Rated #2 Best UK Accounting Software
Overall Rating:
9.3
Ease Of Use = 9.9
Value For Money = 9.7
Customer Support = 9.2
Features = 8.4
PROS:
- Has most of the key features you’re likely to need
- Can be used even if you don’t bank with ANNA
- Offers a free PAYG platform
CONS:
- Doesn’t offer any more advanced features or reporting
- Need the +Taxes add-on for Corporation tax, VAT, and payroll.
- Not suitable for large corporations
ANNA Business Tools Review[Updated For 2025] – More famous for the online bank accounts, does their accounting software offering live up to expectations, or is it just too simple?
Of course, that depends entirely on what you’re looking for. However, if you want to keep things streamlined, ANNA business tools offer an interesting proposition worth considering.
At a Glance
By far the biggest plus point for the ANNA business tools software is the simplicity it offers.
It allows you to do all the key things such as connecting your bank account to explain transactions, upload receipts and other expenses, create invoices to send to clients, and share your accounts with your accountant.
Yet, it keeps things very easy to use, so you don’t get bogged down in features and functions you don’t really understand.
Essentially – It’s a slimmed down version of full accounting software.
And it’s 100% free if you use the Pay-As-You-Go plan, which only charges for transactions for ANNA banking. If you don’t bank with them, you get all the features you need for free.
It’s even got an AI Tax Bot, designed to answer your questions and link to the relevant HMRC documentation for full peace of mind. It’s a great tool to simplify and get beginners comfortable with their bookkeeping and accounting.
Which Accounting Software Is Right For You?
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What Features Does ANNA Business Tools Support?
Our ANNA business tools review has found this software focuses on doing a few key things, but doing them well – without adding extra complications.
If you choose the free plan, you’ll benefit from:
- Connect your bank account to explain transactions
- Upload expenses and receipts and export them to Excel
- Create branded invoices with automatic payment or overdue notifications
- See when all your important company deadlines are approaching
- Use the app to do your bookkeeping ‘on the go’
It’s worth pointing out that the ability to link your bank account and have transactions automatically explained on the free plan is quite unusual. Most other software we’ve seen only offer this on a paid plan.
However, while you can use the free plan and export data into Excel to calculate VAT and other tax returns, if you want to run payroll, calculate Corporation Tax returns, VAT returns, submit annual accounts, or your annual confirmation statement, you’ll have to pay for the +Taxes upgrade, which is £24 per month.
The Pay As You Go Plan does come with a 30-day trial of ANNA + Taxes, or you can take advantage of their £3 for 3 months offer for a longer trial of these services.
Is ANNA Business Tools Hard To Learn?
Running a small business can be very exciting, but we know that dealing with all the legal obligations and accounting is what fills many business owners with dread.
What we like about ANNA Business Tools (and one of the main reasons we rate it so highly) is just how easy it is to ‘pick up and play’.
After logging in, you’ll get a really simple overview of what you should do next. Typically, this starts with connecting your bank account so you can unlock the full power of the tool.
Many of the suggested actions have a ‘Find Out More’ link that helps to explain exactly what it means and why it’s important. This all makes it really easy to follow.
Plus, because it’s a simplified version of a full accounting software, it all feels very intuitive. There’s only a limited number of things you can do in each area of the platform, and that means there’s very little you can do wrong!
There’s also Live Chat available should you encounter any problems, and you can use their AI Tax Robot to help you answer questions. It’s definitely one of the easiest tools we’ve ever used.
Fees
As we mentioned earlier in our ANNA Business Tools review, there’s a Pay As You Go plan that contains all of the basic key tools most businesses are likely to need, particularly when just starting out.
So, what do you get if you agree to pay for an upgrade?
The ANNA +Taxes upgrade will:
- Automates VAT return calculations, guides you on what VAT you can reclaim, and helps extract necessary information from invoices and receipts.
- Corporation Tax and Annual Accounts preparation and filing, as well as a real-time running estimate of how much you owe.
- Easy to use payroll software for up to 5 employees
To summarise, the PAYG plan gives you basic bookkeeping functions that you or your accountant can use to manually submit your returns.
The ANNA+Taxes provides some upgrades for limited companies, which could help save money on your accountancy bills (especially with the tax experts on hand to help!).
Is ANNA Business Tools A Good Idea?
That depends a lot on where your business is at. If you’re just starting out and cashflow is tight, ANNA Business Tools allows you to keep on top of your bookkeeping requirements easily, and without any fees.
If you’re a more established business, or want the benefit of more features and reporting, you’ll have to consider whether the paid plans are worth signing up for.
