5 Best Accounting Software Programs for Freelancers in 2022

The future of work is uncertain, with technology and automation threatening to replace human jobs. If you’re a freelancer looking for ways to avoid becoming obsolete in the coming years, consider these five best accounting software programs that will keep your business running smoothly.

The “best accounting software for freelancers” is a program that will be available in the future. This article is about the 5 best accounting software programs for freelancers in 2022.

Freelancers want accounting software that will assist them in organizing their transactions without causing them undue stress. Because some freelancers lack in-depth accounting expertise, the finest accounting software must be simple to use, especially for non-accountants. It should also include functions like expenditure management, receipt scanning, project and time monitoring, and report production.

Let’s take a look at our top picks for freelancing accounting software in 2022:

• Zoho Books is a web-based publishing platform. is the best accounting software for freelancers in general (4.43 of 5 points)
• QuickBooks Online is a software program that allows you to is ideal for freelancers who need to collect sales taxes or scan receipts (4.31 of 5 points)
• FreshBooks is the best option for invoicing that are both comprehensive and customisable (4.27 of 5 points)
• QuickBooks Self-Employed is a program that allows you to keep track of your income and is ideal for managing freelancing earnings and preparing tax returns (3.57 of 5 points)
• The best free accounting software for freelancers is Sunrise (3.50 of 5 points)

Comparing the Best Accounting Software for Freelancers

We’ll offer you a tailored product match once you answer a few questions about your company.

the first question

Do you want your inventory to be organized and tracked by your software?

2nd question

Is it necessary for your software to calculate the sales tax rate based on the address of your customer or client?

Question three

How crucial is it for you to be able to reach out to customer service via phone?

4th question

What is the total amount of money you make in a year?

$100,000 or less

between $100,000 and $250,000

ranging from $250,001 to $500,000

ranging from $500,001 to $1,000,000

More than a million dollars

Zoho Books is a web-based publishing platform. is the best accounting software for freelancers in general.

Zoho Books is a web-based publishing platform.

4.43 OUT OF 5 STARS FOR THE OVERALL PERFORMANCE

What We Enjoy

• Telephone customer service
• Manage the collection of sales taxes.
• Keep track of your time and costs so you can quickly add them to an invoice.
• Keep track of the project’s profitability.

What Isn’t There

• There is an additional fee for receipt capture.
• No income or cost may be transferred to Schedule C.
• I’m unable to compute expected tax payments on a quarterly basis.

Read Zoho Books is a web-based publishing platform. Full Review

Zoho Books is a web-based publishing platform. Pricing

• Free: For firms with annual sales of less than $50,000, it’s completely free.
• Monthly fee of $20 per organization is standard.
• Professional: $50 per month per organization
• Premium: $70 per month per organization

Add-ons:

• $3 per month for each extra user
• At $10 per month, you get 50 auto-scans.
• Sending invoices to consumers costs $2 per snail mail.

Features

• Customer and vendor portals: Customers and vendors may use a separate site to examine their transactions, allowing you to quickly cooperate with them. You can send estimates, collect payments, and issue invoices through the client site. Your suppliers may submit invoices and issue statements of account using the vendor site.
• With Zoho Book’s automated process, you can eliminate repeated operations. Using recurring invoices, bills, and journal entries, you may say goodbye to repeated transactions.
• Multiple reports: With Zoho Books is a web-based publishing platform., you can generate different kinds of reports, from basic financial statements to specialized financial reports. Analyze tax liability or product performance with these special reports.
• Project management: Keep track of billable hours and charge clients for project expenditures. With Zoho Book’s project tracking, you can keep track of the expenditures and profits associated with each project.

Expert Recommendation

Zoho Books is a web-based publishing platform. received our best overall score when evaluating accounting software for the needs of freelancers. It scored high in User-Friendliness because customer support is available by either live chat or phone—something that is becoming rare among accounting software companies. If you’re a freelancer, you’ll love that you can set up recurring invoices and accept payments online easily from Zoho’s great mobile app. The mobile app also tracks your business mileage and allows you to create transactions by taking pictures of receipts.

Although Zoho Payroll isn’t accessible in every state, the majority of freelancers don’t have workers. If you have staff, QuickBooks Online is a software program that allows you to is an excellent option.

QuickBooks Online is a software program that allows you to is the best option for freelancers who need to collect sales tax or scan receipts.

QuickBooks Online is a software program that allows you to

4.31 OUT OF 5 STARS FOR THE OVERALL PERFORMANCE

What We Enjoy

• Automatically calculate sales tax rates depending on the customer’s address.
• Receipt capture is used to create transactions from receipts that have been submitted.
• Keep track of your time and costs, and add them to your customer bills (requires Essentials)
• Automatically track mileage using a smartphone app.

