Dext is a bookkeeping automation platform now from IRIS (acquired December 2024) that eliminates much of the manual work associated to accounting processes.
$32
per month for 5 users (minimum) and 250 documents per month
FreeAgent
Score 6.1 out of 10
N/A
FreeAgent is an cloud-based accounting system designed for small businesses and freelancers. FreeAgent supports many core accounting features and bank reconciliation, payroll, tax management, project level accounting, and multiple currency support. It is mobile-accessible, and integrates with many apps.
$13.50
per month
FreshBooks
Score 9.0 out of 10
Small Businesses (1-50 employees)
FreshBooks is an accounting service for small businesses. The solution enables users to send and manage invoices, track billable time and collect online payments. The vendor’s value proposition this that their solution provides a straightforward service that simplifies the billing process.
$21
per month
Pricing
Dext
FreeAgent
FreshBooks
Editions & Modules
Dext Essential (Pricing for practices)
$23.92
per month per client (10 minimum, for accounting & bookkeeping firms)
Dext Advanced (Pricing for practices)
$25.64
per month per client (10 minimum, for accounting & bookkeeping firms)
Our clients use all of the above software providers, some of them using Xero, QuickBooks, FreshBooks, QuickFile, Kashflow, Wave App etc. FreeAgent is best one for me among the free software available as it does everything and we would not even need additional software for …
I used Fresh Books for about three years prior to switching to FreeAgent. It was the accounting functionality that made the difference - in the past two years I've not regretted the switch. Fresh Books is good, but its the UK accounting features that make FreeAgent …
FreshBooks does very well in comparison, especially since it is free software for Barclays bank users. Sage software is much worse than FreshBooks. However, Xero and QuickBooks, the market leaders, are still ahead with usability, additional features, reporting, and connection …
Years ago we started using FreshBooks and then decided to look for a less expensive option. After trying multiple solutions, we went back to FreshBooks and haven't looked back since. That was over 10 years ago.
No service can compete with their functionality, pricing, and …
It is great for accounting firms. Easy to add and administer client accounts. Easy to integrate with QuickBooks Online. Easy for clients to capture and submit receipts on the go. It is hard to use for manual data entry, and if your clients frequently have very long receipts the Dext Mobile app does not work well as it compresses the image to the point where it is completely illegible. It does not seem to be designed for business owners to use directly rather than using it through their accounting firm.
For micro and small business it is a great solution. The new requirements for MTD for landlords could also be met with this software. Groups and more complex businesses could not use the accounts and tax returns features, however they still could use it for bookkeeping and then export the data to other tax and accounts production software.
I recommend FreshBooks to anyone running a service-based business that needs invoicing, time reporting, and accounting tools. FB is adept in all three of these scenarios and isn't overly complicated like similar accounting packages I have used. I love how I can write estimates and proposals, manage the business development process from the software, and quickly convert prospects to invoiced clients.
Receipt Bank does a stellar job of extracting information from photos of receipts and bills. I'd say 95% of the time the information pulled is correct, so very rarely do I have to correct an amount or date.
One feature I really enjoy is not only the syncing with Quickbooks Online, but the fact that it also pushes the image to Quickbooks Online as an attachment! This means that for every expense/bill processed through Receipt Bank, an image of it is available inside of the transaction inside of Quickbooks Online. This makes researching a breeze.
Receipt Bank makes it very simple for users to add documents to the platform. Each company receives a dedicated Receipt Bank email address, which they can email to and upload documents, or users can use the phone apps (which are really easy to use), or they can upload documents from their computer. Training our clients to use it really can't be any easier!
Accounting! As you'd expect. Makes it much simpler andmore cost effective. In-coming and out-goings are recorded and assigned to projects and accounts. My accountant can access my books and reconcile so much more easily than trawling through spreadsheets.
Time billing - time spent on projects/client work is recorded and is ready to be invoiced as required. Saves so much time and prevents inaccuracies.
Invoicing - again, it should do this well and it does. Non payment reminders are automatic and clients have no excuses for not knowing the status of their account.
Account dashboard - gives me an instant overview of the health of the business (am I on track to meet my yearly targets) and my accounts.
Invoicing - FreshBooks basically ensures our accountants spend less time on invoices via its automated invoicing system, which sends invoices to our customers and clients alike and also send them regular reminders for them to pay up their bills.
Collecting business insights - FreshBooks enable our company analysts measure our business performances via data reports provided by FreshBooks' intuitive dashboard. Allowing us do a comparative analysis of key business metrics of a current month against past months and determine if the business is growing.
