Best Accounting Software for Consultants for 2024

Pros

• Wide selection of accounting and financial reports
• Scalable plans that are priced by number of users and features
• Can set up recurring payments
• Access to local independent QuickBooks ProAdvisors
• Track time and expenses and add to customer invoices

Cons

• Can’t compare estimated to actual project costs
• Mobile app can’t record time worked
• No industry-specific features
• Must subscribe to Plus or Advanced plan to track project profitability

QuickBooks Online offers four plans. You must subscribe to the Essentials plan or higher for access to time and expense tracking—and only the Plus and Advanced plans offer the ability to track project profitability:

• Simple Start: $30 per month for one user
• Essentials: $60 per month for up to three users
• Plus: $90 per month for up to five users
• Advanced: $200 per month for up to 25 users

A 30-day free trial is available. You can also opt to subscribe right away without the free trial to get 50% off for three months.

QuickBooks Online is our overall best accounting software due to its robust accounting feature set, scalable pricing options, and huge network of QuickBooks ProAdvisor for easy bookkeeping support. More importantly, it offers plenty of features useful for consultants, including the ability to manage client retainers, record billable time, and add time entries to invoices and bill them to clients.

When you upgrade to Plus or Advanced, you’ll be able to create and manage projects and add related transactions, like expenses, income, and time entries. This allows you to determine where you’re making money on a specific client or project. Additionally, if you need additional time tracking features, like GPS tracking and geofencing, then you can add QuickBooks Time.

On the downside, QuickBooks Online doesn’t have a dedicated portal like FreshBooks. Also, it doesn’t allow you to directly make a phone call to a customer support agent unless you upgrade to Advanced.

QuickBooks Online nearly aced almost all the categories in our rubric, including general accounting features and pricing. However, it lost a few points for consultant-specific features because it can’t track billing realization and lacks a built-in CRM and document management feature for managing contracts. Additionally, its mobile app could have scored higher if it allowed users to enter bills and bill payments and record the time worked.

Meanwhile, it did well in ease of use. However, we deducted a few points for customer support, as you can’t directly make a phone call unless you upgrade to QuickBooks Online Advanced.

• Scalability: With four flexible plans to choose from, consultants can easily upgrade to a higher plan based on the number of users and features they need.
• Project accounting: The platform is ideal for small consulting businesses that work on a per-project basis because it allows you to create projects and assign wages, income, and expenses. While it doesn’t let you set up cost estimates for projects and compare them to actual costs, you can create project estimates and include labor.
• Location and class tracking: It allows you to set up tags to track your income and expenses across different departments, properties, or locations of your business. This feature is helpful for determining which department earns the most money for your business.
• Invoicing: We selected QuickBooks Online as the overall best small business accounting software because of its excellent invoice customization tools. You can choose from different templates, add your logo, change colors, and include personalized messages. Recurring invoicing is also now available with all plans, including Simple Start.
• Integrations: The software integrates with a wide range of third-party software to boost your productivity and connects with thousands of apps through Zapier. It also integrates with other QuickBooks solutions, including QuickBooks Payments and QuickBooks Time. It allows you to pull employee data automatically for payroll and invoicing, eliminating the need for manual data entry. Moreover, it helps you keep track of employee tasks and schedules and even reminds employees to clock in or out automatically.
• Mileage tracking: The mileage tracking feature includes GPS tracking and allows you to stay on top of your mileage expenses for client billing. You can also account for non-billable mileage expenses to track your profit.

• Startup businesses planning to scale: QuickBooks Online, our top-recommended startup accounting software, allows you to add advanced accounting features as your firm grows. This is useful for consulting businesses wanting scalable and user-friendly accounting software.
• Creative agencies with multiple locations: Its class and location tracking features let creative agencies with multiple locations separate net profit by location. Plus, the platform also includes useful project accounting features.
• Law firms: The software made our list of best law firm accounting software when integrated with LeanLaw, which makes it a powerful legal management and accounting solution. You may be interested in our in-depth review of LeanLaw for more on the platform.

Pros

• Mobile app can perform almost any accounting function
• Excellent customer support
• Free plan for users with less than $50,000 in annual revenue
• Excellent customer support
• More affordable than similar software like QuickBooks Online

Cons

• Project accounting only in paid plans
• Additional fee for more users
• Limited invoicing for the Free and Standard plans
• Requires the Professional plan or higher to manage unpaid bills

Zoho Books offers a free plan for businesses that earn $50,000 or less in annual revenue and five paid subscription plan options with project accounting features.

