My Online Bookkeeping Reviews

Posted on 01. Apr, 2009 by Logan in Random

As tax season has come, I’ve been working on getting my books updated with income and expenses for my business. Bookkeeping is definitely not one of my favorite things to do in this world, and I always drag my feet when it comes to keeping my records up to date. For the past few years I’ve always used Quickbooks and have never really enjoyed it all that much as it seems too complex for my business, so I decided to explore my options.

One of the things that worried me about using the Quickbooks software was that I couldn’t update my information if I was on another computer than the one I installed it on. Half of the time I work on my laptop so I ended up putting it off until the last minute. I also was worried about losing my files, no matter how many times I backed it up. With this in mind, I looked into a few different online options out there, and picked the one that works best for my business. I’m sure there are a lot more options out there, but these are the ones that did the best at marketing that I found.

LessAccounting

The first option I looked at was LessAccounting, which was created by a couple of guys who were tired as well with QuickBooks. This is a more comprehensive solution than some of the others I looked at, and has quite a few features such as the ability to send invoices, great reporting tools, bank account importing, mileage logs, plus a whole lot more. It has a price that ranges from free to $24/month depending on which package you choose. I really liked LessAccounting and think it would be a great solution for a lot of businesses. The only reason I chose not to use it, was that I currently use Freshbooks for my invoicing which has more features for billing my clients. Although LessAccounting allows you to send invoices with the option for your customers to use PayPal, that is the only payment solution they except. If they had the ability to accept Authorize.net I might consider switching to their service.
My Rating: 4.5 out of 5

IAC-EZ

The next option I looked at was IAC-EZ. This is also another nice option that was interesting to me as it syncs with Freshbooks, has a nice user interface, has some good tax preperation features, and good support. This doesn’t seem like a bad solution, but the reason I decided not to use them is the price is a little much compared to other similar services, at $19.95/month. They sync with Freshbooks, but don’t have a replacement for them, so you would need accounts at both places which increases the monthly cost of my accounting and invoicing.
My Rating: 4 out of 5

Clarity Accounting

I was pretty impressed with Clarity Accounting. Despite the interface running a little slow, it is a pretty nice system. One of the main benefits of Clarity Accounting is the multi currency capabilities. If you are dealing with other currencies than US, you may want to check this system out. The downfalls I saw in the system was that the reporting wasn’t as nice as some of the other packages I looked at. The other thing I was a little weary about was that this was designed by 1 guy and I am not sure how stable the company will be in the future and how the support is with only 1 guy. Overall this is a pretty nice service though, and for a price of only $10 a month, it may be worth it.
My Rating: 4 out of 5

QuickBooks Online

I had to at least check out QuickBooks solution for their online version of accounting software. It was pretty much what I expected. It is pretty similiar to their standard software in that it is somewhat slow, a little clunky, and a whole lot of overkill for my needs. The price is steeper than other solutions and I quickly found it wasn’t the right solution for me.
My Rating: 2 out of 5

Ubikwiti

I briefly checked out this service and didn’t spend that much time with it as it seemed fairly confusing for my needs. Once logged in, I didn’t really know where to start and the system seemed pretty slow.
My Rating: 2 out of 5

OutRight

This was one of the last services I found and was the one I ultimately chose. The main reasons I chose it was it integrates well with Freshbooks, it integrates with oDesk which I use for outsourcing, prepares you very well for taxes if you file a schedule C, and it was definitely the most simple solution I came across. It is a fast system and fit my needs well. You don’t need to take accounting classes to figure it out. It is currently in beta so there is no cost currently. I’m sure they will start charging soon and I will be more than happy to pay the price. Try OutRight for free.
My Rating: 5 out of 5

Tags: accounting, bookkeeping

11 Responses to “My Online Bookkeeping Reviews”

Jessica Routier, IAC-EZ

02. Apr, 2009

Logan,

Just wanted to say thanks for taking the time to review IAC-EZ! It’s always great to get feedback!

Happy Accounting!

—————-
Jessica Routier
Bookkeeping Made “EZ”: http://www.IACEZ.com

[Reply]
May Chu

02. Apr, 2009

Did you know that Outright and IACEZ were also made with one programmer? Less Accounting was created by 2. Outright is the only one with financial backing (other than Quickbooks of course). It doesn’t take a whole team to build an accounting software, which is why there are so many of them around! Users generally care about the stability and the look and feel of the application — which is largely due to personal preference.

[Reply]
Logan Reply:
April 6th, 2009 at 8:48 am
May, thanks for your comments. I think I came off a little different than what I meant with the post. I really liked Clarity and would have probably gone with it if I hadn’t found Outright. There are a lot of great services out there with only a single person running the show, and that isn’t a bad thing. Thanks for coming by and adding to the post.

[Reply]
ClearBooks

03. Apr, 2009

Logan, have you seen http://www.clearbooks.co.uk? That has also been developed by one programmer.

[Reply]
Logan Reply:
April 6th, 2009 at 8:49 am
I did check out ClearBooks briefly, but since it appeared to be geared towards the UK, I wanted to stick with an application that was more catered to preparing for the tax needs of the US. ClearBooks appeared to be a pretty good solution though.

[Reply]
Julian

04. Apr, 2009

Hi

You should really add http;//zohoinvoice.com/ and http://www.invoicera.com/ to the list. Both are really good online invoicing applications.

Thanks
Julian

[Reply]
Logan Reply:
April 6th, 2009 at 8:50 am
Julian, both of those are invoicing applications, which don’t really fit on this list as they don’t have book keeping features which is what this post was about. I do like Zoho for invoicing though.

[Reply]
Eric Nagel

28. Apr, 2009

Wow, I wish I read this years ago, but I kinda feel locked into Quickbooks Online now. However, I’ve had all good experiences with them – it works for me. I like that I can give my accountant read-only access so he can run reports w/out waiting for me. I’m trying out their payroll services now (if NY State ever gets me the various ID numbers I need).

This post could be turned into a rather nice niche site (if you ever run out of ideas)

[Reply]
Robert Carl

19. Nov, 2009

Hey All

I have been using the services of http://www.invoicera.com for quite sometime now and they are coming up with the new Invoicera with features like time-tracking, expense tracking, import function, and much more. Check out their blog at http://www.invoicera.com/blog for updates

Cheers!!!

[Reply]
Chris

25. Feb, 2010

Time59 (http://www.time59.com) is fully compatible with the Mobile Safari web browser on the iPhone and also with the Android web browser. You can create and email invoices directly from your smartphone.

[Reply]
Deb

29. Jun, 2010

Have you looked at working point. Another great option. They do need some improvements. But Their team is impressive. I think they will be around for a very long time. Something worth looking at.

[Reply]

Logan Thompson