Neat Review

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Neat at a Glance

Neat Ease of Setup and Use

To get started with Neat, you need to fill in your personal information and payment details. Neat offers a free trial for 15 days, but you must provide billing information when you sign up. You are charged the full yearly price of $288 automatically after your free trial concludes (though you can change to monthly payments in your billing settings). The free trial includes full access to Neat. 

Navigating Neat's software is very easy once you log in. You can find different tools on the left-hand side of the screen in the menu. Here, you can see insights via an automatically generated report of your incoming and outgoing funds, accounts/ transactions to see fund movement at a transaction level, and the monthly review to see how your business is performing this month compared to previous months. 

You can choose to start fresh or import your accounting information into Neat. If you want to accept online payments through Neat, you will need to set this up yourself—though Neat walks you through the process step-by-step.  

Seeing tasks you need to complete is very easy with Neat. Neat shows you a "needs review" tab with notifications under the menu. Here, you will see documents, receipts, invoices, and other tasks that require your input. 

Overall, Neat's layout is intuitive and accessible for people with limited accounting experience. 

Neat Pricing and Plans

Neat only offers one plan that gives you access to the entire accounting system plus Neat's mobile apps. 

If you choose to pay monthly, you will pay a flat fee of $29 per month—adding up to a total of $348 a year. 

If you choose to pay yearly, Neat gives you a discount. You will pay $288 upfront—which breaks down to $24 per month. 

Neat periodically runs sales where people with yearly plans get two months for free, bringing the cost down to $240 per year or $20 per month. You'll save at least $48 per year with these sales, so it's well worth watching out for them.

If you aren't ready to commit to Neat for a year, you can pay monthly to start and upgrade your plan in the billing settings at any time.  

If you choose to use Neat to process payments, Neat will also charge you standard payment fees. Currently, these fees are:  

Neat does not process payments itself. Instead, it uses WePay, a third-party processor run by Chase. 

Neat Features

Since its launch in 2002, Neat has continually added new features to enhance its usability and functionality. These features include:

General Ledger and Expense Tracking

You can track all expenses by logging them with Neat. Neat's mobile app offers a receipt scanner that makes uploading receipts easy, and if the receipt is digital, you can simply import it across. Neat has a built-in optical character recognition (OCR) scanner that can read the contents of receipts. 

You can also save details for suppliers, products, and customers so you can better account for each expense.  

Neat helps small businesses track outgoing expenses through the accounts/transactions, insights, and monthly review tabs. You can alter the reports in these tabs to filter for dates and expense categories. 

Inventory Management

Neat does not offer comprehensive inventory management tools itself, but you can add products to the products/services tab. This tab enables users to enter key information about the product, like its serial number and category. You can enter how much of each item you have, and when you bill a customer for an item, your inventory will update automatically. 

Billing and Invoicing 

Neat offers customizable invoice templates that you can edit to include your logo, products, pricing, and business details. You can save your templates for later. 

You can choose to enable online payments in your invoices. If you select this option, customers will be able to pay through the invoice with their bank account, Amex, Visa, Discover, or Mastercard. Neat's payment provider, WePay, is fast and easy to use. 

Neat will automatically send invoices to your customers using the personal information you give it. If customers don't pay their invoice by the due date, Neat will also send them a reminder.  

Neat does not offer payroll tools at this time. 

Tax Preparation

Neat can help you prepare your taxes by comprehensively tracking your expenses and income. When it's time to file, you can export this data from Neat straight into TurboTax so you don't have to type it in manually. 

If you use an accountant, you can use Neat to send them your data quickly and easily. You can also add comments so there is no lapse in communication. 

Third-Party Scanners

Neat offers a digital scanner in its mobile app, but if you need to scan documents with an analog scanner, Neat gives you that option. Neat currently connects with 25+ analog scanners from brands like Raven, Fujitsu, Brother, Canon, Panasonic, and Kodak.  

If you don't have one of Neat's certified scanners, you can use any TWAIN-compatible scanner. 

To connect your analog scanner, you will need to install the Neat Utility Scanner app on your desktop. The app requires 1GB of RAM, 1GB of disk space, and either Microsoft Windows 10 or Mac OS 10.12 or higher. 

Neat Integrations

Neat currently integrates with:

• QuickBooks

• H&R Block

• Quicken

• Intuit TurboTax

• Outlook

• Campaign Monitor 

• MailChimp

• Gmail

• Constant Contact 

All these integrations enable you to share data between the two apps. Integrations are free and easy to set up. Neat will walk you through the process step by step. 

Neat Mobile Apps

Neat currently offers two Neat Invoicing and Bookkeeping mobile apps: one for iOS devices and one for Android devices. 

The iOS app is available on iOS devices running iOS 11.0 or later. It currently has a 4.2 out of 5.0 rating on the Apple App Store. 

The Android app is available on Android devices running Android 5.0 or later. It has been installed over 5,000 times and has a 3.2 out of 5.0 rating on Google Play. 

Both mobile apps enable you to do everything you can normally do with Neat on your computer, including creating and managing invoices, tracking expenses, reconciling transactions, and viewing automated reports. They also have a built-in scanner tool that you can use to capture and log receipts. 

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Neat Customer Support

Neat offers multiple customer service options. 

If you prefer to work through issues yourself, Neat has a comprehensive knowledge base covering everything from Neat's mobile app to its integrations to third-party scanners. Neat also offers a chatbot to help you navigate the knowledge base and find the resources you need faster.  

For more complicated situations, you can open a support ticket with Neat, and Neat's team will resolve your issues behind the scenes and get back to you. Alternatively, you can contact a Neat customer service agent via live chat or phone. The customer service team is available from 9am to 8pm ET. Customer service is only available to Neat users. 

Neat has a 93.2% customer satisfaction rate and was named a Customer Satisfaction Champion in 2020 by Nicereply. 

Bottom Line

Neat is a cloud-based accounting system suited for small businesses and sole traders in the United States or Canada. Neat offers expense management, accounting, and invoicing tools. Its mobile app is intuitive and can complete all the tasks you would normally use the desktop version for.