• Standard: $20 per month for up to three users and 5,000 invoices
• Professional: $50 per month for up to five users and unlimited invoices
• Premium: $70 per month for up to 10 users and unlimited invoices
• Elite: $150 per month for up to 10 users, unlimited invoices, and advanced inventory
• Ultimate: $275 per month for up to 15 users, unlimited invoices, and advanced inventory.

It also has several add-ons:

• Additional users: $3 per user, per month
• Receipt scanning: $10 for 50 scans per month
• Snail mail credits for sending invoices: $2 per credit

You can try any of Zoho Books’ free plans for free for 14 days.

We selected Zoho Books as the best mobile app for consultants because of its excellent functionality for both iOS and Android devices, which is why it also tops our list of the leading mobile accounting apps. Its integration with Apple Watch is a bonus.

On the app, you can perform all the same functions as the web-based interface, including sending invoices, receiving payments, entering bills, uploading receipts, and recording time worked. The app also allows you to assign expenses to customers or projects and time worked to customers or projects.

However, it might be difficult to seek assisted bookkeeping, since there are only about 500 Zoho Books Advisors in the US, based on Zoho Books’ directory. If you often need professional bookkeeping assistance, you might want to consider QuickBooks Online, which has a vast network of QuickBooks ProAdvisors.

Zoho Books’ biggest strength is its mobile app, and it also excelled in terms of general accounting features. However, just like QuickBooks Online, it doesn’t track billing realization, which explains the slight drop in its rating for consultant-specific features. Additionally, its customer support is impressive, but we docked a few points because of the limited availability of independent bookkeepers.

The platform’s main weakness in our evaluation is ease of use. Since it’s a complicated program with many features, it can be difficult to master, especially for those new to the program.

• Excellent mobile app: Mobile accounting is one of Zoho Books’ biggest strengths because it performs the same accounting tasks as the web interface. This includes invoicing, recording bills and bill payments, accepting online payments, and viewing financial reports.
• Expense management: You can capture and categorize project-related expenses, track reimbursable expenses, and record vendor bills. This helps with allocating costs accurately and ensures that project costs are accounted for.
• Project tracking: Users can set up and track projects to monitor project-specific income, expenses, and profitability. Income and expenses can be assigned to specific projects, and you can generate reports to analyze project performance.
• Reporting and analysis: It offers project-specific financial reports, such as the ability to analyze project expenses and assess project profitability. This data is critical to managing projects effectively.
• Time tracking: The built-in time tracking features allow you to monitor the time spent on project tasks easily. You can track billable hours, associate them with specific projects, and record employee timesheets. This ensures accurate project costing and invoicing based on hours worked.

• Consultants seeking powerful mobile accounting: Zoho Books has excellent functionality on iOS and Android devices and even has an app integration with Apple Watch. Its mobile app can do all the basic accounting functions, like sending invoices, entering bills, and recording billable time.
• Service-based businesses: It is a good fit for service-based businesses, such as marketing agencies, information technology (IT) services, and professional service providers. Its powerful features, like invoicing and time tracking, allow businesses to track time spent on projects and bill clients seamlessly.
• Freelancers and self-employed individuals: The platform allows you to create and send professional invoices, track time and project expenses to include on invoices, and manage all of your clients in one place. We selected it as the overall best accounting software for freelancers.

Pros

• Affordable for a single user, ideal for independent consultants
• Built-in time tracker and other project accounting features
• Excellent customer service
• User-friendly interface
• Capable mobile app
• Add time entries to invoices

Cons

• Can’t monitor income or expense by class
• Fees charged for additional users
• Can’t track and reconcile bank accounts without bank feeds
• Limited number of users and billable clients with Lite and Plus plans

FreshBooks offers a choice of four plans, and pricing is based on the number of billable clients. Each plan allows for one user, though you can add more for $11 per person, per month:

• Lite: $19 per month for up to five billable clients
• Plus: $33 per month for up to 50 billable clients
• Premium: $60 per month for unlimited billable clients
• Select: Custom pricing for unlimited billable clients and specialized features

The provider also offers a 30-day free trial.

