If you’ve just started a business or recently joined Starling, you may be wondering which online accounting software we offer or connect to. Well, look no further. Here, we run through the range of online accounting software options available to Starling business customers.
- The Starling Marketplace: Connect to our selected accounting partners - Xero, FreeAgent or Quickbooks - to automate your bookkeeping
- Starling’s Business Toolkit: Just starting out? Try Starling’s own bookkeeping software to manage your business from one intuitive platform
- Other providers: Don’t see your chosen accounting software above? Clear Books and Sage have also connected to us so that you can link your accounting software to your Starling bank account
Starling Marketplace providers
The Starling Marketplace allows you to seamlessly connect to third-party products and services, such as accounting software, directly from the Starling app. We offer Marketplace connections with Xero, FreeAgent and QuickBooks. Each can provide different functionality, depending on your business needs and budget, and all of them connect seamlessly to your Starling business account.
To sign up, or connect your existing account if you have one, go to the main menu of your Starling app and tap ‘Marketplace’. Click the option to browse and select your chosen provider under the ‘Online Accounting Software’ category, then follow the on-screen instructions.
Once connected, there’s no need to manually refresh or upload a spreadsheet to keep your bookkeeping updated. Everything will be fed through automatically, and in real time.
Starling business customer Jason Guy says: “With my old bank, I had to upload everything manually. With Starling, it’s instant. It saves me hours of work. I wish we’d moved sooner.”
Starling Business Toolkit
If you like having everything in one place, why not try the Starling’s Business Toolkit, designed for sole traders, freelancers and limited companies. The first month is free and after that, it’s £7 per month. Features include:
- Invoice creation and auto-matching
- Bill management
- Automatic categorisation of expenses, including suggestions for what is tax deductible
- Sole trader tax estimation
- Making Tax Digital VAT submissions
- Bookkeeping to-do list, including prompts to attach receipts or invoices for good record keeping
Starling business customers can sign up to the Toolkit by going to the main menu in the Starling app and clicking ‘Subscriptions’, followed by ‘Starling Business Toolkit’.
Toolkit subscriber Ellie Austin-Williams says: “I needed a way of managing everything in one place and the Starling Toolkit does that brilliantly. I like that it prompts you to upload receipts and invoices when you sign in.”
The Toolkit itself is accessed through your laptop or desktop. Simply go to the Starling website, tap ‘Online Banking’ and login using the Starling app. Once you’re in, you’ll be able to create invoices, see which ones are yet to be paid and upload receipts, all from one secure and simple platform.
Starling API connections
If you don’t see your accounting software provider in our Marketplace, there’s a good chance you can still connect your Starling account via their platform - they may have built a connection directly to us through our APIs. APIs are a technology that enables different software packages to exchange information.
One example of such a provider is Clear Books, an online accounting software option that isn’t embedded within the Starling Marketplace, but can still deliver a fast, secure connection for Starling business customers.
Starling Bank and Clear Books customer Larissa Graeber says: “The link with the Starling account means that I don’t have to reconcile what has been spent at the end of the month or every couple of weeks. I still go in and attach invoices and make notes on transactions but we no longer have to do that step of logging into the bank account, downloading the CSV file and uploading it - those steps have completely gone away.”
At Starling, we want our business customers to have a range of options when it comes to the tools that make managing tax and VAT simpler. Through our Marketplace, our Business Toolkit, or a provider that’s connected via our APIs - there’s something for everyone, whether you’re a business owner running your bookkeeping with QuickBooks, or a freelancer managing invoices through our Toolkit.