The 11 Best Accounting Software To Help Your Business Thrive in 2022

By: Baljeet Kaur on December 29, 2021

Like every other industry, the accounting field is rapidly evolving in the post-COVID era. The evolution in different markets is expected as technological advancement, including artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud-based accounting software, become more prevalent. The industry is experiencing high demand because of the latest government regulations and policies, such as the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act).

Accounting software enables accounting professionals in any type of organization to manage accounts and perform various accounting and financial operations such as record keeping, financial reporting, billing, and invoicing. These tools offer general ledger, accounts payable, accounts receivable, bank reconciliation, and financial reporting capabilities.

With hundreds of options available, choosing which will be right for your accounting business can be troublesome. Our list of top-rated accounting software options can help.

This report recognizes 11 products that stood out among 1000+ applications in 22 accounting-related categories to deliver excellent value, according to feedback from thousands of reviews from software users.

Here’s a list of 11 products, selected based on their appearance in at least eight FrontRunners reports—our annual reports that rate the top software products based on user reviews.

Here’s what we’ll cover:

Xero

QuickBooks Online

Deskera Books

Sage Intacct

ZarMoney

Wave Accounting

Patriot Accounting

QuickBooks Desktop Pro

Sage Business Cloud Accounting

Sunrise

Zoho Books

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Xero

4.32/5 (Read user reviews)

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Xero is a cloud-based accounting tool that allows users to manage accounting processes such as invoicing, fixed asset and inventory management, payment processing, and purchase order creation.

Number of appearances in 2021 FrontRunners reports: 14

FrontRunners reports: Small Business Invoicing, Recurring Billing, Financial Reporting, Accounts Receivable, Trust Accounting, Small Business Accounting, Real Estate Accounting, Online Accounting, Restaurant Accounting, Fund Accounting, Quoting, Accounts Payable, Accounting, Budgeting

Xero-Software-Advice-FrontRunners-Snapshot


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QuickBooks Online

4.27/5 (Read user reviews)

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QuickBooks is a bookkeeping and accounting system with features that include billing and invoicing. It offers multiple installation options such as on-premise and cloud-based, and users can access the system via a mobile app on both iOS and Android devices.

Number of appearances in 2021 FrontRunners reports: 13

FrontRunners reports: Church Accounting, Accounts Payable, Accounting, Small Business Invoicing, Recurring Billing, Financial Reporting, Accounts Receivable, Trust Accounting, Small Business Accounting, Online Accounting, Real Estate Accounting, Restaurant Accounting, Fund Accounting

QuickBooks-Online-Software-Advice-FrontRunners-Snapshot


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Deskera Books

4.45/5 (Read user reviews)

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Deskera Books is an online accounting software solution for business owners. It helps you create invoices, track expenses, view financial reports, and optimize inventory.

Number of appearances in 2021 FrontRunners reports: 12

FrontRunners reports: Billing and Invoicing, Accounting, Accounts Payable, Recurring Billing, Financial Reporting, Accounts Receivable, Expense Management, Small Business Accounting, Mobile Accounting Apps, Online Accounting, Restaurant Accounting, Small Business Invoicing

Deskera-Books-Software-Advice-FrontRunners-Snapshot


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Sage Intacct

4.16/5 (Read user reviews)

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Sage Intacct is designed to streamline a business’s accounting needs, including billing and invoicing. This system lets users customize invoices, complete payments online, and set up automatic, recurring billing.

Number of appearances in 2021 FrontRunners reports: 12

FrontRunners reports: Small Business Accounting, Online Accounting, Restaurant Accounting, Real Estate Accounting, Fund Accounting, Subscription Management, Financial Reporting, Church Accounting, Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, Accounting, Budgeting

Sage-Intacct-Software-Advice-FrontRunners-Snapshot


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ZarMoney

4.73/5 (Read user reviews)

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ZarMoney is a cloud-based accounting solution for businesses of all sizes. It helps businesses create and send invoices, manage bills, and track all expenses and profits from one centralized platform.

Number of appearances in 2021 FrontRunners reports: 11

FrontRunners reports: Financial Reporting, Billing and Invoicing, Accounts Receivable, Accounting, Expense Management, Accounts Payable, Church Accounting, Small Business Accounting, Online Accounting, Restaurant Accounting, Small Business Invoicing

ZarMoney-Software-Advice-FrontRunners-Snapshot


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Wave Accounting

4.42/5 (Read user reviews)

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Wave is a cloud-based accounting solution that offers features such as billing and invoicing, expense tracking, accounts payable and receivable, payroll management, and receipt management.

Number of appearances in 2021 FrontRunners reports: 10

FrontRunners reports: Recurring Billing, Financial Reporting, Accounts Receivable, Church Accounting, Accounting, Small Business Invoicing, Small Business Accounting, Online Accounting, Restaurant Accounting, Real Estate Accounting

Wave-Accounting-Software-Advice-FrontRunners-Snapshot


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Patriot Accounting

4.74/5 (Read user reviews)

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Patriot Accounting is an online accounting software solution utilized by small to midsize businesses with various accounting features including recurring invoices, receiving and recording payments, and more.