FreshBooks includes a single user in its base plan, making it ideal for consulting firms with only one user. It has robust project management and time tracking features that let you record time against a specific client or project either from your desktop or mobile device. You can then see weekly and monthly views of daily breakdowns of your tracked worked hours.

Another notable feature is that it allows you to compare estimated and actual project costs, which helps with determining whether you are over or under budget. What’s more, it allows you to accept online payments, create recurring invoices, calculate late fees automatically, and print a list of outstanding invoices. FreshBooks is also extremely easy to use, with intuitive navigation and a clean user interface.

Additionally, FreshBooks provides a client portal that allows consultants to share and request clients’ documents easily. Clients can log in at any time from their device and access and upload documents, reports, and updates related to projects.

On the flip side, the tool can be expensive for multiple users, as additional fees for each extra user are charged. If many users need to access your accounting software, then a more cost-effective option is QuickBooks Online or Zoho Books.

FreshBooks did well in general accounting features, but it could have done better if it had more streamlined banking features. One issue we found is that you can’t reconcile bank accounts without bank feeds. Additionally, it lost a few points for consultant-specific features as it doesn’t track billing realization.

Moreover, the mobile app could use some additional functionalities, like the ability to enter bill payments and assign expenses to projects. It’s easy to use, but we had to take a few points for customer support because it’s difficult to find a local bookkeeper who is proficient with FreshBooks.

• Project management: FreshBooks lets you create projects and assign them to team members and clients. You can associate income and expenses with a specific project and add time entries when billing your clients.
• Time tracking: You can track your time and billable hours easily, with the option of setting up automatic time tracking so that you won’t miss any billable time. You can also track time on the mobile app, which is especially useful when working remotely. While we selected AccountSight as the best free time tracking software in this guide, it cannot track time by project or customer, a feature that FreshBooks offers.
• Invoicing: Its strong customization features include the ability to add a logo and create a personalized message, and you can set up recurring invoices as well. You can convert estimates to projects and compare estimated vs actual project costs.
• Excellent customer service: The program stands out among its competitors because of its customer service options. Besides email support, it allows you to contact FreshBooks directly by phone. It also has a vast knowledge base of resources.
• Mobile app: With the mobile app, you can create and send invoices, enter and pay bills, accept payments online, communicate with clients, and track mileage.
• Expense tracking: It lets you track expenses by taking a photo of a receipt, uploading it to your account, and categorizing it. You can also connect your bank account to import your transactions automatically.

• Small service-based businesses: FreshBooks is well-suited for service-based businesses such as law firms, accounting firms, and marketing agencies, as it excels at tracking time and billable hours for client projects. The software allows you to track time by project or customer, a feature that other providers like AccountSight lack.
• Freelancers and solopreneurs: We selected the platform as one of the top accounting software programs for freelancers because of its tools for service- or project-based freelancers tracking hourly labor. It provides do-it-yourself (DIY) bookkeeping that is easy to use if you lack bookkeeping experience.
• Consultants that process invoices frequently: It offers unlimited invoices and has strong customization tools, including the ability to modify invoice design, add a logo, and a personalized message. You can also set up recurring invoices if needed.

Pros

• Unlimited users in all plans
• Excellent project accounting
• Built-in time tracking features
• Track project profitability
• Can manage fixed assets

Cons

• No telephone support
• Lowest plan includes only 20 invoices and five bills
• Can’t create recurring payments

Xero is available in three plans, all of which include an unlimited number of users.

• Early: $15 per month
• Growing: $42 per month
• Established: $78 per month

You can sign up for a 30-day free trial for any of the plans, with no credit card required.

Xero is a great choice for large accounting firms because it can accommodate unlimited seats without paying any additional fees. This is a big deal, since with other similar software, only a limited number of users can access the platform, depending on the plan selected. Some even start with just one seat in the base fee and charge additional costs for each extra user.

The platform lets you set up individual projects, assign budgets, and monitor expenses related to each project or client. Also, its built-in time tracking feature allows consultants to record billable hours, link them to specific projects or clients, and easily convert them into invoices. Moreover, Xero allows you to connect your bank accounts to the platform so that transactions automatically flow into the system. This helps you save time in reconciling your bank and credit card accounts.

We’d like to see Xero add a recurring payment feature. This could be useful to consultants who operate on retainer agreements or those who offer subscription-based services like regular coaching sessions. If this feature is important to you, we recommend QuickBooks Online.

