Best Bookkeeping Program For Mac
- Best Bookkeeping Programs For Home
- Best Accounting Software For Mac
- Best Bookkeeping Program For Small Business
Bottom Line: QuickBooks is the best online accounting application for small businesses, thanks to its depth, flexibility, and extensibility. It's easy to use, well designed, and built to serve a. Most accounting tools support Android and very few are available on the Mac platform, which is why many companies are constantly on the lookout for accounting software for Mac. In this article, we will take an in-depth look at the 20 best accounting software for Mac. We spent over 60 hours testing 20 personal finance apps and programs to find the best budgeting and money management tools. Our choice for the best personal finance software is Quicken Premier. It combines the best budgeting tools with easy-to-use tax reporting.
Best free accounting software
Read on for our detailed analysis of each app
Accounting software is a necessity when trying to run your own business, and the sooner you implement a good solution the better. Otherwise you can find yourself struggling through piles of receipts while hurtling toward a tax deadline.
If you're not sure which accounting software to use then there are free options available, so you don't have to commit to something you may find difficult to use. Free accounting software will at least get you used to using various features so you have a better idea of what you're doing, and what you need.
It is such a good idea to have something in place and organized at the start of your business for managing your accounts, and if you have to change later you can usually export the data into whichever program you decide to switch to.
In the meantime, here we'll feature the best in free accounting software to get you started on your journey.
- Want your company or services to be added to this buyer’s guide? Please email your request to desire.athow@futurenet.com with the URL of the buying guide in the subject line.
1. ZipBooks
ZipBooks offers accounting software that has a contemporary interface along with a robust feature set. It promises to make accounting easy so the user can save time, and get on with other tasks.
The Starter tier is available for free. It provides unlimited invoices to an unlimited number of customers, making it less restrictive than some other free accounting offerings. It can also be used for unlimited bookkeeping, and can accept payments from credit cards and PayPal.
Paid tiers begins at $15 (£12) per month, and includes most of the features you'll ever need. However, if you need really advanced ones such as smart tagging, with advanced reporting and intelligence, it will cost $35 (£30) per month.
2. Money Manager Ex
Straightforward enough for home use, as well as small businesses
Another superb open source tool, Money Manager Ex is well designed and packed with enough features to rival premium software. It's easy to understand, and you'll have your accounts and transactions set up in no time. Money Manager Ex's simplicity makes it a particularly good choice for sole traders or your own home finances.
This free accounting software is a portable app, so you can save and use it straight from a USB stick without even needing to install it. There's an Android app for updating your accounts on the move, too.
3. GnuCash
GnuCash is accounting software designed for individuals and small businesses, and was initially conceived as an open source alternative to apps such as Intuit's Quicken.
This app has been around since the late 1990s, and the most recent version is GnuCash 3.4. It's available for Linux, GNU, OpenBSD, Android, macOS and Windows.
It handles invoicing and credit notes, accounts payable and receivable, employee expenses and some payroll features too, and it's quite happy with multiple currencies, cards and accounts. Its sheer flexibility makes it our top choice when it comes to accounting software for kitchen table businesses.
4. TurboCASH
A heftier accounting tool that will suit owners of SMBs
TurboCASH is free accounting software that's been in continuous development since April 1985, and it's hugely popular in Europe, the US, Canada and Australia. It's available in 23 languages and boasts an online community of more than 100,000 users.
Designed for small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs), it's probably a bit much for freelancers or sole traders, but if you need something a bit more useful than a cash book TurboCASH can handle VAT, debtors and creditors, purchase orders, multiple companies and multiple users.
While TurboCASH is free and covers most of the basics needed with accounting software, there's a paid-for version available as an upgrade which provides more advanced features. This paid-for version allows for it be to run from the cloud, as well as providing budgets, payroll, PDF reports, and a ledger analyzer among other things.
5. Wave
Slick, cloud-based free accounting that works well for freelancers
With more than two million users, Wave is one of the most successful online accounting services - and it's completely free for accounting, invoicing and receipts, although if you want personal technical support you'll need to pay for it. Payroll isn't included in the free service either, and you do get the occasional advert – just as you do with pretty much any free online service.
It's a very well designed and carefully thought out application, and while it's probably a little basic for medium-sized businesses it's a good option for sole traders, freelancers and small firms.
However, note that while Wave is free to use, you still pay per transaction, currently between 1.4%-2.9% plus a fee of around $0.25. For start-ups and businesses with low sales volume this may not matter, but for businesses with significant sales volume they may be able to find a more competitive pricing model.
6. NCH Express Invoice
Generate forms, invoices, quotes and orders in moments
With versions for PC, Mac, iPad and Android, NCH Express Invoice caters for most kinds of businesses - and if you have fewer than five members of staff, you can have it for free without time limits or other restrictions.
It's designed to create invoices, quotes and orders easily, to automate recurring ones and to send them by email or fax, and there's a decent range of reports to pore over. The free accounting software is really just a front-end for a web-based service, but that's no bad thing unless your business struggles to get a decent internet connection.
