Financial Planning Tools for Startups

It is critical for any startup to pay close attention to the financial aspects of business in order to be successful. You must understand where the money comes from and where it goes.

You should also be well aware of how your business is doing and how it will perform in the coming years in order to make informed decisions.  

Financial planning helps you to attain your goals, such as reaching a certain revenue figure in x months or to survive till your next funding round.  

Right here, you’ll find all the essential tools you will need to make your financial planning as simple as possible.

Bookkeeping and Accounting Tools

Bookkeeping and accounting tools are an important part of managing a company's financial operations. There are different tools available in the market, from simple bookkeeping tools to ones that manage the whole flow of money in and out of huge businesses.  

These tools help your accounting department to increase its productivity and avoid costly bookkeeping errors. Find our top picks below:

• Freshbooks: Freshbooks is a great financial tool for SMEs. It is simple to use and walks you through each step on your first try. It works great for founders starting fresh having no financial background.  

FreshBooks has options for invoicing which lets you make customised and professional looking invoices, job estimates, and formal proposals. As a bonus, the application also lets you manage projects for clients, track time, and link it to your bank account.  

Freshbooks has an automated recurring billing feature and an automated way to collect money from customers which allow customers to check their pending amounts and make payments. Further, it integrates with more than 100 apps.

Features: Balance Sheet, General Ledger, Accounts Payable, Bank Reconciliation, Journal entries

Pricing: costs $6/month and above for premium features (free trial available)

Ratings on G2: 4.5, Capterra: 4.5

• Quickbooks: Quickbooks is an effective tool for automating accounting. When it comes to functionality, versatility, and scalability, the features of QuickBooks are unmatched. You can tailor this tool to meet the needs of your business.

Quickbooks is user-friendly and also offers to learn to people inexperienced with the basics of accounting. You can generate and send professional GST invoices. It has modules like inventory management, customisable GST reports, comprehensive payroll support and add ons.  

Quickbooks integrates with more than 650 apps.

Features: Invoice Customisation, Payment Processing, Reconciliations, Financial Statements, Budgeting/Forecasting

Pricing: costs $4/month and above for premium features (free trial available)

Ratings on G2: 4.0, Capterra: 4.3

• Xero: Xero is an accounting tool that is designed for small enterprises that need an application that can be utilised on the go. Because of its multi-currency capabilities, it is an ideal solution for people who conduct business across international boundaries.  

It enables you to link your bank accounts in order to track revenue and expenses more effectively. It also allows you to keep a journal of your entries. You can export all financial reports to Excel if necessary. Integrates with more than 500 apps.

Features: Journal entries, Invoice Customization, Payment Processing, Reconciliations, Custom Reporting, Financial Statements

Pricing: costs $22/month and above for premium features (free trial available)

Ratings on G2: 4.3, Capterra: 4.3

Payroll Management Tools

Managing the financial records of employees is imperative for every company. Payroll management tools take care of everything from employee salaries and deductions to bonuses and payslips.  

In order to effectively manage a company's payroll, it is necessary to understand the nuances of time tracking, wage and salary calculation, and payment distribution. Among the most difficult aspects of this process is calculating wages, deductions, withholding taxes (TDS), social security and health insurance.  

Other factors to consider include overtime payments, benefit payments, bonuses, loan and advance payments, allowances, leaves, vacation time, and net payables, and a good payroll management tool helps you with all.

• Wallet HR: WalletHR is a comprehensive human resource management system that is primarily focused on offering payroll solutions. It promotes seamless workflow management and increases operational efficiency through the use of a variety of cutting-edge capabilities.

Wallet HR covers everything from hiring to retirement. It offers live online and in-person training. In addition to attendance, benefits, employee lifecycle, payroll, self-service portal and training management, it also has features like 360 degree feedback.

