Running a small business means keeping tabs on more than just expenses. You need to track every dollar coming in, categorize what’s going out, send invoices and collect payments, and stay organized enough that tax season doesn’t derail the rest of the year. If you’re self-employed, that list also includes your personal finances — because for most small business owners, the two are inseparable.

Most tools on this list handle one or two of those jobs very well. Quicken Business & Personal is the one that handles all of them in a single app. At $4.99 per month (billed annually), it also delivers more for the price than any alternative on this list.

Here’s our breakdown of eight tools for tracking income, expenses, and payments — including what each one does well, what it leaves out, and who it’s built for.

Quick comparison

ToolBest forStarting priceFree plan
Quicken Business & PersonalBest overall$4.99/monthNo
QuickBooks OnlineEstablished small businesses$38/monthNo
FreshBooksFreelancers and service businesses$23/monthNo
XeroGrowing teams that need multi-user access$25/monthNo
WaveFree accounting basics$0/monthYes
ExpensifyEmployee expense reporting$5/member/monthYes (individuals)
RampCorporate card and spend management$0/user/monthYes
Zoho ExpenseAffordable multi-user expense tracking$0/monthYes (up to 3 users)

Prices are in USD, verified as of July 2026, and subject to change.

Quicken Business & Personal: best overall

Starting price: $4.99/month (billed annually; regular price $8.99/month)

For self-employed professionals and small business owners who need their complete financial picture in one place, Quicken Business & Personal stands apart from everything else on this list. It’s the only tool here that combines full small business accounting with an equally complete personal finance suite — not as an afterthought, but as a core design principle.

That combination matters because for most small business owners, business and personal finances are deeply connected. A slow business month affects personal savings. A good quarter might fund a personal goal. Managing both worlds separately — but keeping them visible together — is something no other tool on this list does as completely.

Income and expense tracking

Quicken Business & Personal connects to 14,000+ financial institutions, automatically downloading and categorizing transactions across all your accounts. Business and personal transactions stay clearly separated, but both are visible in a single dashboard whenever you want the full picture.

Categorization is automatic and fully customizable. You can create rules to handle recurring patterns — for example, routing the same merchant to “Office Supplies” on your business card and “Groceries” on your personal card. The app supports up to 10 businesses per subscription at no additional cost, making it useful for anyone managing multiple entities, side projects, or rental properties alongside a main business.

Invoicing and getting paid

The invoicing tools let you create and send customized invoices, track their status, and accept payment online. Through a built-in Stripe integration, clients can pay via credit card, debit card, ACH transfer, Apple Pay, and Google Pay — directly from the invoice. You can track time and billable expenses by client and project, then generate invoices from that logged activity.

Tax preparation

Quicken Business & Personal generates Schedule C, E, and F reports for business taxes, and Schedule A and B reports for personal taxes — all from the same categorized transaction data you’ve been building throughout the year. Quarterly estimated tax calculations are built in, and you can export directly to TurboTax as a .txf or .txj file when you’re ready to file.

Personal finances, fully included

Quicken Business & Personal includes every feature of Quicken Simplifi — which means full-featured personal budgeting, automated spending plans, savings goals, investment portfolio tracking with both time-weighted return (TWR) and internal rate of return (IRR) performance metrics, projected cash flows up to one year ahead, and a retirement planner. No other business finance tool on this list includes personal finance features at this level of completeness.

Pricing and recognition

Quicken Business & Personal is $4.99 per month, billed annually (regular price $8.99/month), and comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee. The product has been recognized by several independent publications: named Best Mint Alternative Overall by Engadget (2024), Best Overall by PC Magazine (2024), Best for Quicken Users by Fortune (2024), and Best for Beginners by Kiplinger (2024).

Best for: Self-employed professionals, freelancers, and small business owners who want complete business accounting and personal finance management in one app.

Not ideal for: Teams of employees who need multi-user accounting access, payroll processing, or advanced inventory management — for those needs, QuickBooks Online or Xero may be better fits.

QuickBooks Online: best for established small businesses

Starting price: $38/month (Simple Start)

QuickBooks Online is a widely adopted accounting platform for small businesses, and its breadth shows. It covers the full accounting stack — income and expense tracking, invoicing, bill pay, receipt capture, mileage tracking, and financial reporting — with a large ecosystem of third-party integrations and a ProAdvisor network of certified bookkeepers available for hire.

