Pros & Cons
-
- Competitive price
- Attractive, easy-to-use interface
- Multiple support options
- Smart blend of basic accounting tools
- Terrific mobile apps
-
- No inventory or time tracking
- Bill and expense management features aren't robust
- Minimal fields in contact and product records
Patriot Software Accounting Specs
| Document Management | |
| Double Entry | |
| Live Support | |
| Mobile Access | |
| Payroll | |
| Training Available |
The affordable Patriot Software Accounting service is designed for non-accountants and small businesses that require competent, user-friendly financial management tools. Specifically, the accounting app supports contact and product records, reports, some sales forms, and transaction and bill tracking. We especially appreciate its plentiful help resources and attractive design. The latest version of the app offers improvements to contractor portals, payroll integration, and the setup process. That said, Patriot Software Accounting doesn't delve as deeply into certain areas as its rivals and lacks features such as inventory management and time tracking. Our Editors' Choice winners for the category are FreshBooks, QuickBooks Online, and Wave, respectively, for service-based businesses, companies that sell products and services, and sole proprietors who don't need payroll.
Pricing: A Good Value
The Basic version of Patriot Software Accounting ($20 per month, with unlimited users) lacks certain tools, including estimates, payment reminders, recurring invoices, and user permissions. The Premium version I reviewed ($30 per month) has all those features. Patriot offers a 30-day trial and a demo account for both plans, which are often available at a discounted rate. The integration with Patriot Software Payroll works more seamlessly than ever.
Patriot Software offers a bookkeeping service staffed by financial experts that helps you with the setup process and does all of the background accounting tasks for you. Pricing depends on your company's revenue level, starting at $0 and increasing to $10,000. You will pay a one-time onboarding fee of $100 per month for the first month of historical data and $100 per month thereafter. The fees don't include your monthly $30 charge for Patriot Software Accounting Premium.
Compared with equivalent versions from competitors, Patriot Software Accounting is among the most affordable. QuickBooks Online Plus ($115 per month for five users), Zoho Books Professional ($50 per month for five users), and Xero Established ($90 per month, unlimited users) all cost more. Wave Pro ($19 per month) is less expensive and offers features that Patriot Software Accounting lacks, such as customer statements and expense receipt management.
Interface and Ease of Use: Couldn’t Be Simpler
As mentioned, Patriot Software offers a 30-day trial. But I recommend spending some time exploring the site’s demo account first to see how easy it is to use and determine whether it's suitable for your needs. Once you create an account, a new setup checklist helps ensure that you lay the groundwork for your financial data.
Like most competitors, Patriot Software encourages you to connect your bank accounts to the application so you can import transactions. You do this through Plaid, an industry-standard solution for account aggregation. If you plan to accept bank and credit card payments from customers, you can do so using a Stripe account.
If you need help during the setup process or at any other time, you can ask questions via chat, email, or phone, which is more generous than what more expensive competitors like Xero offer. Patriot Software also offers excellent online help resources and tutorials.
I thoroughly enjoy Patriot’s user experience. The interface is attractive and spacious, featuring a vertical toolbar that facilitates easy navigation. The overall simplicity and orderliness may help alleviate some of the anxiety you might feel when starting out with accounting.
Patriot Software Accounting and Payroll share the same main dashboard, so don't be confused when you see links for both types of tasks. The Overview section for the accounting side functions like a standard dashboard in competing apps. It displays links to accounting tasks, such as Add Customer and Create Invoice, along with account balances and the most recent unpaid invoices and paid bills. It lacks the helpful charts and graphs you see in Zoho Books, however.
(Credit: Patriot Software/PCMag)Transaction Management: An Unusual, But Sound, Approach
Most accounting software keeps the nuts and bolts of accounting behind the scenes. Patriot Software is the exception. It doesn't require you to work with the underlying debits and credits unless you need to edit a journal entry, which the site allows.
Rather than providing a register with imported transactions categorized for income tax and reporting purposes like competitors, Patriot Software organizes everything through the Chart of Accounts, which contains your company’s core accounts. You can modify these to match the way your business operates, while maintaining consistency in your underlying financials.
So, when you create a transaction, you’re actually assigning it to an account in the Chart of Accounts instead of a separate list of categories. You can see this in the General Ledger report. Transactions are recorded in a register, which displays the debits and credits associated with each entry. I don't think most people want to see this unless they understand journal entries and want to work with them.