Number of appearances in 2021 FrontRunners reports: 9

FrontRunners reports: Recurring Billing, Financial Reporting, Accounts Receivable, Expense Management, Small Business Accounting, Accounting, Accounts Payable, Online Accounting, Mobile Accounting Apps

Patriot-Accounting-Software-Advice-FrontRunners-Snapshot


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QuickBooks Desktop Pro

4.3/5 (Read user reviews)

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QuickBooks Online is a cloud-based accounting solution designed for individual accountants and small businesses whereas as mentioned above, QuickBooks Pro is designed to serve small to midsize businesses. This solution lets users track their daily transactions and manage sales and expense data. The software helps with paying bills, invoicing customers, filing taxes, generating reports for planning, and more.

Number of appearances in 2021 FrontRunners reports: 9

FrontRunners reports: Accounts Payable, Accounting, Small Business Invoicing, Recurring Billing, Financial Reporting, Accounts Receivable, Small Business Accounting, Fund Accounting, Online Accounting

QuickBooks-Desktop-Pro-Software-Advice-FrontRunners-Snapshot


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Sage Business Cloud Accounting

4.07/5 (Read user reviews)

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Sage Business Cloud Accounting is a cloud-based accounting and invoice management solution for small businesses. It offers core accounting, project accounting, expense management, and compliance management within a suite.

Number of appearances in 2021 FrontRunners reports: 8

FrontRunners reports: Small Business Invoicing, Small Business Accounting, Real Estate Accounting, Restaurant Accounting, Accounting, Financial Reporting, Accounts Receivable, Budgeting

Sage-Business-Cloud-Accounting-Software-Advice-FrontRunners-Snapshot


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Sunrise

4.54/5 (Read user reviews)

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Sunrise is a billing and invoicing software system designed for small businesses. Its primary features include billing and invoicing, accounting, expense management, and financial reporting.

Number of appearances in 2021 FrontRunners reports: 8

FrontRunners reports: Financial Reporting, Small Business Accounting, Online Accounting, Real Estate Accounting, Billing and Invoicing, Accounting, Mobile Accounting Apps, Small Business Invoicing

Sunrise-Software-Advice-FrontRunners-Snapshot


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Zoho Books

4.38/5 (Read user reviews)

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Zoho Books is a cloud-based accounting solution that features invoice processing, payment management, accounts payable, bookkeeping, general ledger reporting, time tracking, bank reconciliation, and inventory management.

Number of appearances in 2021 FrontRunners reports: 8

FrontRunners reports: Small Business Invoicing, Accounting, Accounts Payable, Financial Reporting, Trust Accounting, Small Business Accounting, Online Accounting, Restaurant Accounting

Zoho-Books-Software-Advice-FrontRunners-Snapshot


Find the best accounting software to help your business thrive in 2022

Adopting a simple accounting software solution can give your business all of the benefits the tool has to offer without a steep learning curve. Accounting software enables accounting professionals in any type of organization to manage accounts and perform various accounting and financial operations such as record keeping, financial reporting, billing, and invoicing.

Finding a platform that’s simple to use can be a great way to start the software buying process.

Learn more about Software Advice FrontRunners

To come up with the top-rated products list, we looked at all the FrontRunners reports for each accounting related category published in 2021. From there, we noted which products have appeared in multiple FrontRunners reports across the multiple categories.

For qualification, each product must have been featured in at least 8 of the following categories FrontRunners report: Accounting, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Billing and Invoicing, Budgeting, Church Accounting, Expense Management, Financial Reporting, Fund Accounting, Lease Management, Mobile Accounting Apps, Online Accounting, PPC, Property Management Accounting, Quoting, Real Estate Accounting, Recurring Billing, Restaurant Accounting, Small Business Accounting, Small Business Invoicing, Subscription Management, and Trust Accounting. In the event that two or more products were featured in an equal number of software categories, we listed them alphabetically.

Software Advice’s FrontRunners data plays a vital role in creating this report. To produce our FrontRunners reports, we consider recent, published user reviews for individual software products in order to rank and score them based on their usability and customer satisfaction scores.

The data we collect for FrontRunners reports falls within a set time frame and is not updated after publication (in this case, as of November 15, 2021). For that reason, FrontRunners reports should be interpreted as a snapshot of reviews data.

To learn more about FrontRunners methodology, you can find our current version and explanations for inclusion criteria and scoring here.


Note: Product profile information and review snippets were picked from the product’s Software Advice profile as of November 15, 2021.

Review excerpts are passages extracted from longer reviews written by verified reviewers. We obtain these excerpts by applying an algorithm that considers factors including, but not limited to, word count and topic coverage. Excerpts are evaluated for positive or negative sentiment and receive a sentiment score. We highlighted excerpts with the highest positive sentiment score and the lowest negative sentiment score in this document.

Excerpts represent user opinion and do not represent the views of, nor constitute an endorsement by Software Advice or its affiliates. Excerpts are not edited for clarity or grammar.

Disclaimer: The full text of the reviews excerpted are from published reviews on SoftwareAdvice.com for the associated product in the listed category on the date this content was published. Software Advice makes no guarantee that the reviews will remain posted for the entire period this report is active.