Pandle

Pandle is a free cloud accounting platform built for UK small businesses and sole traders. It handles invoicing, automatic expense categorization from bank feeds, profit and loss reporting, and built-in VAT compliance for filing returns. The interface keeps things simple, avoiding the overwhelming feature sets of enterprise accounting software while still covering core needs like tax estimations and financial dashboards.

It's ideal for UK freelancers and micro-businesses on tight budgets who want proper accounting without monthly fees. Unlike Pandle's free tier, most accounting software like Xero and Sage charge monthly for basic features, and spreadsheets don't provide tax-ready reports. Pandle's trade-off is that it's UK-only in scope, but if that's your market, it removes barriers to keeping accurate books from day one.