Accounting software for the self-employed in Canada

For a one-person Canadian service business, start on a bookkeeping plan around CAD 0 to CAD 26 a month and stay until a hard cap blocks a weekly task. As of October 2026, Wave Starter is USD 0, Xero Starter is CAD 25 per month after a three-month discount, and FreshBooks Lite lists at CAD 26. The QuickBooks Canada pricing page shows Lite at $2 a month with $20 struck through. Business Central Essentials, at CAD 108.50 per user per month paid yearly, waits until you hold stock, cost jobs, or seat more than a handful of users.

The Canada Revenue Agency does not prescribe a book or a brand. It requires a clear record of every transaction that supports income and expense claims, kept for six years. Most of the people searching this topic should buy the next tier of the same product when they outgrow a starter cap. A minority, usually once headcount, inventory, and a second company show up together, should price an ERP.

What a one-person service business pays as of October 2026

Price the regular rate once the banner ends. Every vendor on this list uses an introductory discount that ends. The figures below are what the public Canada or product pages showed in October 2026.

• Wave Starter (Regular price: USD 0 · Intro price on the same page: None · Built for: Unlimited invoices, estimates, bills, and bookkeeping records)
• Wave Pro (Regular price: CAD 25 per business per month, or CAD 250 per year · Intro price on the same page: A USD 9.50 offer ran 2 Dec 2025 to 6 Jan 2026 and is expired · Built for: Bank auto-import where the connection works, receipt capture, late reminders)
• Xero Starter (Regular price: CAD 25 per organisation per month, tax extra · Intro price on the same page: CAD 5 for 3 months with code DC8032614GL · Built for: Sole traders and the self-employed, 20 invoices and 5 bills)
• Xero Standard (Regular price: CAD 60 per month, tax extra · Intro price on the same page: CAD 12 for 3 months · Built for: Volume above the Starter caps)
• Xero Premium (Regular price: CAD 80 per month, tax extra · Intro price on the same page: CAD 16 for 3 months · Built for: The plan that adds multiple currencies)
• FreshBooks Lite (Regular price: CAD 26 per month · Intro price on the same page: CAD 1 per month for the first year · Built for: 5 clients)
• FreshBooks Plus (Regular price: CAD 42 per month · Intro price on the same page: CAD 8.40 per month for 3 months · Built for: 50 clients)
• FreshBooks Premium (Regular price: CAD 72 per month · Intro price on the same page: CAD 14.40 per month for 3 months · Built for: Unlimited clients and project profitability)
• QuickBooks Lite (Canada page) (Regular price: $20 struck through · Intro price on the same page: $2 per month on that page · Built for: 1 user, invoicing, sales tax, mileage)

Sources for that table: Wave pricing, Xero Canada pricing, FreshBooks Canada pricing, and QuickBooks Canada pricing, all read October 2026. Xero states prices in Canadian dollars, excludes tax, and auto-renews monthly. The 80 percent discount covers the base plan only. It does not cover add-ons, usage, or payment fees. FreshBooks also lists team members at CAD 13 per user per month and Advanced Payments at CAD 25 per month. A yearly toggle says "Extra 10% Off" and does not print the yearly dollar amounts, so budget the monthly list until checkout shows a number. Wave Pro is also listed at USD 19 per month or USD 190 per year. The fee is per business, not per owner.

Assume one owner, about 15 client invoices a month, four supplier bills, one currency, no inventory, and an accountant who wants a login. Xero's own line calls Starter "Good for sole traders, new businesses, and the self-employed." At CAD 25 it covers 20 invoices and 5 bills, so this volume fits, with little room. FreshBooks calls Lite "Popular for new solopreneurs" and prices it at CAD 26, or CAD 1 per month for the first year. Five clients is the cap, and Lite does not include accountant access, bank reconciliation, or double-entry accounting reports. If you invoice six clients, Lite is the wrong card even during the CAD 1 year. Wave Starter at USD 0 covers unlimited invoices. Card payments on that plan are 2.9% plus $0.60 per transaction, and 3.4% plus $0.60 for American Express. Automatic bank import is a Pro feature, and the page says not every financial institution can connect.

