Free accounting software in Canada: what you get and when to move

Most Canadian businesses must register for GST/HST once worldwide taxable supplies pass CAD 30,000 in a single calendar quarter or across four consecutive calendar quarters, under the Canada Revenue Agency small-supplier rule. As of October 2026, the plans that stay at CAD 0 or USD 0 are narrow: Zoho Books Free while a financial year stays at or under CAD 50,000, Wave Starter with no automatic bank import, and desktop GnuCash. QuickBooks Online Canada and Xero Canada publish trials and paid plans. Stock, approvals, a second company, Quebec payroll, or years of hand-imported statements are the limits that should move you.

Owners searching for free accounting software in Canada usually want a ledger that files sales tax and pulls the bank in by itself. Those two jobs are exactly where the free tiers thin out. This page dates the caps, then names the trigger to leave entry software. For how a full ledger differs from an accounting file, see ERP vs accounting software. The rest of this page stays on the Canadian limit: GST/HST, bank feeds, payroll, and the first paid step after a free plan.

When the CAD 30,000 line changes the job of the software

You can stay a small supplier, and skip registration, while worldwide taxable supplies stay at or under CAD 30,000. You may also register on purpose before you cross it. The CRA tests one calendar quarter, and it tests four consecutive calendar quarters. That window is separate from a single tax year.

If you cross CAD 30,000 inside one quarter, you charge GST/HST on the supply that takes you over, and you register within 29 days of the effective date. If you cross only by adding four quarters together, and no single quarter did it, you stop being a small supplier at the end of the following month. A summer contract that lands in July can force tax on that invoice. A slow climb across fall and winter can force it a month after the fourth quarter ends. Either way, the free file has to show tax collected and the input tax credits you will claim.

The rate depends on where the supply is made. Taxable supplies are 5% GST in a non-participating province, 13% HST in Ontario, 14% HST in Nova Scotia on or after April 1, 2025, and 15% HST in any other participating province. Basic groceries and other zero-rated supplies are 0% everywhere in Canada. Those rates are on the CRA place-of-supply page.

Place of supply is a second tax code on the invoice. In the CRA's own example, a laptop picked up in Manitoba is 5% GST plus Manitoba PST of 7%. The same laptop delivered in Nova Scotia is 14% HST. One tax code labeled GST will post both invoices to the wrong bucket. Registrants keep the records that support tax collected and input tax credits, usually for six years from the end of the last year they relate to, which the CRA states on its charge-and-collect page.

Put numbers on the Manitoba and Nova Scotia pair. Assume a CAD 2,000 laptop, tax extra, and ignore any retail promotion. Picked up in Manitoba, GST is 5% of CAD 2,000, which is CAD 100, and Manitoba PST is 7%, which is CAD 140. The customer pays CAD 2,240, and your GST/HST return carries CAD 100 of tax collected. Delivered in Nova Scotia on or after April 1, 2025, HST is 14% of CAD 2,000, which is CAD 280. The customer pays CAD 2,280, and the return carries CAD 280 of HST, with no separate PST line. An Ontario delivery of the same laptop is 13% HST, CAD 260 of tax, customer total CAD 2,260. Three invoices, three remittance amounts. A file with one blended tax code will show a single tax total that matches none of the three returns.

A free plan can still record those invoices while you have one province, one rate, and a short customer list. It gets expensive in staff time once you ship into two tax regimes, or once an auditor asks for six years of backup that lives in a spreadsheet next to the file. Quebec sales tax is a separate registration question. Have the current QST threshold read off the Revenu Québec page with your accountant before you assume a federal small-supplier limit covers it. The same worry shows up on Zoho's Canada free-plan page, where a customer quote says the product had to meet Quebec's taxation standards.

Which plans are free in Canada as of October 2026

The useful question is the one on Zoho's own pricing FAQ, "For how long is the free plan free?", and the matching search "Is Wave Accounting still free in Canada?". As of October 2026, here is what the vendor pages support. Use the table to see the cap on each plan.