7. VT Cash Book
Minimalist bookkeeping that uses Excel for the grunt work
It's not going to win any awards for aesthetics, but VT Cash Book isn't there to look good: its priority is to record day to day cash transactions with the least amount of fuss. It uses Autocomplete to speed up data entry, supports multiple bank accounts and bank reconciliation, can be used to prepare VAT returns and enables you to create profit and loss, balance sheets and ledgers.
The free accounting software installs alongside its companion program, the paid-for VT Transaction+, but you don't need to buy the latter to use the former.
8. Invoice Expert Lite Edition
A good option for anyone selling physical products
The free (Lite) version of Invoice Expert is limited to 100 customers/products, but it retains the features of the paid-for Advanced Edition – which retails at $69.95 (about £55) – including inventory and customer management, invoicing and quoting, purchase orders and inventory management.
This free accounting software is a little bit intimidating at first glance, especially in the template-editing screens, but it's straightforward enough. It's an American program but it uses your Windows location to set the currency, so it should adjust itself accordingly for those outside the US.
9. Adminsoft Accounts
A complete money-management toolkit for small business owners
Adminsoft Accounts is a software accounting package that's powered by advertising to generate revenue, making it free to download and use. According to the website, more than 300,00 people have taken advantage of what is a surprisingly thorough free accounting system (and an refreshingly honest set of terms and conditions).
It can handle not just invoicing and statements but remittance advice, stock control, purchase orders, budgeting and some HR functions too. It's a UK program so the default is pounds sterling, but it works happily in other currencies too.
There is a paid-for version you can buy to run the software without advertising, with pricing starting at $259 (£199) for the main accounting software platform, with a slightly higher cost if you also want to include AutoManager or Shop/Cafe Manager.
Best Bookkeeping Programs For Home
10. QuickFile
Free small business accounting in the cloud – no desktop software needed
Designed specifically for non-accountants, QuickFile offers multiple free tiers for small businesses while still delivering automatic invoicing, purchase/receipt management, quotations and multi-currency support. Add in a fully branded client area, and this makes for a professional solution at a hard to beat price.
It’s cloud-based rather than a software download, and if you like the free version you can upgrade to an ad-free, more advanced version with bulk invoicing, revision history and a host of power user features for a modest fee of $58/£45 annually.
- You can get QuickFile here
- Need something a bit more complex? Try one of these best accounting software packages
Today's Best Tech Deals
Picked by Macworld's Editors
Top Deals On Great Products
Picked by Techconnect's Editors
Intuit QuickBooks for Mac 2014
Read Macworld's reviewCognito Software MoneyWorks Gold 7 (Mac)
Acclivity AccountEdge Pro 2014
Marketcircle Billings Pro 1.6
If home is where your heart is, then there’s a pretty good chance that home—or at least your Home Folder—is where you prefer to keep your business’ financial information. While there are plenty of excellent Web-based apps you can use for tracking your business finances, if you’re uncomfortable with the idea of working within a browser and keeping your business’ financial information in the cloud, a traditional Mac application is your best option.
I looked at four apps for managing your business invoicing and finances: Cognito Software’s MoneyWorks Gold, The Acclivity Group’s AccountEdge Pro, Intuit’s QuickBooks for Mac, and Marketcircle’s Billings Pro. The first three are traditional invoicing and accounting applications, while Billings Pro offers compelling features, but also requires additional software to complete the package. Though all of these apps offer excellent tools for managing your business finances, MoneyWorks Gold stands above the rest, for an excellent user interface.
Top choice: MoneyWorks Gold 7
Best Accounting Software For Mac
If you’ve been around the Mac accounting game for any length of time you’re likely already aware of the more well-known players, QuickBooks and AccountEdge. The one application that probably hasn’t made it onto your radar—but should have—is Cognito Software’s MoneyWorks Gold (; $499). MoneyWorks Gold is a solid, full-featured business accounting application that is networkable, supports multiple users, and works on both Macs and PCs.
MoneyWorks uses a flowchart-like interface similar to what’s used by both AccountEdge and QuickBooks for Mac. The application’s interface consists of a sidebar with navigation links to MoneyWorks’ collection of financial tools and a larger main window that displays a flowchart that changes depending on which item you’ve selected in the sidebar. As is the case with both AccountEdge and QuickBooks 2014, the flowchart attempts to create a visual relationship between various business activities. While this makes all of these applications a bit more interesting visually, in practice I’ve rarely used the flowchart to figure out how the many aspects of a business are related.
Most of the tools you’ll use on a regular basis appear in the navigation section entitled Day-to-day. Here you can create quotes, sales orders, and invoices, reconcile your bank accounts, create and receive purchase order items, and review accounts payable. Each of these same tasks are also available in other areas of the application and selecting other Navigation options provides you with access to a deeper set of tools and features. For example, when you select Items and Inventory you have tools for receiving stock on items you’ve ordered, viewing a journal list of all the stock you have on hand, and building new stock items from items you have in your existing inventory.
MoneyWorks includes just under 100 reports, including sales tax reports for Canada and VAT reports for the U.K. If none of the application's existing reports fit your specific needs, you can create custom reports of your own. Reports are available either from the Reports menu or from the main application window when you’ve selected a specific navigation area. For example, selecting Chart of Accounts from the navigation sidebar provides you with links for a number of account-related reports.