Expense tracker - We have recently embraced FreshBooks as an expense tracker for teams at our company branch. Thusfar, FreshBooks has performed very well, making our expense management a perfect operation; ensuring teams do not exceed their planned budget and also eliminating the need for tracking expenses on excel spreadsheets.
Receipt Bank Practice Platform has many great features. As they develop the platform I would like to see a rigorous review of all features so as not to add too many and overwhelm my team.
Having the flexibility to pick and choose from a suite of features and implement the ones that best suit my practice. A tailor made Receipt Bank Practice Platform. this would allow my practice to grow into the features rather than be overwhelmed by too many.
Reporting on financials, time tracking and project status is a little poor. It's adequate for what what we need, but would be great to see more advanced features.
API is quite closed so cannot integrate with our other project management tools.
I can brand invoices with my business logo, but I might like to change colours of the invoices themselves to match the rest of my business documents. That isn't a major point at all, but it's something that I'd like to see.
Freshbooks doesn't remember the categories that similar expenses were previously assigned to. It would be nice if Freshbooks would suggest a category for an already saved vendor, to ensure the consistency of expense reporting.
The home page of a Freshbooks account has a great graph display of expenses and income, but it only shows the last 6 months. This is still very useful, but I'd like to be able to see this kind of graph for different periods of time.
Dext is the best way for us to manage our business expenses. Physical and PDF receipts/invoices will be around for a while, but the move to eInvoicing is very good and we look forward to Dext adding this feature
We have used Freeagent for many years now and it serves us well for our needs. To change it would mean a lot of work, and this would most likely only happen if the cost became prohibitive to us.
At the current needs of our business, FreshBooks suits us perfectly - it allows online access by our accountant to the system for GST purposes, easy input of expenses and tracking of Profit and Loss statements. FreshBooks customer service is great as well - very understanding and accommodating.
Dext Prepare's usability is great, it has lots of functions and you can scan any type of document, including hard copy handwritten documents. It is not very accurate but it is handwritten!! Apart from it, you can use multiple functions like one page at a time, multiple, in bulk. You can send emails with multiple attachments and one of the greatest function is the mobile application capabilities.
It is a great software that does everything we need for small business clients. It allows to keep the books in a cloud from bookkeeping to accounts production and tax returns, all in one software. There are no major drawbacks and I would highly recommend it for most of our clients.
FreshBooks is very easy to use even for novices. If you're looking for an online accounting software that is full of features, has great aesthetics and is user-friendly, then this is definitely the software for you. I've been using it for several years now and despite being tempted to switch by other vendors, I like the feel of FreshBooks and it's mobile features.
When I think I have broken the platform the help guys and girls are simply fantastic. They take time to understand the problem and usually resolve the issue on the spot. I have not had to wait more than an hour to get anything resolved - be that an issue I have created or a fault in my understanding of the program. Can't rate their support I have received to date highly enough.
I think the support level for FreshBooks is on par with a 6 because the folks behind this application do a fairly good job at providing support for their customer base. I still don't think they are at an elite level when it comes to supporting but are getting there although too slow in my opinion.
Dext is much easier to use than Hubdoc. You can approve documents in batches whereas in Hubdoc you need to review each document separately. Once Dext is set up properly, there is little need to review every document.
Hubdoc does have the ability to save documents to an external site, like Google docs as a backup.
I have used and tested out many other systems. I was looking at Xero for my accounting system but at the time I chose FreeAgent because of the way it handles the recording of dividends and the inbuilt time recording. The others I trialed were good and many of them cheaper. FreeAgent best suited my requirements at the time.
FreshBooks does very well in comparison, especially since it is free software for Barclays bank users. Sage software is much worse than FreshBooks. However, Xero and QuickBooks, the market leaders, are still ahead with usability, additional features, reporting, and connection with third-party software providers. We chose FreshBooks as it does everything we require from this type of software.
I am a single operator Bookkeeping business and run a very profitable business because DEXT provides me a very efficient process to capture critical data without the need for additional manpower.
The information DEXT captures, stores and reports helps me plan an present relevant information to the client to support pricing increases at client reviews
The information DEXT contains helps me present business insights to the client thereby assisting in their business aspirations which helps deepen client relationships
Professional and uniform offering providing great confident customer service. My clients love it, whether they use it a little or a lot. It's a great piece of software - while sophisticated, it's straightforward to use.
Time saving and efficient use of my team's time. Being able to easily share and compare work / tasks.
In reality, we do not implement all of its use at the moment in order to determine an adequate ROI.
In our approach to the use of the system, it seems to us a considerable time saving by achieving the integration of the Mexican subsidiary with its parent located in the US.
Financial reports meet the necessary USGAAP requirements.
