An expense tracking app for freelancers

Keeper is an app that helps independent contractors, freelancers, and employees file their taxes while keeping track of work-related expenses.

The company offers both a iOS And android and the Android app to use so you can track what you’re spending and how it may relate to your taxes.

Compare Keeper with our list of the best tax software here.

If you’re looking for an app to help you stay organized and prepared at tax time, Keeper might be a bit pricey, but it might be worth it for you. It all depends on your specific needs. Here’s what you need to know.

What is Keeper?

Keeper, formerly called Keeper Tax, is an app that can do things like scan your bank and credit card statements to find ways to track and write off expenses, in hopes of lowering your tax bill. It also manages your tax return and offers tax professionals to answer questions related to the return.

The company, founded in 2018 by Paul Koullick and David Kang, transitioned from Keeper Tax to Keeper. The app is highly rated on both the App Store (4.8 out of 5) and Google Play (4.6 out of 5).

How does Keeper work?

Guardian is an application that you need to download to your phone. You link your bank and credit card accounts to the app so it can start analyzing your purchases automatically to see what kind of write-offs you might be eligible for.

When you sign up for Keeper, you are asked a series of questions before you can proceed to the next screen. For example, it asks if you are self-employed, employed, or a business owner. It also asks if you use your vehicle or travel for work.

How much does Keeper cost?

There’s a seven-day free trial with Keeper. Once that ends, here are your pricing options:

• Monthly subscription: $16
• Simplified return: $99
• Tax return with business income: $192

Their monthly plan is $16 per month which includes the expense tracking features. For a one-time fee of $39, you can export your write-offs for your own records so you can have them handy when you file your taxes.

Keeper offers an annual plan, which includes everything on the monthly plan, plus the ability to file your taxes with them at no additional cost.

Notable Guardian Features

Let’s take a look at some key features of Keeper.

Tax Pro Help

When you use a platform to help you file your tax returns, you may often not have access to a live specialist. Or if you do, you need to level up. The advantage of Keeper is that you have access to a tax expert who can answer your questions. It might not be over the phone, but at least you can get someone to help you with your specific problem.

Keeper prides itself on being a leading producer of educational content for those with 1099 taxes, so they may also be able to offer you a video, article, or provide you with a calculator.

Audit Protection

Beyond an expert to answer your questions, you might want to know what would happen if you were to be audited by the IRS. Keeper provides audit protection, which means its team of tax assistants will help put together all the necessary documents to send to the IRS. They will also give you access to their accountants and tax experts who can answer your questions.

Undo detection

Keeper offers charge-off detection, which scans your credit card and bank accounts and alerts you if there’s anything you can charge off. Keeper reviews up to 18 months of transactions to automatically show you tax breaks you may have missed. Then all deductions are filed and automatically added to your tax return. The keeper also checks the deductions to make sure they won’t set off any red flags.

There are a few steps you need to take before you can use this feature, including telling Keeper what kind of work you’re doing. Next, you need to link your accounts to Keeper so it can start verifying.

Tax bill forecast

No one likes to feel surprised by a huge tax billthat’s why Keeper gives you estimates throughout the year on how much you’re likely to owe or lets you know how much you’ll need to pay back.

You need to enter your status, state, W-2 and 1099 income to get an instant calculation of this number. Their calculations include all federal and state deductions, as well as deductions and credits.

This is a useful feature because you know how much to save or how much you get back, allowing you to prepare your budget in advance.

Tax return

Since Keeper is already analyzing your tax deductions and getting you ready for tax season, it might be a good idea to file your taxes with Keeper. It offers automatic tax form downloads, pre-fills documents for you, and in general is a very taxfiler-friendly experience.

You can even file all of your taxes on your phone. Keeper says it takes users an average of 22 minutes to file their taxes. Once you submit, a tax professional reviews your documents before submitting them to the IRS.

How does Keeper compare?

Even though Keeper is an easy-to-use platform that helps you Account bookkeeping and the deposit, it has limited accounting functionality. In other words, you’d pay $192 for the year to manage your expenses, but you wouldn’t be able to access the detailed reports and features you might get with Quickbooks, for example. It’s also more expensive, at $16 per month.

For a cheaper option, you can check out Hurdlrwhich is a similar accounting, bookkeeping and income tax app that is completely free with the option to upgrade to Premium at $8.34 per month (billed annually) or choose their $10 monthly option per month. Hurdlr has a similar price tier, Pro, at $16.67 per month (billed annually).

Everlance helps freelancers track their business expenses and income. The application makes it easy to fill out a Appendix C for your taxes. Everlance offers a 10-day free Premium trial, but many features are available in their free version. Everlance Premium offers special access to customer service, PDF reports and automatic trip tracking. Premium costs $8 per month or $12 per month for Premium Plus.

If your taxes are not that complicated, you can file your return completely free of charge. Check out our favorite options for file your taxes for free.

There are many other less expensive options that allow you to export your data without an additional $39 cost. Turbotax topped The College Investor’s list as the best and easiest to use tax software. You can import PDF files and spreadsheets directly from your employer, financial institutions and investment companies to upload your tax data.

If you want a human to walk you through the process, you might consider H&R Block, which has robust software with the ability to import most tax PDFs, like Turbotax, but also has the added benefit of additional thousands of physical locations across the country. . Here is our opinion on H&R block.

Visit College Investor Tax Center to learn more about the best tax software, resources and tools, and what to understand about your tax return.

To contact customer service, you can email [email protected] directly. There is no customer service phone number.

How to register

You are asked for an e-mail address and a telephone number. Then you have the option to link your checking or credit card accounts to find eligible write-offs, if you are self-employed, for example.

After answering the questions and entering your email address, you are prompted to download the app via a QR code on your computer, or you can go directly to the App Store or Google Play to download the app.

Free tax resources and customer service

Guardian is important to educate yourself on what you need to know about your taxes to help you save money and reduce your taxable income. The way they do it is through their Free tax resources page, which has knowledge articles, free calculators, tools, articles and FAQs on their website.

For more specific answers to customer questions, visit their help website.

Is the guardian really a guardian?

Guardian is an impressive expense tracker and income tax reporting combo. If you are self-employed, have a 1099 income, and have relatively straightforward finances (i.e., file a Schedule C), you might enjoy the app. Keeper is easy to use and the expense tracking features can be worthy of the $16 monthly fee.

However, if your job, income and financial situation are more complicated, for example if you own rental property Or buy and sell crypto regularlyyou might consider more robust software like TurboTax or H&R Block.