The price of accounting software can vary significantly, with costs determined by your organization’s size and the capabilities you will need.
Your business might do just fine with a solution that has fundamental features, or you may require something far more sophisticated.
Given these variables, it’s difficult to say precisely how much you might pay for new accounting software. However, by breaking things down by company size, we can give you some sense of the costs.
Small Business Accounting Software
- QuickBooks, Xero, FreshBooks
- 10 users or less (Typical User Count)
- $500–$5,000 (Annual Price)
Mid-Market Accounting Software
- Sage Intacct, NetSuite, FinancialForce
- 11–30 users (Typical User Count)
- $5,000–$150,000 (Annual Price)
Enterprise Accounting Software
- SAP, Oracle
- 30+ users (Typical User Count)
- $150,000+ (Annual Price)
What Do You Get for the Price?
While price is an important consideration, you’ll also want to evaluate the features and capabilities you’ll get for your money. A small business solution may be very cost-effective, but it may also lack key functionality that you need to support your business. If this is the case, your return on a mid-market or enterprise solution may well be worth the price tag.
Small Business Accounting Software
Common capabilities include basic financial and payroll features such as:
- Core financials
- General ledger
- Accounts payable
- Accounts receivable
- Payroll and employee management
- Fixed asset tracking
- Basic inventory accounting
- Basic project accounting features
Other characteristics and considerations:
- Requires little to no IT expertise to install and use it
- Offers limited (if any) configuration capabilities—i.e., what you see is what you get
Mid-Market Accounting Software
Common capabilities include everything you would find in a small business solution, plus advanced features to manage complex business and financial needs:
- Core financials
- General ledger
- Accounts payable
- Accounts receivable
- Purchasing
- Order management
- Cash management
- Reporting and dashboards (including consolidated reporting)
- Time and expense management
- Multi-entity and multi-currency capabilities
- Inventory accounting
- Fixed asset tracking
- Project accounting
- Contract revenue management
- Contract and subscription billing
- Sales and use tax
Other characteristics and considerations:
- Configuration capabilities to accommodate your company’s business processes
- Usually requires an implementation and configuration partner, but requires little to no IT experience to use the software
- Makes integrations possible to allow solution to work with other software systems (if using “best-in-class” rather than “suite” solutions)
If you’re interested in mid-market accounting software, our Sage Intacct Pricing Calculator gives a reliable estimate for this software type based on your business needs.
Enterprise Accounting Software
Common capabilities include everything you would find in a mid-market solution, plus features to handle the financial needs of a complex global organization:
- Payroll and employee management for hundreds of thousands of employees in different countries
- Complex inventory, manufacturing, distribution, contract management, and project billing capabilities
- Extensive and complex business analytics and forecasting functionality
Other characteristics and considerations:
- Flexible to accommodate specialized needs
- Usually programmed to interact with the other systems in use by your business
- Usually requires a dedicated in-house IT specialist to implement and manage
What is Right for My Business?
Keep in mind that many factors influence which solution will best serve your organization’s needs and how much you will pay for a solution.
For more information about what to consider when looking for accounting software for your business, contact us. With extensive experience in implementing accounting solutions for companies of all sizes and levels of complexity, we are here to help you understand your options and make an informed decision.