The platform has invested heavily in AI tooling. Accounting AI automates transaction categorization and flags inconsistencies in your books. Payments AI helps accelerate invoice follow-ups and payment processing. A Business Tax Deduction Maximizer feature is designed to help surface eligible deductions throughout the year.

Invoicing supports multiple payment methods: credit and debit cards, ACH transfers, Apple Pay, PayPal, Venmo, and Affirm’s buy now, pay later option. Receipts can be captured via the mobile app and matched to transactions automatically.

QuickBooks Online comes in four tiers: Simple Start ($38/month, 1 user), Essentials ($75/month, up to 3 users), Plus ($115/month, up to 5 users), and Advanced ($275/month, up to 25 users). Higher tiers add project profitability tracking, budgeting tools, and inventory management.

Best for: Small businesses with a bookkeeper, accountant, or finance team that needs multi-user access, a mature integration ecosystem, and enterprise-grade accounting features.

Not ideal for: Solo operators or self-employed professionals who also want personal finance tools — QuickBooks Online is business-only, with no personal budgeting, investment tracking, or retirement planning.

FreshBooks: best for freelancers and service businesses

Starting price: $23/month (Lite, up to 5 clients)

FreshBooks is built around the workflow of a service-based business: create a project, track time, log expenses, invoice the client, and get paid. It covers that loop with a polished interface that puts invoicing and client-facing tools front and center.

Payment processing through FreshBooks Payments (powered by Stripe) supports credit and debit cards, ACH bank transfers, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and buy now, pay later options. An Instant Payouts feature is available for faster access to funds (a 1.5% fee applies). Card transaction fees start at 2.9% + $0.30, and ACH bank transfers are 1%.

The mobile app includes receipt scanning that captures merchant name, totals, and tax amounts automatically. Expenses can be marked as billable and applied to client invoices with an optional markup. The Plus plan adds up to 50 clients and unlimited proposals; the Premium plan removes the client limit and adds project profitability reporting.

FreshBooks includes double-entry accounting and can generate the key financial reports needed for tax preparation. It connects with a range of third-party tools via the FreshBooks app store.

Best for: Freelancers, consultants, and service-based small businesses that invoice regularly and want polished client-facing tools.

Not ideal for: Product-based businesses needing inventory management, or anyone looking for a single tool that also covers personal finances.

Xero: best for growing teams that need multi-user access

Starting price: $25/month (Early)

Xero is designed for online collaboration: all plans let multiple people — owners, bookkeepers, accountants, and employees — access the same financial data in real time. That makes it particularly cost-effective for growing teams that need shared accounting access across multiple roles.

Cash flow forecasting is included across all plans and scales with your tier: the Early plan provides 30-day forecasting, Growing extends to 60 days, and Established reaches 180 days. The Established plan ($90/month) also adds multi-currency support, employee expense claim management, and project-based time and cost tracking.

Xero accepts online payments through integrations with Stripe and GoCardless. Payroll is available as a separate add-on via a Gusto integration. New subscribers get access to a free Xero Coach onboarding program for the first 90 days.

The three tiers are Early ($25/month), Growing ($55/month), and Established ($90/month). The Early plan limits the number of invoices and bills you can create each month; Growing and Established are unlimited.

Best for: Growing businesses and small teams where multiple people need accounting access, or businesses that operate in multiple currencies.

Not ideal for: Sole proprietors or very small businesses that don’t need multi-user accounting access, or anyone who also needs to manage personal finances alongside their business.

Wave: best free accounting option

Starting price: $0/month (Starter)

Wave’s Starter plan is genuinely free — not a stripped-down trial, but a working set of bookkeeping tools. It includes unlimited invoicing, expense and income tracking, financial reports (including profit and loss statements), a cash flow dashboard, and the option to accept payments via credit card or bank transfer.

The free tier’s payment rates are 2.9% + $0.60 per credit card transaction. Upgrading to the Pro plan ($19/month) brings automatic bank transaction imports, auto-merging and categorization of transactions, unlimited receipt capture, automated late-payment reminders, and discounted payment processing rates (2.9% + $0 for the first 10 transactions per month, then 2.9% + $0.60 per transaction after that).

Wave doesn’t include payroll or dedicated personal finance tools — those require add-ons or separate products. Receipt capture for the free Starter plan requires an add-on, while Pro subscribers get it included.