What Isn’t There

• There is no customer support phone number.
• Must subscribe to expensive Plus version to Keep track of the project’s profitability.
• It is not possible to compute quarterly tax payments or move data to Schedule C.

Read QuickBooks Online is a software program that allows you to Full Review

PricingQuickBooks Online is a software program that allows you to Pricing

• Simple Start: $25 per month for one user (recommended for most freelancers).
• $50 per month for three users is the bare minimum.
• Plus, for five people, it’s just $80 per month.
• Advanced: $180 per month for a group of 25 people.

New users may sign up for a three-month free trial or a 30-day free trial with no credit card necessary.

Features

• Estimates: Most freelancing gigs need you to provide estimates to customers. You can develop professional, tailored estimates using QuickBooks, which will help you gain reputation and trust as a freelancer.
• Mileage tracking: As a freelancer, you need to travel to give the best service to your clients. You can use QuickBooks Online is a software program that allows you to’s mileage tracking to stay on top of your mileage expenses for client billing. You can also account for non-billable mileage expenses to track your expenses and profit.
• Receipt scanning: With QuickBooks Online is a software program that allows you to, you can scan receipts for operating expenses and billable expenses and attach actual receipts to your expense entries for documentation purposes. With just your smartphone camera, you can capture receipts and match them with expense entries easily.
• Sales tax tracking: Due to its time-consuming procedural requirements, tax is something that most freelancers struggle with. You can monitor and manage your sales taxes in QuickBooks for each transaction. QuickBooks will automatically apply the appropriate sales tax depending on the transaction address you give.
• If you don’t have time to keep track of your finances, you may employ a QuickBooks Pro Advisor who has been taught and certified by the company.

Expert Recommendation

All editions of QuickBooks Online is a software program that allows you to come with an outstanding feature that pulls the correct sales tax rate automatically to apply based on the address of the customer. In addition, it will accumulate your liability by jurisdiction and even help you file the sales tax return. All editions also come with a great mobile app with the ability to perform virtually any bookkeeping function, including tracking miles, sending invoices, recording online payments, and uploading receipts to generate transactions.

Instead of a customer support phone number, QuickBooks requires customers to contact them through the QuickBooks Online is a software program that allows you to program. If customer service is important to you, FreshBooks’ customer service has a good reputation and is accessible by phone.

FreshBooks is the best option for detailed and customizable invoices.

FreshBooks

4.27 OUT OF 5 STARS FOR THE OVERALL PERFORMANCE

What We Enjoy

• Invoices that look amazing
• Use a smartphone app to track your distance.
• Telephone customer service
• Keep track of your hours and costs, and add them to your invoices.

What Isn’t There

• For limitless billable users, you must subscribe to a costly premium plan.
• There is no way to monitor expenses or revenue by class.
• Receipt capture does not result in the creation of new transactions.
• To correctly monitor checking transactions, you must link your bank account.

Read the whole FreshBooks review.

Pricing for FreshBooks

• For five billable customers and one user, the Lite plan costs $15 per month.
• Plus: $25 per month for 50 billable customers and one user (recommended for most freelancers).
• Premium: $50 per month for one user and unlimited billable clients.
• Choose: Custom pricing and customized features for an infinite number of chargeable customers.

FreshBooks offers a 30-day free trial without requiring a credit card.

Add-ons:

• $10 per month for a new team member
• Gusto Payroll is a company that specializes in payroll services (separately billed from Gusto)
• Monthly payments of $20 in advance (for Plus, Premium, and Select plans only)

Features

• FreshBooks is known for its professional-looking invoices, which are both customizable and recurring. Before sending invoices to customers, freelancers may customise them using this function. Furthermore, you may delegate reoccurring bills to FreshBooks so that you don’t have to do so on a monthly or weekly basis.
• Payment reminders: When you work as a freelancer, you are responsible for all of the busywork. You can make payment reminders to forgetful customers easier using FreshBooks. There’s no need to send hundreds of emails or spend hours on the phone with your customer. FreshBooks will automatically deliver tailored reminders to your customers.
• One of the reasons we suggest FreshBooks to freelancers is because of its time and project tracking tool. Given the importance of monitoring billable hours and costs when delivering bills to customers, we suggest FreshBooks to freelancers since it may help with time tracking. Aside from that, you may analyze your job efficiency by comparing real with projected prices each project.
• Client credit cards may be accepted through FreshBooks, making payments quicker and simpler. You may also set up regular payments that are sent straight to your clients’ credit cards, eliminating the need to bill them on a monthly basis.
• Basic financial statements and reports may be generated using FreshBooks, including profit and loss statements, general ledger, aging schedules, and sales tax summaries. If you don’t have time to complete your books, FreshBooks includes a function called “Accountant Login” that allows your accountant to access and manage your account.

