Accounting

Both run invoices, bank feeds and reports in the cloud, and both send payment reminders. Xero is widely used by UK accountants and connects to hundreds of apps. QuickBooks has a huge accountant ecosystem too, with payroll and time tracking as add-ons. Ask your accountant which one they work in, since sharing the same books saves you fees.

None of the accounting apps here has a free plan: QuickBooks, Xero and Holded are all paid. Stripe has no monthly fee and charges per successful transaction, but it handles payments and invoices rather than your full books. A spreadsheet can carry a new sole trader for a few months. Once you register for VAT, paid software usually costs less than the time you spend on manual returns.

Xero and QuickBooks both send basic payment reminders, which covers many small firms. Chaser goes further, with personalised reminders from your own email address on schedules you set. It syncs with Xero and QuickBooks, so chasing stops the moment an invoice is paid. It pays off when late payment is a monthly problem and you have many open invoices.

Stripe takes card payments, runs subscriptions and sends invoices, then pays out in batches. Your accounting software needs to split each payout into sales and Stripe fees, or your bank feed will not match. Xero and QuickBooks both connect to Stripe for this. Reconcile payouts weekly so a mismatch does not grow into a quarter's worth of guesswork.

Holded is built for Spain, with invoicing, accounting and inventory in one app. It prepares Spain's official tax forms, such as modelo 303, and supports e-invoicing. QuickBooks and Xero focus on the UK and US, so they suit Spanish firms less. Check that any tool you choose meets the Verifactu rules for invoicing software.