• Zoho Books Canada Free (Price as of October 2026: CAD 0 per organization while financial-year revenue stays at or under CAD 50,000 · Cap you can hit: 1 user plus 1 accountant, 1,000 invoices a year, 1,000 expenses a year, 5 scheduled reports · What the page withholds: Third-party bank and card feeds, stock tracking, sales orders, sales and purchase approval, multi-currency)
• Wave Starter (Price as of October 2026: USD 0 · Cap you can hit: Invoices, estimates, bills, and bookkeeping records are unlimited on Starter · What the page withholds: Automatic bank import, auto-merge, categorization, and receipt capture)
• Xero Canada (Price as of October 2026: No forever-free plan. Starter is CAD 25 per month after CAD 5 per month for three months · Cap you can hit: Starter: 20 invoices and 5 bills · What the page withholds: You are on a paid plan before those caps)
• QuickBooks Online Canada (Price as of October 2026: No forever-free plan. 30-day trial, no credit card. A promo line shows Lite at CAD 2 per month from a CAD 20 regular price · Cap you can hit: EasyStart 1 user, Plus 5 users, Advanced 25 users, each plus one accountant · What the page withholds: Inventory tracking is on Plus, not EasyStart. Payroll is a separate product)
• GnuCash 5.17 (Price as of October 2026: USD 0, desktop download under the GNU GPL · Cap you can hit: Windows, macOS, and Linux · What the page withholds: The homepage does not claim live bank feeds, Canadian sales-tax returns, or payroll)

Prices and caps: Zoho Books Canada plan comparison and Zoho Books Canada pricing, Wave pricing, Xero Canada pricing, QuickBooks Canada pricing, GnuCash. Zoho's yearly column is the price per organization per month, billed annually, and it excludes local taxes. The month-to-month column is higher: Standard CAD 20, Professional CAD 35, Premium CAD 50, Elite CAD 200, Ultimate CAD 350, against annual-billed CAD 15, CAD 30, CAD 40, CAD 165, and CAD 290.

Budget the Zoho free row from the comparison grid. The marketing page is a different list. The Canada free-plan page says the free plan can prepare QST/GST and federal or provincial tax returns, and can track T4A and T5018 contractors. The same page also lists custom users, custom roles, and custom reports. The comparison grid marks those custom items as not included on Free. When the two Zoho pages disagree, budget from the grid.

Wave's Starter price of USD 0 is real, and so are the card fees printed beside it: 2.9% plus USD 0.60 a payment, and 3.4% plus USD 0.60 for American Express. That is how a zero subscription still costs money on every card invoice. Assume 20 card payments of USD 400 in a month, and assume the fee currency matches the payment. Each payment costs 2.9% of USD 400, which is USD 11.60, plus USD 0.60, which is USD 12.20. Twenty payments cost USD 244.00. One American Express payment in that set, at 3.4% plus USD 0.60, would be USD 13.60 plus USD 0.60, which is USD 14.20, and the other 19 stay at USD 12.20. The month is then USD 14.20 plus 19 times USD 12.20, which is USD 14.20 plus USD 231.80, USD 246.00. Starter's subscription line is still USD 0. The card line is the bill. BDC's free and low-cost accounting guide, whose revised-list note says January 2026, still describes Wave as free software whose automatic bank feeds help cash-flow tracking. Wave's own pricing page now reserves auto-import for Pro. If a roundup and the vendor disagree, use the vendor page dated the month you buy.

Xero's Starter plan page says "For more than 20 invoices, see the standard plan" and "For more than 5, see the standard plan" for bills. The same page lists inventory, bank connections, and sales tax among features on the plan, without a quantity cap printed there. Standard then lists at CAD 60 per month after an introductory CAD 12 for three months. Premium lists at CAD 80 per month after CAD 16 for three months, and multi-currency sits on that Premium plan. All of those Xero figures are monthly Canadian dollars and exclude tax. A 30-day trial exists.

QuickBooks Desktop is no longer sold to new subscribers in Canada. Support for QuickBooks Desktop 2023 and older ends after May 31, 2026. A forum comment that points sole proprietors at an old desktop edition is about avoiding a subscription. New subscribers start from the Online pricing page.

