Whether you need to track personal expenses or stay on top of small business transactions accounting software is an invaluable tool. The best accounting software will automatically reconcile expenses and income, properly format tax data, and sync with bank and credit card accounts. Here are some of the top accounting software programs that work with Mac. Since most are cloud-based, you can access information from other, non-Mac devices, too.
QuickBooks for Mac
QuickBooks for Mac keeps both personal and business needs in mind and gives you tools to keep on top of expenses and income. It syncs with programs like PayPal and Square, and with POS machines and app to make it easier to account for business income. It also integrates with your financial accounts including credit cards and bank accounts and gives you a full overview of your income and expenses without requiring much input from you. This Mac accounting program makes it easy to run payroll from right within the program, or you can send properly formated data to a payroll service so turn around from submitting to payout is quick.
Transactions are automatically tagged, sorted, and filed so they're ready for tax time. In fact, QuickBooks imports information to tax programs to make completing forms and paying taxes easier and more accurate. You can also send this information to a physical tax preparer from within the QuickBooks program. Check out this list of the best tax preparation software to learn more about these programs and how they connect to QuickBooks for Mac.
On the personal side, QuickBooks walks you through the steps for setting up a budget. If you connect your credit cards and bank accounts it will automatically deduce transactions and add income, and give you an overview of where you tend to spend your money and help you rein in unhealthy financial habits. The same tax tools are available for personal income tax purposes, so filing returns each year are more smooth.
QuickBooks for Mac lets you track both business and personal expenses within a single program. It seamlessly integrates with tax and payroll programs.
Quicken Deluxe for Mac
For personal accounting needs, Quicken Deluxe is the best. This Mac accounting software program tracks expenses and income but also lets you pay bills from within the program itself. It has a portfolio view to track investments, plus all the tools for balancing accounts, tracking debts, and creating monthly budgets. Quicken shows you spending trends and keeps receipts and other spending data handy for when it's time to file income tax returns.
Quicken does have programs for business finances, including software specific for an industry. For example, Quicken Property Management helps you keep track of renter income, property repairs, insurance, and property tax expenses. It even has forms and documents, like rental agreements, ready to print, or file digital copies of signed forms within the program, too.
Quicken Deluxe has accounting tools devoted to helping you stay within your monthly budget, pay down debt, and track investment portfolios.
FreshBooks
FreshBooks is a business suite that includes some of the best accounting tools. It tracks time spent on projects for both you and your team that can be added to project management schedules, invoices, or payroll forms. FreshBooks tracks incoming and outgoing monies and keeps you on top of your budgets. It makes it easy to balance ledgers, track payments and purchases, and populates tax forms from the collected information.
The reports generated in FreshBooks include summaries of general ledgers and bank reconciliations. You also have trial balances, profit and loss comparisons, and sales tax summaries that are automatically created using stored data.
FreshBooks Mac accounting software is a good program for small business owerns to keep track of expenses and income.
Free Agent
As a freelancer, FreeAgent gives you tools to help manage your time worked and track expenses for tax time. You can use your phone's camera to take pictures of receipts and FreeAgent will automatically tag, add to expense reports, and save them. From within the program you can send invoices and estimates, track bank and credit card account activities, and sync your information with your tax agent.
FreeAgent is a great tool for keeping track of personal expenses, too. It keeps them separate, but also shows how you contracted earnings affect your monthly budget, income to debt ratio, and income tax expenses. FreeAgent is a cloud-based program, so you can access information from your phone or tablet as well as from Mac and Windows desktops.
Keep track of your estimates, invoice for hours worked, and keep track of freelance expenses all within Free Agent's intuitive accounting program.
Wave Accounting
Wave Accounting gives small businesses the basic accounting tools for free including ledgers, invoicing, and receipt filing. Wave helps you keep tabs on sales tax, tracks purchases, and connects to bank and credit card accounts to give you an up-to-date balance sheet. From the dashboard, you get an overview of each aspect of your business finances. This information is well organized and easy to understand with the tools to give you more in-depth information where needed.
Wave does have paid subscriptions, too, that includes payroll tools to track employees, contractors, and vendors. You can us this Mac accounting program to send invoices and keep track of when income is received. You can run payroll yourself from within Wave, including summaries of income taxes that need to be paid on sales and employee income. Or you can send formatted information to payroll services and let them take care of paying employees, contractors, and vendors for you.
Wave lets you run payroll within the program itself or easily syncs with payroll programs and services. Some basic business accounting tools are available for free.
Mint
Mint is a great personal accounting tool for helping you create and stick with a budget. You can keep track of expenses, including bills and when they are due. Mint also keeps track of income and gives you graphs that break down where you tend to spend most of your money. It will also give you hints and tips for paying down debt and increasing your credit score. This accounting software app works with Mac devices, like iPhones, iPads and even the Apple Watch. Here's a helpful article on how to map your iPhone and Apple Watch so that you can access Mint and other apps from either devices.
Bring your budget with you and keep yourself on task with the Mint accounting app. It shows you how much you have to spend in each category and reminds you of bills to pay.
Kashoo
This online accounting program uses learning technology to understand your spending habits and recommend new practices to help balance your income to debt ratio, create monthly budgets, and improve your credit score. It gives financial reports that show an overview of your monthly finances and breakdowns of individual transactions.
Kashoo keeps receipts in order and automatically formats data you need to popular tax forms. It removes redundancies by adding expenses, income, and other financial information to multiple forms, summaries, and spreadsheets, so you don't have to double, or triple enter it.
Kashoo learns your spending habits and uses this information to create a realistic budget, set reminders, and pay down debt. It automatically accounts for purchases from receipt images.
Zoho Books
Zoho is well-known for its small business solutions. Zoho Books has all the important accounting tools you need to stay on top of estimates, project workflows, and invoicing. It reconciles expenses and income and helps prepare important tax documents and payments. One unique feature of this accounting program is time tracking. This can be used to track employees, contractors, or yourself in order to properly pay, estimate or invoice hours worked for payroll and tax purposes.
On top of all the accounting tools you need to keep track of business finances, Zoho Books also has a project tracker that includes a timer to accurately invoice worked hours.
The final tally on accounting software
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The best accounting software is QuickBooks. It has tools for both business and personal expense tracking, integrates with tax software and services, and formats payroll so you can either pay it yourself or send it onto a payroll service. There are tools for tracking expenses, and if you take a picture of your receipts, QuickBooks will save them in the appropriate files, plus pull information from the receipts and auto-populate expense tracking sheets, budgets, and tax forms.
For personal accounting purposes, you can find everything you need in Quicken Deluxe for Mac. You won't be bogged down by tools you don't need, but will still have access to budget sheets. Plus Quicken integrates with financial institutions and will give you an overview, or in-depth accounting of your expenses, investment portfolios, and account balances.
If you work as a freelancer or a contractor, we recommend FreeAgent. This program can be accessed both from your desktop and your mobile phone. It has tools for creating estimates, a time tracker for when you are working on a job, and an invoice generator to submit payment requests.
