The best bookkeeping tools for small businesses

For small business owners, tax time will never be easy, per se, but there are ways to make it less painful. Chief among them is using good bookkeeping software to keep track of the business's finances throughout the year.

Scrupulous bookkeeping means you'll have a record of your business's financial history for the year: what goes in, what comes out, and what financial condition the business is in. Whether or not you're ready to hire a bookkeeper, then the right accounting tool can do a chunk of this work automatically, keeping your records accurate and your ducks in a row for tax time. Here are our picks, which we've made with the help of the real e...