Banana’s features cater to users familiar with accounting fundamentals. Its layout resembles a traditional spreadsheet, and its functionality centers on thorough financial control, albeit with a learning curve. Here are Banana’s main features, framed to address a freelancer’s strategic needs:
Comprehensive Bookkeeping and Reporting
At its core, Banana offers tools for precise bookkeeping. The spreadsheet-like interface allows users to track income, expenses, and assets in detail, with available columns for account numbers, descriptions, debits, and credits. For freelancers, this setup means complete control over financial entries and categories. Banana also provides standard reports—balance sheets, income statements, and cash flow reports—that can help freelancers understand their finances in detail. However, these reports lack visual summaries or insights, making it harder to capture a quick financial snapshot.
VAT management is essential for Swiss freelancers, and Banana includes the capability to apply VAT codes, categorize expenses, and generate VAT summaries. However, the process is manual and requires users to have a working knowledge of Swiss VAT. Freelancers new to VAT might find this process overwhelming, as Banana does not simplify or automate VAT entries. Errors or misclassifications are therefore possible and could require more time or external guidance to resolve.
Invoicing: A Fragmented Approach
One significant limitation of Banana is its fragmented invoicing functionality. Instead of offering a dedicated invoicing module, Banana treats invoicing as a separate file type, leading to a disconnected workflow. Users must manually create and manage invoices in separate files, which can feel cumbersome, especially when needing to mark invoices as paid or integrate invoicing with overall bookkeeping. For freelancers handling multiple clients and quick turnaround invoicing, this process is inefficient and may create unnecessary administrative load.