Neat At a Glance
Before we dive into our review, the first thing you should know is that the software is actually a bundle of three separate products all in one.
Its top feature is the ability to upload and match receipts right away using the mobile app—keeping you organized from the start. You can also sort each receipt into a category to make it simple to know where your money is going.
It’s simple to see your net cash flow based on your income and expenses with interactive charts that you can sort by date. There are even dashboards that show your top expense categories and cash balance, as well as the ability to run custom reports on expenses, spending details, spending summaries, sales tax and tax categories.
While Neat used to have separate plans for its three services, it’s now consolidated everything into one monthly subscription. To get the range of Neat products, you’ll pay $24 per month if you pay annually—$288 total. If you opt for a monthly subscription, it’s $29 per month.
Featured Partners
1
Xero
Reg. Price: $15 per month; Special Offer: 75% off all plans for 3 months until February 13
Yes
30 days
2
Sage Intacct
Yes
Yes
Yes
3
Melio
Yes
Yes
Yes
4
QuickBooks
$15 per month (for the first 3-months, then $30 per month)
30 days
Expert help, Invoicing, maximize tax deductions, track mileage
Other Benefits
Neat is a cloud-based financial document management system that scans your receipts for data and then stores them securely in one place with bank-level security encryption. You can sort documents with filters and keyword searches, making it easy to find what you need without a deep dive.
Neat allows you to send customizable invoices to your clients. Clients can then pay directly through credit or debit cards or bank transfers managed by WePay. Neat doesn’t charge service fees for this—but you’ll have to pay standard online payment processing fees.
Fine Print
Neat doesn’t offer any CRM support, meaning it’s not the best if you have a lot of customers and want to manage them all in one unified platform. It also can’t handle purchase orders, so if you tend to order a lot of supplies upfront and prefer to track them in your expenses, you may want to choose a different software.
The good news is that if you run into problems, Neat has live customer support available from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. ET Monday through Friday.
How Neat Stacks Up
| Neat | Sunrise by Lendio | FreshBooks | |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Starting Price
|
$24 per month with annual billing
|
Free; $19.99 per month
|
$4.50 per month ($15 per month upon renewal)
|
|
Free Trial
|
14 days
|
90 days
|
30 days
|
|
Accounting
|
✓
|
✓
|
✓
|
|
Expense Tracking
|
✓
|
✓
|
✓
|
|
Time Tracking
|
X
|
X
|
✓
|
|
Financial Document Management
|
✓ – includes unlimited storage
|
X
|
X
|
|
Invoicing
|
✓
|
✓
|
✓
|
|
Automatic Payment Reminders
|
✓
|
✓
|
✓
|
|
Recurring Invoices
|
✓
|
✓
|
✓
|
|
Customer Portal
|
✓
|
X
|
✓
|
|
Customer Support
|
Live chat, email, phone and support tickets
|
Live chat, email and phone (standard business hours)
|
Live chat
|
Of these three services, Neat is the most expensive at $29 a month but offers a compelling feature set for your extra investment. Sunrise by Lendio and FreshBooks include most of the same main features at a lower price, including a few additional ones that might be even more useful for your business.
If you provide hourly services, you’ll want a service such as FreshBooks that lets you track time spent on projects and bill accordingly. Neat and Sunrise don’t include this feature.
Additionally, if you have employees or freelancers that you have to pay, Neat doesn’t have any payroll capabilities. You can add Gusto Payroll to FreshBooks for a fee, meanwhile Sunrise includes the Gusto payroll integration in every package.
That said, Sunrise also lacks basics such as a customer portal that both Neat and FreshBooks have, so it’s likely not the best if you deal with lots of clients. For more information on FreshBooks, check out our FreshBooks review.
Featured Partners
1
Xero
Reg. Price: $15 per month; Special Offer: 75% off all plans for 3 months until February 13
Yes
30 days
2
Sage Intacct
Yes
Yes
Yes
3
Melio
Yes
Yes
Yes
4
QuickBooks
$15 per month (for the first 3-months, then $30 per month)
30 days
Expert help, Invoicing, maximize tax deductions, track mileage
Is Neat Right for You or Your Business?
Overall, Neat is probably the right choice for small businesses and entrepreneurs that deal with a lot of business expenses and receipts, but not necessarily a lot of clients. The built-in document management with cloud storage is incredibly useful for keeping all of your files in order come tax time.
That said, if you need more in-depth accounting tools, such as time or more in-depth customer tracking, you might find a better fit with a platform such as FreshBooks. To see what other picks might be right for your needs, check out our roundup of the best accounting software for small businesses.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What features should I look for in accounting software?
The best accounting software programs all provide similar features, so when considering which one is best for your business, you need to consider which features are the most important to your situation. This will help you decide which accounting software meets your needs best. Certain software is best for actions like accounts payable (A/P) and banking and cash management while others are geared more for retail companies, offering cost tracking, inventory management and collecting and submitting sales tax. Other features you may want to consider include whether the software has a mobile app, how good its customer service is and how well it does with accounts receivable (A/R) and financial reporting.
Does Neat charge fees for ACH payments?
Neat does not charge any additional fees for invoicing, but it does pass on standard online payment processing fees from the processors. These include 2.9% plus $0.30 for Visa, Mastercard and Discover; 3.4% plus $0.30 for American Express. Bank transfers come at no cost.
Is Neat good for tracking receipts?
Tracking receipts is one of Neat best features. It lets you upload receipts, extracts the data and then stores the original file in a secured database.
What's the difference between Neat and QuickBooks?
Neat is an accounting software that lets you upload any receipt to keep track of what you’re spending. QuickBooks, on the other hand, is a more robust software that covers every aspect of accounting. You’ll see that reflected in the price, which is nearly $150 more expensive than Neat.
