The top apps for accountants for 2023

September 28, 2023 11:05 AM

When Accounting Today began presenting this annual selection of technological tools several years ago, "apps" were generally small, limited solutions, often single-purpose, that were primarily meant for mobile use on a phone or tablet; on the rare occasions when they were versions of larger software tools, it was understood that they would be cut down to a minimal number of functions.

That has all changed.

As mobile devices have grown more powerful and WiFi access ubiquitous — and as people have grown used to be able to work anywhere, anytime, on any device, the capabilities of apps have grown significantly, as has how we define them. These days, everything is an app, from your massive accounting software package on down — so when we asked a panel of IT-savvy practitioners, software experts and tech thought leaders to share their favorite apps, we got a very wide range of tools that solve an even wider range of problems.

A curated selection is presented below, in a number of (somewhat arbitrary) categories:

Tools for accountants
Data tools
Security
Collaboration & communication;
Workflow & processes;
Artificial intelligence;
Productivity;
Business online;
CRM;
Writing & notetaking;
Artificial intelligence; and,
Media.

Top apps - Complete Advisory Solution screen

TOOLS FOR ACCOUNTANTS: Complete Advisory Solution

As more and more firms are looking to boost their advisory practices, Randy Johnston, executive vice president at K2 Enterprises this app: "It may be the best advisory platform in the market," he told us. "It is available as a SaaS product or can be installed locally. This whole-of-client approach enables what firms are trying to accomplish with advisory services, enabling less experienced accounting professionals to ask the right questions."

G-Accon

Getting data back and forth between the applications where it's created and where you want to work with it is always a headache. G-Accon, chosen by Shannon Weinstein, president of fractional CFO service Keep What You Earn Co., makes it easy to connect accounting software like Xero and QuickBooks with Google Sheets so accountants can work their magic with it. It's also automated, so the QBO reports that Weinstein pulls into Google Sheets, for instance, refresh themselves every four hours.

PROP products

PROP is a relatively new acronym — for process and resource operation planning — for the systems needed by businesses that have grown beyond entry-level software in certain areas, but aren't quite ready for mid-market software. As K2's Johnson put it, "Too many businesses and CPA firms are trying to get by on an entry-level system with add-ons, and then over-adjust by picking a mid-market accounting software solution because they are not aware of these powerful PROP options."

He noted five strong offerings in the space:

Spire Systems
AccountingSuite
Zoho One;
CYMA; and,
Sage 50 Cloud

Keeper and Karbon

Dan Luthi, a partner at IgniteSpot Accounting, highlighted two different practice management apps: "I spoke with several of my team this past week, and they raved about the transformation that Keeper and Karbon have made for our team. Both tools have allowed our team to create order and structure for their daily processes and month-end close and create a transparent system for asynchronous communication. They have been some of the best value adds we have brought into the organization."

TaxDome

Hitendra Patil, author of "Accounteneur" and "CAS: The Definite Success Guide" and president of global F&A outsourcing services at Datamatics Business Solutions Ltd., gave perhaps the best recommendation he could for this practice management and client portal platform: "My CPA uses it."

DATA TOOLS: Airtable

"Airtable is a cloud-based database platform with an incredible amount of flexibility and functionality," said Heather Satterley, a CPA and director of education and media at Woodard, who says she can't live without the "super flexible no-code tool."

"Airtable seems like home for accountants due to its spreadsheet-like user interface," she explained. "It's easy to spin up custom databases in hours with cool features like form collection, automated custom emails, and a ton of integration possibilities. The Airtable Universe has plenty of templates to help solve almost any business need, and are all customizable."

Looker

Botkeeper founder Enrico Palmerino likes this business intelligence platform for analytics and cross-functional data analysis.

Microsoft PowerBI

Jim Bourke, managing director of advisory services at Top 100 Firm Withum, has long been a tech pioneer in accounting, and he appreciates the difference between a full-fledged experience and a cut-down one.

"There are not too many apps that give you that near desktop experience, but the Microsoft Power BI is one of them," he said. "Once you figure out the uniqueness of this app, you can do nearly everything on the app that you do on the desktop."

