8 Best Software for Accounting Firms in 2023

Navigating the finances of multiple businesses can be challenging, which is why accounting and CPA firms rely on professional accounting software designed for them. Such solutions offer payroll processing, reporting capabilities, expense report generation capabilities, auditing tools, or tax prep assistance to simplify life for accounting firms and CPA teams.

However, in this article, we won’t just present you with an exhaustive list of software for accounting firms; instead, we have carefully hand-selected eight top accounting software tools across four distinct categories – practice management software, project management software, CRM for accounting firms and billing software.

Why these specific categories? The answer lies in our dedication to meeting your business owner’s needs without accounting complexities coming between. 

Our objective is simple: We aim to empower you with knowledge-driven decisions so you can dedicate more of your time where it counts – serving users and growing your business.

Project management software

FuseBase (formerly Nimbus)

FuseBase (formerly Nimbus) is a client-collaboration software that goes beyond typical project management software. It offers powerful solutions that make it invaluable to accounting industry firms and other client-oriented businesses.

FuseBase (formerly Nimbus) offers flexible management of administrative tasks such as scheduling, tracking and reporting. On top of task management, it has wide integration features and secure storage for holding many different forms of information, from plain text documents and tasks, tables, databases, and images to code snippets and code fragments. Its hierarchical structure helps organize and structure information efficiently, making FuseBase (formerly Nimbus) an invaluable tool for managing different aspects of an accounting practice.

While internal teams usually use task management, integrations and storage features inside FuseBase (formerly Nimbus) back office. Client portals serve as an area for collaboration with clients. Using client portals, accounting industry firms can easily manage client projects and deliver results with no learning curve for their customers. One-link yet secure access, simple and intuitive design make client portals comfortable to work with.

Who uses FuseBase (formerly Nimbus)?

Any accounting firm and other client-oriented businesses that want to improve productivity and organization use FuseBase (formerly Nimbus). It perfectly replaces average accounting project management software, offering wider information management and collaboration features.

Key features

• FuseBase (formerly Nimbus) Portals. Without any coding experience, firms can create a client portal explicitly tailored for each customer – ideal for securely sharing financial reports, statements, and sensitive client data with them while branding and creating tailored experiences can also be enhanced through customization options.
• Task Management. Teams can set up their internal processes using tasks and Kanban boards, as well as establish a smooth workflow for client collaboration. Time tracking and ticketing make task management in FuseBase (formerly Nimbus) comfortable for all types of interactions.
• Document Management and Collaborative Work. FuseBase (formerly Nimbus) excels at document management and collaborative work, allowing accounting teams to collaborate seamlessly. FuseBase’ (formerly Nimbus) robust sharing and collaboration features allow members of a team to work in real time on financial reporting documents or audits without the need for separate Nimbus accounts – streamlining team communication and document-sharing processes.
• Hierarchical Organization. FuseBase’ (formerly Nimbus) hierarchical organization system conforms with accounting data structures. Accounting professionals can easily categorize their financial data before organizing it through workspaces, folders, and subfolders.
• Permission management. FuseBase (formerly Nimbus) provides comprehensive permission management, which is vital to maintaining data privacy and security in accounting. CPA firms can control client access to financial documents using granular permissions, guaranteeing sensitive financial data stays private while only authorized personnel can gain access.

Pricing

• Free plan and free trial available
• Paid plans start from $9/month
  

BigTime

BigTime is a comprehensive accounting and project management solution covering all the basics and beyond. You can track people, projects, transactions and earnings, among other things. The timesheets can be accessed through the simple data entry system. BigTime is the industry-standard software for accountants, guarding your time and money. You can save time by using intelligent timesheets that autofill inputs where possible. Projects are completed on time and under budget, thanks to BigTime. Project managers and those in charge of staffing and billing can instantly see how things are going with their projects.

Who uses BigTime?

BigTime is an excellent option for CPA firms and other businesses.

Best features

• Avoid over/under-scheduling across your project portfolio. Allocating resources according to skills, experience and availability will increase billable hours. Forecast resource demand accurately based on business strategy and project pipeline.
• Project management reporting. Data-driven insights can improve team performance. To eliminate data silos, centralize all information on one platform. You can adjust and monitor project progress and usage on the fly. Client dashboards and reports in the app allow you to keep tabs on performance.
• Project accounting is designed for specific purposes. Access the information you need to manage your entire quote-to-cash cycle, quickly identify problem areas and keep up with the daily activities of your business. BigTime Projector project management software provides the foundation for remarkable performance.
• Advanced resource scheduling. Accurately anticipate your staffing requirements and project future-looking revenue and profitability. Resource scheduling software from BigTime Projector keeps your team on track while giving you a unique view of the future.

