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Best accounting software for Square User? That is NOT Quickbooks or subscription based

I have been using QB desktop for 15+ years, but am not going to be renewing, they are just to expensive for my small business. I sell less than $100,000 per year at this point. 

I am one person, no employees, I don't need it to track inventory (square does that for me). I make jewelry and sell at shows, in the past I have used the totals for the daily sales not the individual sales. 

I like to do reports based on specific days, (shows) and I want to track expenses, and do year end reports for taxes.  

 

I do like the access to bank feeds, but that is not a necessity. 

And I want it desktop based! Not in the cloud!

 

I am frustrated with QB as I feel they are holding all my data from the past 15 years hostage. They tell me if I don't renew I will lose access to it. 

 

Does anyone have recommendations? 

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Nvm. Freshbooks is subscription based now. Good free one is Zoho Zoho has different levels depending upon how much you need and revenue but the free version works just fine for most small businesses 

Steve Green
Mountain Vapors
www.mountainvapors.com

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Definitely Zoho Books as @homeprogreen says.  Don’t let the fact that it has a ton of bells and whistles scare you.  Zoho builds comprehensive products that cover all of the bases, and their accounting app is one of the best ever.  I use a subscription tier, but that is because I do a lot of advanced accounting — budgeting, recurring journals and bills, etc.  Those are not necessary at all.

 

One word of caution.  While Zoho has automatic bank account reconciliation, that is only available in their lowest paid tier.  If you don’t have a lot of bank transactions and can manually reconcile accounts that works just fine.  But, as you grow, you will want to invest in upgrading.  Trust me when I say it is worth it.

 

And if you need any Zoho pointers, feel free to reach out to me.  I use it to keep the books for four companies that my husband and I own so I’m pretty familiar with it.  

 

Otherwise, good for you realizing that Quickbooks is the devil of the accounting world.  Sort of like how the big green coffee monster is the devil of a good cup of Joe!

Chip

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Piper’s Ice Cream Bar, Covington KY USA
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Click here to see a list of third-party apps I use to add functionality to my Square account!

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Hi Jenniferpatters,

 

I was in a similar situation whereas Quickbooks was really driving everyone to their "online version".   I've used the Desktop version for ever and would upgrade to the latest version every two years.   As the cost of the upgrade got to the point of outrageous, I started to look around and discovered that almost all of the other major accounting apps out there have migrated to subscriptions and cloud based services.  Although some of them can import Quickbooks Desktop data, it's not quite a perfect process.  After loosing a few nights sleep looking for my best option, I finally decided to go with the Quickbooks online (the basic option) as my needs are as basic as it gets (similar to yours it seams).  Anyway, the uploading of my Desktop Data was easy and worked as advertised - the online interface takes a little time to adjust to but, bottom line - after going thru the learning curve, it was my best option.  As for any recommendations, that's a personal choice and you really need to do your homework - there's a ton of info on the internet that compares the top apps and there's pro's and con's for each.   If you do find a decent desktop app all the better but, I think you will discover that most have migrated to subscriptions in the Cloud.   Note, you can find Excel templates for accounting for free - I tried that too - didn't really work for me.  Hopefully others may offer some of their experiences and you may find out that everyone has a different preference.

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@jenniferpatters thanks for your question!

 

Tagging some Sellers here to weigh in with their suggestions. 

 

@TheRealChipA@asiconsulting, and @homeprogreen 

Max Pete
Community Engagement Program Manager, Square
Square Community
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Check out Freshbooks

Steve Green
Mountain Vapors
www.mountainvapors.com
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Nvm. Freshbooks is subscription based now. Good free one is Zoho Zoho has different levels depending upon how much you need and revenue but the free version works just fine for most small businesses 

Steve Green
Mountain Vapors
www.mountainvapors.com
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Definitely Zoho Books as @homeprogreen says.  Don’t let the fact that it has a ton of bells and whistles scare you.  Zoho builds comprehensive products that cover all of the bases, and their accounting app is one of the best ever.  I use a subscription tier, but that is because I do a lot of advanced accounting — budgeting, recurring journals and bills, etc.  Those are not necessary at all.