QuickBooks describes Lite as "Ideal for sole proprietors and freelancers." The Lite product page uses the line "The power of QuickBooks, sized for the self-employed". Treat the $2 figure as a promotion on the Canada page. The struck-through figure beside it is $20. Confirm the post-promo amount at checkout, because the page does not state a separate post-intro price beyond that strike-through. A banner also advertises 90 percent off QuickBooks plus Payroll for six months. Payroll is still a paid add-on. It is not inside Lite.

Where the starter plan stops

The bill that surprises people is the cap.

Xero Starter includes quotes, 20 invoices, 5 bills, bank reconciliation, and sales tax. More than 20 invoices or 5 bills in the month means Standard at CAD 60. Multi-currency sits on Premium only, at CAD 80. A consultant who invoices 25 times and pays 8 bills has already left Starter, even though the business is still one person. The Canada FAQ describes end-of-month invoicing and does not offer an annual prepay price, so there is no yearly number to bank on.

FreshBooks Lite stops at 5 clients and withholds accountant access, bank reconciliation, and double-entry reports until Plus at CAD 42, which invoices 50 clients. Premium at CAD 72 removes the client cap and adds project profitability and accounts payable. If you sell projects and want cost against the estimate, Premium is the FreshBooks tier that contains that report. Canadian payroll is offered through PaymentEvolution, and the price is not published on the pricing page. Ask for that number before you compare a payroll bundle.

QuickBooks plan cards on the October 2026 pricing page are Lite, EasyStart, Plus, and Advanced. Lite is 1 user, no accountant access, up to 2 bank connections, 5 report templates, a preset chart of accounts, invoicing, sales tax, and mileage. EasyStart is 1 user plus an accountant, unlimited bank connections, 30 or more reports, and a customizable chart of accounts. Plus is 5 users and adds inventory, project profitability, budgets, multi-currency, and classes and locations up to 40. Advanced is 25 users and adds custom permissions, batch invoices, Excel sync, unlimited classes and locations, workflow automation, revenue recognition, and backup and restore. One external accountant seat is free on plans that include it and does not count toward the user limit. Lite has none. Open the pricing page and read the EasyStart, Plus, and Advanced card you will be charged for. Those three list prices change often enough that a remembered number is a bad budget.

Downgrading from Plus to EasyStart disables inventory tracking, project profitability, and the extra users. If you turn inventory on and later cut the plan to save the subscription, those quantities leave the product with the downgrade. The Canada FAQ still describes an Essentials plan (3 users, bills, time, multi-currency) while the cards above are Lite, EasyStart, Plus, and Advanced. The live cards and the FAQ disagree. Match the offer in your cart to a current card, and do not quote an Essentials price from the FAQ text.

Wave's gap is the bank feed. Starter is USD 0 and includes unlimited invoices and bookkeeping records. Pro, at CAD 25 per business per month or CAD 250 per year, adds auto-import of bank transactions where Plaid supports the bank, plus receipt capture and late reminders. Taxes are extra. If your bank is one of the institutions the page says cannot connect, Pro does not fix that. Wave's line "You didn't start your business to be a bookkeeper" sits on the pricing page. The practical test is whether you will code transactions by hand.

What the CRA expects you to keep

Software choice does not replace the record rule. The CRA business-records page says a self-employed person must keep records of every transaction that supports income and expense claims, including a daily record of income and expenses. You may use a columnar book or a computerized system that is clear and easy to read. The agency does not name a product.

Income records must include the date, amount, and source, and whether the income was cash, property, or services. Original documents have to back them up: sales invoices, cash-register tapes, receipts, bank deposit slips, fee statements, and contracts. Expense receipts should show the purchase date, the seller's name and address, the buyer's name and address, and a full description of the goods or services. If the seller is a GST/HST registrant and the price is $100 or more before tax, the receipt must show the vendor's business number.

Retention is generally six years from the end of the last tax year the records relate to. For individuals the tax year is the calendar year. Keep records at your place of business or residence in Canada unless the CRA gives written permission to keep them elsewhere. Records stored outside Canada and only opened electronically from Canada do not count as kept in Canada. That matters if a vendor's data centre is abroad and you have no copy you hold in Canada. Export a readable backup on a schedule you control, and keep the source documents with it.