Pricing

• Free trial available
• Essentials – $20/month* per user
• Advanced – $35/month per user
• Premier – $45/month per user
• Projector – From $60/month per user

Practice management software

TaxDome

When it comes to managing your tax, bookkeeping or accounting firm, TaxDome is your one-stop-shop cloud-based accounting software for efficiently delivering top-notch services. It’s simple to pick up and use and comes loaded with features that will help you streamline your operations and get more done in less time.
This great accounting software would be a great investment to help run small or large businesses.

Who uses TaxDome

TaxDome cloud-based accounting practice management solution is perfect for small business owners, CPA firms, bookkeepers and tax professionals.

Key features

• Project and task management. Organize your workday with ease using TaxDome’s convenient features. You can see everyone’s assignments and assignees in one place and organize them in whatever way you like. Priorities can be assigned and progress can be monitored. In order to save you time, TaxDome provides pre-made task templates.
• Team management. You may delegate responsibilities to individual team members, monitor their progress and hold in-app conversations about the work at hand. Access permissions can be set, which is helpful for seasonal workers. Thanks to its audit trail function, you can see when and by whom documents were modified in TaxDome.
• Workflow automation. The TaxDome pipeline feature allows you to easily automate mundane processes. Workflows can be created from scratch or selected from a library of pre-made templates to automate tasks like invoicing, sending out notifications and sending reminders. You can save time by sending custom emails in bulk.
• Document management. With TaxDome, you have a single location from which to maintain and distribute sensitive documents with multiple clients and coworkers. In addition, it provides limitless cloud storage for your files, so you can forget about ever running out of room.
• Customer management. Users can access their files, invoices and other important information wherever they are with TaxDome’s customer portal and mobile app. 

Pricing

• TaxDome Lite – $33/month billed annually 
• TaxDome Pro – $50/month billed annually
  

Financial Cents

This practice management software for accountants not only helps you keep tabs on user projects, make recurring to-do lists and coordinate with colleagues in real-time but also offers valuable resource management capabilities and reporting tools. Client requests and reminders can be automated in Financial Cents, relieving your team of the burden of manually tracking down clients for information.

The Financial Cents user interface is straightforward and user-friendly. User reviews attest to the software’s efficacy in assisting small accounting businesses in detecting over-budget work and inefficiencies by streamlining the management of daily operations, organizing critical customer information, and monitoring employee time spent on assignments.

Also, Financial Cents workflow templates make it easy to streamline accounting workflows and ensure consistency in customer deliverables.

Financial Cents accounting software can integrate with Outlook, Gmail, and Yahoo Mail to help you manage your inbox. Integrating your email with Financial Cents will create a folder that only displays client-related emails. This will simplify your inbox and help you stay focused.

Who uses Financial Cents?

Financial Cents is an accounting solution developed with the needs of small businesses and medium-sized accounting firms in mind.

Best features

• Time Tracking for Accountants. Billable and nonbillable time can be tracked separately. You can send bills, run reports and measure user profitability.
• Email integration. More people in your firm will be able to see your messages and assignments if you integrate with Gmail or Outlook.
• Capacity Management. Gain insight into your team’s capacity to handle work in order to better allocate resources, reassign tasks and guarantee the timely completion of projects.
• Customer Tasks. Create a customer task to ask for information, documents or action.
• Never miss a client deadline again. Work and deadlines can be monitored in your company as a whole with this straightforward dashboard. With the dashboard’s help, you won’t let anything slip through the gaps and will meet every deadline for every customer.

Pricing

• Free trial available
• Yearly plan – $39/month per team member

CRM for accounting firms

Pixie

Pixie software for accountants gives your accounting or bookkeeping business the ability to function like clockwork in no time. Thanks to its robust workflow automation, you and your team will spend less time on mundane administrative assignments. Also, this management solution is adaptable, letting you store all of your client’s information in one place with your email and paper trail. 

Last but not least, Pixie’s top-notch customer service will ensure a smooth transition to the software and a prosperous launch at your company. Businesses that use Pixie save time on mundane administrative chores, improve efficiency, enhance customer satisfaction, spend little time interacting directly with users and quickly unify their teams.

Who uses Pixie?

Accounting and bookkeeping firms use Pixie accounting software to streamline their processes for hundreds or even thousands of users by centralizing assignments, deadlines, documents, emails and more.

