Introduction

QuickBooks is an accounting software package developed and marketed by Intuit. QuickBooks products are geared mainly toward small and medium-sized businesses and offer on-premises accounting applications as well as cloud-based versions that accept business payments, manage and pay bills, and have payroll functions.
- Features:
- Ability to handle multiple classifications/qualifiers: Yes
- Offers 250 Chart of Accounts. Unlimited chart accounts for the Advanced tier
- Specialization with startups: Yes
- Ability to connect to Salesforce and/or an open API: Yes
- Connection to various banks and credit cards: Yes
- Connect your bank and credit card accounts in QuickBooks and get cash flow insights at a glance.
- Bill Pay Feature: Yes
- Organize bills in one place, plus schedule and make payments online right in QuickBooks.
- Quality Dashboard & Reports: Yes
- Price:
- 50% for three months
- Simple Start: $12.50 /month
- Essentials: $20/ month
- Plus: $35/ month
- Advanced: $75/ month
- Self-Employed: $ 7.5/ month
- Regular price:
- Simple Start: $25/month
- Essentials: $40/ month
- Plus: $70/ month
- Advanced: $150/ month
- Self-Employed: $ 15/ month
- Business Size: Best for startups
- Free Trial: Yes (for 30 days)
The two most frequently cited disadvantages of QuickBooks among TrustRadius reviewers are customer support and high subscription costs. Others are frustrated that the limited Inventory Management features require many users to upgrade to more expensive software.
If these are concerns for your business, or you have your own unique issues with Quickbooks Online, there are alternatives that can serve your needs at different stages of your business.
Best QuickBooks Alternative for Startup Stage
The Startup Stage is the stage you came from – the stage you survived. It was risky and difficult, but your efforts paid off. At the startup stage, you most likely experienced challenges such as:
- exceeding your initial budget
- establishing your presence in the right market
- following through with your business plan
Accounting apps in the startup stage offer to keep a close eye on your cash flow, focus on your immediate goals, and adapt to feedback from your customers. These are some of our favorites:
- Features:
- Ability to handle multiple classifications/qualifiers: Yes
- In Odoo 13 Chart of accounts is defined in the accounting module which acts with the balance sheet or profit and loss accounts.
- Specialization with startups: Yes
- Ability to connect to Salesforce and/or an open API: Yes
- Odoo integration with Salesforce gives power to sync customers, products, sale orders, quotes, leads, contract and opportunities and many more.
- Connection to various banks and credit cards: Yes
- Get your bank statements automatically synced with your bank. Save time with Automated reconciliation.
- Bill Pay Feature: Yes
- Control supplier invoices and get a clear forecast of your future bills to pay.
- Quality dashboard & reports: Yes
- Price: $30.00 USD/user/month, $288 USD/ user/annually
- Business Size: Best for small businesses
- Free Trial: Yes (15 days)
- Features:
- Ability to handle multiple classifications/qualifiers: Yes
- Kashoo comes with a default chart of accounts set up for you, but since the needs of business vary from one to another, you are able to add, edit, or remove this default set of accounts.
- Specialization with startups: Yes
- Ability to connect to Salesforce and/or an open API: Yes
- Connection to various banks and credit cards: Yes
- Connect to 5000+ banks
- Bill pay feature: Yes
- Set up payments in one minute with no hidden fees with your favorite payments provider. Every time a client pays you, it’s automatically deposited into your bank account.
- Quality dashboard & reports: Yes
- One-click financial reports
- Price: $16.65 per month, $199 per year
- Business Size: Best for small businesses
- Free Trial: Yes (14 days)
- Features:
- Ability to handle multiple classifications/qualifiers: Yes
- Specialization with startups: Yes
- Ability to connect to Salesforce and/or an open API: Yes
- FreshBooks API is available to integrate apps with FreshBooks data
- Connection to various banks and credit cards: Yes
- Bill pay feature similar to Bill.com: Yes
- FreshBooks Payments make it easier for your clients to pay online, which means you get paid twice as fast.
- Quality dashboard & reports: Yes
- Straightforward dashboard and reports.