If a non-incorporated business ends, keep the records for six years from the end of the tax year in which it ended. Records of long-term property acquisitions and disposals that affect a later sale or wind-up must be kept indefinitely. Destroying records early requires CRA permission on Form T137.

A practical file, whether Wave, Xero, FreshBooks, or QuickBooks, needs three things the CRA will ask to see: the daily income and expense record, the original invoice or receipt with the fields above, and a way to produce that package for six years from a location that counts as Canada. A tool that drops attachments when you downgrade fails that test even if the subscription is cheap.

When you must start charging GST/HST

Registration follows a revenue test the CRA publishes. Most businesses must register for GST/HST once they are no longer a small supplier. The threshold is $30,000 of worldwide taxable supplies over four consecutive calendar quarters, or in a single calendar quarter. Taxable supplies here mean revenue before expenses. They exclude financial services, capital property, and goodwill. A sole proprietor includes supplies from all of their businesses and from associates. Two small trade names under one person can cross $30,000 together.

Timing depends on how you cross it. If you cross $30,000 in one calendar quarter, GST/HST starts on the supply that crossed the line, and the effective registration date is no later than that day. If you cross it over previous quarters but not inside one quarter, small-supplier status ends at the end of the following month. You must register within 29 days of the effective date. A person under the threshold may register voluntarily. QuickBooks Lite's own page repeats the $30,000 test and notes that registering below it lets the business claim input tax credits. Voluntary registration is a cash-flow choice: you charge tax and you claim credits on taxable purchases. Run the numbers with your accountant before you register early.

Rates come from the CRA table dated 2025-04-01 on the GST/HST calculator page. GST is 5 percent in Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Quebec, and the territories. HST is 13 percent in Ontario, 15 percent in New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Prince Edward Island, and 14 percent in Nova Scotia from 1 April 2025. The same table lists provincial sales tax of 7 percent in British Columbia and Manitoba, 6 percent in Saskatchewan, and 9.975 percent in Quebec.

QuickBooks Lite says it tracks GST, HST, and PST and calculates sales tax on invoices. That page does not say the product files the return. File the return in the CRA account (and, in Quebec, through the channel Revenu Québec requires) unless a product screen you have opened on your own file shows a filing step. Ask each vendor, on your own file, to show GST, HST, and Quebec's provincial tax as separate amounts on an invoice and on the report you would use to prepare the return. Do that before you rely on a starter plan in a province that charges a provincial tax beside GST.

Worked timing. Assume a designer in Ontario with no other businesses. Taxable billings are CAD 8,000 in each of four consecutive quarters. The four-quarter total is CAD 32,000, and no single quarter hit CAD 30,000. Small-supplier status ends at the end of the month after that quarter, and HST at 13 percent applies from that effective date. Registration is due within 29 days of the effective date. The same designer who lands one CAD 31,000 project inside a single quarter starts charging on the supply that crossed the threshold, that same day.

The bookkeeping tool has to let you set the rate for the place of supply, show tax on the invoice, and produce a total of tax collected and tax paid for the period. It does not replace the registration deadline. If you are close to $30,000, put a quarterly tally of taxable supplies next to your invoice count so a Xero Starter cap and a GST registration do not land in the same month by surprise.

Which upgrade to buy before you look at an ERP

Most readers of this search should keep a bookkeeping product. The usual next purchase is a higher tier of the tool you already tolerate. Move up when one of these is true:

1. You issue more than 20 invoices or enter more than 5 bills in a month. That is Xero Standard at CAD 60.
2. You invoice more than 5 clients, or you need bank reconciliation and an accountant login. That is FreshBooks Plus at CAD 42. Project profitability waits until Premium at CAD 72.
3. You need inventory quantities, project profitability, budgets, multi-currency, or classes. On the QuickBooks cards, those start at Plus (5 users). A downgrade from Plus to EasyStart disables inventory tracking, project profitability, and the extra users. Budgets, multi-currency, and classes stay listed as Plus features. Check the live pricing page before you assume a downgrade keeps them.
4. You want automatic bank import and your bank connects. That is Wave Pro at CAD 25 per business per month, or CAD 250 per year.
5. You bill in a second currency. On Xero that is Premium at CAD 80. On QuickBooks the cards put multi-currency on Plus.