Similar Products
Our Current Picks for The Best Accounting Software for Small Businesses in 2026
If you want to see how Patriot Software assigns your income and expenses to accounts, you can run a Profit and Loss report, which organizes them by Schedule C categories; these categories show what you need to report on your income taxes. Patriot Software's approach to classifying transactions is structurally sound, but it may not be intuitive for individuals unfamiliar with double-entry accounting.
(Credit: Patriot Software/PCMag)Customer and Product Records: Fine for the Price
Before you begin entering transactions, I recommend creating your customer records. You can import CSV, XLS, or XLSX files or enter them manually. Record templates are less detailed than what you get from competitors, including Sage 50 Accounting. You can enter just contact information, default payment terms, and notes. You also receive a link to a page where you can set up automatic payment reminder emails, specifying when the app should send them and how they should be formatted. Additional links on each contact record open lists of their attachments, credits, invoices, and payments.
Product and service records also contain minimal information, including a description, sales price, income account, and sales tax status. That said, its unit of measure options are more flexible than most. You can’t enter cost information, set a reorder point, or track inventory like you can with QuickBooks Online. The site’s item tracking tools may still be sufficient for a service-based business or a product-based one that doesn’t require an automated method to track its widgets or assess individual product profitability.
(Credit: Patriot Software/PCMag)Invoices and Estimates: It Checks the Basic Boxes
Credit memo, estimate, and invoice forms are thorough enough for simple businesses. You can choose from three templates and a color, as well as add a logo. But you can't change the content. FreshBooks remains superior in this area, both in terms of aesthetic qualities and invoice management. However, I like Patriot Software Accounting's invoice detail page because it shows all your options for dealing with the form, such as Apply Payment, Make Recurring, and Mark as Sent. Completed invoices are listed by status (Unpaid, Draft, or Paid) on the sales home page. Unlike Xero, you can’t earmark invoices for approval.
(Credit: Patriot Software/PCMag)Managing Bills: Not Patriot's Strong Suit
Vendor records are more thorough than customer records. Besides contact information, you can specify whether individual vendors should receive a 1099-MISC or 1099-NEC and even make them available on the contractor portals.
Bill management is limited. You can’t pay bills electronically through Patriot Software Accounting, unlike QuickBooks Online. Patriot has separate pages for you to manually enter bills and record bill payments before printing checks, which can now include your electronic signature.
You can’t email, take photos of, or scan documents directly into the app. Xero enables this functionality and utilizes optical character recognition (OCR) to transfer details to the relevant forms. You can at least take a picture of a receipt with your phone's camera and attach it to a transaction in Patriot Software Accounting.
Accounting Reports: Just About Right
Patriot Software Accounting offers 21 accounting reports, which appear to be sufficient for the data and tools the site provides. The bulk of the reports on the directory page relate to Patriot Software Payroll.
Reports break down into several categories: 1099 Contractors (such as Contractor Payment History), 1099 Contractor Forms (Create and File 1099/1096 Forms), Customer (such as Invoice Detail and Unpaid Invoices), Financial (complex standard reports that accountants generally run and analyze, such as Balance Sheet), and Vendor (such as Bills and Vendor Payment History).
(Credit: Patriot Software/PCMag)Report customization options are minimal, but some, such as Accounts Receivable Aging, include a chart. You can’t drill down on most reports to get to the underlying data like you can in Zoho Books, but you can export reports in CSV and PDF formats.
Privacy: Is Patriot Software Safe to Use?
Patriot Software protects your data the exact same way it protects its own critical data. The company adheres to all required federal anti-fraud, privacy, and security laws. It also participates in outside audits and scrutiny by expert specialists. It bonds its employees after putting them through background checks, drug screenings, reference checks, and skill/aptitude testing. The site now supports multi-factor authentication (MFA).
Mobile Experience: Comprehensive and Easy to Use
Patriot Software doesn’t have a mobile app for its accounting software, but you can access the full site via a browser on your phone. It looks and works much like the desktop version, except that the navigation bar is collapsible and pages are displayed vertically instead of horizontally. As a result, you have to scroll a lot more than you do on your computer. But everything you need is there. The mobile site is comprehensive, looks professional, and remains very easy to use.
(Credit: Patriot Software/PCMag)Final Thoughts
(Credit: Patriot Software)
Patriot Software Accounting
Patriot Software Accounting is well-suited for start-ups and very small businesses due to its affordability and strong support options, though it lacks the advanced features offered by leading competitors.