For the last couple of years, I’ve used Outright.com to help track my spending and organize the accounting for my small businesses.
I should mention from the start that I hate doing all the accouting associated with a small business. No one goes into business to track their numbers. Instead, we have other business tasks, and accounting is simply a job that must be done.
As a result, I’m biased toward accounting tools that require less work. Fortunately, I’m guessing I’m not the only business owner who wants an accounting tool that gets the job done in as little time as possible.
Outright Basics
Outright is web-based small business accounting software. This means your material is accessible from anywhere that you have an Internet connection. Once you set up your accounts, each time you sign into Outright, all your most recent transactions (income and expenses) will be posted in the appropriate category. Of course, any cash expenses will need to be manually entered.
Setting up your account is simple. Once you’re signed in, you just need to add your accounts associated with your business. This includes:
As an owner of an online business, I’ve found that Outright has some of the most frequently used online tools (like Freshbooks and PayPal) which makes syncing and integrating extremely simple.
The homepage gives you easy access to five main sections – Overview, Income, Expense, Reports, and Taxes.
Overview
The overview page is your welcome page. You’ll be able to see a listing of your accounts, a chart with your income and expenses year-to-date, and your expenses by category month-to-date.
Income and Expense
These tabs give you a list of your recent transactions, breaking them into the appropriate income or expense categories. If most of your business is done online or using electronic payments like credit cards or PayPal, then these will automatically appear and do not need to be entered. You will need to verify the categories, and you can easily make changes as necessary.
Reports
The reports feature is only accessible in Outright Plus accounts.
All reports can be customized by date, printed, or exported in a csv format.
With a click of the mouse, you can access the following reports:
- Profit and Loss – similar to the profit and loss summary on the home page.
- Types of Income – a convenient report that helps you visualize where your income is coming from.
- Best Customers – a visual reminder of which customers are providing the most income for your business.
- Biggest Vendors – answers the question: Where is my money going?
- Your Spending – breaks down your spending by category.
- Sales by State – track which States are providing the most business revenue.
Depending on your business, you’ll need to evaluate the value of these features.
Taxes
The taxes section is only accessible in Outright Plus accounts.
In the taxes tab, you’ll get a good look at your tax responsibilities for the year. In an instant, you’ll see your annual income and expenses. Also, the summary page breaks down all your expenses by category in line with your tax filing categories.
My personal favorite section is the “Quarterly Taxes” segment that allows you to see what you’ve paid and what you owe each quarter.
There is even a section that helps you fill out any 1099-K forms you might need to complete.
How much does it cost?
Outright has two products – the basic account and the Outright Plus account, which costs $9.95 a month. The Plus account boasts of additional features like annual, quarterly, and monthly sales tax tracking and reporting. You can only access the Reports and Taxes sections if you have an Outright Plus account.
Final Thoughts
At the start of this review, I mentioned that I’ve used Outright for the last couple of years. I stopped using it exclusively when they proposed the $9.95 per month Plus membership.
Outright does a fantastic job helping report everything for tax season. Personally, I wouldn’t see the value of using Outright without a Plus account. However, since I was able to buy a discounted version of Quickbooks earlier this year, I decided that the cost of Quickbooks would be the same as one year of Outright.
Because of the cost, I decided to use Quickbooks.
However, Outright has some fantastic features for an online accounting platform. If you need the flexibility of an online platform and prefer the ease of automatic transaction downloading, you’ll probably really like Outright.
With the free trial, it would be worth checking it out to see if it fits well with how you do business.
Are you an Outright customer? What accounting software to you prefer? Leave a comment below!
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Craig, thanks for writing this. Would you say that “cost” is the only reason you went with Quickbooks instead? As far as features and usability they are equal? I’m also wondering what Outright’s security looks like. Any info on that?
John,
For me there were two factors. The first is cost. The second is because I travel a lot I wanted an accounting program on my computer instead of online.
Quickbooks has many more features, but for my small business both have everything I need. Sorry, but I don’t know much about the security features.
Thanks Craig! In the cloud (online) vs local computer is a good point.
Thanks for the review-this is really helpful. When I began blogging one of my hesitations was to have to make the extra labor on accounting, taxes, etc. It’s complicated, but I agree, I’m biased towards anything that’s going to simplify it. $10 a month for the basic version does seem a little steep when you consider that’s $120 annually..I can understand why you made the switch to Quickbooks.
I also use Quickbooks and couldn’t justify a monthly overhead. Thanks for the review–I hadn’t heard about Outright.
I’m the same as you, used to use outright before the plus version came a long. I HATE paying monthly fees, so I canned it and now I am using quickbooks. Glad I made the move to be honest from the sounds of this review!
Great review. I started using Mint based on your suggestion and I really like it. Thanks.
Craig:
Your response “The second is because I travel a lot I wanted an accounting program on my computer instead of online” is curious BECAUSE you travel a lot, having your info online makes more sense. You are not limited to a device/location in capturing transactions. I was a 13-year Quicken veteran who switched over to Mint BECAUSE of travel and the greater flexibility in not being tied down to a specific device.
I’m also intrigued by Outright’s tie-in to Shoeboxed. Does this enable Outright to cross-reference receipts and other documents? That would be a killer feature!
Dave