Payroll is the add-on that blows up a "cheap" comparison. QuickBooks Canada payroll calculates CPP, EI, and federal and provincial income tax, can e-file and remit to the CRA or Revenu Québec, and prepares T4 and RL-1 forms. Time tracking is included on Payroll Premium and Elite, not on Core. Get a written quote for Payroll Core, Premium, and Elite. The public payroll page describes the calculations, the filings, and the T4 and RL-1 forms. A customer line on that page describes the day-to-day: "My employees have the QuickBooks Workforce app on their phone. When they get to work they click time in and then I can export, approve, and run payroll." FreshBooks points Canadian payroll at PaymentEvolution without a public price. Add either quote to the subscription before you decide the stack is cheaper than a single operations system.

A five-person studio can still live on these tiers. Assume three people who invoice, one bookkeeper, and an external accountant. FreshBooks team members at CAD 13 each change the Lite or Plus bill, and you still lack inventory. QuickBooks Plus is the card that allows 5 users and includes inventory and project profitability, with the accountant seat free on plans that include one. EasyStart is the wrong landing spot if you already use those Plus features, because a downgrade turns them off. Get the Plus price from the live pricing page before you sign.

Use a higher bookkeeping tier when the gap is volume, reconciliation, or a report. Look at an ERP when the gap is the shape of the business: stock that is bought, stored, and sold; jobs that need cost against the estimate inside the same ledger as the invoice; payroll, inventory, and projects that have to post together; more than a handful of users with different permissions; or a second company. Our ERP versus accounting software page walks through that boundary in more detail. The accounting software guide covers how far a dedicated accounting product can be pushed before operations work is forced into spreadsheets.

What the jump to Odoo or Business Central costs

Licence price is the small number. Compare it in the currency the vendor publishes, and keep implementation beside it.

Business Central on the Canada pricing page, as of October 2026, lists Essentials at CAD 108.50 per user per month, Premium at CAD 149.20, and Team Members at CAD 10.90, paid yearly, plus applicable tax. Premium adds service management and manufacturing. Team Members is limited read, approve, and update access. A 30-day trial is free. Microsoft says the displayed prices are informational and the checkout price can differ. Purchase is through the contact path or a partner. The United States pricing page lists the same plans at USD 80.00, USD 110.00, and USD 8.00 per user per month, paid yearly, with the same informational caveat. A Canadian buyer should budget the Canada page.

Set a solo Xero Starter bill beside that. CAD 25 per month is CAD 300 per year for the organisation. One Business Central Essentials user at CAD 108.50 per month, paid yearly, is CAD 1,302 per year before tax, and before anyone configures the company. Five Essentials users is CAD 6,510 per year at the list figure. Two of those people might instead be Team Members at CAD 10.90 if their work is limited read, approve, and update. Assume 25 users, of whom 8 need full Essentials licences and 17 fit Team Members: 8 times CAD 108.50 plus 17 times CAD 10.90 is CAD 868 plus CAD 185.30, or CAD 1,053.30 per month, about CAD 12,639.60 per year before tax. That headcount is the point where a self-employed plan was never the destination. QuickBooks Advanced stops at 25 users and still does not add manufacturing. Premium on Business Central is the licence that adds manufacturing and service management, at CAD 149.20 per user per month paid yearly.

Odoo's public pricing page, as of October 2026, lists One App Free at USD 0 for one app and unlimited users on Odoo Online. Installing further apps moves the database to a paid plan. Standard is labeled US$31.10 and US$38.90 per user per month for all apps on Odoo Online. Custom is labeled US$61.00 and US$76.20 per user per month and adds Odoo.sh or on-premise, Studio, multi-company, and the external API. A note says the discount applies for 12 months to the initial users ordered. Hosting on Odoo.sh is extra. A light user is listed at US$8.90 and is available through an advisor quote. The yearly toggle also displays $24.90 and $31.10 without a clear label of which figure is the annual per-month equivalent, so treat US$31.10 to US$38.90 as the pair the page shows for Standard and confirm the one checkout will charge.

