Free Accounting Software with VAT Tax for Small Businesses: Top 10 Free Tools for Accounting

SMEs or start-ups have to keep track of their expenses to grow or expand. Keeping track of their expenses will equally enable them to pay the right amount of taxes and comply with VAT payments and rules from Her Majesty’s Customs and Revenues (HMRC). 

In addition to this, you and your business may face piles of invoices or adjustments from the budget or tax reforms. If you purchase the right accounting software, you will be able to automate key functions ranging from tax management, financial investment, and invoicing amongst others. 

Before you are set about choosing your accounting software, you should weigh a set of factors such as basic accounting requirements that include payroll and expense management functions.

Additionally, you should equally gauge the effectiveness of software by identifying potential use cases in the cloud to facilitate collaboration and co-working from various parts of the world.

In this article, we take a look at the ten best accounting software and key VAT features that are relevant to your business. 

Top 10 Free Accounting Software You Should Try

1. Xero

Xero is primarily designed for SMEs or entrepreneurs that intend to manage key accounting functions such as bank reconciliation, invoicing as well as payables and receivables.

It has a good market reputation and is a good accounting software that can support tax management issues due to its functionalities that allow it to deduct sales tax on any transactions.

Sterlinx Global packages equally come with fully managed Xero services, where Sterlinx records and reconciles all sales and purchases. 

2. QuickBooks Online

As a cloud-based system, Quickbooks is very popular and can be useful in helping to synchronise all your bank account transactions and help teams collaborate in the provision of detailed reports.

As an entrepreneur that may have some e-commerce deals, it equally enables you to deduct things such as sales tax from all your invoices whilst enabling you to calculate the appropriate tax based on where your start-up may be located. 

3. Sage

In addition to being useful at helping with core functionalities and financial functions such as accounts receivable, it can equally help companies with budgeting.

One of the major strengths of Sage is the fact that it can be linked to VAT reporting and can equally help companies align budgets and accounting reports, and subscription billing. 

4. Kashoo

Kashoo is a comprehensive software that equally operates on the cloud. It is effective at handling invoices, vendors, and e-commerce businesses.

It can equally synchronise entries from the bank with their ledger. Kashoo is effective at managing balance sheet data and providing a range of services including invoicing, and expense management, which is ideal for most start-ups and SMEs.

5. NetSuite

NetSuite is another cloud-based service with a good enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, which possesses a range of tools from budgeting to financial reporting.

It is effective at managing issues related to compliance and can be very useful for tax management. It is a great tool for businesses and start-ups operating in any sector. 

6. FreshBooks

If you’re looking for a good cloud-based accounting system, FreshBooks may be appropriate for you as it is double-entry accounting software that can equally enable you to manage other tax affairs.

This is excellent for small businesses that care about time tracking, expense management, and invoice management. You can easily integrate different forms of payment, such as PayPal. 

7. KashFlow

Kashflow is unique from other software in addition to being a cloud-based service. It can automatically update your VAT payments from financial documents in your system.

If you are looking for core functionalities such as payroll management, this is the software for you. 

8. Wave

Wave has an excellent cloud-based service and it is adapted to be used on mobile devices with useful functionalities such as recurring bills and receipts.

As one of the newer software, it is perfect for entrepreneurs on the go as it can be used from multiple digital platforms. It is ideal to be used for receipt management and will ensure that company’s bills and VAT payments can be traced back easily. 

9. Free Agent

Free-agent is cloud-based and enables you to stay up-to-date on your expenses and essential accounting tasks.

It is great for monitoring expenses, invoices, cash flow, and taxes. It can be used to prevent you from missing key deadlines and automate your VAT filing system. This is indispensable to start-ups as it enables you to file your VAT on time. 

10. Zoho Books

This accounting software with useful and prominent cloud services facilitates end-to-end tasks such as invoicing and reporting.

It is a useful tool in invoice management and can be used for accounting dashboards as well as expense management.  

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

There is a range of accounting software that businesses and start-ups can use to manage their taxes and invoices.

This article provides a useful summary of ten accounting software that businesses and start-ups can use to better manage their finances and VAT payments.

The majority of the accounting software presented in this article is cloud-based and has great functionalities across a range of areas.

If you need professional help, check out Sterlinx Global.