Best Free Accounting Software in Australia (2026): Honest Review

The best free accounting software in Australia in 2026 is Zoho Books' free plan if you turn over under $50,000 and want proper double-entry books with GST and BAS reporting, Manager's desktop edition if you'd rather own your data offline with no limits, and Square Invoices if all you really need is to bill customers and get paid. None of them does Single Touch Payroll, and none lodges your BAS for you. Free works well for a sole trader with no staff and simple books, and starts costing you the moment you hire someone or your accountant has to untangle a year of unreconciled transactions.

The free options at a glance

Software	What's free	GST/BAS	Bank feeds	STP	Best for
Zoho Books (Free)	All features if revenue under A$50k a year; 1 user + 1 accountant; 1,000 invoices a year	GST tracking, BAS report	Statement import only	No	Sole traders who want real books
Manager (Desktop)	Fully featured, no limits, no registration	GST tax codes and reports	Statement import only	No	Owning your data offline
Square Invoices (Free)	Unlimited invoices, estimates, contracts; 2.2% on online card payments	Sales reports only	No	No	Trades and services that just bill
Zoho Invoice	Invoicing, expenses, time tracking	GST on invoices	No	No	Micro businesses under the GST threshold
Akaunting (self-hosted)	Open source, unlimited; cloud from about US$12 a month	Generic tax rates	Via add-ons	No	People happy running a server
Wave	Free in the US and Canada	None for Australia	No	No	Not Australians

All details as at September 2026; vendors change free-plan limits quietly, so confirm on the pricing page before you commit.

What "free" has to do in Australia

Five things decide whether a free tool works for an Australian business, and overseas review sites skip most of them.

GST and BAS reporting

If you're registered for GST, you lodge a Business Activity Statement (usually quarterly) and need the G1, 1A and 1B figures at minimum. Zoho Books has an Australian edition with GST codes and a BAS report. Manager lets you set up GST codes and run tax reports, but you confirm the totals land on the right labels. Square and Zoho Invoice show GST on sales and nothing on purchases. Our BAS and GST guide explains what each label needs.

If you're not registered, and you don't have to be until GST turnover hits $75,000 (as at September 2026), none of this matters yet. That's the biggest reason free software suits small sole traders.

Single Touch Payroll

Every employer must report wages, tax withheld and super to the ATO through STP-enabled software each pay day, and no genuinely free accounting package does Australian STP. Manager's payroll module records pays but doesn't report them; Zoho Books has no Australian payroll module; Square and Zoho Invoice don't pretend to.

The workaround is fiddly but real: keep a free ledger and pay for a separate STP app. The ATO publishes a register of no-cost and low-cost STP products for micro employers (one to four employees), and listed products must cost under $10 a month. Our Single Touch Payroll guide covers what the report has to contain.

Bank feeds

Automatic bank feeds turn bookkeeping from a chore into a five-minute job, and they're almost always the first feature held back for paying customers. Zoho Books' free plan takes bank statement imports, but automatic feeds need the Standard plan at A$16.50 a month billed annually. Manager works the same way: import, don't connect. Budget half an hour a month for imports, and be honest about whether you'll do it.

Bookkeeper and accountant support

Your accountant almost certainly lives in Xero and MYOB. Zoho Books gives you an accountant login on the free plan and most accountants can work in it, but they'll be slower and may charge for it. Manager's desktop edition lives on one computer, so your accountant works from a backup file you send. If you use a bookkeeper or BAS agent, ask before you choose; our guide to hiring a bookkeeper or BAS agent covers what to ask.

Lock-in and getting out

You must keep business records for five years, and the ATO accepts electronic records as long as you can produce them in a standard format such as CSV. Before you enter a transaction, test the export. Manager stores everything in a local file you own outright; Zoho Books exports transactions and reports; Square exports sales and customers but has no ledger. Know the exit route on day one.

The genuinely free options, reviewed

Zoho Books free plan: the best free ledger in Australia

Zoho Books' free plan is proper double-entry accounting software with an Australian edition, and it's the one to try first. You get one user plus an accountant login, up to 1,000 invoices a year, quotes, expense tracking, bank reconciliation from imported statements, more than 50 reports, GST tracking and a BAS report. The condition is a revenue cap of A$50,000 a year, and Zoho says it stays free for as long as you're under it.

Where it falls short: no automatic bank feeds, no payroll or STP, and support with a global-SaaS feel rather than a local one. The upgrade path is gentle, though: Standard at A$16.50 a month billed annually (GST inclusive) adds bank feeds, three users and 5,000 invoices, and undercuts every mainstream Australian package.

Best for: sole traders and side businesses under $50,000 who want real books, BAS figures and a clean handover at year end.

Manager: free forever, on your own computer

Manager is a fully featured desktop accounting program from a Sydney-based developer, and the desktop edition is free with no trial period, no advertising, no registration and no transaction limits. It runs on Windows, Mac and Linux and covers invoices, bills, bank reconciliation, fixed assets and inventory.

