The 7 Best Accounting Apps for Independent Contractors in 2023

Unlike W-2 employees, businesses work with independent contractors for a defined period of time, outlined by a written independent contractor agreement. A sample independent contractor agreement would include an effective date, project expectations, and an expected timeline. If an employee is misclassified as an independent contractor, you could be subject to costly fines and legal fees. As a new small business owner, you may find yourself hiring both full-time employees and independent contractors to help you achieve your business goals. If you already employ both types of workers, then you have a serious responsibility to understand the financial, legal, and tax consequences of each. From now on, every time you enter an expense or pay a check to your independent contractors, map those transactions to this new Expense account.

If you have questions about any of the information requested, or about other elements of QuickBooks Online that are puzzling you, please contact ourOutsourced Accounting team. The new record will now appear in the Customers list and will be available to select from the drop-down list in transactions. If you want to set up such a record, enter the job name and click in the box next to Is sub-customer. Two fields will open below that allow you to select the parent customer and to indicate the sub-customer’s billing status. The remainder of the fields will automatically fill in with the parent customer’s contact information. QuickBooks Online lets you “nest” related records under the “parent” record. This can be an actual customer, but many people use it to document jobs they’re doing for the customer.

File taxes

It is not the vendor or bank advertiser’s responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered. The QuickBooks Self-Employed app is free to download from the App Store or Google Play.

• Elite adds white-glove on-boarding, a guarantee against mistakes, 24/7 support, and an HR advisor.
• However, QuickBooks Self-Employed does have its drawbacks.
• There are a number of different options that QuickBooks offers other than QuickBooks Self-Employed, which we will get into later.
• You have to manually calculate any sales taxes due and, worse, include them as line items.
• When you start out, most of the pages will have no data to show, but FreshBooks has scribbled tips everywhere to show you what will happen on each page.
• Since a 1099 worker assumes the full self-employment tax, they will usually pay quarterly estimated tax payments.

Growing a self-employed business with branded invoice templates. Below, you’ll find an overview of three alternative solutions that could be a better fit for your business. We’ll email you 1-3 times per week—and never share your information.

What is the difference between an independent contractor and a self-employed worker?

You can even have the rule apply to past transactions, which is unusual in this class of applications. New since last year is the ability to create your own Tags and assign them to transactions.

• Contractors are on-demand or self-employed and do work for you but are not your official employees.
• We spend dozens of hours researching and testing apps, using each app as it’s intended to be used and evaluating it against the criteria we set for the category.
• All financial products, shopping products and services are presented without warranty.
• These six seem sufficient considering the scope of the site, though GoDaddy Bookkeeping offers more reports beyond taxes, as well as a Schedule C Worksheet.

One difference is the EIN (employee’s Identification Number) which is entered on the Business ID line. If not, you can add it later but remember to do so before it’s time to file. Every pay period, payroll taxes are deducted from an employee’s gross pay. Employees usually pay half of their payroll taxes out of each paycheck, while their employer pays the other half. They also include a combination of federal, state, and local tax rates that can change from year to year. Typically, contractors are responsible for paying all of their own taxes and benefits. As a small business owner, you are not responsible for contractor payroll tax deductions.

Do you need to collect backup withholding from an independent contractor?

There are no annual contracts with any of the quickbooks self employeds, so you can cancel your subscription at any time. There is a free 30-day trial you can use to test the waters before buying. Intuit is almost always offering a discount on its products, so check out the pricing page to ensure you get the most bang for your buck.

Katey says https://www.bookstime.com/ Time also helps her clients succeed by saving them time and money, so they can focus on nurturing and growing their businesses instead. Managing non-billable hours is just as important as billable time. Tracking everything they do to get the job done and keep the business running means freelancers and contractors can quantify their true costs. E-filing your 1099s does not replace the IRS requirement of providing 1099s to your contractors or vendors. If you are using the Intuit 1099 E-File Service, you can download and email your 1099 forms to contractors. W-2 employees are typically salaried employees and don’t own their own business. They have an obligation toward your company and acting in its best interest.

Pros and Cons of Intuit QuickBooks Self Employed

If you like the format, watch the 15-minute presentation and follow up with your questions; if you can’t make it, you can also see the recorded version. The user interface is simple and appealing, without a lot of sparkle or frills. Creating invoices or other documents follows a step-by-step process, breaking down the big tasks into smaller ones, which should feel more organized than with many other apps. I could tell you about how I migrated my whole Google Docs invoice stack to Wave in a “fun” hour, but it’s time to stop fanboying.

However, in order to use the app, you must have a paid subscription to QuickBooks Self-Employed software. QuickBooks Self-Employed doesn’t have multiple tiers that you can grow into. Instead, when you outgrow the service you need to switch solutions. Doing so can be complicated even if you stay within the QuickBooks universe. You may need to manually move your data by exporting, then importing data into your new QuickBooks account.