Either way, we feel that ANNA Business Tools is a great, simplified software that most small businesses will be happy with, and it’s a great alternative to the more feature-rich dedicated accounting software.
ANNA Business Tools Explainer Video
The Advantages
Let’s take a moment to look at ANNA or ‘ANNA Money’ as they are sometimes called, as they offer much more than just their business tools.
In fact, they are primarily known for offering online banking services to businesses. You may have even seen them advertised on TV.
The bank account offering is actually very good, too, and the business tools software was developed as an ‘add-on’ for their banking customers.
Yet, they decided to offer the tools to everyone, even people who don’t use ANNA for their banking. The advantage of this is that because the software forms part of their overall offering, it’s likely to be continued to be developed and improved.
So, in addition to the ease of use, simplicity, and the fact that there’s a PAYG plan available (all things we have already discussed in detail during this ANNA business tools review), you can add the support and backing of a well-known large brand into the mix too.
All in all, we feel there are many advantages of ANNA Business tools that will appeal to many entrepreneurs, but particularly those just starting their journey.
The Disadvantages
No ANNA Business Tools review would be complete without an honest admission about the negatives and disadvantages of the offering.
Firstly, for all it’s focused on providing a fast, easy way to keep your books in order, that comes at the cost of more powerful features you might find in full accounting software.
The biggest missing element for us is the lack of clear reporting. While you get a top-level overview, you don’t get the range of reporting you do elsewhere that allows you to drill down into cashflow, year-on-year comparisons, benchmarking, and so on.
Of course, if you’re not into crunching the data or have other solutions in place, you might see this as an advantage!
The other major negative is, of course, the fact that some features have to be paid for. That’s not entirely unexpected, to be fair, but it is something to factor into your decision-making.
That’s especially true when you consider the ANNA +Taxes plan isn’t that much different in price to some of the other accounting software, yet still lacks some of the reporting and other accounting features you can get elsewhere.
However, we must say the paid plan does come with a lot more support than you often get, even with the paid plans of other accounting software.
Overall, the disadvantages are few and far between, providing you accept ANNA Business Tools for what it is – a free way to simplify your bookkeeping and invoicing.
ANNA Business Tools customer reviews
ANNA Money has a 4.2 rating on Trustpilot, with 83% of customers giving it a 5-star rating, and praising ANNA in particular for its exceptional customer service and help.
The reviews cover all the services by ANNA money, including their banking service. Most of the negative reviews are due to issues with the banking service, with a handful of reviews from those who wish that more features were included in the free version of the platform rather than having to pay for the upgraded service.
I find ANNA as friendly and as helpful as going to a family member to help with something. They are there to help instantaneously and they always give a quick solution. I have honestly never known customer service to be so good, especially in a day and age when few seem to care about the service they provide. I’d recommend them any day of the week!
5-star review from Helen Critchell on Trustpilot
Moving to Anna has been the best thing i have done. It feels like having your own personal financial advisers just a click away. The live chat is answered within a minute and always there to help. Invoicing is a breeze and ties everything up with our accounts so neatly. Vat returns are a click of a button as well as tax returns. We no longer employ accountants because of how good Anna is.
5-star review from Jonathan P on Trustpilot
Highly recommend Anna Money. Great and easy to use software. Covers all aspects of your business making all business tasks easy and simple. Chat feature is first class. Any problems resolved quickly and efficiently.
5-star review from Linda on Trustpilot
ANNA Business Tools Review – Summary
So, let’s consider what we’ve discovered during our ANNA Business Tools review…
Firstly, this is a genuinely free platform that will cover the needs of most businesses that are just starting out.
You can link your bank account securely, then easily explain and categorise transactions while recording receipts and other expenses.
You can also quickly generate professional-looking invoices that include your logo and store contact details, to easily create new invoices in the future.
Everything is super simple to use, and there are suggested actions when you log in to the account so you can make sure you don’t miss anything.
There’s plenty of support and help available if you get stuck, including Live Chat, which takes much of the pressure away. In fact, ANNA Business Tools is made for people who don’t have extensive accounting knowledge and don’t want to have to learn it either.
The downside is that the software is lacking in some of the more advanced features and reporting that more established businesses may require, and you have to pay for some features, such as automatic VAT calculations and annual tax returns.
Still, these are fairly small negatives, especially if you just want a simple-to-understand tool that does all the basics without overcomplicating things. For that reason, we fully recommend ANNA Business Tools.
Top-Rated Accounting Software:
| Accounting Software | Cheapest Package | Ease Of Use | Our Rating | Review | Official Site |
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 | £33/mo | Excellent | 9.4 | Read Review | Visit Website |
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