GnuCash 5.17 will import QIF, OFX, and HBCI files and match transactions. That is a desktop double-entry book for a person or a small business. It does not, on the homepage, take on a Canadian GST/HST return or a payroll remittance. Someone on your team still has to build the tax codes and the filing workbook.

What the free tiers leave out of daily bookkeeping

"What does \"free accounting software\" usually exclude in Canada?" has a concrete answer on the two zero-dollar ledgers people open.

Zoho Books Free includes manual bank and credit-card statement import, and it includes bank reconciliation. It does not include third-party bank and credit-card feeds. Someone downloads the file, maps the columns, and imports it. That is fine at forty transactions a month. It is a weekly chore at four hundred, and it is how duplicates slip in when a statement is imported twice. The grid also withholds multi-currency on Free, so a US-dollar supplier invoice has nowhere clean to live.

Wave draws the same line in a different place. Starter includes unlimited estimates, invoices, bills, and bookkeeping records. Auto-import of bank transactions, auto-merge, and categorization are Pro or add-on features. Wave Pro is CAD 25 per month or CAD 250 per year per business, and the US-dollar list is USD 19 per month or USD 190 per year. The pricing FAQ is blunt about groups: three businesses on Pro are three separate subscriptions. A holding company plus an operating company is two bills, even before payroll.

Zoho turns on stock and approvals by changing plan. Stock tracking, price lists, sales orders, and sales and purchase approvals start on Professional. As of October 2026 that is CAD 30 per organization per month billed annually, or CAD 35 month to month, taxes extra. Locations start on Premium, with 3 included, at CAD 40 per month billed annually or CAD 50 month to month. Custom approval workflows are 0 on Free, Standard, and Professional, and 25 on Premium.

Extra Zoho users are an add-on. The pricing-page add-on box shows CAD 3 per user per month billed annually and CAD 4 month to month. Add-ons other than document scans are not supported on Free, so the free plan does not grow user by user. You change plan, or you share the one login, and the audit trail no longer shows who posted the bill. Assume Professional on an annual bill, CAD 30, plus two extra users at CAD 3 each. The organization is CAD 36 per month before tax, CAD 432 for the year. The same shape month to month is CAD 35 plus two times CAD 4, which is CAD 43 per month, CAD 516 for the year. That buys stock, sales orders, and sales and purchase approvals. It still shows 0 custom approval workflows. Premium, at CAD 40 per month on an annual bill, is where the grid includes 3 locations and 25 custom approval workflows. Three extra users on that annual Premium price would be CAD 40 plus CAD 9, CAD 49 per month, if you need the seats and the locations together.

Assume a three-person Ontario services firm with CAD 48,000 of revenue, one operating account, and no inventory. Zoho Books Free still matches the grid: one user, one accountant, under the revenue cap, manual statement import. The same firm at CAD 62,000, or with a second person who must send invoices, is already off that plan on revenue or on users. Assume instead a distributor with 400 invoices a year and a storeroom. Free covers that invoice count, because the cap is 1,000, and the grid still withholds stock. The storeroom is the limit that forces a plan change.

What payroll costs once the pay run leaves the spreadsheet

Payroll is the first monthly bill that sits outside the zero-dollar ledger.

Wave Payroll in Canada is CAD 25 base per month plus CAD 6 per active employee plus CAD 6 per independent contractor paid. It is available in every province and territory except Quebec. It includes CRA remittances and T4/T4A generation. That published price applies to new payroll customers who signed up after April 2, 2025. A 30-day trial starts when the first payroll is processed. The product page is Wave payroll.

Assume 8 active employees and 2 contractors paid in a month, outside Quebec, on the post-April 2025 price. The bill is CAD 25 plus CAD 48 plus CAD 12, which is CAD 85 that month, before any bookkeeping subscription. A month with no contractors is CAD 25 plus CAD 6 times the active employees. Quebec sits outside the product. A Montreal employer cannot treat Wave Payroll as the remittance system on the page Wave published.