The catch is the model: your data lives in a file on one machine, you import bank statements rather than connecting a feed, and support is a forum and guides rather than a phone line. GST runs through tax codes you set up, so check the reports against the BAS labels before you trust them. The Cloud edition is US$59 a month (as at September 2026), which is paid territory.

Best for: owners comfortable with software who want to own their data outright and don't need a bookkeeper logging in remotely.

Square Invoices: free to bill, pay to be paid

Square Invoices' free plan includes unlimited invoices, estimates and contracts, recurring invoices, payment tracking and a customer directory. You pay 2.2% when a customer pays an online invoice by card (as at September 2026), and nothing on bank transfers. The Plus plan at $30 a month adds milestone billing, batch invoicing and custom fields.

Understand what it isn't: no expense side, no bank reconciliation, no profit and loss, no BAS. Plenty of mobile hairdressers, market stalls and one-person trades run happily on it and hand their accountant a Square sales report plus a folder of receipts. That works until turnover passes $75,000 and the purchases side of the BAS starts to matter.

Best for: service businesses under the GST threshold that want to get paid quickly.

Zoho Invoice, Akaunting and Wave

Zoho Invoice is Zoho Books' little sibling and free outright: invoices, payment reminders, expense recording, time tracking and a customer portal, with an Australian setup that captures your ABN and GST registration. Pick it for polished invoicing with basic expense capture and no ledger.

Akaunting is open source and free if you host it yourself; hosted plans start around US$12 a month. It has tax rates but no Australian localisation, so BAS is manual.

Wave tops every overseas "best free accounting software" list, and it's a good product for the US and Canada. Wave's own material describes it as serving small businesses in those two countries; its payroll and payments only operate there, and it has no Australian GST or BAS reporting. Skip it.

Hnry and Rounded are not free tiers

Two Australian products turn up in searches for free options, and neither is free.

Hnry has no subscription but charges 1% plus GST of every payment into your Hnry account, capped at $1,500 plus GST a year (as at September 2026). In return your tax and BAS are lodged for you, which is a different service altogether.

Rounded, built for Australian sole traders, offers a 14-day trial and no free plan. Starter is $23.95 a month with no bank feeds or GST tracking; Pro is $29.95 with bank feeds and pre-filled BAS figures (as at September 2026). Good software; just budget for it.

When free is genuinely enough

Free is a sensible choice, not a compromise, when most of these are true:

You're a sole trader or a company with no employees, so STP doesn't apply.
You're under the $75,000 GST threshold, or registered with straightforward sales and few purchases each quarter.
You send a modest number of invoices and don't hold inventory.
You'll sit down monthly to import statements and reconcile, or you'll pay a bookkeeper to.
Your accountant has agreed to work with the output.

When free costs you at tax time

The false economy shows up in your accountant's bill:

Unreconciled books. Without feeds, months go unimported, and an accountant charging by the hour rebuilds your year from bank statements.
Wrong GST treatment. Generic tax settings put GST on GST-free sales or claim credits on BAS-excluded items, and a BAS amendment costs more than the software would have.
Your first employee. Wages mean STP, and bolting a payroll app onto a free ledger doubles the admin. At that point Xero Ignite ($37 a month, one employee included), MYOB Business Lite ($315 a year plus $3 a month per employee) or QuickBooks Simple Start ($33 a month, payroll extra) are the realistic options (all as at September 2026). Our best accounting software guide compares them properly.
Losing the data. A desktop file with no backup, or a free account closed for inactivity, is five years of records you're legally required to keep.

Our Xero alternatives guide covers what the low-cost paid tiers actually include.

Key takeaways

Zoho Books' free plan is the best free accounting software for Australian sole traders under $50,000 a year: real double-entry books, GST tracking, a BAS report and an accountant login.
Manager's desktop edition is free with no limits and keeps your data on your own computer; the trade-off is manual statement imports and no cloud access.
Square Invoices and Zoho Invoice are free for billing, but neither is accounting software or produces a full BAS.
No free tool does Single Touch Payroll. Once you employ someone, pair a free ledger with a sub-$10 STP app from the ATO's register, or go paid.
Wave isn't built for Australia, and Hnry and Rounded aren't free.
Free stops being cheap when your accountant has to reconstruct your year, so reconcile monthly and test the export before you start.

Where to get help

ATO: Record keeping for business explains what you must keep, for how long, and what electronic records need to satisfy.
ATO: STP reporting options links to the no-cost and low-cost STP product register for employers with one to four staff.
ATO: Registering for GST covers the $75,000 threshold and the 21-day registration window.
Your accountant or BAS agent should sign off on the choice before you enter transactions. Ask what they'd charge to work from each option, and factor that into the "free" price.