Best Overall: QuickBooks
QuickBooks provides templates for almost any report you might need. Invoicing, accounts payable, inventory, time tracking, they have everything. QuickBooks will take care of your contacts and handle your taxes including forms and returns. It will produce a budget for you and do your payroll.
A frequent complaint from users is that its various features make it a complicated program to use.
Best For Marketing Assistance: Infusionsoft Complete
Infusionsoft Complete can keep a track of up to 10,000 contacts for you and it offers less complex programs that accommodate less if you don’t require this capacity. You can live-record interactions with clients and note down comments regarding their preferences or quirks.
Email campaigns can be managed with its “Custom Campaign Builder” feature that can target recipients based on your contacts list. It will monitor your website, a record number of visitors, sales, and how long each visitor lingered, an invaluable wealth of information.
The software’s only disadvantage is its complexity; Infusionsoft requires that you enroll in a training program when you buy the software. And if you’re looking for a lot of bookkeeping features, you won’t find them, although the software does create and send invoices.
Best For Very Small Businesses: Zoho Books
This one is particularly useful for sole proprietors, freelancers, and microbusinesses. If all those mega-features offered by other software is useless to you, why pay for them?
Zoho Books is subscription-based accounting software with features for your small business requirements. The software can sync with your bank accounts and help you create and send invoices. The time and expense tracking features are excellent.
Best Free Software: Wave Accounting
Wave Accounting is fully loaded with all essential accounting tools. It allows you to sync with your bank and credit card companies, and it can manage sales tax reports, balance sheets, and profit and loss statements.
Wave Accounting is geared toward smaller businesses. The average Zoho Books client employs three to five people.
Best For Accounting On The Go: Fresh Books
FreshBooks is also cloud-based. It works very well with both iOS and Android phones. You can access all its main features even when you’re not at your desk, including the ability to track your time by project, invoice customers or clients, and manage expenses. Invoices are custom-designed. FreshBooks lets you accept credit card payments online. Customer support is said to be very good.