- Price:
- 60% off
- Lite: $6-5 Billable Clients
- Plus: $10- 50 Billable Clients
- Premium: $20- 500 Billable Clients
- Custom pricing- 500+ Billable Clients
- Regular pricing:
- Lite: $15-5 Billable Clients
- Plus: $25- 50 Billable Clients
- Premium: $50- 500 Billable Clients
- Custom pricing- 500+ Billable Clients
- Business Size: Best for small businesses
- Free Trial: Yes
- Features:
- Ability to handle multiple classifications/qualifiers: Yes
- Specialization with startups: Yes
- Ability to connect to Salesforce and/or an open API: Yes
- Connection to various banks and credit cards: Yes
- Get time-saving features such as scheduled payment reminders and automatic credit card payments
- Bill pay feature: Yes
- Users have the ability to invoice and accept payments
- Quality dashboard & reports: Yes
- Easy-to-use design and functionality on dashboard or syncing accounting records.
- Price:
- Payroll
- Tax service states: $35 monthly base fee
- Self service states: $20 monthly base fee
- Business Size: Best for small businesses
- Free Trial: Yes
Best QuickBooks Alternative for Growth-Stage Companies
At the growth stage, you’ve launched your business. Now you’re seeing consistent revenue and an ongoing stream of customers. Be prepared for sure and steady growth. You’ll be facing these challenges in the growth stage:
- meeting the demands of increasing sales and rising customer numbers
- dividing your time as a business owner between various opportunities and issues
- successfully continuing to grow
Accounting apps in the growth stage offer to formulate a business growth plan and build a growth strategy, fine-tune your methods, and make your processes more efficient. They will also set up more effective accounting, management, and reporting systems. Finally, they will let you hire people who are passionate about your business so you can delegate and move into more of a leadership role. These are a few of our favorites:
- Features:
- Ability to handle multiple classifications/qualifiers: Yes
- Xero assigns a default chart of accounts when you set up your organization. If you prefer, you can import a chart of accounts from your previous accounting system, or import your own custom chart.
- Specialization with startups: No
- Ability to connect to Salesforce and/or an open API: Yes
- Streamline the sales process with professional online quotes.
- Connection to various banks and credit cards: Yes
- Connect to the bank so transactions flow automatically into Xero each business day.
- Bill pay feature: Yes
- Pay the bills on time, reduce office admin, and improve cash flow.
- Quality dashboard & reports: Yes
- See all key information in one simple place with the online accounting dashboard. Track bank balances, invoices, bills and more, to keep an eye on your finances
- Price:
- Early: $9/ month
- Growing: $30/month
- Established: $60/month
- Business Size: Best for medium-large businesses
- Free Trial: Yes
- Features:
- Ability to handle multiple classifications/qualifiers: Yes
- Specialization with startups: No
- Ability to connect to Salesforce and/or an open API: Yes
- Connection to various banks and credit cards: Yes
- FINSYNC lets you collect money from your customers by credit and debit card by connecting to a Merchant Processor.
- Bill pay feature: Yes
- FINSYNC streamlines the process of bill payments by delivering remittance details with electronic payments allowing users to pay from multiple accounts or email addresses. The solution allows users to store banking info online and receive invoice funds directly into the bank account.
- Quality dashboard & reports: Yes
- The software could offer more reports but it does cover the basics.
- Price: $0-$45/month
- Business Size: Best for medium-large businesses
- Free Trial: Yes
- Features:
- Ability to handle multiple classifications/qualifiers: Yes
- The Chart of Accounts in Zoho Books consists of a wide range of accounts that are generally used with any type of business. The accounts are classified into different types such as Income, Expense, Equity, Liability & Assets.
- Specialization with startups: No
- Ability to connect to Salesforce and/or an open API: Yes
- Send sales orders and confirm each sale before shipping goods to customers.
- Connection to various banks and credit cards: Yes
- Get precise cash flow projections—plus balance mismatches, expected recurring payments, and past reconciliations—using the banking dashboard.
- Bill pay feature: Yes
- Generate bills to track the payments you owe to your vendors.
