If you are familiar with other accounting software like Quickbooks, GNU Cash has a short learning curve. There is a tutorial and accounting concepts help if you are not familiar with accounting software. GNU Cash will automatically set up many common accounts or categories for you cash to flow in and out. It has many of the features that expensive software like Quickbooks has such as invoices, reporting, and account reconciliation.

Some features that I was surprised to see in this free accounting software was the ability to import Quicken and Quickbook files, automatic saves and online banking integration. It is safe to say that this free software is an open source gem that can be used by many small businesses.

However, if you are new to accounting software, you may want something more mainstream since you are more likely to find support. Intuit, the makers of Quickbooks have a FREE version of Quickbooks called Quickbooks Simple Start. It is a scaled down version of Quickbooks Pro but it has many of the features you would need for a new or small business. If this sounds to good to some of you that are already using Quickbooks, the catch with the free version is it will not allow you to open Quickbook files created in other versions of Quickbooks.