This post was brought to you by GetApp, your number one cloud business apps marketplace

For a rare breed of person, accounting is a business process that represents a joyful challenge. For the rest of us, just the thought of managing accounts leaves us reaching for an aspirin. But does accounting have to be that troubling? Actually, it doesn’t.

If you’re willing to ditch your spreadsheet app in favor of a purpose-built cloud accounting app, you’ll find your head will stop throbbing without the need for medical intervention. What’s more, you could be saving yourself a considerable amount of time each week.

The biggest headache you’ll have is the initial step of choosing a small business accounting app. There are plenty apps out there to choose from, but luckily, many are excellent, replete with handy features, and gorgeously simple interfaces which – dare I say it – can actually make doing your company accounts enjoyable.

In this article, we’re serving up a list of the ten best accounting apps. Many have free trials so that you can check them out for yourself before deciding whether to adopt that solution. Give them a try and learn how to love accounting!

FreshBooks

FreshBooks is a delight to use. The software is simple to understand, even if you haven’t used any accounting software before. FreshBooks features an easy-to-understand dashboard and brilliant visualizations, which make it rewarding to use.

FreshBooks allows you to quickly create professional-looking invoices and set up credit card payment support. Other features include repeat invoicing, estimation, and one-click snail mail sending.

Recommended Business Apps

FreeAgent

FreeAgent makes it easy to invoice customers, track expenses, synchronize your bank accounts, and even chase payments, all from one intuitive interface.

FreeAgent offers excellent user support on demand, and the app backs up your data regularly so that you never have to worry about losing it. There’s also a time tracking element to FreeAgent, which records every minute that you work so that you can be completely accurate when billing.

QuickBooks Online

QuickBooks Online handles accounting, billing, and invoicing, all from the same spot. Its colorful, user-friendly interface is home to a powerful set of features. These include estimates invoicing, time tracking, accounts payable, reporting, inventory, contacts, sales, and tax.

Thanks to QuickBooks Online’s online banking integration, you can hook up your online bank to the software to automatically download details of financial transactions. This makes for an effortless way to track the comings and goings of your company’s finances.

Xero

Xero is an online accounting application that’s designed to offer a more efficient and enjoyable way for a small business to manage its accounts. The app imports all your financial transactions into its database and links them to the corresponding accounting transactions.

Xero’s slick dashboard allows you to get a complete, easy-to-view picture of key accounts, income and expense reports, upcoming bills, and pending invoices. Xero has its own add-on marketplace, allowing you to boost the functionality of the application.

Nutcache

If you’re looking for a free online app for invoicing and time management, Nutcache is worth a nibble. It allows you to create an unlimited number of invoices, adding your logo, and sending them in bulk to your various clients.

Besides invoicing and time tracking tools, Nutcache includes features for expenses, reporting, and online payments. One of the great things about the app (other than being free) is its multilingual interface, allowing you to communicate and coordinate with customers globally.

KashFlow

KashFlow is a seriously powerful accounting app that is specifically aimed at UK small businesses. KashFlow listens to its customers and only includes features that are most requested. What’s more, KashFlow handles UK taxation effortlessly, with VAT reports built right in.

If you’re a small business based in the UK, KashFlow is worth considering, especially since it bills itself as “no accounting knowledge required!”

Recommended Business Apps

Sage One

Sage One is an accounting app that operates on a curious principle. Acknowledging that small business accounting is mostly a snore, a laborious residual of doing business, Sage One aims to put the dull aspects of being in business– accounting task– largely on autopilot.

Sage One puts simplicity ahead of other considerations. If you’re not a lover of bookkeeping, you can still keep it all organized and accurate with Sage One.

Zoho Books

Zoho Books is another super simple accounting app. Zoho Books also benefits from integrating with Zoho’s other business apps, which are perhaps the most notable alternatives to Google Apps for Business. Zoho Books, together with the other apps in Zoho’s growing Web app ecosystem, can help you keep it simple at every stage of small business accounting.

From invoicing to tax reporting, Zoho Books puts everything you need at your fingertips.

Sellsy Invoicing

Sellsy Invoicing is suitable for the simplest of all small business (and freelancer) needs. If all you need is to send invoices, take payments, and occasionally send payment reminders, it gets no simpler than with Sellsy Invoicing. Sellsy Invoicing also offers estimating tools as part of its easy feature set.

FinancialForce Accounting

FinancialForce Accounting rounds out our list of the ten best accounting apps for small business owners who hate bookkeeping largely because it plays so nicely with SalesForce.com. As a matter of fact, FinancialForce is made for SalesForce integration. If your business is one of the many using Salesforce for customer relationship management (CRM), you owe it to yourself to check out FinancialForce Accounting.

Are you a small business owner who HATES bookkeeping?

It’s okay not to love bookkeeping. After all, unless you happen to be an accountant, bookkeeping is probably not why you got into business in the first place.

We hope this list of the ten best accounting apps has helped. If you don’t see the perfect app for your business on this list, be sure you check GetApp’s full coverage of small business accounting software currently on the market.

Recommended Business Apps

More tips for small business accounting:

• 3 Recurring Subscription Management Apps for Websites
• Top Small Business Accounting Influencers
• New Breed of Small Business Accounting Apps: 5 Spreadsheet Killers in the Cloud
• How Secure is Your Small Business Accounting App?

Read Next: The best money saving travel apps

Image credit: Shutterstock

This post first appeared on GetApp.

Article source: TNW http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheNextWeb/~3/EUjo1EZtw-E/