Expert Recommendation

FreshBooks’ invoices are the most customisable of any accounting software we’ve looked at. The invoice generator in FreshBooks allows users to produce invoices that represent the personality and branding of their company. Time and costs may be automatically added to client bills, and invoices can be set to recurring to save your monthly workload. FreshBooks is also a powerful accounting system with a wonderful mobile app that enables you to send invoices, manage mileage, and attach receipt photos to your current transactions.

Assigning transactions to checking and cash accounts in FreshBooks is part of the reconciliation process, which requires a live bank connection. If you’re unwilling or unable to allow FreshBooks access to your bank account, then you should choose QuickBooks Online is a software program that allows you to. While QuickBooks allows a bank connection, it’s not required to fully utilize the features.

QuickBooks Self-Employed is a program that allows you to keep track of your income and is the best accounting software for freelancers who want to keep track of their earnings and file their taxes quickly.

QuickBooks Self-Employed is a program that allows you to keep track of your income and

3.57 OUT OF 5 STARS FOR THE OVERALL PERFORMANCE

What We Enjoy

• Low-cost and simple to use
• Calculate your projected tax payments on a quarterly basis.
• Information about earnings and losses is sent to TurboTax (requires the TurboTax bundle)
• Miles are tracked and receipt photographs are saved using a mobile app.

What Isn’t There

• The usefulness of invoices is quite restricted.
• There is no customer support phone number.
• For a balance sheet, it does not keep track of assets and liabilities.

Read QuickBooks Self-Employed is a program that allows you to keep track of your income and Full Review

QuickBooks Self-Employed is a program that allows you to keep track of your income and Pricing

• $15 per month for one user if self-employed
• Self-Employed Tax Bundle: $25 per month for one user (recommended for most freelancers).
  • Intuit TurboTax Self-Employed, online quarterly tax payments, and income/loss information transmission are all included.
• Self-Employed Live Tax Bundle (one user): $35 per month
  • Includes unlimited year-round guidance from a live certified public accountant (CPA), enrolled agent, or lawyer with Intuit TurboTax Live Self-Employed.

Bundling with TurboTax allows for easier tax return preparation, but subscribing to the base self-employed package and choosing a different business tax software could save you some money. QuickBooks Self-Employed is a program that allows you to keep track of your income and offers a 30-day free trial.

Features

• Expense tracking: Expenses pile up and eat away most of your profit if you don’t track them properly. With QuickBooks Self-Employed is a program that allows you to keep track of your income and, you can track your expenses by category and bill them to clients when appropriate. Moreover, QuickBooks Self-Employed is a program that allows you to keep track of your income and auto-sorts your expenses in search of tax-deductible expenses. With this feature, you can maximize your deductions and pay less tax.
• Mileage tracking: Tracking mileage is tedious if done manually. However, you get a mileage tracker with QuickBooks Self-Employed is a program that allows you to keep track of your income and. Using automatic mileage tracking, you can use your smartphone’s GPS to track your miles. You can also classify business and personal trips with just a swipe.
• Receipt scanning: You may scan receipts and match them to your spending using the QuickBooks app. There’s no need to save paper receipts just to discover that they’ve faded over time. Instead, you may scan them and save them in the cloud using QuickBooks. If the IRS requests for copies, you’ll be able to confidently present the receipts.
• Tax tracking and assisted filing: QuickBooks Self-Employed is a program that allows you to keep track of your income and has tax tracking features that estimate and account for your tax obligations. This feature helps you project how much you’ll pay to the IRS when filing taxes. However, its assisted filing feature doesn’t mean that QuickBooks Self-Employed is a program that allows you to keep track of your income and files your tax returns. Instead, QuickBooks Self-Employed is a program that allows you to keep track of your income and provides information that you can include in your tax returns upon completion of the forms.

Expert Recommendation

QuickBooks Self-Employed is a program that allows you to keep track of your income and is one of the easiest ways for freelancers to compile their income and expenses, but the program does little else. It imports your bank account activity and allows you to separate your income and expenses between personal and business. You can email invoices and accept online payments but, otherwise, the invoicing functionality is very limited. For instance, you cannot save customer or product/service information, so you’ll need to retype it on each invoice. Also, payments from invoices don’t flow to your profit and loss (P&L) report. P&L is calculated strictly from the bank accounts you connect to the software and transactions you manually input.

In addition to a poor invoicing function, QuickBooks Self-Employed is a program that allows you to keep track of your income and is missing many features that freelancers might need, such as managing sales tax, tracking assets and liabilities, managing unpaid bills, and tracking project profitability. However, if all you want to do is compile your net profit to file a tax return, QuickBooks Self Employed is an inexpensive and easy way to do so. For more features like simple accounting with project management, FreshBooks is our next best recommendation for you.