Two features make MoneyWorks a standout: Multiuser network capabilities and cross-platform client applications. (Features also found in Acclivity’s AccountEdge product.) Sharing your MoneyWorks file on the network is as simple as opening the Sharing and Users settings and putting a check in a box to turn on sharing. (A Datacenter version allows access by iOS devices and multicompany hosting) By default the application allows access to anyone on the network, so to limit access you also need to password protect your data file. Once you do so you can add users and limit their access to features. Unfortunately, there is no group option for managing user access to data, so every user you create needs to have access managed individually.
Top contender: AccountEdge Pro
Depending on how you look at Acclivity’s AccountEdge Pro (; $399 new, $159 single user upgrade, $249 multiuser upgrade) it is either a little stale or as consistent as it has ever been. The basic idea behind the application’s flowchart interface has been around since it was first released well before Mac operating systems were named after cats. Little has changed about the way the AccountEdge looks in nearly a dozen years, but, in terms of accounting capabilities, it remains a solid application.
AccountEdge has long been an application that allowed you to do your business in a networked environment on both Macs and PCs and, like MoneyWorks, gives you control over who has access to specific parts of your company’s financial data. The program still provides excellent tools for securing your data while still providing access to your accounting and inventory data in a multiuser, multiplatform environment.
While not much has changed on the front end, AccountEdge has added a few new features for 2014, including the addition of master inventory items that allow you to create dozens of varieties with out having to create distinct inventory items for each variety. So, for example, you can create a category called Whole Bean Coffee that can then be broken down into more specific varieties such as specific roasts in caffeinated or decaf, all of which makes it much easier to manage your inventory. Acclivity has also rebranded and updated its AccountEdge Web front end, offering features in the cloud, including options for creating invoices and other transactions from a webpage.
The rest of the pack
Billings Pro 1.6.5
Marketcircle’s Billings Pro (; $0/$5/$10 per month per user plans, or $99 per year per user) is beautifully-designed application that uses a subscription-based service with some Web-based features, but with which you create invoices, estimates, and collect time-billing information using your Mac OS or iOS device. Everything you do is created and managed locally and then synced with using a database that is hosted on Marketcircle’s servers.
I’ve used the Mac and iOS versions of the original Billings application for years and, like many, was disappointed when Marketcircle dropped the standalone application in favor of a client-server subscription model. That said, after about a month of using Billings Pro instead of the standalone application, I found it to be better than the old standalone version.
Billings Pro is not an accounting application, but you can export Billings Pro data directly into QuickBooks for Mac or MoneyWorks 6. (At present, MoneyWorks 7 is not supported, but Marketcircle states that support is forthcoming.) What makes Billings a standout is integrated time billing and what are probably the most beautiful, customizable documents you will ever see in a program of this type. The key here, though, is time billing. While almost every business accounting package you’ll find offers a way to enter time billing information into time sheets, Billings Pro lets you track your time in the field, and create an invoice directly from the collected information. This may sound like a small deal, but it’s integral to the way many people bill for services, and a feature missing from all of the other applications mentioned here.
While I do love Billings Pro, it’s not perfect and requires you to discover the “Billings Pro workflow” before you can use it. In the Billings Pro world everything you do needs to be part of a project, so no matter what you’re doing, you have to set up a project first and then add Working Slips to those projects and bill based on information collected in the slip. This isn’t a huge problem, but may be an unnecessary step for some businesses.
QuickBooks Mac 2014
QuickBooks Mac 2014 got a full review in Macworld (; $250) last December... well, no surprise, there haven’t been any changes.
While this business accounting application has made it easier to get your data to and back from your accountant, it is still incapable of working in mixed Mac and PC environments. Sad, but true. But that doesn’t mean that it’s a poor accounting application. QuickBooks for Mac will take good care of your business finances, as long as you understand its limitations.
A new user interface gives QuickBooks a look and feel similar to Intuit’s Mint.com and the new Web interface for QuickBooks Online. This new look gives you a great overview of your financial status at a glance. While not everything you might want, QuickBooks for Mac 2014 still gives you what you need to take care of business.
Bottom line
Color me surprised. While AccountEdge remains an excellent application for managing your business finances, and remains one of my personal favorites, MoneyWorks Gold offers all the accounting features you’ll need, though it is more expensive than AccountEdge. And while it doesn’t offer any true accounting features, Billings Pro is the only invoicing application available that allows you to create invoices from time billing information you collect. For me, that’s a necessary feature missing from all of the other applications. QuickBooks, while good, still lags behind the others because it lacks the cross-platform capabilities necessary for any fully networked cross-platform business environment.
Editor's note: Updated on 4/10/14 to correct MoneyWorks Gold pricing.
Best Bookkeeping Program For Small Business
Intuit QuickBooks for Mac 2014
Read Macworld's reviewCognito Software MoneyWorks Gold 7 (Mac)
Acclivity AccountEdge Pro 2014
Marketcircle Billings Pro 1.6