One of the questions asked in the Featured Freelancer interviews is “What app or website could you not run your business without, and why?” More often than not, the apps which are mentioned are those which freelancers rely on to run the admin side of their business, of which bookkeeping is a key part of. So we ran a poll and asked the Freelance Heroes community “which bookkeeping tool/app do you use for your freelance business?”
Of course, we knew there would be some who didn’t, so included that as an option. What we were surprised with was just how many.
In the Facebook poll, over 29% of freelancers claimed they don’t use them at all, including spreadsheets.
On Twitter, that number grew to over 50%, although we can’t vouch for how many respondents here are either (a) freelancers or (b) UK based.
This week’s #FreelanceHeroes poll is about bookkeeping apps. Which one do you use and why? (the choices are from the top 4 answers in the group)
— Freelance Heroes (@FHChat) October 30, 2018
As one freelancer wrote: “I don’t use one because my bookkeeping is still pretty easy to keep on top of. I have a spreadsheet which I regularly update with my income/expenses, I have a little box where I keep all of my receipts… and that’s pretty much it.”
So putting those aside, and out of those who do use a bookkeeping tool for their business, here are the results of the most popular:
To give you that in more detail:
Heroes being hereos, here are some of the reasons why they’re most preferred:
Xero
“If you set up the bank feeds correctly it can help reduce time processing payments. If you have the packages to raise invoices it keeps it all in one place. It’s easy to use, on the cloud and also a Making Tax Digital Compliant software so moving forward will grow with legislation.”
“Xero is the best as the apps and automation tools that can be plugged in are amazing, the reporting ability of Xero is also great for both accountants/bookkeepers and end users”
“Xero- it’s brilliant and helps me keep track of everything finance.”
Wave
“Started using Wave recently and love it! I only need the basics so a spreadsheet has worked fine for 5 years, but I’m enjoying the ability to send quick invoices via mobile, and also their receipts app has stopped paper from piling up. Big fan so far”
“Wave for me! I used to use Xero but it was very expensive and I couldn’t get my head around it apart from entering an invoice. Wave is much more my style.”
Freeagent
“Freeagent is SO good. Live bank feed, live PayPal feed, tax due date reminders, easy expenses logging, nice invoice formats and I found it to be a lot more user friendly than Xero which was a still a bit more complicated IMO”
What about you? Which bookkeeping app do you prefer and why? Or, if you don’t use one either, why not? Please let us know using #FreelanceHeroes on Twitter, Linkedin or Instagram.