Free Accounting Software for Freelancers: Sunrise

Sunrise

3.50 OUT OF 5 STARS FOR THE OVERALL PERFORMANCE

What We Enjoy

• Most accounting activities, including adding photographs of receipts, are performed through a mobile app.
• Send professional invoices, including recurring billing.
• Create taxing authority and manually administer sales tax.

What Isn’t There

• I’m unable to monitor or enter business miles.
• It is not possible to extract information from collected receipts in order to construct new transactions.
• Cannot Keep track of the project’s profitability.

Pricing at first light

• Self-Service is completely free.
• Sunrise Plus is available for $19.99 each month.

Sunrise Plus is available for a 14-day trial period. Monthly accounting help is available from Sunrise, with options beginning at $149 per month. However, there is no need to pay for accounting services in order to utilize the free program.

Features

• Free self-service plan: You can monitor your revenue and spending, issue invoices and estimates, and produce an income statement with the free plan. Sunrise’s free plan is ideal for freelancers who run small enterprises.
• Customized invoices: For freelancers, invoicing is a critical feature. Sunrise allows you to customise your invoices and make them seem professional. Furthermore, Sunrise Plus’ recurring invoices ensure that you never miss a payment from a customer.
• Sunrise provides the services of a personal bookkeeper to handle your accounts, since accounting may take up a lot of your time. This function is not included in the base price, however it is useful for freelancers who can afford it.

Expert Recommendation

Sunrise by Lendio is an excellent online accounting application that comes with a fantastic free edition. Sunrise generates revenue by offering accounting services in addition to its software. However, if you’re confident in your ability to use the program, it’s always free. Sunrise includes the majority of the capabilities that a freelancer would ever need. With its excellent mobile app, you can send and monitor invoices, handle delinquent bills, input bank transactions, and do accounting on the move.

You’ll need to print a P&L statement to calculate your quarterly estimated tax payments and file your annual tax return. Since you can’t input business miles driven, you’ll need to calculate the deduction manually and make a journal entry to record the expense on your books. However, for freelancers who don’t mind a few manual calculations, this free software will work great. Consider QuickBooks Self-Employed is a program that allows you to keep track of your income and for help calculating your taxes due and tracking mileage.

What to Look for in Accounting Software for Freelancers

Freelancers have distinct accounting software needs than other firms since they are self-employed people who supply services to various enterprises. Because most freelancers do not have workers, they do not place a high importance on integrated payroll when assessing accounting software. Other capabilities, such as the ability to log time and costs to bill customers, are particularly vital for freelancers.

The following is a list of accounting software features that most freelancers will find useful or not useful:

See our guide to the best small company accounting software if you want more capabilities than a normal freelancer, such as payroll or inventory monitoring.

Accounting Software for Freelancers: How We Rated It

We considered a wide range of software, based on pricing, features, User-Friendliness, and our own Expert Opinion. We also evaluated features that are useful specifically to freelancers, such as the ability to transfer information to their Schedule C tax return. We applied a lower weight (or no weight) to features unimportant to freelancers.

20% of the overall score

The price and availability of a month-to-month subscription were the most crucial aspects in our freelancer software pricing assessment. Software that allowed for infinite transactions was also given a modest advantage, but the number of users was not taken into account since most freelancers only need one.

25% of the overall score

User-Friendliness includes a subjective evaluation by our accounting expert, but also the availability of customer service, the difficulty in activating online payments, and whether the software requires installation on a local computer.

20% of the overall score

Characteristics include items that would be expected of any modern bookkeeping software, but those items were weighted according to their importance to freelancers. For example, a good mobile app is important, while payroll and tracking inventory are not.

15% of the overall score

Features of a Freelancer are items not included in Characteristics that are especially useful for freelancers, such as calculating estimated tax, transferring income/expense to schedule C, tracking mileage, and recurring invoices.

20% of the overall score

Our professional appraisal of the software’s features and mobile app is subjective. It also covers the provision of third-party accounting services.

*Percentages based on total score

Conclusion

We’ve rated five great accounting software programs based on how well they meet the unique accounting needs of freelancers. While Zoho Books is a web-based publishing platform. is our highest-rated accounting software for freelancers, QuickBooks Online is a software program that allows you to also scored extremely well and will be a better fit than Zoho Books is a web-based publishing platform. for freelancers who scan over 50 receipts per month or are required to collect sales tax from their customers. FreshBooks is great for freelancers wanting the most customizable invoices, while Sunrise provides a nice list of features for free. Finally, for freelancers who only want to compile their income and expenses and file a tax return, QuickBooks Self-Employed is a program that allows you to keep track of your income and might be best.

The “freelance accounting” is a popular topic in the finance category. There are many different types of software out there for you to choose from, so it can be difficult to find the best one. This article will go over 5 of the best accounting software programs for freelancers in 2022.

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