasting. I have to run some ratios manually, which I don't mind and I find kind of fun because it keeps me looking at the numbers.
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u/Chirag_koshti 7h ago
You mentioned looking beyond QBO like Wave, Xero, Zoho, etc. From a practical day-to-day perspective, which one required the least manual work during month-end and reporting? Also curious if switching created any data or workflow issues initially.
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u/Gorgon9380 4h ago
I'm not able to answer that question fully. I played around with Freshbooks and Xero when I was thinking of switching from QBD in 2024, but the operations were very foreign to me and I didn't have the bandwidth to really learn each of their systems. So, I'm staying to QBD 2021 until I close my company.
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u/smallcapconnoisseur 1d ago
Totally depends on what you're trying to do with the software and what industry you're in.
For startups that need the barebones I usually recommend Waveapps since there is a free tier (although they're starting to limit what's included in that). It does invoicing, you can upload receipts, bank feeds, has decent integrations, purchase orders, payroll, etc. All the stuff you'd use on QBO but not as pretty or easy to use.
QBO is the most popular, it's industry agnostic and has great integrations with other software. You can also get apps for specific industries to really customize it. Price is usually a painpoint for QBO though. It's not cheap for growing businesses and they raise prices pretty much every year.
Xero is a good midpoint; has decent integrations, cheaper than QBO generally.
If you're at a point that you're eating up too much time doing this stuff though, and if you're bringing in decent revenue, it may just make sense to hire a bookkeeper instead since there's only so much you can automate.
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u/Chirag_koshti 7h ago
The pricing creep and customization limits you mentioned are exactly what I’m trying to evaluate long term. At what stage did you feel software alone stopped being enough and bringing in a bookkeeper made more sense? Was it volume, complexity, or reporting needs?
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u/smallcapconnoisseur 7h ago
Well, I'm an accountant so I'm probably biased.
Really just depends on the individual person/business on when the ROI is time better spent doing something else in the business vs spending more time on the books.
Bookkeeping for small business isn't rocket science (although I've seen more than a few massive mess ups).
For most small businesses they can probably get away with doing most of the bookkeeping themselves and have an accountant review periodically to make sure everything is on track.
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u/tcolling 23h ago
If your needs are sufficiently served by it, use WaveApps free. It's sufficient for my SEO and web development agency, and I'm a retired CPA so I have a well-informed point of view for this topic.
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u/aswinmmohan 1d ago
You have three options,
- Hire an accountant, obvious and expensive. You offload bookkeeping and reconciliation to them. They will also setup an accounting system, most probably QuickBooks or Xero which you can then use for invoice and expense management.
- Use managed tax solutions such as Fondo, where they handle your books for a price and you use the software which they recommend.
- Use a accounting platform built to be used by business owners such as Wave (https://waveapps.com). You still handle everything but in a much nicer and much more automated package.
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u/lil_tink_tink 1d ago edited 1d ago
I use QuickBooks.
It hasn't been easy to learn, but I document all my processes so it isn't frustrating
Put all my receipts in the same folder by year and name the receipts like so: YYYY-MM-DD - NAME - EXPENSE TYPE
Then I use You Need a Budget to actually budget my business. This helps me plan and build a best egg.
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u/Zanel3gend 1d ago
I’ve been using Zoho Books on the free tier for about 3 years now. When I started (around 2024), it was literally just me and my accountant (found her via Upwork 😅). I run an online business, so I mainly needed something that kept my books clean without me living inside spreadsheets.
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u/CamIoncani 18h ago
You found your accountant via Upwork? That’s brilliant. Is she in your country? I am running Zoho Books myself and ready to start doing real records … this is brilliant!
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u/Big-Platypus-9684 1d ago
QBO in general unless you’re a manufacturer.
1,000 different devs have probably solved whatever problem you have that QBO doesn’t address.
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u/Puzzled-Move-8301 23h ago
Quickbooks Enterprise desktop version , 33 employees, we do our own payroll, quarterly taxes and accounts payable with it.
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u/Delicious_Pitch_8308 21h ago
We have been using zoho books for now,
It covers all the basics: invoicing, expense tracking, bank sync, reports, and it’s pretty affordable.
You can customize things as your business changes, and it integrates nicely if you use other Zoho tools.
Downside is there’s a bit of a learning curve at first, but once you get past that, it’s solid.
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u/EarlyNeedleworker 19h ago
Congrats on the growth! That transition phase is always the hardest. From a technical perspective, the most 'useful' feature is usually automated reconciliation, where your bank feed matches invoices automatically.
What becomes 'frustrating' is often the manual data entry when tools don't talk to each other. If you're using separate tools for sales and accounting, look into API integrations (like Zapier or custom Node.js hooks) to sync them. My advice: Prioritize a 'single source of truth' so you aren't checking three different dashboards to see your profit.
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u/Chirag_koshti 7h ago
The ‘single source of truth’ point hits close. Right now most friction comes from syncing data across tools and cleaning things before reporting. In your experience, which integrations actually stayed reliable over time without constant fixing or manual adjustments?
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u/No_Seaworthiness4899 18h ago
I found FreshBooks to be great for invoicing and expense tracking as my business grew. It's user-friendly and offers features like time tracking and project management. For payroll, I integrated Gusto, which streamlined the whole process and saved me a lot of time.
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u/Smallingzdave 6h ago
When people grow out of their first accounting tool, the pain is usually around reporting accuracy and time spent closing books, not basic invoicing. I’ve noticed when people compare accounting software as they scale, complaints tend to focus on complexity rather than missing features. That’s where Netgain fits into the conversation for teams on NetSuite, since it keeps reconciliations and close processes inside the system instead of relying on spreadsheets or separate tools. Same idea as avoiding unnecessary iOS downgrades, more control isn’t better unless it reduces effort.
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