Odoo also sells implementation hours, in USD, which are not a Canadian partner quote. For a new customer, with 15 percent off the first pack, the Success Packs are Starter US$493 for 4 hours, Basic US$3,060 for 25 hours, Standard US$5,950 for 50 hours, Custom US$10,625 for 100 hours, and Pro US$21,250 for 200 hours. Returning-customer prices on the same table are US$580, US$3,600, US$7,000, US$12,500, and US$25,000. Above 50 users, Odoo says to contact them. Four hours will not carry inventory, payroll, and opening balances. A 50-hour pack at US$5,950 is a clearer picture of a modest first phase bought directly from Odoo, and a local project can cost more or less than that pack. Ask each bidder to price data migration, opening inventory, and sales-tax setup as separate lines.

Put the two jumps side by side for a 5-user company that has left self-employed plans. Five Odoo Standard users at US$31.10 is US$155.50 per month if the lower label is the one you are charged, or US$194.50 at US$38.90, before hosting and before a Success Pack. Five Business Central Essentials users at CAD 108.50 is CAD 542.50 per month, paid yearly, plus tax, list price, informational. Either number dwarfs FreshBooks Plus at CAD 42 or Xero Standard at CAD 60. Pay it when the bookkeeping product cannot hold the operation. Skip it when the only pain is a 20-invoice cap.

How to choose the tool you will still use in two years

Decide in this order.

1. Count the transactions that hit a published cap: invoices per month, bills per month, active clients, currencies, and bank accounts. If you are under Xero's 20 and 5, under FreshBooks' 5 clients, and happy to code the bank by hand, Wave Starter at USD 0 or a discounted first year of FreshBooks Lite can be enough. If an accountant must log in, FreshBooks Lite and QuickBooks Lite both fail that test.
2. Write down the sales taxes you charge. Match GST, HST, and any provincial tax to the CRA rate for the place of supply, including Nova Scotia at 14 percent HST from 1 April 2025 and Quebec at 5 percent GST plus 9.975 percent provincial tax. Have the vendor show those amounts on an invoice from your file.
3. Check the $30,000 small-supplier test across every business you own, using four consecutive quarters and any single quarter. Registration within 29 days is a calendar task. The software will not do it for you.
4. Confirm you can export invoices, bills, and attachments and keep them in Canada for six years. A price of CAD 25 a month is wasted if the only copy of your records sits in a view you lose when you cancel.
5. Only then compare ERP licences. Use the best ERP for small business guide if you are weighing systems for a company that has inventory or projects, and read how an ERP implementation is structured if you want the work broken into phases. For the finance scope itself, our finance implementation for growing companies covers the ledger, tax, and close work that bookkeeping plans stop short of, and Odoo for growing companies is the path when you want one database for finance and operations.

Stay on the bookkeeping tool if you are one to five people, you sell services, you do not stock goods, and a higher tier removes the cap that annoyed you. Move when at least one of these is already true: you buy and resell stock, you need job cost next to the invoice, you run payroll plus inventory plus projects as one close, you are past a handful of users, or you operate a second company. Companies in the 20 to 100 person range with those pressures are who we scope on Business Central or Odoo. A freelancer who only invoices should ignore that scope and pay CAD 0 to CAD 80 for the plan that matches the cap.

Two mistakes cause a second purchase. The first is picking a plan for the promo and discovering the cap is still there. Xero's CAD 5 price becomes CAD 25 after three months and still stops at 20 invoices and 5 bills. FreshBooks at CAD 1 still stops at 5 clients for the whole first year. QuickBooks at $2 still means one user, two bank connections, and no accountant seat. Confirm the post-promo price at checkout. The second is jumping to per-user ERP pricing to escape a CAD 42 reconciliation gap. Plus at CAD 42, or Xero Standard at CAD 60, is the cheaper fix for that gap. ERP licences start near CAD 108.50 per user per month on Business Central Essentials, or about US$31.10 to US$38.90 per user on Odoo Standard. On Odoo's own price list a 50-hour Success Pack is US$5,950 and the 4-hour pack is US$493. A local project can cost more or less than those Odoo-direct packs.