• Unlimited user access: You can add as many users as needed without any additional costs.
• Easy bank reconciliation: Xero uses a side-by-side layout when reconciling transactions. It displays the bank statement on one side of the screen and the corresponding transactions in your books on the other side. This makes it easy to identify and match transactions and quickly detect errors.
• Project tracking: When you upgrade to the Established plan, you’ll be able to monitor the progress, costs, and profitability of individual projects or jobs.
• Fixed asset management: Allows you to easily record asset acquisitions, track depreciations, and manage disposals. It also generates depreciation schedules and automatically calculates depreciation expenses.

• Large consulting firms with extensive teams: Large-scale consulting companies often work with many team members, including consultants, analysts, project managers, and administrators. All these users can be added to Xero for free.
• Financial consulting firms specializing in fixed asset management: The fixed asset manager can help consultants accurately track and report on clients’ fixed assets for depreciation, which is essential for preparing balance sheets and other financial reports.

Pros

• Dedicated time tracking and billing for consultants
• Online time tracker
• Robust expense tracking tools
• Responsive customer support
• Integrates with QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop
• Multi-level timesheets

Cons

• Lacks employee productivity tools
• Number of clients and projects is limited with Free plan
• Limited mobile app functionalities
• Limited third-party integrations

AccountSight offers a free plan, and its three paid plans allow for unlimited clients, invoicing, and projects, and charge per person, per month. Prices are based on user packs, which give volume discounts based on the number of users required:

• Free: $0 for one user, five clients, and five projects
• Basic: $10 per user, per month; comes with a 2- to 5-user pack
• Small Group: $9 per user, per month; comes with a 6- to 20-user pack
• Enterprise: $8 per user, per month; comes with a 21- to 100-user pack

AccountSight is one of our best accounting software for consultants, given its comprehensive time tracking and billing software. It earned a spot in our roundup of the best free time tracking software.

It offers various features to help businesses streamline their time and expense management processes. For instance, it provides multi-level timesheets that allow consultants to capture time data based on the level they need (e.g., project level and client or account level). AccountSight can also be used to create and track projects, including costs and profitability.

On the flip side, AccountSight isn’t a complete accounting solution, so you won’t find essential bookkeeping features, like bank reconciliation and income and expense tracking. All the other software programs on this list offer such features.

• Timesheet management: While AccountSight’s free plan allows you to create a timesheet for yourself, the paid plans let your employees upload timesheets individually or in bulk via Excel. It allows for five levels of approval, and managers will receive reminders to approve or reject timesheets individually or in bulk. You can also add comments and upload expense reports or other files.
• Invoicing: The program allows for three types of invoices: manual invoices, invoices based on billable hours and expenses, and recurring invoices for costs. You can also copy existing invoices. You can use predefined billing rates or create ad hoc discounts and price adjustments, and you can also set notifications to track payment delays.
• Reporting: Its detailed reports provide real-time visibility into project performance and allow you to create more accurate forecasts. You can review and analyze all weekly timesheet data and compare all invoiced and unbilled project expenses. You can also track billable realization, and details of resources allocated to projects and tasks.
• Expense tracking: Users can track and manage all project expenses and set expense types with charge rates or per-unit costs before completing the online expense sheets. There is also a comments entry allowed for each date, project, and expense category combination.
• Project planning: The program allows you to plan projects and forecast resource needs, coordinate team assignments, and allocate the right resources for your project. You can analyze capacity and requirements by gaining insight into existing or future resource gaps.

• Consulting firms seeking advanced time tracking features: AccountSight allows employees to track their time spent on different tasks and projects. It also provides an intuitive interface for employees to log their hours and activities, making it easier to track billable hours accurately. One feature of AccountSight that other providers on this list lack is configurable notifications and reminders for missed or delayed time, expenses, and invoices.
• Project-based businesses that need access to reporting and analytics: Offering robust reporting and analytics capabilities, AccountSight allows users to generate a variety of reports, such as project profitability, employee productivity, and revenue analysis. These insights help businesses make data-driven decisions and identify areas for improvement.
• Consultants who require strong client management tools: AccountSight facilitates client management by maintaining a centralized database of client information. Users can track client-specific projects, view billing history, and generate reports to analyze profitability and client relationships.

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Consultant-specific Features

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