QuickBooks Self-Employed was built specifically for freelancers, contract workers, and sole proprietors. However, if you want more accounting features, including sales tax tracking and cash flow management, QuickBooks Online might be a better fit. Beyond tax deductions, though, QuickBooks Self-Employed doesn’t offer much. While you can import bank transactions to track expenses, you can’t generate detailed financial reports that help business owners set concrete financial goals or expand their businesses. While QuickBooks Self-Employed and FreshBooks are both paid subscription services, Wave Accounting offers a free invoicing and accounting tool.

Additional QuickBooks Self-Employed features

But if you want even more tax help, you can sign up for the Self-Employed Tax Bundle plan ($25 per month) or the Self-Employed Live Tax Bundle plan ($35 per month). QuickBooks Payroll will help you save time running your payroll by managing your business finances in one place. Log in to one of our products below if Navigating Financial Growth: Leveraging Bookkeeping and Accounting Services for Startups you’re an existing QuickBooks customer in the UK. By accessing and using this page you agree to the terms and conditions. Get a clear view of your business performance, with simple tools to help you succeed. We also took our accounting expert’s opinion into consideration when ranking and evaluating our software.

Data safety

We don’t guarantee that our suggestions will work best for each individual or business, so consider your unique needs when choosing products and services. If you were you planning to use TurboTax to file end-of-year taxes, the QuickBooks Self-Employed Tax Bundle will save you about $50 on TurboTax’s services, which typically start at $180 for freelancers. All you can do with QuickBooks Self-Employed is send a bland invoice with online payment options, and you’ll pay $15 a month for the pleasure. If sending basic invoices is all you need, we can recommend plenty of cheaper options. QuickBooks’ invoicing capabilities are particularly lacking—which is a huge issue for a freelance-focused product. You can send invoices, but you can’t customize them, set recurring invoices, or schedule automatic late payment reminders.

Business stage

Meanwhile, FreshBooks has the same starting price as QuickBooks Self-Employed—but it does all of the above invoicing tasks and then some. Every accounting software is tailored for different businesses and needs. Before going through the process of setting one up, you’ll want to research which one will be most suitable for your business. We’ve compared QuickBooks Self-Employed with two top competitors.

QuickBooks Self-Employed has a sleek interface, low learning curve, and helpful tax deductions—all of which should appeal to freelancers who need just the basics. But QuickBooks Self-Employed lacks FreshBooks’ customized invoicing and Zoho Books’ client collaboration features while costing as much or more than most alternatives. Similarly, you can’t log the hours spent on a project and transfer them over to the invoice for quick pricing. You can’t even send quotes or estimates or schedule automatic late fees.

For personal finance

QuickBooks Self-Employed is an online accounting tool specifically for freelancers, solopreneurs, independent contractors and sole proprietors. This review covers the different subscription options for QuickBooks Self-Employed, what each offers and how QuickBooks stacks up with its competitors. The Self-Employed plan lets you keep your business and personal expenses separate. You’ll be able to connect your business credit card to automatically track transactions.

• Check out our list of the best accounting software for small businesses.
• If you anticipate your business will grow, consider starting with QuickBooks Online, which comes with this capability and is designed to be used by multiple people.
• But if you’re mixing business and pleasure, financially speaking, you’ll appreciate intuitive tools to help you track, sort and categorize transactions.
• If you are only looking for a tool to generate and send invoices and keep track of basic accounting, Wave might be the best option.
• If you’re not sure where to start, we recommend QuickBooks’ handy video tutorials.

Best Accounting and Bookkeeping Apps for Small Businesses

But if you’re extremely tax conscious and want to focus on maximizing your business expense tax deductions, QuickBooks Self-Employed could still work for you. QuickBooks offers many different options for software, so it’s important to make sure you’re choosing the one most suitable for your business. QuickBooks Self-Employed does not offer double-entry accounting, which is more accurate and can help prevent accounting errors. If you anticipate your business will grow, consider starting with QuickBooks Online, which comes with this capability and is designed to be used by multiple people. The plan comes with a subscription to TurboTax so you can file one state tax return and a federal tax return directly from your account.

Mileage data can’t be imported into a new QuickBooks account, so you would need to manually add each trip. QuickBooks Self-Employed lets you classify incomes and expenses using categories that align with the IRS Schedule C (Form 1040), such as advertising, commissions and fees, legal fees and utilities. Using this feature to properly categorize https://thebostondigest.com/navigating-financial-growth-leveraging-bookkeeping-and-accounting-services-for-startups/ expenses in advance takes some of the stress and guesswork out of filing your taxes. You can upgrade to QuickBooks Online but may need to manually move your data. Many or all of the products featured here are from our partners who compensate us. This influences which products we write about and where and how the product appears on a page.

• And because you’re staying within the same product, you won’t need to manually move data when it’s time to upgrade.
• The plan comes with a subscription to TurboTax so you can file one state tax return and a federal tax return directly from your account.
• While you can import bank transactions to track expenses, you can’t generate detailed financial reports that help business owners set concrete financial goals or expand their businesses.
• Mileage data can’t be imported into a new QuickBooks account, so you would need to manually add each trip.

QuickBooks Self-Employed plans and pricing

It offers easier setup, an improved transaction management experience, along with added flexibility and productivity tools. QuickBooks Online is famous for integrating with hundreds of third-party apps, from HR and time-tracking apps to payroll. Unfortunately, QuickBooks Self-Employed doesn’t have the same perk. Honestly, it doesn’t sync with much—but most crucially, it doesn’t sync with any of the typical ecommerce integrations, such as Shopify. In other words, if you’re selling products rather than services, we don’t recommend QuickBooks Self-Employed. As a result, QuickBooks Self-Employed isn’t our top self-employment accounting software recommendation for most contractors or freelancers.

QuickBooks Self-Employed is designed for freelancers and contractors, specifically those who don’t have separate business and personal accounts. You may not find value in this service if you use a dedicated business credit card or business checking account. But if you’re mixing business and pleasure, financially speaking, you’ll appreciate intuitive tools to help you track, sort and categorize transactions.