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If you want to turn your Mac into an all-purpose center of financial management for your home or business, you’re just a download away. Take a look at the best financial software for Mac and see what solution offers the features you need.

Contents

1. QuickBooks

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Quicken for Mac gets a lot of attention, but if you aren’t using Windows then Quicken is a poor deal: In the last several years support has dropped off and the lack of compatibility just isn’t worthwhile (Quicken 2015 is currently to turn the trend around, to mixed results). QuickBooks, however, remains fully supported and feature-rich financial software for Mac: This is the program of choice for running a small business on an OS X platform. If your company uses Mac computers and you want the best financial software around, QuickBooks remains unparalleled with its full invoice, transaction, workflow and reconciliation features.

You can download QuickBooks for Mac here for $229.95 or you can sign up for their online service which offers the first 30-day free.

2. iBank 5

The latest version of iBank offers a full suite of financial management capabilities at an incredibly deep level. Direct Access and direct downloads allow you to connect directly to bank accounts, and you can quickly import from Quicken to update all your data. Budgeting, investment tracking, and advance notifications about bills are all included. You can also build you own financial charts and reports if you want to analyze a particular part of your finances. The downside to this universal collection of features is, unfortunately, the price.

You can download iBank 5 here for $59.99

3. iFinance

If iBank sounds too comprehensive or expensive for your Mac financial software needs, take a look at iFinance, which focuses more on the basics of financial management. You can import multiple financial documents and create budgets that are as simple or complex as you want. iFinance sports the in-depth transaction management that small businesses and careful families alike can appreciate…as long as you can invest the time necessary to learn the sometimes unique accounting tools.

You can download iFinance here for $29.99

4. MoneyWell

If the interface on iBank doesn’t do much for you, take a look at MoneyWell financial software. MoneyWell offers many of the same features, from direct bank connections to budget control and transaction management, but with a very different set of graphics and tools that you may appreciate more. MoneyWell also has full support for iPad if you feel like taking your finances over to the sofa to work on. If you like envelope budgeting, you will also appreciate its “spending buckets” that help you limit spending in specific categories. The downside is once again the price, but it’s not quite as high as iBank if you want to save a few bucks.

You can download MoneyWell here for $49.99

5. Fortora Fresh

Fortora is a newer entrant in personal finance software than previous options, and specializes in more streamlined features that allow you to quickly search for specific transactions, bulk edit entire fields to save time, and use shortcuts when setting budgets and recording items. It can import not only bank account information but also stock quotes for your investments. Otherwise, it makes a strong competitor to services like iBank and MoneyWell, although its support on mobile devices like iPad is unfortunately lacking.

You can download Fortora Fresh here for $49.99

6. SplashMoney

SplashMoney is more affordable personal finance software for creating budgets and tracking transactions. Like its more expensive personal finance software Mac brethren, it can also connect to major banks to upload transactions and account information automatically. There are features for comparing actual vs. budgeted expenses, and rearranging budgets based on what’s important to you. There are both desktop and mobile versions of this software, make sure you pick the desktop version and its strong collection of features.

You can download SplashMoney here for $19.95

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

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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 Mac Software Programs

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

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• Need something a bit more complex? Try one of these best accounting software packages