QuickBooks Payroll Canada is a separate product in Core, Premium, and Elite. The payroll page says it calculates CPP, EI, and 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 Premium and Elite. Core is the tier without that time tracking. Ask Intuit for the current Core, Premium, and Elite dollar amounts in writing, and ask which tier files the RL-1 you need. The accounting plans leave this add-on off the subscription. A QuickBooks Lite promo at CAD 2 a month leaves payroll on that separate product.

Zoho's comparison grid is an accounting grid. It does not publish a Canadian payroll price. If a seller bundles payroll into a Zoho quote, ask which product, which province, and which return (T4, T4A, RL-1) sits on the line.

For a sole proprietor with no staff, this wall is still in the distance. The search "Which free(ish) bookkeeping software for a solo entrepreneur?" is a different job from a 15-person shop with biweekly pay. Use Wave Starter or Zoho Free only while you have no Quebec payroll and no need for a live bank feed. The moment the first employee is outside that shape, price payroll as its own monthly line on the quote.

Which limits should push you off entry software

Leave in this order. Each step is a vendor rule you can point at, plus the operating mess that follows if you wait.

1. Revenue past Zoho's CAD 50,000 financial-year cap, or a need for live bank feeds. Zoho Free ends when that revenue figure is crossed, even if you loved the product. Wave Starter can keep going on price and still make someone import the bank. If cash position is a weekly meeting, Pro at CAD 25 a month is the Wave answer, and it is still one company per subscription.
2. Stock and purchase orders. Zoho gates stock tracking, price lists, and sales orders at Professional, CAD 30 per organization per month on an annual bill. A distributor that keeps quantities on a sheet is already running a second system. Every receipt has to be typed again before the invoice can trust the count. That double entry is the cost, and it shows up as missed shipments and a stock number nobody will sign.
3. A second company, or approvals. Wave bills each Pro business on its own. Zoho sales and purchase approvals start at Professional, and a larger custom approval set waits for Premium (25 workflows, versus 0 on the cheaper plans). Team Members style approval seats are an ERP question, covered below. If a coordinator must release a bill before anyone pays it, an entry file with one login cannot show who released it.
4. Payroll in Quebec, or anything past a simple pay run. Wave's CAD 25 plus CAD 6 model stops at the Quebec border. QuickBooks payroll is the add-on that names Revenu Québec and the RL-1, and you still need the dollar quote. A bookkeeper who calculates CPP and EI in a workbook, then types the net pay into the ledger, will miss a rate change. The workbook will not e-file.
5. Messy books after years of manual statement import. This is the one that hurts during a move. Six years of GST/HST records do not shrink because you switched products. Duplicates from a double-imported CSV, checks posted to the wrong tax code, and a Manitoba pickup booked as Ontario HST all have to be unwound before an opening balance is worth entering. Shops that wait until the file is unreadable pay for cleanup and for the new system in the same quarter.

Late cleanup dominates the licence. A Professional plan at CAD 30 a month is CAD 360 a year before tax. A year of a clerk re-keying bank lines and stock counts will pass that number in wages long before the subscription looks expensive. If you want that judgment against your own volumes, a phased finance implementation starts by listing which of these five you have already crossed.

What Odoo and Business Central cost at entry

Licence list prices are public. Services follow your chart of accounts, your tax codes, and how much history you insist on bringing across. Ask any bidder to price data migration as its own line, separate from configuration and training.

Odoo One App Free is USD 0 for one app and unlimited users on Odoo Online. Installing additional apps moves the database to a paid plan. A company that needs accounting and inventory is already past one app. Have the Canadian GST/HST, PST, and QST codes demonstrated on a database loaded with your own invoices before you treat any free app as filing-ready. Our notes on Odoo GST, HST, PST and QST setup walk through that configuration job. They do not replace a test on your file.

Standard, as of October 2026, is USD 31.10 per user per month for the first 12 months and USD 38.90 after that, for all apps on Odoo Online. Custom, which Odoo describes as the plan for multi-company, Studio, and external API, is USD 61.00 then USD 76.20 per user per month. A light user is listed at USD 8.90 and is sold through an advisor quote. The page lists US dollars. Keep any proposal on those US dollar figures, the same ones on Odoo's pricing page, and ask the bidder to show the exchange rate if they also print a Canadian-dollar total.

