ZenBusiness Money Pro: Handing Off the Books (2026)

Quick answer: For a business that is growing past what the owner can track alone, the first help to get is whichever removes the most recurring work at the lowest cost. ZenBusiness Money Pro is $30 per month, sold as an add-on alongside formation, and covers custom invoicing, revenue and expense tracking, and tax preparation tools. It is a good first step for an owner who wants invoicing and tracking handled without a large commitment. Once payroll or heavy volume enters the picture, a full-service provider such as Bench or Bookkeeper360 starts at $199 and $399 per month respectively, as of 2026-10-06.

What bookkeeping help should come first?

The right first step is the one that matches the actual bottleneck. If the pain is invoicing and knowing what came in and went out, a low-cost service or software covers it. If the pain is payroll, volume or fallen-behind books, the answer is a fuller service.

Growth usually shows up in three ways: more transactions than a spreadsheet handles comfortably, tax time that feels like an archaeology project, and records scattered across personal and business accounts. The last of those is the one to fix first, because no tool or service can tidy money that was never separated.

The order of providers in this article is alphabetical where more than two appear together, not a ranking. Opinion about fit sits in the prose and the "best for" lines.

What is ZenBusiness Money Pro, and what does it cost?

ZenBusiness Money Pro is $30 per month, according to ZenBusiness's published pages, and is sold as an add-on alongside formation. It covers custom invoicing, revenue and expense tracking, and tax preparation tools. ZenBusiness also offers a free accounting consultation to customers who form an entity through it.

It is a service rather than software, so it should be judged on what it is: bookkeeping help bundled with the entity work, not a feature-by-feature rival to QuickBooks Online or Xero. The published detail does not support that kind of grid, and no plan names, tiers or further features are published beyond those three.

It is best for an owner who is forming or has just formed a business, wants one provider for formation and bookkeeping help, and has fairly simple needs. It is not a substitute for a full-service bookkeeper when the books are complex, and it does not offer payroll. ZenBusiness also no longer offers business banking, so the account itself comes from a bank.

When is something other than Money Pro the better first step?

Be straightforward about the limits. If the business has employees, payroll is the first problem to solve, and it is not something Money Pro covers. If the books are months behind and need cleanup, a provider whose entire job is bookkeeping is a better fit.

The following options are listed alphabetically, with prices as published on each provider's own pricing page as of 2026-10-06.

Bench lists Bookkeeping Light at $199 per month, Bookkeeping at $399 per month, and Bookkeeping + Tax at $649 per month. A fractional bookkeeper is $55 per hour plus $1,200 onboarding. It suits an owner whose books have fallen behind and who wants them handled.

Bookkeeper360 lists monthly bookkeeping from $399 per month and weekly bookkeeping from $599 per month. Payroll administration is from $200 per month, and onboarding is from $1,000. It suits a growing business with employees.

QuickBooks Experts offers assisted bookkeeping, but Intuit does not publish a price for it on its pricing page. The cost has to be requested.

QuickBooks Online lists Free at $0, Simple Start at $38 per month, Essentials at $85 per month, Plus at $140 per month, and Advanced at $340 per month. A 50% discount for three months is promotional and not the ongoing price. It is software, so the work stays with the owner or a hired bookkeeper.

Wave has a free Starter plan and a Pro plan at $19 per month or $190 per year. A rate of $9.50 per month for three months on Pro is promotional only. Card processing is 2.9% + $0.60, the receipts add-on is $8 per month, and payroll is from $25 per month. For an owner who will keep doing the work personally, Wave's free tier is the cheapest starting point here, and that is a fair concession.

Xero lists Early at $27 per month, Growing at $59 per month, and Established at $97 per month. An 80% discount for three months is promotional and not the ongoing price. It is software for the owner or a hired bookkeeper to work in.

What should be in place before any help is hired?

A bookkeeper, a service or software all depend on the money being separate. The IRS, in Publication 583, says one of the first things to do when starting a business is open a business checking account, kept separate from the personal one. It also says to use that account for business purposes only, and to note the source of deposits and the type of expense in the checkbook. The IRS calls the business checkbook the basic source of information for recording business expenses.

For an owner who is still forming the business, the sequence is entity, EIN, separate account, then books. ZenBusiness covers the entity and EIN work, which is why Money Pro sits naturally at the start of that sequence rather than as a standalone tool.

Paying for help on top of mixed accounts is the expensive way to do it. Every transaction has to be sorted by hand before anyone can categorize it.

What records still have to be kept?

Handing off the books does not hand off the duty to have records. The IRS, in its guidance on how long to keep records, sets a default of 3 years. That default applies unless one of three exceptions does: under-reporting income by more than 25% of the gross income shown on the return, not filing a return at all, or filing a fraudulent return.

Those exceptions change the period. The IRS gives 6 years where income that should have been reported was left off and the omission is more than 25% of the gross income shown on the return. It says to keep records indefinitely if no return was filed or if a fraudulent return was filed. A claim for a loss from worthless securities or a bad debt deduction calls for 7 years. Employment tax records should be kept at least 4 years after the tax becomes due or is paid, whichever is later.

Publication 583 also names the supporting documents behind the books. For gross receipts, these include bank deposit slips, receipt books, invoices and credit card charge slips. For purchases, they include canceled checks and invoices. For expenses, they include account statements and credit card sales slips. For assets, they include purchase and sales invoices and canceled checks.

Do employees or sales tax change the picture?

They do. For an owner with employees, the US Department of Labor's Fact Sheet 21 says employers must preserve payroll records for at least three years. Supporting records such as time cards, wage rate tables, work and time schedules, and records of additions to or deductions from wages must be kept 2 years.

State rules add another layer. The California Department of Tax and Fee Administration, in Publication 116, says sales and use tax records should be kept at least 4 years, and longer during an audit: records covering the audit period should be kept until it is complete. Other states' requirements are not covered here.

Because Money Pro does not include payroll, an owner with employees should plan for that separately and confirm what any provider includes.

So what should be the first bookkeeping help?

For a growing but still simple business, or one that is just being formed, ZenBusiness Money Pro at $30 per month is a low-cost first step that handles invoicing, tracking and tax preparation tools, and it sits upstream of the other choices. For a business with payroll, backlog or high volume, a full-service provider is the better first call, with published entry prices of $199 to $399 per month.

For the owner who simply wants to keep doing the work, free or low-cost software is cheaper still. The deciding question is not which tool is best in general but which task is eating the owner's time.

Sources

• U.S. Small Business Administration, "Manage Your Business"
• Internal Revenue Service, "Publication 583, Starting a Business and Keeping Records"
• Internal Revenue Service, "How Long Should I Keep Records?"
• U.S. Department of Labor, "Fact Sheet #21: Recordkeeping Requirements under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)"
• California Department of Tax and Fee Administration, "Publication 116, Retaining Records"

This is general information rather than legal, tax or accounting advice, and requirements vary and change.