 

One word of caution.  While Zoho has automatic bank account reconciliation, that is only available in their lowest paid tier.  If you don’t have a lot of bank transactions and can manually reconcile accounts that works just fine.  But, as you grow, you will want to invest in upgrading.  Trust me when I say it is worth it.

 

And if you need any Zoho pointers, feel free to reach out to me.  I use it to keep the books for four companies that my husband and I own so I’m pretty familiar with it.  

 

Otherwise, good for you realizing that Quickbooks is the devil of the accounting world.  Sort of like how the big green coffee monster is the devil of a good cup of Joe!

Chip

If my answer resolves your issue, please take a minute to mark it as Best Answer. That helps people who find this thread in the future.

Piper’s Ice Cream Bar, Covington KY USA
Website
Facebook
Click here to see a list of third-party apps I use to add functionality to my Square account!

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I am just starting out in my small business (coffee shop). Would you be able to answer a few questions for me? I am LOST with the accounting side of things. 

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Hey @wildflowercof.  I can answer general accounting questions, sure.  But I would not be comfortable giving you accounting advice, and giving such advice is a violation of the Community guidelines.  You are free to list some questions here and I’ll answer what I can, and let you know what I can’t.

 

Also, I might as well get this out of the way up front.  I can’t recommend strongly enough that you enlist the services of an accountant right away.  Too many new business owners skip this step mostly to “save money.”  Trust me that in the end money is never saved and usually much more money is spent correcting accounting errors and/or paying fines and such for tax reporting errors, etc.

 

If money is an issue for you, I would recommend that you look up your local chapter of SCORE.  They are an organization of retired and other business volunteers who help new businesses start out and do it right and legally.  Their services are second-to-none and besides business startup assistance they offer mentoring for new business owners, events and get togethers and conferences and classes.  My father was very active with them after he retired and as I am close to retirement age myself I plan to volunteer for them once I do.  Many of their services are free and many more are heavily discounted.

 

I’m not trying to dissuade you from asking questions here, though.  Just remember that there are boundaries that I can not cross here in the Community.  Giving professional advice not specifically related to Square software and tools is one of those boundaries.

Chip

If my answer resolves your issue, please take a minute to mark it as Best Answer. That helps people who find this thread in the future.

Piper’s Ice Cream Bar, Covington KY USA
Website
Facebook
Click here to see a list of third-party apps I use to add functionality to my Square account!

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@jenniferpatters ;

Since you do not need Inventory and just entered your daily Sales total in QuickBooks Desktop, Look into Odoo Accounting.  It is Online and 1 App is free.  If you do Accounting and Inventory Apps it can be under $32 a month if you pay yearly for ALL of its apps for 1 user.  Currently I am working on uploading My inventory to Odoos Inventory Module so I can have Bin locations and an Overall view of how many of a Product I have.  

Odoo does have a Free trial of their accounting app which I did try and here is what I found out:

  1.  Expenses are easy to Scan in and upload to Odoo.  They have AI which reads to Vendor, Due date, etc  (No Manual Entry)
  2. Some Checking accounts can link up to Odoo.
  3. Multiple Reports depending on your needs.
  4. Purchase Orders, Invoices and even reminders on your Desktop Dashboard.
  5. May need an accountant to help set it up to match Accounts in Quickbooks.
  6. Odoo has 3 Version, Community is all online, Odoo-sh is Inhouse version, and a full Custom version.  I suggest starting with the Community version for a small business,  Larger businesses with IT departments may want to self host the Odd-SH version or have a Custom module.
  7. The Odoo-sh and Custom versions may get expensive to install but the Online / Community version is great once setup.  

Now here is another issue that you may not like is that the Community version of Odoo is cloud based, so you can work on it from a Desktop if you like, Tablet or Cell phone.  Since its one app you would be using (accounting) it would be free to you.  And most other accounting programs are also Cloud based as I have learned, with everything going that way.  

 

If you do require an OffLine accounting package I would recommend doing a Google Search for Offline or Desktop Accounting Software.  Alot of it is a one time puchase of under $100.  These may be all you need currently but way want to upgrade as your business grows.  Here is a Quick search I just did on Google for some accounting Desktop Software but was not sure what all you require or your budget, and sorry but there are some QuickBooks in there too.

 

acctingsoftware.png

Keith
Owner
Pocono Candle

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