Quickbooks vs Freshbooks vs Wave

[Rylan Kean]

A little background first... 

I just opened an company with my partner in Nashville, we will be a partnership LLC. This is no longer a side hustle, but rather a full time career with a partner who has been doing this for several years. I am bringing the organization and project management pieces to the table, but I have not been self employed in many years. Our company is involved in rehabs, rentals, wholesaling, and retail real estate. It is also important that the software is scaleable as we have already done 7-12 projects at a time with expected exponential growth as I come on board full time. During my research and work on setting up the accounting side of the business I have come across a few platforms that I want to get some expertise from the BP group on. Yes, I already took a search into the forums, I would like to note searching for specific items can sometimes be a challenge (hopefully they fix that soon).

Software goals:

- track expenses w. mileage tracker

- work well with an accountant (already selected and uses quickbooks, but ok with us using something else). 

- mobile and multiple users

- project management 

- ability to track multiple projects 

- potential employees in near future

- tracking contractors 

So from what I can see the leaders are Quickbooks, Freshbooks, and Wave. What is your favorite and why? PS. Wave is free so I am having a hard time walking away from that one. 

[Gregory Storm]

Originally posted by @Rylan Kean:

A little background first... 

I just opened an company with my partner in Nashville, we will be a partnership LLC. This is no longer a side hustle, but rather a full time career with a partner who has been doing this for several years. I am bringing the organization and project management pieces to the table, but I have not been self employed in many years. Our company is involved in rehabs, rentals, wholesaling, and retail real estate. It is also important that the software is scaleable as we have already done 7-12 projects at a time with expected exponential growth as I come on board full time. During my research and work on setting up the accounting side of the business I have come across a few platforms that I want to get some expertise from the BP group on. Yes, I already took a search into the forums, I would like to note searching for specific items can sometimes be a challenge (hopefully they fix that soon).

Software goals:

- track expenses w. mileage tracker

- work well with an accountant (already selected and uses quickbooks, but ok with us using something else). 

- mobile and multiple users

- project management 

- ability to track multiple projects 

- potential employees in near future

- tracking contractors 

So from what I can see the leaders are Quickbooks, Freshbooks, and Wave. What is your favorite and why? PS. Wave is free so I am having a hard time walking away from that one. 

I too am looking for accounting software to get started on.  I've read most of the BP threads on the topic as well as software reviews on Amazon and it's clear that Quickbooks as a business has a lot of pissed off users.  People choose Quickbooks because Quickbooks has the largest market share and not because it's the best software.  The fact that you either have the buy a new version of the desktop software every year or be locked into high increasing monthly fees for the online version is worth looking for other options.

Prior to your post I was comparing Xero and Quickbooks and looking for better solutions here https://www.capterra.com/construction-accounting-s...

I hadn't heard of Wave before your post, but after some research and going through https://www.waveapps.com/wave-accounting-vs-quickb..., I think I'm going to give Wave a try.  They even have quick and easy ways to move to Wave from Quickbooks, Freshbooks, etc., but since I'm just getting set up, I don't have to worry about importing from a different program.