The same pricing FAQ says the One App Free plan allows multiple companies, and also says that adding companies to the database switches the account to the Custom plan. Those two statements conflict. Do not budget a second company on the free plan. Get the plan name in the order form.

Odoo Success Packs for new customers are USD 493 (4 hours), USD 3,060 (25 hours), USD 5,950 (50 hours), USD 10,625 (100 hours), and USD 21,250 (200 hours). Returning-customer prices are USD 580, USD 3,600, USD 7,000, USD 12,500, and USD 25,000. Odoo says companies under 50 employees usually use these packs, and that 80% of projects in the estimator's scope go live in 200 hours or less. That 80% figure is Odoo's statement about its estimator, on the Success Packs page. Scope your own hours from the file you will migrate.

Assume 6 users who need the full Standard plan, a single Canadian company, year one, before tax and before any pack. Six times USD 31.10 is USD 186.60 per month, USD 2,239.20 for the first year of licences. A 25-hour new-customer pack adds USD 3,060 once. Year two of the same 6 users, at USD 38.90, is USD 233.40 per month if the headcount does not change. If those 6 users need Custom because you operate two companies, year one is six times USD 61.00, which is USD 366 per month, USD 4,392 for the year, again before the pack. Light users at USD 8.90 are a separate quote. They are not a substitute for the six people who post invoices and bills.

Dynamics 365 Business Central in Canada, as of October 2026, lists Essentials at CAD 108.50 per user per month paid yearly, Premium at CAD 149.20, and Team Members at CAD 10.90, each plus applicable tax. Team Members is limited access: read data, approve workflows, and create or update selected information. A 30-day trial is free. Microsoft says the figures are informational and the checkout price can differ. The Canada page is the one to use. The US page lists Essentials at USD 80.00, Premium at USD 110.00, and Team Members at USD 8.00, which is a different price list for a different store.

Assume 4 Essentials users and 6 Team Members on a yearly Canada commitment, before tax. Four times CAD 108.50 is CAD 434. Six times CAD 10.90 is CAD 65.40. Together that is CAD 499.40 per month, CAD 5,992.80 for the year. Put the people who post sales, purchasing, and the bank on Essentials. Put approvers who should not have the full ledger on Team Members. Premium at CAD 149.20 is the higher user price. Confirm on a call which of your workflows Microsoft places in Premium before you multiply it by headcount. Price Essentials for people who post the ledger and Team Members for people who only approve.

Scope the services quote to the phase. A first phase that posts the bank, GST/HST by place of supply, and open invoices is a smaller file than a phase that also rebuilds five years of stock history. We run that scoping on Business Central and on Odoo the same way: named users, a phase cut, and a migration line you can reject.

Compare the entry maths to the plan you are on now, using the same month. Zoho Professional at CAD 30 a month (annual billing) plus a Wave-style payroll of CAD 85 for 8 employees and 2 contractors is CAD 115 before tax. That pair still has no second company and no Premium approval pack. Odoo Standard for 6 users at USD 186.60 in year one is a different currency and a different product surface (all apps on Online). Business Central at CAD 499.40 for the 4-plus-6 mix is the full Essentials ledger plus approval seats. The jump is large next to a free file, and it is the number to set beside clerk hours spent importing statements and fixing tax codes.

How to leave a free ledger before the balances will not tie

Do the cleanup while the free or entry tool still opens. A weekend conversion after a filing deadline leaves the tax codes half-mapped.

Take a trial balance and an accounts-receivable and accounts-payable aging that your accountant will sign. Then export the tax report by code: 5% GST, 13% HST, 14% HST, 15% HST, and any PST you collect beside GST. If the software only offers one tax figure, rebuild the split from invoices for the open period before you move. The six-year record rule still applies to the years you leave behind. Keep the old file, the CSV exports, and the bank statements in a folder you can open without the old vendor.

List every company, every currency, and every person who approves a bill. That list is the licence count. It is also the test of whether Odoo Custom or a second Wave subscription is the real requirement. For Odoo, confirm in writing whether a second company stays on the plan you were quoted. For Business Central, mark Essentials versus Team Members against that same list.