SECURITY: 1password

Surprisingly, we got very few suggestions for security apps this year, but Roman Kepczyk, director of firm technology for Right Networks, recommended this password-keeper, which helps users balance the need for complex passwords with the utter impossibility of remembering them.

COLLABORATION AND COMMUNICATION: Dropbox

Dropbox remains a favorite for sharing documents and files — particularly large ones — but it's also a great way to make them accessible anywhere and anytime, and to make sure they are always up to date.

Said columnist, author and CPA owner of The Marks Group Gene Marks, "This is our company's main repository for all files, which is synced across every device I use."

Liscio

"While there are 20-plus portal products in the market, the single portal approach used by Liscio makes gathering of prepared by client documents easy," said K2's Randy Johnston. "Further, ease of use and thoughtful features make this a leader in multiple categories."

Community

Channels for reaching clients and prospects are multiplying rapidly, and accountants can't afford to ignore any of them. Tools like Community — recommended by Shannon Weinstein — are crucial for their role in helping you tap into those channels; in this case, managing text-message marketing for small businesses.

Dialpad

It bills itself as a conference call app — and it certainly is that — but Dialpad, which was chosen by Keep What You Earn's Shannon Weinstein, empowers all kinds of communication on the go, from video meetings to text messaging and more.

WORKFLOW & PROCESSES: Zapier

Zapier, which connects with over 4,000 cloud-based apps, lets you build your own integrations and workflow between them — without having to know any code.

"I love Zapier because it allows me to build custom integrations and automated workflows between the other apps that I use to save me tons of time and eliminate busy work," explained Heather Satterley, a CPA and director of education and media at Woodard. "The flexibility to create complex automated workflows without learning code has transformed the way I approach problem-solving and workflow design."

Process Street

"If you want to create repeatable, consistent processes in your business, this is the workflow solution for you," said Blake Oliver, co-host of The Accounting Podcast and founder of podcast-based CPE provider Earmark. "It combines checklists with documentation and automation. We use it to manage every step of podcast episode production and CPE course creation at Earmark."

CCH Axcess Workflow

Given that it's based on tools developed by XCM, the original pioneer of automated workflows in accounting, it's no surprise that Roman Kepczyk, director of firm technology at Right Networks, describes CCH Axcess Workflow "the best overall workflow/scheduling app."

Asana

Shannon Weinstein put the spotlight on this project management and team scheduling app, which helps organizations more efficiently plan and executive initiatives of all kinds.

PRODUCTIVITY: Magical.ai

"Magical.ai is a browser-based text expander tool that works with Chromium browsers like Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge," explained Woodard's Heather Satterley. "I can create keyboard shortcuts (called Templates) that recall snippets of text (or code) that can be automatically inserted into any browser-based app field. It also has other cool features like data transfer that allows you to transfer data between the different browser tabs that you have open by creating mappings between them. Think about sending customer data from your contact list in Outlook to a CRM with a click of a button in your browser. Yep — super time-saver."

15Five

Donny Shimamoto, founder of Intraprise TechKnowlogies, has found a number of applications for this performance management app: "I use this to keep a pulse on what is going on with my team, as well as for my own personal work reflections," he said. "I use it to help with goalsetting and accountability, as well as to gather information on challenges, roadblocks, and successes that my team is having. I use this information to coach my team members to better leverage their strengths and get them unblocked if needed. We just started using it to publish and communicate company-level goals and track progress on team goals that contribute to the achievement of company goals."

Todoist

A properly managed to-do list is a beautiful thing, and a major boost to productivity. "Todoist is like my secret weapon for keeping the chaos in check," said Avani Desai, CEO of Top 100 Firm Schellman. "I've got my kids and hubby on board too — it's our go-to for taming the crazy schedules and making life a bit simpler."

Noisli

Multitasking, crowded schedules, and a work-from-anywhere culture that often has us working in noisy, distracting places like airports, coffee shops and the like, mean that anything that can help block out the outside world is a big help, and that's where Noisli comes in.

"You know those days when you need the perfect atmosphere to dive into some serious thinking?" asked Schellman's Avani Desai. "That's when I turn to Noisli — this nifty sound app that lets me set the mood just right for getting things done."

