AccountingWEB Software Awards: 2021’s top products
byFind out which software suppliers came out on top in 10 categories, as voted by more than 7,500 AccountingWEB members during 2021.
Over the years, AccountingWEB’s annual software awards have become a benchmark for customer satisfaction because they are determined by the people who use the products in their day-to-day working lives.
While lockdowns disrupted our planned announcements in 2021, accountants continued to vote for their favourites in 10 different categories over the course of the year. The results from more than 7,500 votes have now been compiled and are presented below in each category. Follow the links below to read in more detail about the changing patterns in each category.
SME Accounts/Bookkeeping
Top product: FreeAgent
Runners-up: Xero, VT Transaction+, QuickBooks Online, Countingup
A legion of loyal supporters helped FreeAgent gain the blue-ribbon bookkeeping award. All the larger players in the bookkeeping world appear in the results table, but customer expectations for focused attention and support saw voting patterns drop for most of the big platforms.
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Enterprise Accounting/ERP
Top product: iplicit
Runners-up: Pegasus, AccountsIQ, Xledger, Greentree, Sage, Oracle NetSuite
Mid-size cloud accounting program iplicit retained its crown in this category. Featuring a mix of online and on-premise applications, the annual rankings illustrate the continuing cloud transition taking place in mid-market and enterprise accounting.
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Payroll
Top product: BrightPay
Runners-up: FreeAgent Payroll, The Payroll Site, Moneysoft, Pegasus, Sage 50cloud Payroll
After a turbulent couple of years for users who faced the brunt of the Covid compliance workload, BrightPay increased its share of the vote to regain the award it last picked up in 2018.
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Data & Expenses Management
Top product: FreeAgent Mobile
Runners-up: Dext, AutoEntry
FreeAgent’s mobile app retained its crown, but elsewhere this fast-growing app segment is consolidating into more functional camps controlled by Sage (AutoEntry), Xero and Dext.
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Tax Preparation
Top product: TaxCalc
Runners-up: FreeAgent, GoSimpleTax, BTC Software, Taxfiler, IRIS
TaxCalc emerged as the market leader in one of the most competitive categories of the AccountingWEB Software Awards, repeating its 2020 achievement to make it three top placings in five years in the tax software category. The tax software market remains a tough environment for developments, with vendors having to maintain high customer service levels for existing users while laying the foundations for the next generation of MTD tax products.
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Practice Management
Top product: AccountancyManager
Runners-up: Pixie, BTC Software, TaxCalc, ClarityHQ, Senta, Nomisma, Capium
AccountancyManager has established itself at the head of a pack of apps that handle client onboarding, staff tasks, and document sharing at a time when accountancy firms are looking for tools to cope with remote working and Making Tax Digital.
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Accounts Production
Top product: TaxCalc
Runners-up: BTCSoftware, IRIS, VT Transactions, Wolters Kluwer (CCH)
Accounts production software has been subject to digital transformation in recent years, but TaxCalc has demonstrated its ability to adapt and provide users with integrated solutions on a single platform.
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Forecasting, Planning & Analysis
Top product: Float
Runners-up: ClarityHQ, Fathom, Futrli, Fluidly, Syft Analytics
Forecasting apps grew rapidly in 2020, but only around 25% of accounting practices have built these tools into revenue-generating service lines. Float overcame last year’s top product ClarityHQ, a practice advisory/forecasting hybrid, to gain the top spot in this category. Among these users, the expediency of using forecasting tools built into the accounting platforms is outweighed by the greater functionality of specialist apps.
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Cash Management & Credit Control
Top product: Float
Runners-up: Satago, Fluidly, Xero, QuickBooks Online
Float picked up a second Software Award as cashflow and credit control tool use accelerated during the past two years of pandemic. But specialist developers face increasing competition from tools built into the core accounting platforms.
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Online Banking & Finance
Top product: Countingup
Runners-up: Starling, NatWest, Barclays, Cashplus, Satago, Lloyds, Santander, Monzo
AccountingWEB members and business users embraced the banking/accounting software hybrid Countingup in the 2021 Software Awards to ignite what will be a fascinating race over the next couple of years.
Awards methodology
Throughout the year AccountingWEB members are invited to nominate their favourite apps across the 10 categories listed here. Those votes are compiled into rankings on which the awards are decided. The polls are already open for this year’s awards, so if you’d like to have your say,
Vote for your favourite software here
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Contributions from the AccountingWEB.co.uk editorial team.
Replies (2)
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My voting attempt for book keeping software was halted and thwarted by the statement ' you have already voted for this category'. I do not recall ever voting in it.
I have never used book keeping software. ????
Concerning though it is, thanks for the feedback. There are various controls built into the system to thwart ballot-stuffing, so it may be possible that the mechanism identified your IP address - so if someone else has come in from your organisation or email host, it might have flagged up a duplicate voting attempt.
Nonetheless, I'll pass on your comment to our technical team to see if they can diagnose the problem.