Most accounting software is built for businesses with employees, inventory, and an accountant. If you are self-employed, you need something simpler: track the hours you bill, turn them into invoices, and keep Schedule-C-ready books — all in one app, free to start.
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Most accounting software ignores where a freelancer's income actually starts: the hours. Timebook begins there — track billable time from the web, a CLI, or an AI agent, free for as long as you want. Your income isn't a mystery you reconstruct at tax time; it's a running total.
Timebook is in the ChatGPT app store and speaks MCP, so ChatGPT, Claude, or any AI agent can log your hours as you work — "log 2 hours on the Acme audit." The tedious part of staying on top of your books happens while you stay in flow.
Turn tracked hours into a professional PDF invoice in a couple of clicks, send it, and track it to paid — no separate billing tool, no re-typing. The moment a client pays, the income is recorded in your books.
Categorize income and expenses to the Schedule C lines a single-member LLC or sole proprietor actually files, and pull a P&L whenever you need one. Tax time is a review, not a reconstruction.
Connect your bank via Plaid to bring in expenses and match incoming deposits to the invoices they paid. Or import a bank statement. Skip it entirely if your books are simple — it is there when you want it.
No per-seat pricing, no "contact sales," no accounting-suite tiers you grow out of. Time tracking is free; Pro is a flat $29.99/mo for invoicing, bank sync, and books. Export everything as CSV anytime — no lock-in.
It depends on whether you bill by the hour. If you do, an all-in-one that starts from your billable time — tracks it, turns it into invoices, and keeps Schedule-C-ready books (Timebook) — removes the juggling of a timer plus an invoicer plus a spreadsheet. If your work is inventory- or payroll-heavy, a full ledger like QuickBooks Online fits better.
You need clean records of income, expenses, and (for an LLC) owner draws — not necessarily a full accounting suite. A single-member LLC is a disregarded entity, so business income and expenses go on Schedule C of your personal Form 1040. Software that keeps those records Schedule-C-ready, and turns your hours into the invoices that create the income, is usually enough.
QuickBooks is powerful, but built for businesses with employees, inventory, and an accountant — often more than a one-person operation needs. Intuit also discontinued QuickBooks Self-Employed and moved users to QuickBooks Solopreneur. If you mainly bill time and want simple Schedule-C books, a lighter all-in-one is a better fit than a full ledger.
It ranges from free timers to $20–40/month all-in-one tools. Timebook keeps time tracking free forever and charges a flat $29.99/month for Pro (invoicing, bank sync, and bookkeeping) — no per-seat pricing and no tiers, with a 14-day Pro trial that needs no card.
Most cannot — you bolt a separate timer onto the accounting tool. Timebook is built the other way around: time tracking is the free foundation (web, CLI, or an AI agent via MCP), and invoicing and Schedule-C books build on top, so the hour you track becomes the invoice you send and the income in your books.