QuickBooks Self-Employed is a popular accounting program for managing business income and expenses, creating invoices on the fly, and tracking mileage. We recommend it for freelancers and other self-employed individuals who need basic bookkeeping and want to prepare their own tax returns. Also, get to know QuickBooks Self Employed Pricing
QuickBooks Self-Employed Is Good For
- Freelancers that need to track profit and expenses and file federal tax returns: With QuickBooks Self-Employed, you can categorize expenses and bill customers if needed. It also offers assisted tax filing features to help you file your federal and state tax returns easily. For other popular accounting options, read our guide to the best accounting software for freelancers.
- Freelancers that need a mobile bookkeeping app: QuickBooks Self-Employed has its own mobile app that lets you create and send invoices, track business mileage, scan receipts, and categorize transactions imported from bank feeds. QuickBooks Self-Employed is our top pick for freelancers in our list of the best mobile accounting apps.
- Businesses looking for easy-to-use software: QuickBooks Self-Employed’s uncluttered dashboard and intuitive navigation allow you to set up and use your account quickly.
- Businesses that need to track mileage: If driving is part of your work or business, you can use QuickBooks Self-Employed to track business mileage automatically as well as potential tax deductions.
QuickBooks Self-Employed Is Not a Good Fit For
- Growing businesses: QuickBooks Self-Employed is built primarily for freelancers and independent contractors. Since it’s a single-entry accounting system, it cannot be rolled over to a double-entry accounting system, such as QuickBooks Online. If you envision your business growing in the near future, you could start with the QuickBooks Online Essentials plan, which offers a more scalable option and the ability to add users. To determine the best option for you, check out our QuickBooks Online comparison.
- Frequent invoicing: QuickBooks Self-Employed doesn’t store customer, product, or service information, so you have to add the recipient and sales information every time you create an invoice. If you need a powerful invoicing solution, check out our review of the best invoicing software. We ranked QuickBooks Online best overall because of its unique ability to calculate the sales tax rate automatically to apply to your invoice based on the location of your customer.
- Entrepreneurs with more than one company: QuickBooks Self-Employed doesn’t allow for multiple companies, so a better option would be Wave, which we ranked as one of the best multi-company accounting software programs. Wave has the added benefit of being free forever.
- Companies with many employees: QuickBooks Self-Employed has no built-in or integrated payroll processing system. If you need to pay employees, consider Sunrise, which seamlessly integrates with Gusto.