Features: Payroll Management, Expense Management, Reimbursement Management, Bonus, Loans and Advances Management, Attendance Management

Pricing: Available on request

Ratings on G2: 4.5, Capterra: 5

• Zoho Payroll: Zoho Payroll is a cloud-based payroll management system that automates and streamlines the entire payroll administration process. This software takes care of everything from centralising and organising employees' records and information to scheduling payrolls and overseeing statutory compliance.  

Features: Payroll Processing, Payroll Benefits, Taxes and Forms, Payroll Management and Administration, Employee Management and Onboarding

Pricing: costs INR 50/m per employee (free trial of 30 days for 10 employees available)

Ratings on G2: na, Capterra: 4.3/5

• Greyt HR: Greyt HR is another tool that is great for full payroll processing. It adheres to 100 statutory compliance with PF, ESI, PT, and TDS, among other things.  It allows payslips distribution with a single click, which it generates automatically. Greyt HR comes with an infinite compensation component that is helpful in generating payroll and statutory reports.

Features: Time, Attendance and Leave Management, Salary Structures, Compliance, Reporting Payroll Entry, Tax Calculation

Pricing: Costs INR 1495/m for premium features (free trial available)

Ratings on G2: 4.4, Capterra: 4.0

Billing & Invoicing Tools

Software for billing and invoicing helps to streamline and automate the billing and invoicing process. Billing and invoicing tools assists in ensuring that payments are collected on time and consistently, as well as reduces errors caused by human data entry.  

Billing software apps help you keep track of products and services your customers use. It also lets you prepare and send invoices, as well as accept payments. With the help of these tools, your finance team can get rid of the monotonous tasks they have to do every day.

• Zoho Invoice: Zoho invoice is a free tool that lets you create billing and e-invoices. The interface is easy-to-use and comes with a lot of great features. It supports billing in multiple currencies and languages.  

It automates recurring invoices, offers GPS based travel expense tracking, detailed reports and a self service client portal- which lets them check their invoices and estimates and allows them to take care of their payments and much more. A really nice tool for SMEs and freelancers.  

Features: Bill Generation, Bill Processing, Integration with Payment Gateways

Pricing: Totally Free

Ratings on G2: 4.6, Capterra: 4.6

• MyBillBook: MyBillBook lets you create and print and share professional GST or non-GST bills that are fully customisable. It helps in digitising daily business transactions and helps you track and manage business inventory accurately with features like stock adjustment, low stock alerts, etc.  

It comes with an option to send automated payment reminders to customers. It also offers features like automatic backup and offline billing.

Features: Account Receivables, GST Invoicing/ Billing, Payment Collection, Invoice Management, Invoice Processing

Pricing: costs INR 142/m  

Ratings on G2: 4.0, Capterra: 5.0

• CaptainBiz: CaptainBiz is an easy to use invoicing tool that lets you make invoices, manage customers and suppliers, and keep track of cash and bank transactions all at the same time in one place.  

Great for both businesses that use the GST system (India, Singapore, Indonesia, etc) and businesses that don't use the GST system. Apart from billing and invoicing it also has features for reporting, profit and loss statements, SMS integration, email integration, inventory management, etc.

Features: Profit/Loss Statements, Billing & Invoicing, Financial Management, Inventory Management

Pricing: Free for 5 users, quotation available on request for enterprise version

Ratings: n/a

Cash Flow Analysis Tools

Cash flow management is all about keeping an eye on how much cash is coming in from different activities, clients, and projects, how much of it is going out and where.

Keeping an eye on cash flow help startups founders and CFOs ensure there is enough cash to cover monthly expenses, and identify the likely gaps. Many tools are available to aid with better cash flow management.

• Float Cash Flow: Float cash flow is a cash flow forecasting add-on for businesses that use accounting softwares like Xero, Quickbooks, or FreeAgent. Float cash flow generates cash flow statements that are accurate, always up to date, and requires a fraction of the time to compile.  

Because of the precision of the data in Float, companies are notified of any cash shortages or surpluses well in advance, allowing them to plan efficiently. Float simplifies visual scenario planning, as a result, businesses can make informed and confident decisions in a click.