- Quality dashboard & reports: Yes
- Price:
- Basic: $ 9/ monthly
- Standard: $19/ monthly
- Professional: $29/ monthly
- Business Size: Best for small to medium-size businesses
- Free Trial: Yes (14 days)
Best QuickBooks Alternative for Enterprise-Stage Companies
In the enterprise stage, your business has firmly established its market presence. Things are running routinely and smoothly, but more growth is possible. It’s time to go bigger and better. You’ll encounter these obstacles such as the following:
- gaining a larger market share
- moving into new markets
- finding other profit channels or avenues of revenue
Accounting apps in the enterprise stage offer to plan carefully and do a ton of research. This will help you be realistic with the resources you have compared to the cost and the return on your investment. It will also help you focus on markets and avenues that complement your strengths and current business activities, as opposed to unrelated areas with increased risk and a greater potential to go wrong. These are a few of our favorites:
- Features:
- Ability to handle multiple classifications/qualifiers: Yes
- NetSuite is a global financial software package, which allows us to both streamline the chart of accounts on a global level and have flexibility on the local level. The desired outcome in all ministries is a chart of accounts that meets the ministry’s current needs, has room for expansion, and is globally consistent with all other CCC ministries.
- Specialization with startups: No
- Ability to connect to Salesforce and/or an open API: Yes
- Connection to various banks and credit cards: Yes
- Support multiple payment methods such as Automated Clearing House (ACH), credit and debit card, and wire transfers
- Bill pay feature: Yes
- You can set up company accounts to pay for different transactions.
- Quality dashboard & reports: Yes
- Has a centralized dashboard for users to interact with.
- Price: Not provided by the vendor
- Business Size: Ideal for modern mid-large size businesses (50+ employee size).
- Free Trial: Free product demo
- Features:
- Ability to handle multiple classifications/qualifiers: Yes
- Sage 300 ERP has a fairly flexible mechanism for setting up your General Ledger Chart of Accounts.
- Specialization with startups: No
- Ability to connect to Salesforce and/or an open API: Yes
- The Sage 300 Web API makes it easy to develop services that integrate with Sage 300 data and business logic. You can use the Web API to create integrated services for Sage 300 using many frameworks and tools—even just a web browser.
- Connection to various banks and credit cards: Yes
- Automate and simplify the monthly reconciliation process. Detect unrecorded transactions and correct differences between your books and your bank account.
- Bill pay feature: Yes
- Quality dashboard & reports: Yes
- Print reports including a chart of accounts, trial balances, posting journals, and transactions listings
- Price: Not provided by the vendor
- Business Size: small to midsize enterprise
- Free Trial: Not provided by the vendor
- Features:
- Ability to handle multiple classifications / qualifiers: Yes
- Acumatica ERP supports four types of GL accounts: asset, liability, income, and expense. In each type, the accounts are also divided into classes.
- Specialization with startups: Yes
- Ability to connect to Salesforce and/or an open API: Yes
- Connection to various banks and credit cards: Yes
- Able to track cash positions across all accounts, banks, business units, and countries
- Bill pay feature: No
- Quality dashboard & reports: Yes
- Price: Not provided by the company
- Business Size: Small to midsize enterprise
- Free Trial: Free demo only
- Features:
- Ability to handle multiple classifications/qualifiers: Yes
- The organization of the chart of accounts follows GAAP in which there is a separate “drawer” for accounts representing assets, liabilities, equity, revenues, cost of sales, expenses, financing, and other revenues and expenses
- Specialization with startups: Yes
- Ability to connect to Salesforce and/or an open API: Yes
- Oversee the entire sales process and customer lifecycle more efficiently – from initial contact to final sale, after-sales service, and support.
- Connection to various banks and credit cards: Yes
- Process reconciliations, bank statements, and payments faster through various methods including checks, cash, and bank
- transfers.
- Bill pay feature: Yes
- SAP Business One offers a payment wizard to generate incoming and outgoing payment recommendations and bank transfers or cheques.
- Quality dashboard & reports: Yes
- Create standard or customized reports from real-time data to improve your business planning and audit review processes.
- Price: Not provided by the company
- Business Size: Small to midsize enterprise
- Free Trial: Free demo only