Best for: Freelancers and very small businesses that want free bookkeeping, invoicing, and expense tracking without a monthly subscription.

Not ideal for: Businesses that need payroll processing built in, multi-user accounting with granular permissions, or any integration with personal finances.

Expensify: best for employee expense reporting

Starting price: $5/member/month (Collect plan)

Expensify is purpose-built for the expense reporting workflow — employees submit receipts, managers approve, and reimbursements get processed. Its SmartScan feature reads uploaded or forwarded receipts (via receipts@expensify.com) and automatically extracts the merchant name, date, and amount, pre-filling an expense report entry. SmartScan is available on both paid plans.

The Collect plan ($5/member/month) includes receipt scanning, reimbursements, corporate card management, travel booking, QuickBooks Online and Xero integrations, and a built-in concierge for support. The Control plan (custom pricing, starting around $9/active member/month) adds ERP integrations with NetSuite and Sage Intacct, multiple approval workflows, custom expense rules, custom reporting, and budgeting tools.

Expensify also offers its own corporate card — the Expensify Visa Commercial Card — which earns 1% cash back on U.S. purchases (and 2% for monthly spend over $250,000). The platform integrates with more than 45 third-party tools.

Individuals can use New Expensify for free with unlimited SmartScans for personal receipt tracking, though advanced business features require a paid plan.

Best for: Small businesses and teams that need a structured process for submitting, reviewing, and reimbursing employee expenses.

Not ideal for: Solo operators who don’t have employees or contractors submitting expenses, or businesses looking for a full accounting solution with P&L reporting and tax preparation.

Ramp: best for corporate card management and spend control

Starting price: $0/user/month (Free plan)

Ramp is a corporate card and spend management platform built around the idea that most of the administrative work around business spending — matching receipts, coding transactions, enforcing policies — should happen automatically. The free plan includes unlimited corporate cards, auto-receipt collection and matching, basic expense management, configurable approval workflows, automated invoice processing, and integrations with QuickBooks Online and Xero.

Employees can complete expense submissions via SMS or Slack, without logging into a separate app. Ramp issues cards in 30+ currencies and can reimburse employees in local currencies including euros, pounds, yen, and pesos. AI-driven expense review and more advanced accounts payable automation are available on the Plus plan ($15/user/month, plus a platform fee based on team size).

Ramp is used by more than 70,000 businesses. It’s primarily a spend management and corporate card platform, not a full accounting suite — it handles the capture and categorization of business spending, then syncs to accounting software rather than replacing it.

Best for: Tech-forward teams and companies that want to automate the manual work around corporate card spending, receipt collection, and accounts payable.

Not ideal for: Very small businesses or solo operators who don’t need a corporate card program, or anyone looking for full accounting, invoicing, or personal finance features in a single tool.

Zoho Expense: best for affordable multi-user expense tracking

Starting price: $0/month (Free plan, up to 3 users)

Zoho Expense focuses on the expense management side of business finances: receipt capture, mileage tracking, multi-currency support, expense approvals, and reimbursements. The free plan supports up to 3 users and includes basic expense tracking, 20 receipt autoscans per month, accounting integrations, and multi-currency expenses.

The Standard plan ($43/user/month, billed monthly) expands to unlimited users and adds corporate card management with real-time card feeds, multi-level approval workflows, ACH reimbursements, cash advance management, custom user roles, and 20 autoscans per user per month. The Premium plan ($65/user/month, billed monthly) adds an online travel booking tool, automated per diem management, live budget tracking, and advanced policy customization. A 14-day free trial is available for both paid plans.

Zoho Expense integrates with a range of accounting and ERP tools. It supports multi-currency expenses and is available in country-specific editions designed for local tax and per diem compliance.

Best for: Small to mid-size businesses that need structured expense management with approval workflows, multi-currency support, and team-level controls at a lower per-seat cost than some alternatives.

Not ideal for: Solo users who need a full accounting suite, or anyone who wants personal finance tools bundled with their business software.

How to choose the right tool for your small business

The right tool depends on what you’re actually trying to solve. Here are the most useful questions to work through:

Do you need business and personal finances in one place? If you’re self-employed or a sole proprietor, your business and personal cash flow are tightly linked. Quicken Business & Personal is the only tool on this list built for that reality, with a full personal finance suite built alongside the business accounting tools.