Top features

• Info dashboard. It shows users by name and business type and displays their email addresses, manager, task status and client manager. Custom fields allow you to create as many records of users as you require to effectively manage your relationship. Passwords, company numbers, reference numbers and dates relevant to the customer are included.
• Client communication. You will be able to see the contact information of your customers in their business and communication history when you click on that client record. All communication from your firm via the Pixie feature automatically goes to the primary contact in your client’s business unless you change your settings so that all contacts at your clients’ company are sent to Pixie using the CC feature. Pixie automatically logs all emails sent between your firm’s employees and users to give you visibility into customer communications.
• Client groups. Pixie allows you to organize users into groups by saving and filtering the views. You can easily search for clients based on their type of business, type of work, client manager, etc. Pixie’s filters can be used to perform bulk actions, such as creating new projects, archiving old work, scheduling tasks and bulk emailing, bulk assignment, bulk updating or updating users with similar attributes.

Pricing

• Advanced – $129/mo flat fee for unlimited users
• Growth – $199/mo flat fee for unlimited users
• Enterprise – Custom pricing
  

Method

Method allows businesses to collect, organize and manage data about users (and prospective leads) in order to grow their business.

Method is a QuickBooks platform that seamlessly syncs your QuickBooks data. This provides a single source of truth for your entire organization. Using Method, you can automate workflows, manage leads and better serve your users with a self-serve portal. It is a fully customizable tool. Method is the #1 Customer Relationship Management solution rated by QuickBooks users. It empowers small and midsize businesses to scale their operations, increase sales and improve their bottom line.

Who uses Method?

Small businesses that want to easily manage leads, monitor sales activities and serve their customers with better solutions.

Top features

• Client file storage. It is a contact management app that allows you to manage all your leads and contacts in one place. All the information your team needs is at their fingertips.
• Integration with QuickBooks. Method integrates QuickBooks so firms can create bills and remind users to pay on time.
• Contact Management. The Method Dashboard provides all the apps you need to manage and monitor client relationships.

Pricing

• Free trial available
• Contact Management at $25/month per user billed annually
• Pro at $44/month per user billed annually
• CRM Enterprise at $74/month per user billed annually

Billing software

Harvest

Harvest is a billing accounting software that teams in any sector can use. It’s most useful in conjunction with tools for managing projects that don’t include time tracking. For this reason, it works in tandem with other applications.

With Harvest’s rich functionality features, it’s simple to keep track of time, analyze completed projects for new ideas and get compensated for your efforts. Harvest can seamlessly integrate into your team’s processes thanks to its native apps and interfaces with other popular programs like Asana and Slack. Projects go smoothly and teams are assisted with various visual reports. You can create and track charges from your team’s time and cost data and be paid faster, thanks to built-in e-payment options. Harvest can help your staff make better use of their time.

Who uses Harvest?

Harvest is perfect for client services teams tracking time and expenses for multiple projects. 

Top features

• Monitor time on desktop, mobile and browser. Dedicated apps for all devices will make tracking their time easy for your team members.
• Budgets on track. Harvest automatically updates your budgets as you track time. This allows you to keep your project on target and profitable.
• Streamline invoicing. Harvest’s time tracking and expense papers can be used to create and send accurate bills.
• Maintain your books. Automate the copying of Harvest bills and transactions to QuickBooks Online or Xero.

Pricing

• Harvest Free plan – $0
• Harvest Pro – $12/month per user
  

FreshBooks

FreshBooks cloud-based CPA software allows you to measure your company’s productivity by tracking the time spent on client projects and effectively managing your bank reconciliation and financials. It also allows accountants to track invoices and accurately bill users. FreshBooks is a software for accounting organizations, contractors and self-employed professionals. FreshBooks simplifies small business billing and invoicing. You’ll be amazed at how much time you can spend doing what you enjoy and how quickly you will get paid. Who would’ve thought that invoice software could be so helpful?

Who uses FreshBooks?

FreshBooks is a cloud-based accounting solution designed exclusively for small businesses and accountants, making it a suitable choice for any CPA business. 

Best features

• Online Transactions seamlessly link with FreshBooks. FreshBooks Payments solution allows your customers to pay directly from bills and records each payment automatically in your account. It is fast, simple, secure and seamlessly integrated.
• Create Online Payments with One Click. Accepting credit card payments directly on invoices is as easy as clicking a button. FreshBooks will deposit your money in the correct account after a few simple steps. It’s fast and straightforward, as you would expect.
• Know Your Metrics. You can see where you are without having to contact your accountant. FreshBooks lets you stay informed about your company’s health, make decisions based on insights and know the costs associated with running your business at a glance.

Pricing

• Lite – $8.50/month
• Plus – $15/month
• Premium – $27.50/month
• Select – Contact FreshBooks to get a custom quote

Bonus: Software powerpack for small accounting firms