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Our in-depth research shows that FreshBooks is the best restaurant accounting software because it offers inventory management and time-tracking across all plans, while maintaining a strong accounts receivable process and reporting tools.
Other accounting services worth considering includes Zoho, for its great support and low prices; and Xero, the top service for budget tracking.
Our researchers tested every feature and ranked every software platform to bring you the best. Due to their work, the reviews below break down all you’ll need to know before taking the next step and checking for the best deals each software platform offers.
In this guide:
| Starting price | Tech.co review score | Pros | Cons | Best Restaurant Accounting Software for: | Try now | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FEATURED PROVIDER  |  |  |  | ||||
| 4.5 | 3.8 | 4.8 | 3.7 | ||||
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| Best for Tracking Budgets | Best Value for Money | Best for Managing Suppliers | Best for Understanding Cashflow | ||||
| Try Xero now | Try FreshBooks | Try Zoho Books | Try Sage today |
Pros
- Intuitive, easy to use interface for beginners
- Time tracking features with invoice compatibility
- 24/7 customer support options for platform help
Cons
- Limited functionality in mobile app
- No forecasting or budgeting features for future analysis
- No multi-currency invoicing available for users
- Lite: $19/month
- Plus: $33/month
- Premium: $60/month
Features
FreshBooks offers the best value for its cost out of all the best accounting software we looked at during our research. Our team of researchers found that FreshBooks offers inventory management features on its lowest plan (Lite), even though most accounting software reserves this for higher priced plans. Plus, that low plan includes a time tracking tool and a granular accounts receivable functionality, contributing to our researchers’ 5/5 scores for both accounts receivable features and software attributes.
FreshBooks lets users on all plans track billable hours and include them in invoices, earning a strong 4.2/5 score for financial reporting tools. However, the service’s lowest plan isn’t perfect because it caps clients at five, restricting its use to businesses with limited clients, or with clients they don’t need to track through their accounting software (clients are unlimited across almost all Xero, Zoho, and Sage plans). If client limits are a concern, Zoho Books is a great alternative option because it has a free plan that allows for more invoicing and clients than the FreshBooks Lite plan.
Another plus is that FreshBooks integrates with top ecommerce platforms, including Squarespace, Shopify, and Bigcommerce. This makes it a smart choice for restaurants that use those platforms for their online presence.
Budgeting and cash-flow projection tools are not included across any of its plans.
Pricing
FreshBooks has three main plans (Lite, Plus, and Premium), as well as an Enterprise plan at a custom quote that you’ll have to contact the company to receive. Each plan has a cap on the number of supported clients, with Premium offering an unlimited number. Lite should be a good fit for many businesses, due to an above-average number of features.
Pros
- Over 1,000 third party integrations available
- Useful client portal for clients to access financial information
- Robust fixed asset tracking functionality with depreciation values
Cons
- Steep learning curve for advanced features like work flows
- Outdated, poorly designed interface with difficult navigation
- Must give one-month notice before cancellation
- Early: $20/month
- Growing: $47/month
- Established: $80/month
Features
Our researchers found that Xero is the only accounting platform to include an easy-to-use budgeting tool with all of its plans, making it the best software for restaurants that prioritize their budgets.
It’s also one of the few choices that provides a feature for recording fixed assets across all its plans, integrating with multiple leading hospitality POS systems, from Square and EPOS Now to Nobly and Revel. If your restaurant has numerous assets to manage, Xero can help.
Xero stands out with onboarding, earning a score of 4.3/5 in our in-depth research because it offers newbies a demo, relevant knowledge base articles, and a video tutorial. In comparison, FreshBooks earns a 0.8/5 in the same category because it only offers some interface sign-posting to point out features. It must be mentioned that Sage does tie Xero in the category because it has its own knowledge base and video tutorial.
Xero’s live support options were more limited, lacking the phone support that FreshBooks and Zoho offer as well as the live chat option available from Zoho and Sage.
Pricing
Xero offers three plans: Early, Growing, and Established. Of these, Early is the only plan with a meaningful cap on core functionality, with a maximum of 20 clients and a user limit of up to five bills per month, putting a severe limit on the accounts payable functionality.
Pros
- Extensive data import/export features built in
- Time tracking tools with billable hours conversion for invoicing
- Highly effective transaction documentation
Cons
- Higher than average transaction fees
- No customer support outside business hours (no weekends)
- Limited third party integrations outside of Zoho
- Standard: $15/month
- Professional: $40/month
- Premium: $60/month
- Elite: $120/month
- Advanced: $240/month
- 14-day free trial
Features
Zoho’s accounting service, Zoho Books, provides a cheaper offering that still offers the most core accounts receivable features. In other words, it’s the lowest cost tool for billing a lot of clients or dealing with a lot of suppliers.
Users can send up to 5,000 invoices per year, all to an unlimited number of clients. Zoho can integrate with multiple payment processing services, so users can choose how to process incoming payments.
With Zoho, users are also able to access project accounting features at a lower cost than most accounting platforms. Accounts receivable is well covered, too, with features for invoicing and managing outstanding payments.
In sharp contrast to FreshBooks, you will only gain access to inventory management tools with Zoho’s most expensive plan. Integrations are limited as well, and document scanning will cost an additional each month.
