Hi all :)
I’m setting up a small business in the UK, and need some accounting software to keep track of everything, and generate invoices, that sort of thing. I tried Wave a few years ago, and it looks like it does what I need, but is US based and proprietary.
It has the option of linking to your bank account too, and automatically pulling your transactions etc. This is quite important, as I’m trying to get diagnosed with ADHD, and have a terrible memory. I won’t remember to manually enter transactions regularly.
Being able to use it on Android and Windows / Linux would be ideal. I can self host it if there are any options that work.
Does anyone have any ideas please?
These 2 are worth a careful look
- ledger and its derivatives
- quickfile
I am from the UK and been doing this for over 10 years, with a CSV general ledger.
I find the double entry accounting equation simple, but need meticulous book keeping and to fully understand the scheme of accounts to minimise the time spent preparing for tax, vat and PAYE along with annual financial statements to companies house.
To work on my own I follow the ‘plain text accounting’ principle, ledger seems good, but simpler for me to use SQL on a CSV file and a Rust program to handle MTD for VAT.
I’ve studied many accounting packages, all seem over complex and obscure the simplicity of the task.
To work with an accountant I would choose quickfile. It is remarkable, and one very smart person I expect to choose the best application uses it so I feel that it has credibility.
For invoicing at my small business, I use Invoice Ninja.
Open source, self-hostable, and they offer cloud hosting. Free for the base version with less than 20 users. It has a bunch of features, you are able to create very professional invoices, define services and products, calculate taxes, fees, etc.
It’s very clean, fast, and intuitive.
For accounting, I use GnuCash. It’s old looking and clunky, but it has a bunch of features and works fine for everything I need.
They look good, thanks :)
I like the fact that InvoiceNinja can be self hosted too
Perhaps Firefly? It is meant for personal finances but considerably complex still. I am not sure if it does invoicing though.
Edit: This should give you a more precise idea of how fitting it might be: https://docs.firefly-iii.org/explanation/more-information/what-its-not/#business-finances-small-business-accounting-payroll-management
You seem to have a lot of recommendations already, but I just wanted to mention beancount as well. It’s a decently powerful plain text accounting software. Not sure if it does invoicing.
For me it has been good because I think it is fun to hack some new functionality together that I feel missing. E.g. parse pdf receipts and break down transactions into postings based on what is in the receipt. But it you aren’t interested in simple Python programming, I’d probably not recommend it.
Being able to easily version control it using git is really helpful when you are trying things.