QuickBooks Desktop, annual billing, and the extras that change the bill

QuickBooks Desktop is no longer sold to new subscribers in Canada. Support for Desktop 2023 and older ended after 31 May 2026. If you still close the year on Desktop 2023 or older, move now to the online card that keeps the features you use (inventory and projects mean Plus, not EasyStart). Do not wait for a renewal offer on a product the Canada page says is closed to new buyers.

Annual billing is uneven. Wave Pro publishes CAD 250 per year against CAD 25 per month. Twelve months at the monthly rate is CAD 300, so the annual price is CAD 50 lower. Xero's Canada FAQ does not offer an annual prepay price. FreshBooks advertises an extra 10 percent off on a yearly toggle and does not print the yearly amounts. Business Central's Canada list is already a yearly commitment: the per-user figure is paid yearly. Odoo shows a yearly toggle with two Standard numbers, $24.90 and $31.10, without a clear label. Ask the checkout screen for the annual total before you treat a toggle as a discount.

Extras that sit outside the headline price:

1. FreshBooks team members at CAD 13 per user per month, and Advanced Payments at CAD 25 per month. Select, which includes Advanced Payments, has no published subscription price.
2. Xero add-ons, usage, and payment fees, which the 80 percent new-customer discount excludes. The code on the page is DC8032614GL, for a first organisation bought on xero.com, for three months.
3. Wave card fees of 2.9% plus $0.60, or 3.4% plus $0.60 for American Express, on Starter. A separate receipts add-on and a payroll "from" price appear on the page without a consistent currency label, so do not convert them into CAD in a budget. The page shows Wave Advisors starting at USD 149 per month and also starting at $199 per month, and it does not make either figure the Canadian price.
4. QuickBooks payroll as a paid add-on, with e-file to the CRA or Revenu Québec and T4 and RL-1 forms. Get the Core, Premium, and Elite amounts in writing. Time tracking starts at Premium, not Core.
5. Odoo.sh hosting on top of Custom, and any Success Pack you buy for hours. A light user at US$8.90 exists as an advisor quote, not as a self-serve checkout line.
6. Tax on the subscription itself. Xero's CAD prices exclude tax. Business Central's CAD prices are plus applicable tax.

If you are under the caps, the decision is a one-page comparison: USD 0 if you will live without automatic bank import, CAD 25 on Xero Starter if 20 invoices and 5 bills are enough and you want reconciliation, CAD 26 on FreshBooks Lite (or CAD 1 for the first year) if you have five or fewer clients and can wait on reconciliation, or the QuickBooks Canada Lite promo if one user, two banks, and no accountant seat match how you work. The moment those sentences stop describing your month, move one tier. The moment stock, job cost, and a real team show up together, price Business Central or Odoo with implementation beside the licence, and use the finance scope to decide the first phase.

How Flectic can help

Flectic works with companies of 20 to 100 people, so a one-person business belongs on a bookkeeping plan until a hard cap blocks a weekly task. Once finance, stock and projects run on spreadsheets and disconnected tools, Flectic implements Odoo or Dynamics 365. Flectic sends a written proposal with a fixed price for each phase before work starts. Read the ERP implementation scope, then Book a free discovery call with Flectic.

Sources

• Business records, Canada Revenue Agency, October 2026
• Where to keep your records, for how long, Canada Revenue Agency, October 2026
• When to register for and start charging the GST/HST, Canada Revenue Agency, October 2026
• GST/HST calculator (and rates), Canada Revenue Agency, October 2026
• QuickBooks Canada plans and pricing, Intuit, October 2026
• QuickBooks Lite Canada, Intuit, October 2026
• QuickBooks Canada payroll, Intuit, October 2026
• Xero Canada pricing, Xero, October 2026
• FreshBooks Canada pricing, FreshBooks, October 2026
• Wave pricing, Wave, October 2026
• Odoo pricing, Odoo, October 2026
• Odoo Success Packs, Odoo, October 2026
• Dynamics 365 Business Central pricing (Canada), Microsoft, October 2026
• Dynamics 365 Business Central pricing (United States), Microsoft, October 2026