Pricing
Zoho Books comes with an impressive six plans, ranging in cost from free to $240 per month. We’d recommend starting with Free, and upgrading depending on the specific features you need.
| Price | Users | Inventory management | Track expenses | Multi-currency transactions | Custom reports | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | | | | | | ||
| 1 | 3 | 5 | 10 | 10 | 15 | ||
| | | | | | | ||
| 1,000 expenses | 5,000 expenses | 10,000 expenses | 25,000 expenses | 100,000 expenses | 100,000 expenses | ||
| | | | | | | ||
| | 10 reports | 25 reports | 50 reports | Unlimited | Unlimited |
Read our full Zoho Books review for more details on the benefits and downsides to each of Zoho’s accounting plans.
4. Sage – Best for Understanding Cashflow
Pros
- Easy to use
- Integrates with Microsoft 365
- 30-day free trial
Cons
- App selection is limited
- Additional users cost extra
- Price from: $12/Month
- 30-Day Free Trial
- Deal: 70% off the first 6 mos
Features
Every other service on this list just offers a cashflow statement, but Sage goes farther to give users a cashflow projection tool, so users can be prepared for future income in order to best maximize their profit.
Sage offers a great accounts receivable featureset. And, since it is inexpensive and does not cap the number of clients or invoices even on its lowest plan, Sage is a great accounting solution for a tiny restaurant that aims to scale up.
Restrictions worth noting: Sage doesn’t offer any project accounting functionality, its lowest plan doesn’t let users give their accountant access to the service, and the highest plan is the only one to offer inventory management (that’s worse than FreshBooks, but better than Zoho, which doesn’t offer inventory management at all).
Pricing
Sage keeps things simple with just two price plans: Start, for $10 per month, and Standard, for $25 per month. If inventory management or access for an accountant are important to your business needs, go for Standard, but otherwise Start should work.
| Price | Users | ||
|---|---|---|---|
 | | ||
| Start | Standard | ||
| $12 per month | $23 per month | ||
| 1 | Unlimited |
Best Free Plan – Zoho
Zoho offers the best free plan because it comes with a large 1,000-per-year invoice limit, a client portal, automatic payment reminders, and multi-lingual invoicing. All four restaurant software services on this list have 30-day free trials, but only Zoho has a permanently free plan. All the other providers’ plans start at comparable prices, ranging from $10 to $11 per month. Keep in mind that there is a downside to a free plan: the lack of functionality. The paid plans can ultimately save your business money in the mid- to long run.
Best for Help & Support -Zoho
Zoho Books is also the best offering on this list for help and support options, earning a score of 4/5 from our impartial research team. Zoho provides a knowledge base, a community forum, and live chat support to all users. If you’re on its Advanced plan, you also gain access to 24/7 phone and email support. In contrast, FreshBooks (2.1/5) offers phone and email support, but no live chat or around-the-clock service, while Sage (2.9/5) offers live chat and an above-average onboarding function, but no 24/7 support for phone or email.
Verdict & Next Steps
The best restaurant accounting service is FreshBooks, for its inexpensive inventory management and accounts receivable features, as well as its ecommerce integrations.
However, Zoho does have great accounting software for restaurants as well. It offers stellar support and a permanent free plan, which can help a small operation thrive.
But don’t take our word for it, to see all of the best deals on these top accounting services, take a quick look at our well-researched comparison page:
How We Research and Compare Accounting Software
At Tech.co, we take our impartial research and analysis seriously, so you can have complete confidence that we're giving you the clearest, most useful recommendations.
After conducting an initial investigation to identify the most relevant, popular, and established accounting tools in the market, we conducted further research, including testing six major accounting software platforms.
Based on years of market and user needs research, we've established an accounting software testing methodology that scores these platforms against six main categories, and 25 subcategories - with a total of 1512 areas of investigation being considered overall.
We also put the platforms through their paces with hands-on testing to gain a deeper grasp of their average user experience. We dedicated 57 hours to carrying out 37 user tests, with a total of 555 tasks being completed in total.
Our main testing categories for accounting software are:
- Core accounting features - We check how adept a platform will be at managing accounting tasks, focusing on key bookkeeping features like invoicing, tax preparation, journal entry, time tracking, financial transactions, and payment support.
- Operational efficiency - We determine how capable a system is at ensuring day-to-day processes run seamlessly, paying close attention to third-party integrations, collaboration tools, AI automation, and customization options.
- Financial planning - We assess how capable a system will be at measuring income, profits, and losses. Specifically, we check for the presence and quality of forecasting and budgeting, inventory management, reporting, and compliance tools.
- Help and support - We asses how useful and reliable a platform's support system is, focusing on support options, whether it's 24/7, knowledge center accuracy, as well as cloud backup, and security safeguards.
- Pricing - We compare the overall cost of each platform, taking factors like monthly costs, set-up fees, hidden fees, and free plans into account. We also measure how strict contracts are, and how much it would cost for a business to terminate them early.
- User experience - An overall judgment of how easily users can interact with the platform. We tested each accounting platform and got our team to report how easy they were to use, how they felt when they were using them, and how likely they were to recommend the platform to another business.
When it comes to calculating a product's final score, not all testing areas are weighted evenly, with factors like ‘core accounting features’ and ‘operational efficiency’ being prioritized for small businesses, while sector-specific features are valued more highly for businesses across different industries.
We understand that accounting software is always evolving. That’s why at Tech.co, we have full-time product researchers to re-run this testing process regularly. It’s the only way to ensure our results remain reflective of the present day.
Learn more about our research.
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