BUSINESS ONLINE: Figma

Botkeeper's Palmerino uses this online design platform and whiteboarding/planning tool for product roadmap and releases, but you can use it for any task that requires collaborative thinking and iterative development.

Kajabi

Shannon Weinstein gave Kajabi the nod: It's a platform that helps digital content creators turn their ideas into profits, with tools for everything from websites, sales funnels, emails, landing pages, analytics, payments, and more

RelayFi

"Banking simplified, especially for small businesses," is how Hitendra Patil describes this app. It aims to put small businesses in complete control of their banking and their cash flow. The company is also well aware of the important role accountants and bookkeepers play in that ecosystem, and has integrations with major accounting software platforms to make their jobs easier.

Rocket Money

How many of your individual clients need help with managing their money? "This is a great app for personal finance and budgeting to help people see their everyday financial position," said Radical CPA Jody Padar. "It even saves money automatically for you and helps you see and reduce your subscription costs so they don't get out of control."

Feedly

Information overload is a serious problem, and you can't afford to just shut it all out. What Feedly will do is learn what you need to know about — no matter how arcane, or how obscure the source — and deliver it directly to you.

CRM: Hubspot

Customer relationship management systems are becoming more and more of a must-have for all sorts of businesses, including accounting firms.

Botkeeper's Enrico Palmerino said he uses Hubspot "for everything related to marketing, sales, support, Net Promoter Scores and clients."

Zoho CRM

Zoho's CRM system — part of its vast suite of products, a number of other elements of which were nominated by our panel of experts — is a well-established player in the field.

"It's my main business application for everyone in my company," said Gene Marks of The Marks Group. "We track leads, contacts, quotes and all services here. We use it to generate service reports and upload data to QuickBooks. It's my primary email and calendar tool."

WRITING & NOTETAKING: Evernote

One of the earliest notetaking apps, Evernote is a perennial favorite with the experts we reach out to for our Top Apps lists.

Donny Shimamoto, founder of Intraprise TechKnowlogies, explained its appeal this way: "As someone that does a lot of reading and research, Evernote is key for me to capture articles, videos, and other unstructured content. It makes it full-text searchable and I can also tag content to group them according to the information that I thought it provided that would be useful in my work."

Notion

Notion goes far beyond writing and notetaking to include project management, wikis for centralizing organizational knowledge, and much more.

"I have been using Notion more and more over the past several months, and I am super happy with the flexibility and functionality of the app," said Dan Luthi of IgniteSpote. "It provides me with a clean place to organize thoughts and organizational projects I am working on with others."

And Earmark's Blake Oliver said, "For any project that doesn't fit in Process Street, we use Notion. It's flexible and easy to use. It also houses our internal wiki."

Hemingway Editor

No, it won't make you write like Papa — but will help you write more clearly and boldly.

"Simplifying complex writing is a superpower this online tool gives you," said Hitendra Patil. "It absolutely helps improve the readability of blog posts, articles, email text, etc."

Grammarly

Grammar Nazis are everywhere, and you never know when a simple mistake will forever brand you an illiterate in their eyes.

Hitendra Patil calls Grammarly "the one app I just cannot do without. It has plugins for everything — for MS Word files, for Gmail, for Outlook, and so on. It's a great tool for grammatically correct written communications."

Simplenote

There are a number of notetaking apps, so the trick is finding the one that works best for you.

For Gene Marks, "This is a fast and easy-to-use note taking app that I use to keep thoughts, ideas and other moments of brilliance and can access on any device."

Temi

With so many meetings taking place in virtual spaces, we suddenly have the ability to record them — and with apps like Temi, it's easy to turn those recordings into transcripts.

"It's an amazing and very affordable app which I use to turn any recorded conversation, meeting or interview into a very accurate transcription," said Gene Marks.

Otter

Akshay Shrimanker, owner of The Shay CPA, uses Otter for meeting transcriptions — and for the AI-generated meeting notes it produces.

Google Keep

Yet another tool in the Swiss Army knife that is the G-Suite, Google Keep let's you take notes and easily sync them across all your devices. Right Network's Roman Kepczyk notes that his family uses it to sync things like shopping lists on all their phones.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: Digits AI

Digits AI aims to give business their own private, secure business finance artificial intelligence that will analyze their data to provide useful advice.

