Accounting/Bookkeeping Software Suggestions

Need suggestions on what to use for bookkeeping. I’m a one-man operation and I just need this to make it easy to track profit & loss. Also, taxes. I can’t “officially” use it, as the revenue service where I live makes it a PITA to validate software-based accounting. But if I can track everything in software and just move the data over to the paper forms, it would still save me time and effort. It’s all been pen & paper for the last 2 years and I just want to finally make it easier for myself.

TIA.

A few questions before suggestions. What OS are you on? What is the nature of your business, retail, service, transport / distribution, etc ? Would not want to point you toward an overly complex package.

I’ve used Accountedge Pro for 15+ years on both Windows and Mac OS. I upgrade every 3-5 years depending on what changes are implemented. Has been rock solid. Periodically I’ve used Quickbooks from Intuit but it just doesn’t work with my brain…Intuit uses a different system than I can adapt to. AccountEdge is straightforward double-entry accounting. I find it fast and easy and VERY reliable.

One man shop mostly I use, Invoice Ninja, MileIQ, and excel (rarely now).

I use both Linux and Windows. A cloud service would be nice (so it works on either), but if I could save time I’d sacrifice either preference.

It’s a service business. Mostly consulting on business processes.

Invoice Ninja project->task and define rate. It also tracks expenses as well. MileIQ I use for my mileage tracking both enable report printouts. Was super simple for taxes for me.

If you’re a Linux command-line user, I’d suggest trying hledger. It’s a simple CLI tool for double-entry bookkeeping. I’ve used it for many years as a self-employed solo. It does a nice job generating basic reports, and everything is kept in plain text, which makes it easy to move data around.

We use akaunting for our MSP and it works great! Its written in Laravel framework, so its web based, self hosted and opensource.

I would suggest since you are using Linux GnuCash (Linux accounting software) it is suitable for a small (micro) business as well as personal finance management. You will find it in most distros package managers. Based on what you stated as needs would be the best fit.

I have been using ERPNext for about 9 months. Its open source and covers from leads to accounting and inventory. Little bit of a learning curve but i think it worth it.

Hello Our Opensource web application which is in active development could be added to this list as it does invoicing, estimates and accounting functions here is a link

https://staging-forum.lawrencesystems.com/t/opensource-itglue-alternative/2284/4

Invoice Ninja.

My only real with it is that when doing quotes, there are no columns to show cost price / client price / profit , so I’m still doing that in Excel… Otherwise its a good piece of kit.

This looks really nice. Love that it is self hosted. From a consulting point of view how does it handle time tracking ?

I am simply using an offline version of Quickbooks 2018. I then use an android application called Time Tracker. This app allows me to export time directly as an IIF file to be imported into Quickbooks. It has been working very well for me. At end of year I simply send my accountant an accounting version of QB and he does his job. It has been working well but I am always looking for alternatives.