It’s that time of year again! Tax season. And just like every year, we need to do our due diligence and report our earnings to the IRS.
This year might be different for you. You might have:
- Launched your health and wellness business
- Earned some extra income as a coach in addition to your standard income
- Made mistakes with taxes last year
… and so many more situations that are a reality for taxpayers.
Note that this is not the place for you to be getting tax advice; if you do need specialized tax advice, get in contact with a CPA who will be able to help you.
However, this is a place to find amazing apps and software that will help you manage your business’s finances, organize your expense documentation, and get all your ducks in a row for tax season.
Here are nine accounting apps and software that will help health and wellness professionals manage their books and make tax season easier.
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For Small Businesses’ Tax – TaxSlayer
TaxSlayer is THE tax preparing software for small businesses for both state and federal taxes. It is equally as complete as some of the better-known tax preparing software we mention below, is truly free, and has paid options as well. We mention TaxSlayer first on this list because it beats the others in the price for self-employed individuals who want premium support—and the price is an important factor when you are starting your business.
TaxSlayer’s self-employed option is best for contractors, 1099ers, side hustlers, and other self-employed situations. This may or may not include LLCs.
The classic tax situations and premium support options are also much cheaper than the competition.
For Many Tax Situations – TurboTax
TurboTax is arguably the best-known tax-preparing software. Many millennials have never used another service for their taxes, much less completed their taxes, because, by the time they started working and having to do taxes, TurboTax was known as the easy, cheap way to do them.
TurboTax continues to be very complete and has optional auditing support services and different service packages for a variety of different tax situations. To do your taxes with TurboTax, you essentially just have to answer a series of questions, and they’ll fill the information into the tax forms for you. It’s helpful because it translates tax jargon into easy-to-understand terms, and it will help you determine whether you can file your taxes using their basic services or if you’ll need specialized self-employed services.
Note that, even though it was relatively easy to file for free with TurboTax several years ago, they’ve gotten good at convincing users to buy their premium services, which are among the most expensive of popular filing services.
One of the benefits of TurboTax is that they are owned by the same company that owns QuickBooks (Intuit), so they often have bundled deals for both.
For Tracking Expenses – Expensify
Expensify is a web-based software designed to help you keep better track of your expenses, whether that means keeping track of your personal and small business expenses or solely your business expenses.
Some key features include an optional approval process so that you can review and approve submitted business expenses before they are entered into your expense account, a multi-currency feature, receipt and reimbursement management, and spend control so that you stay within budget.
Expensify is functional across their website and app, on Android and iOS, and has great automation features.
The main con of Expensify is that it isn’t very intuitive, and it can take a while to understand how to correctly use and make the most of the interface.
Accounting for Very Small Businesses – FreshBooks
FreshBooks offers a comprehensive online-based accounting service designed for sole proprietors and startups—the tax situation of most health and wellness entrepreneurs.
Some of the key features include double-entry accounting, easy user experience, detailed client records, time-tracking tools, and collaborative tools for teams, inventory tracking, and project and proposal support. Another plus is that, if you have iOS, it has automatic mileage tracking to easily record mileage as a business expense.
Some of the setbacks include limited invoice customization, no quarterly tax estimates (a big setback if you offer your services as a freelancer), and some limitations with the mobile app.
In general, however, FreshBooks is a favorite for very small to medium business owners.
For Linking Your Bookkeeping to TurboTax – QuickBooks
QuickBooks, owned by Intuit, the same company that owns TurboTax, is a favorite for accounting and bookkeeping in small to medium businesses.
For health and wellness coaches who are self-employed and use the same account for their personal income and expenses as their business income and expenses, QuickBooks offers an easy way to separate the two.
You can link your bank account to QuickBooks and create rules so that transactions automatically get categorized as either business or personal transactions. If you choose to use TurboTax to file your taxes, you can import QuickBook files so you don’t miss a thing.
The main setback for QuickBooks is that you have to choose your product version wisely. The functionality of self-employed versions of the accounting services offers very different services from the Enterprise version. If you aren’t sure which to choose, we recommend that you get in touch with a sales specialist.
For the Do-It-All Entrepreneur – The Neat Company
Neat is web-based accounting software designed to take hold of your small business finances without the need for a finance department. Health and wellness entrepreneurs need to be doing dozens of things to run their business and want doing the books to take a few minutes, not several hours. Neat makes it possible with digital finance management tools that allow you to save and organize your business documents, transfer them to the accountant, and visualize the financial health of your business.
When you use Neat for your business’s financing, you’ll know that all your documents are organized, making tax season easy.
Some of the setbacks of Neat include difficulties with exporting documents and viewing and saving documents off of the platform, so users recommend saving your documents in a separate file on your computer as a backup.
For On-the-Go Bookkeeping – Sage
Sage Accounting is cloud-based accounting software that gives you access to essential bookkeeping information on the go. Sage specializes in streamlining access to your accounting information when you are out and about—a feature that other apps and software don’t offer.
Sage is 100% online, so there is no program to be installed on your computer. All of the information is inputted into their online platform, and it is viewable on the web or your Android or iPhone.
Sage offers webinars and live online training as well as online support during business hours.
Some of the setbacks of Sage include no payroll options or time tracking, so Sage is a good option if you don’t need payroll or are happy with a separate payroll service.
For Freelance Health and Wellness Professionals – Wave
Wave accounting is an accounting and bookkeeping service designed for freelancers. If you offer your coaching services on a self-employed, side-hustle, or freelance basis, this is a great option for you.
Features include double-entry accounting, excellent invoice and transaction management, an easy-to-use interface, and multi-currency support if you offer services overseas.
Best of all, Wave is FREE. You only need to pay fees for services like payments and payroll services.
Some of the setbacks of Wave include limited mobile app functionality, no time tracking, no discount options, and receipts can only be generated for Android.
For Businesses That Offer Several Services and Products – Zoho Books
Zoho Books is a cloud-based accounting service designed for small businesses and offers several comprehensive features, including sales and purchases, time and project tracking, and, if you offer products, inventory management. Zoho Books also offers more help and support tools than many of the competitors.
Some of the cons of Zoho Books include an integrated payroll feature limited to only three states: Texas, New York, and California. Time tracking must also be tied to projects that are integrated into the app.
Price-wise Zoho Books is also very competitive, making it a great option for budget-conscious health and wellness entrepreneurs.
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