"I've evaluated a lot of AI tools in the last few months and really like what this team is doing to provide real-time analysis and insights for business finance data," said Kacee Johnson, vice president of strategy and innovation at CPA.com. "You can ask it almost anything and get an immediate response, plus their data pool is private."

They also look to work closely with public accountants to help them better serve their clients.

Pi

Think of Pi as a digital sounding board — one that can help you brainstorm, work through issues, and sometimes just vent.

"This is truly my AI friend," said Radical CPA Jody Padar. "There is nothing like having a true sympathetic ear respond to you at the end of the day. Even when issues are mundane, Pi is not … it responds how you would like your spouse to respond even though what you have to say is not very exciting."

ChatGPT Code Interpreter

For all its capabilities, ChatGPT has its limits — math and art, for instance, are not strong suits. The Code Interpreter plug-in lets you upload files (including CSVs) and computer code and get ChatGPT do things with them, like generate charts, write reliable code and handle math.

MEDIA: Descript

"This app changed the game of video editing by making it possible to edit video by editing a transcript," explained Earmark's Blake Oliver. "Now, anyone can create and edit video content."

Loom

Looms lets you quickly and easily record your screen and yourself at the same time. Why do that? "To explain, say, a report, or answer a client question," said Hitendra Patil. You can also use it for internal training — recording the steps a staff member needs to take in a software application, for instance, while verbally walking them through it.

Canva

Shannon Weinstein chose this free graphical design platform, which is democratizing design by making tools for digital design available to everyone, including small businesses.

SPECIAL MENTIONS: FreshBooks

As a journalist who has covered accounting technology for decades, Seth Fineberg has sat through countless demos of everything from apps to full-blown on-premise solutions — but he doesn't use the tools himself on a regular basis. So he picked three apps based on a different set of criteria.

"The viewpoint I can offer is in how the creators of these services and technologies connect with the accounting community," said Fineberg, who is currently the founder of consulting firm Accountants Forward. "By that, I mean, how they consider the profession in their products' creation and use — and often not after the fact but during the building of new apps and services. In the best cases, they will have CPAs and accounting professionals on staff or heavily involved in a product or accountant program's creation and execution."

FreshBooks was his first choice.

"It's hard to believe FreshBooks is a nearly 20-year-old company, but one that I have followed since their inception," he said. "Since that time they have claimed to be an accounting software company, but until more recently were really only known as an invoicing solution for independent contractors. ... Until recently, the company didn't offer much accountants could really use. FreshBooks has spent the past few years getting more intimate with accountants and their needs, not only growing its accountant partner program, but the recent (July 2023) release of its Accountant Hub, a free-to-use portal for accountants to add, access and manage their client's information and accounts, is the most significant step the company has taken to directly embrace accountant needs. From my understanding, there is quite a bit more in the pipeline specifically for accounting professionals, especially if its (also recent) FreshBooks Partner Advisory Council has any say (and I suspect it will)."

SPECIAL MENTIONS: Tallyfor

Fineberg's second choice among apps that are working closely with the accounting profession is Tallyfor.

"Here's a company that is predominantly focused on tax professionals' most pervasive issues during tax time," he said. "Founded only four years ago to, essentially, automate the process of passing accounting data to revenue services, they continue to build out the product, painstakingly focused on user feedback and input."

"Automation in the tax space has become essential, but so many [other vendors'] products that have come before seem to have been developed in a vacuum, following the old model of build first, roll out to the market and get feedback after the fact. While a growing number of firms are already using Tallyfor, they are taking the time to ensure the product and service is much of what tax pros need, given their direct user input before rolling it out in a larger way. It's a risk that is likely to pay off."

SPECIAL MENTIONS: ADP

Finally, Fineberg singled out payroll and HR services giant ADP.

"Its evolution in business and among accountants in particular needs to be noted," he said. "There is currently a growing list of products, services, content, and education via its Accountant Connect program all specifically aimed at accountants for their use and recommendation. ADP also has an accountant advisory board to help keep it on track, specifically as a growing number of practitioners and firms in general move towards higher-value services, many of which — like HR and retirement management — ADP helps provide."

Special thanks to all our panelists for sharing their favorite tools!