Features: Budget Creation, Budget Management, Forecasting, Analytics

Pricing: starts with $ 59/m for premium features (free trial available)

Ratings on G2: 4.4, Capterra: 4.8

• Caflou: Caflou is a digital cash flow management system that enables you to better organise your business, track expenses, plan a budget, and manage cash flow. It allows you to analyse past cash flows and forecast future cash flows. Further, it lets you view and analyse revenue and expenses by customers and by projects, and also helps you analyse planned and paid projects.  

Caflou helps to identify where you can save money. It integrates well with Zoho books.

Features: Customer Management, Financial Management, Billing & Invoicing, Time and Expense Tracking

Pricing: starts with $ 11/m/user (free trial available)

Ratings on G2:5.0, Capterra: 5.0

Expense Tracking Tools

Organisations use expense management applications to track, manage and report their expenses. Expense tracking software also allows employees to get reimbursed by directly submitting expenses done by them. Along with simplifying and automating expense entry, these solutions simplify the review and approval process—and eliminates the need for manual work, resulting in less administrative effort.  

These software systems give management full visibility into how employees spend company’s money and ensure their is no there is no financial mismanagement. This gives the leadership tight control over funds allocated to different teams, departments and individuals.  

• Happay: Happay is an expense management solution that automatically tracks all your business expenditures, including employee expenses. It lets you manage petty cash and travel expenses. It allows an option to use a prepaid card where users can easily add and remove funds. It allows you to create various custom reports based on your requirements.

Features: Expense Reports, Bank/Credit Card Integration, Digital Receipt Management, Smart Categorisation, Automated Reminders

Pricing: Available on request

Ratings on G2: 4.5, Capterra: 4.6

• Rydoo: Rydoo makes expense management meticulous for every department of your organisation. It lets you scan your receipts using a webcam, mobile or email. Its user-friendly interface makes it easy to navigate different screens. The dashboard keeps everything uncluttered and clean. It is a great tool for SMEs and for non-technical individuals.

Features: Expense Report Creation, Bank/Credit Card Integration, Digital Receipt Management, Currency Conversions, Mileage Tracking, Reporting, Automated Reminders

Pricing: Starts from $ 10 per user per month (free trial available)

Ratings on G2: 4.4, Capterra: 4.4

• Expensify: Expensify comes with features like high-quality mobile receipt scanning and automatic expense classification for all receipt kinds that allows you to track your spending.  

Powered by OCR (optical character recognition) technology, it uploads and categories receipts. It allows you to sync your credit card account and also supports receipt uploads from third-party sources.  

Expensify is a comprehensive expense management tool well suited for small and medium-sized enterprises, as well as freelancers and other independent contractors.

Features: Expense Report Creation, Bank/ Credit Card Integration, Digital Receipt Management, Mobile Receipt Capture, Automated Reminders, Reporting

Pricing: premium version starts with $ 5 /user per month (free trial available)

Ratings on G2: 4.3, Capterra: 4.4

Qapita: Equity Management Tool

Equity represents ownership and control of a person in a company. Managing equity and it's optimum use is important to keep yourself from diluting too much.

An equity management tool, like Qapita, helps you to keep all the stakeholders updated about their equity in the company. It digitises your cap table and ESOP management and makes you investment-ready.

Qapita allows you to set up your cap table, track changes, and share the cap table with different stakeholders, like investors, advisors, legal counsels, CA firms, auditors, employees, etc. With Qapita, you have total control over what information you want to share with whom.

Qapita also enables digital equity award management, such as ESOPs, SARs, etc. You can issue grant, track vesting schedules, exercised options, and helps you create liquidity programs through options buy backs.

With Qapita's Scenario Modelling, you can see the impact on your ownership under different instances. These instances can be a fundraising event, IPO or M&A. This will enable you to make well informed decisions.

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