The 4 Best Accounting Blogs to Find Free Expert Advice

One of the biggest challenges many business owners face is finding quality expert accounting advice and information. Although it’s always best to find and work with a qualified accounting professional, there are a number of free accounting blogs online that can also be extremely helpful. We’ve compiled a list of four of the best accounting blogs around, to help you find answers to questions, learn accounting principles and keep up to date on important accounting topics.

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1. Accounting Coach

Writer: Harold Averkamp, CPA, MBA

What makes it awesome: Averkamp’s accounting blog is different than most: He has developed an entire curriculum to help small-business owners, bookkeepers and accounting students learn accounting concepts in an easy to navigate course-like format. Rather than providing articles like a typical blog, his site includes accounting tutorials and extensive Q&A about each topic, along with practice quizzes and puzzles to reinforce your knowledge. There is also a paid version that includes cheat sheets, flash cards and formal tests on each topic.

Who it’s for: Anyone struggling to learn accounting concepts such as debits and credits or accrual vs cash basis accounting. Or if you are looking to learn how to read financial statements or reconcile a bank account. A cool feature on this accounting blog is that it allows you to search for accounting terms and sort by various uses of each concept.

Favorite recent article: 13-part Introduction to Bookkeeping: Past and Present

2. Accounting Department.com

Editor: Dennis Jajjar, CPA, CGMA

What makes it awesome: Accountingdepartment.com publishes content from various contributors that includes actionable advice that you can use to improve the bookkeeping and accounting practices in your business. Types of topics covered on this accounting blog include understanding the various settings and workflows in QuickBooks accounting software to best practices in billing and collections. In addition to the blog, you can register for live webinars that tackle topics like job costing and how to analyze your P&L statement to identify discrepancies and areas of concern.

Who it’s for: Small-business owners, bookkeepers, controllers and other accounting professionals looking for tips and resources about bookkeeping workflow procedures, proper accounting treatment of certain transactions and the use of accounting technology.

Favorite recent article: What Are the Telltale Signs That Your Business Is the Victim of Fraud

3. 5minutebookkeeping.com

Editor: Veronica Wasek, CPA

What makes it awesome: What’s so amazing about Wasek’s accounting blog is that she keeps her articles short and succinct, and is able to simplify even the most complex accounting concepts. She writes about topics such as how to find and hire the right bookkeeping or accounting professional, how to close the books in QuickBooks Online or how and when to write off a bad debt — just to name a few of her articles. Her tutorials are straightforward, easy to follow and include lots of screenshots and infographics. She even includes video tutorials to go along with each article!

Who it’s for: Anyone looking to learn ways to save time on their accounting processes or looking for tips on how to record a tricky transaction in their QuickBooks software.

Favorite recent article: How to Enter NSF Checks in QuickBooks Online

4. GrowthForce

Editor: Stephen King CPA, CGMA

What makes it awesome: The GrowthForce accounting blog focuses on providing tips and advice to help small-businesses identify and understand financial and other metrics in their business that can be used to make better business decisions. You’ll find a wealth of information about managing your cash flow, finding and retaining the right employees and other topics that are relevant to any business owner. I adore how easy it is to navigate the blog, there are three ways to search for topics — by keyword, category or author. This makes it super easy to find what you are looking for. Some of the categories you can browse are Accounting System Design and Optimization, HR Profitability and Growth and Financial Intelligence, Reporting & KPIs.

Who it’s for: Small-business owners and others who are looking to take their financial literacy to the next level and learn to dig deeper into their company’s financial metrics. Controllers and CFOs can find some great articles about what’s happening in the accounting industry here, too.

Favorite recent article: Top Financial Issues SMBs Continue to Have and How to Fix Them

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