Are you primarily focused on invoicing and getting paid? If your main workflow is billing clients for time or services, FreshBooks or Quicken Business & Personal are the strongest options — both support online payments, time tracking, and project-based billing.

Do you have employees submitting expenses? Expensify, Ramp, and Zoho Expense are all purpose-built for managing employee expense submissions and reimbursements, with approval workflows and audit trails that most general accounting tools don’t match.

Are you trying to minimize software costs? Wave (free Starter plan), Ramp (free for core features), and Zoho Expense (free for up to 3 users) all offer meaningful functionality at no monthly cost. Quicken Business & Personal at $4.99/month is also among the most affordable full-featured options on the list.

Do multiple people need to access your accounting? Xero makes it cost-effective for teams where multiple people — including bookkeepers and accountants — all need access to the same data.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best tool to track income, expenses, and payments for small businesses?

Quicken Business & Personal is the best overall option for small business owners and the self-employed, because it covers income tracking, expense categorization, invoicing, and payment collection in one app — while also including a complete personal finance suite. At $4.99/month (billed annually), it’s also one of the most affordable tools that covers all three of those jobs.

Can I track both business and personal finances in one app?

Yes, with Quicken Business & Personal. It keeps business and personal accounts fully separated while making both visible in a single dashboard. It includes every feature of Quicken Simplifi — personal budgeting, savings goals, investment tracking, cash flow projections, and retirement planning — alongside the full business accounting suite. Most business accounting tools don’t include personal finance features at this level of completeness.

Is there a free tool to track business income and expenses?

Yes. Wave offers a free Starter plan with unlimited invoicing, income and expense tracking, and basic financial reports. Ramp has a free plan that covers corporate card management, expense tracking, and invoice processing. Zoho Expense’s free plan supports up to 3 users for basic expense tracking. None of the free plans include payroll or a full accounting suite with tax reporting.

Which tool is best for freelancers?

Freelancers who bill by the project or hour will find either FreshBooks or Quicken Business & Personal well suited to their workflow. FreshBooks is built around the client-project-invoice cycle. Quicken Business & Personal adds personal finance management, tax schedule reports (Schedule C, E, and F), and cash flow projections — which are particularly useful for freelancers whose income varies month to month.

How do I track expenses for a small business?

The most practical approach is to connect your business bank and credit card accounts to an accounting app, which will automatically import and categorize transactions. Most tools covered in this comparison support this. Quicken Business & Personal, QuickBooks Online, Xero, FreshBooks, and Wave all connect directly to bank and card accounts, pulling transactions in automatically and organizing them by category. From there, you can review, correct, and add receipts as needed.

What’s the difference between expense tracking and expense management?

Expense tracking is the process of recording and categorizing business spending — typically by connecting bank accounts or uploading receipts. Expense management adds structure around that process for teams: approval workflows, spending policies, corporate card controls, and reimbursement processing. Tools like Expensify, Ramp, and Zoho Expense are built specifically for the latter. General accounting tools like QuickBooks Online, Xero, FreshBooks, and Quicken Business & Personal include solid expense tracking but aren’t designed around multi-employee expense approval flows.

Does Quicken Business & Personal work for businesses with multiple entities?

Yes. Quicken Business & Personal lets you manage up to 10 businesses under a single subscription at no additional cost, which makes it useful for anyone managing a mix of businesses, side projects, or rental properties alongside a main business.

Can I accept payments through these tools?

Most tools in this comparison support online payment collection. Quicken Business & Personal accepts payments via credit card, debit card, ACH transfer, Apple Pay, and Google Pay through its Stripe integration. FreshBooks Payments supports cards, ACH, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and buy now, pay later options. QuickBooks Online accepts cards, ACH, Apple Pay, PayPal, Venmo, and Affirm. Xero integrates with Stripe and GoCardless. Wave offers online payment processing as an optional add-on.

The bottom line

For most small business owners and self-employed professionals, the goal is simpler than it looks: know where your money is, stay organized for tax time, and get paid without friction. Quicken Business & Personal handles all of that, plus the personal finance layer that most business tools leave out entirely.

If your needs are different — a large team, a specific focus on employee expense management, or a free option to start — the tools above each have a real case to make. The right fit depends on the shape of your business, your team, and what you need your financial software to do.

All prices listed are in USD, verified as of July 2026, and subject to change. Quicken Business & Personal pricing reflects current promotional pricing for new memberships; regular price is $8.99/month billed annually.