Pick a cut-off month. Open invoices, open bills, uncleared bank lines, and inventory quantities move. Closed years stay in the old file unless you have a named reason to import them. Shops that import every historical invoice spend the hours Odoo prices at USD 3,060 and up, and they import the duplicates with the history.

Train the person who posts the bank on the new feed or the new statement process in the same week you stop the old one. Running both systems for a month is reasonable. Running both for a year means neither balance is the one you take to the bank.

If the file is already past the point where the aging ties to the general ledger, stop shopping for a cheaper ledger and book the call. The agenda is the five limits above, applied to your provinces and your headcount. We will tell you if a tighter paid plan (Zoho Professional, Wave Pro plus payroll, Xero Standard) still fits, and when the licence gap to Odoo or Business Central is the smaller bill.

What to confirm on the vendor page before you stay

Check these items on the vendor's own pricing page in the month you decide. Roundups go stale. BDC's guide is the current example: a January 2026 revision note on a page that still treats Wave bank feeds as free, against Wave's Pro gate.

1. Is the price CAD 0 for as long as you meet a revenue test (Zoho, CAD 50,000 in the financial year), or USD 0 with paid bank import (Wave Starter), or a trial that ends (QuickBooks 30 days, Xero 30 days, Business Central 30 days)?
2. Which GST/HST rates can you post as separate codes, including 14% Nova Scotia HST from April 1, 2025, and a 5% GST plus 7% Manitoba PST pickup? Ask for a sample return on those two invoices.
3. Are bank feeds included, or only a file import? Time a month of imports before you call the plan free.
4. Does stock, do sales orders, and do approvals sit on this plan or on the next one? For Zoho, that next plan is Professional at CAD 30 per month on an annual bill.
5. Does payroll cover your province? Wave excludes Quebec. QuickBooks payroll names Revenu Québec and RL-1s and still needs a price.
6. What happens at a second legal entity? Wave Pro is per business. Odoo's free-plan wording on multiple companies conflicts with itself. Business Central is priced per user on the Canada list.
7. Who owns the export if you leave? Download a chart of accounts, a trial balance, open invoices, and a tax detail report while you still have a login.

A solo consultant under the small-supplier line, with one bank account and no staff, can live on Wave Starter or Zoho Books Free or GnuCash for a while. Write the cap on a sticky note: CAD 50,000 of Zoho revenue, or the first employee, or the first product you stock. A 10 to 50 person company that already ships to more than one province, pays people, or approves bills in a shared mailbox is past the job those plans were priced to do. The next software decision is which two or three workflows move first, and what the list-price seats cost beside a cleanup. That is a scoped conversation, and the booking card above is the place to start it.

How Flectic can help

Flectic implements Odoo for companies of 20 to 100 people in the US and Canada that want sales, stock and finance in one database, starting with the apps that remove the most manual work. Core operations (four to six apps, a basic data import, up to 25 users) has a planning range of $6,000 to $30,000, not a quote. Compare the Odoo implementation scope with the limits you have hit, then Book a free discovery call with Flectic.

Sources

• When to register for and start charging the GST/HST, Canada Revenue Agency, October 2026
• GST/HST rates and place-of-supply rules, Canada Revenue Agency, October 2026
• Charge and collect the GST/HST, Canada Revenue Agency, October 2026
• Zoho Books Canada plan comparison, Zoho, October 2026
• Zoho Books Canada pricing FAQ, Zoho, October 2026
• Zoho Books Canada free accounting software, Zoho, October 2026
• Wave pricing, Wave, October 2026
• Wave payroll, Wave, October 2026
• QuickBooks Canada plans and pricing, Intuit, October 2026
• QuickBooks Canada payroll, Intuit, October 2026
• Xero Canada pricing, Xero, October 2026
• Xero Canada Starter plan, Xero, 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
• GnuCash, GnuCash Project, October 2026
• Free and low-cost accounting software, BDC, October 2026
• Which free(ish) bookkeeping software for a solo entrepreneur?, Reddit, October 2026
• Free accounting software Canada search, Brave Search, October 2026