5 Best Billing/Payment Software
Let's be honest: Sound billing software is more than sending reoccurring invoices or scheduling a payment reminder. Finance professionals must juggle compatibility with multiple payment gateways, gauge the payment processing time, evaluate cash flow forecasting visualizations, review the customizable invoices options, and pursue expense tracking features.
It isn't a walk in the park to find invoicing software that has everything your business could never need within your budget limitations.
So, to make things easier, we evaluated a number of the most popular billing software in the market today. From online invoicing to subscription billing and pro accounting features—we reviewed them all. And out of the dozens of excellent options, we narrowed our list to the top 5 choices for billing software.
5 Best Billing Software
First off, let's be clear about every entry on this list: They all have superb customer service, a flexible platform, access to integrations, and competitive pricing. In breaking down each of our top picks for the best billing software of 2022, we'll be digging into their robust features.
1. Xero
Best for Small Business
The small business owner with a limited team looking for professional invoicing software would benefit most from Xero. As a one-stop-shop for your accounting needs, Xero has an extensive list of features, including:
- Paying bills
- Claiming expenses
- Bank transaction visibility
- Electronic payments
- Track projects
- Payroll
- Bank reconciliation
- Contact management
- Inventory
- Purchase orders
- Invoicing
- Taxes
- Analytics
- Fixed asset management
Yeah, it's a pretty long list. But as you can see, Xero makes it easy to do all your accounting in one place. Furthermore, its ability to connect with popular payment options, including Stripe's payment gateway, makes it a cinch to collect payments.
Plus, the website and mobile app are intuitive and reasonably non-technical, making it easy to use for both seasoned accounting professionals and business owners ready to send their first invoice.
Furthermore, employees can use it as well. Xero provides fast and efficient data capture for employees looking to submit expense reports. Employees just need to download the app, log in, and take a photo of their receipt. Xero logs all the essential information into their app. They can also track their time on projects, making it easier for the AP team to process timesheets.
Xero offers customized plans with different features, but for the average business owner, the $35 a month plan offers the biggest bang for their buck. And as an organization grows, the next tier is only $12 more.
Of course, Xero has another big win under its belt—the company is certified carbon neutral and invests in minimizing its carbon footprint. For those looking for a green alternative to most accounting software, Xero is it.
2. Sage Intacct
Best for Medium-Sized Business
Sage Intacct isn't just accounting software—it's a full-scale ERP system. When paired with additional departmental integrations, Sage Intacct offers an unprecedented window into your cash flow. But even on its own, it's a powerful and robust system that provides the tool for AP and AR teams to do more while doing less.
To give you an idea of the width of features available, here are some of the ways medium-sized businesses benefit from the platform:
- Automation and tracking of payments to vendors
- Cash flow management and forecasting
- Expense management
- Electronic tax filing
- Syronizied ledgers and reconciliations
- Customized accounting rules
- Custom invoice creation
- Subscription billing
- Auto billing
- Customer reminders
- Bank reconciliation
- Compliance
- Inventory management
- Payroll
- Multiple charts of accounts
- Multidimensial reporting
As you can see, Sage Intacct is a significant upgrade from free or small-business-oriented accounting software. Sage Intacct is also easy to navigate and, as a cloud-based platform, can be accessed anywhere in the world. This means your team can work remotely, sending invoices from the comfort of home or the nearby coffee shop.
Most users report that they especially love the payment processing, reporting, and timesheet features.
3. FinancialForce
Best for SalesForce users and Tech companies
Created by SalesForce, FinancialForce is an ERP geared towards mid-sized companies. This means for users of Salesforce; this ERP is incredibly intuitive and easy to use.
FinancialForce was built to be easy to navigate, highly customizable, and scalable, with the ability to digest and report on vast amounts of data. For that reason, computer, IT, and software companies tend to enjoy the benefits of this data-driven software.
But what exactly does it offer accountants? Here's a quick preview of its core features:
- Salary and benefits management
- Direct deposit files
- Custom reporting
- Multi-currency and Multi-division support
- Global financial support
- Professional invoicing
- Payment reminder options
- Primary and secondary ledgers
- Bank reconciliations
- Electronic tax filing
- Time tracking
- Inventory tracking
- Automated reordering
- Pricing
- Credit card processing
- Manufacturing modules
As you can guess, FinancialForce isn't just a billing software—it also touches on sales, recurring orders, pricing, benefits, and manufacturing. But all of these items also affect AP/AR operations, so this billing software provides greater transparency and visibility into the entire business. And with its multi-currency, multi-division support, it's easy to see how this platform also works well with cross-border payments and international business.
4. NetSuite
Best for Enterprise Businesses
NetSuite Credit Card Processing has been around for a good while and, as a result, has tends of thousands of customers worldwide. Outside of its ERP, which we'll be discussing here, NetSuite offers a range of other business-oriented products in HR, omnichannel commerce, and more. And because it's such an established cloud-based software, the NetSuite ERP is compatible with numerous integrations, making it even easier to customize and automate.
Some of the features that set NetSuite apart from other billing software include:
- Automated invoice processing
- Customer collection features
- Customer receipts
- Budget control
- Subledger reconciliations
- Asset management
- Cash management
- Cost capture
- Project costing
- Real-time financial reporting
- Customer invoicing
- Customer contract compliance
- Business intelligence capabilities
- Invoice automated matching
- Sourcing and supplier analysis
- Spend compliance
- Multi-tier supply chain planning
- Manufacturing costs
- Ledger and currency localization
- Journals and reconciliations
- Intercompany accounting
- Global finance support
To be honest, these are just a few of the features available in the NetSuite accounting software. As one of the best invoicing software around, the Netsuite ERP makes it easy to set up recurring payments and recurring invoices, schedule a payment reminder, or create a custom invoice. NetSuite is ideal for cross-border payments, international business, and handling a complex customer and vendor base.
5. WooCommerce
Best for eCommerce
Many of the options we discuss focus on B2B transactions and billing. WooCommerce is one of those billing platforms that can provide both B2C and B2B support. And it was developed as a plugin for WordPress. How consquential is that for B2B? Very.
About 62% of the fastest-growing sites use WordPress, and well over 30% of all websites are built on this platform. This makes WooCommerce incredibly accessible and easy to use for most businesses working with a storefront.
You can easily sell services or products through the plugin, and while it's not entirely an accounting app, it does wonder for payments. For Accounts Receivable, in particular, WooCommerce offers:
- Accurate sales reporting
- Automatic payment processing
- payment gateway integration
- Sales tax management
- ERP integration
- Invoice generation
- Inventory and product management
The best part about WooCommerce is not only can you use an extension to sync its data with every ERP on this list, but you can find other free and paid plugins to improve the accounting experience. Considering the base cost of WooCommerce is free and then a small monthly fee for a plan upgrade, it's a steal for businesses dabbling in self-serve product storefronts and general B2C companies.
Do More with Paystand
What makes the best accounting software the actual best? It's hard to say. But every ERP and billing software can be enhanced, automated, and further customized to meet your business's needs.
At Paystand, we specialize in making your billing software even better, with end-to-end automated invoicing features and seamless payment options. Think Venmo, but for business.
We focus on making the best software even better from automated bank-to-bank transfers, transforming costly credit card processing fees into convenience fees, and offering your customers an intuitive payment experience. And clients see results—including 60% less DSO and saving over 50% in cost receivables.
Interested in learning more about finance automation software? Get your free copy of our ebook, 10 Benefits of an Accounts Receivable Platform, today.
