For $1,410 per year, get the Enterprise plan with advanced pricing, reporting and inventory. The higher your plan tier, the more reports and users you can add, although it’s important to understand concurrent users are each sold separately. However, most users still view Quickbooks Desktop favorably, and the product receives high marks on most customer review sites. The software receives 4.4/5 (based on 1,800+ reviews) on Software Advice and 4.3/5 (based on 1,700+ reviews) on G2. QuickBooks Pro is praised for its strong accounting, ample features, reliability, and reporting. QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop operate on true double-entry accounting principles and have both accrual and cash-basis accounting.
It’s easy to loop in your accountant and, unlike some competitors, it can scale to meet a growing business’s changing needs. QuickBooks Online gives you access to a marketplace of over 750 apps, including third-party tools as well as QuickBooks add-ons. The solution is ideal for business owners who’d like to step away from day-to-day bookkeeping tasks and outsource them elsewhere to save time. QuickBooks Online is cloud-based accounting software that covers all the accounting needs you may have. It’s a subscription-based service that is good for various industries and beneficial to those who regularly work with a bookkeeper or accountant because you can give them access to your files. Read our comprehensive QuickBooks Online review to decide if this popular accounting software is the best choice for your needs and budget.
At the time of this writing, QuickBooks has noted that it has no plans on sunsetting the QuickBooks Desktop software. Both offer strong accounting, though QuickBooks Desktop has more features and is more customizable, whereas QuickBooks Online has more automations and is easier to learn and use. Many users also complain that QuickBooks Online doesn’t compare to QuickBooks Pro in terms of features and quality. However, the majority of reviews are positive, with QuickBooks Online receiving 4.3/5 stars (based on 6,200+ reviews) on Software Advice and 4/5 stars (based on 3,100+ reviews) on G2. In contrast, QuickBooks Desktop offers hardly any payment gateways, making it difficult for the modern merchant to accept online invoice payments easily.
Just know that doing so waives your option to get 50% off your QuickBooks Online subscription for your first three months. QuickBooks Self-Employed is a QuickBooks Online product for contractors and freelancers, specifically for those who do not have separate business and personal financial accounts. It starts at $30 a month and includes basic features only, such as mileage tracking and invoicing. Intuit https://intuit-payroll.org/ provides support and updates for three years from the date of purchase. If you opt to do monthly bank transactions that will run you roughly $120 additional each year, and payroll is an additional $39.99/month, for a total per month cost of $53.40. Unless you need more frequent updates, or your business undergoes a rapid expansion, QuickBooks Pro is much more cost effective on a per-month basis.
While QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop offer contact management, only QuickBooks Desktop allows you to manage and track leads as well as contacts. Even though QB Desktop has more comprehensive features in general, there are some key features that only QuickBooks Online has, such as bookkeeping support. A Live Bookkeeper cannot begin cleaning up your past books until they receive the required supporting documentation, which your bookkeeper will request from you after your first meeting.
- QuickBooks Desktop’s user interface is very different from QuickBooks Online, offering navigation using a flowchart style menu.
- QuickBooks Online offers a large selection of reports, but they aren’t industry-specific.
- Being a SaaS product, QuickBooks Online is accessible anywhere, anytime and on any device including your mobile phone.
- Besides this, it’s also great to comply with industry standards as this software is used in several countries worldwide.
- Those interested in trying out QuickBooks Online can access a free 30-day demo with sample data that allows you to easily explore system features and functions without spending a lot of time entering data.
As we discussed above, QuickBooks Online comes with a number of features and services that Pro users must pay for in addition to their actual software. Fourlane specializes in helping small businesses figure out which QuickBooks product will be right for them, so feel free to reach out and let us know your unique considerations. Since QuickBooks Online is priced as a monthly subscription, it doesn’t require a contract and you can cancel your account at any time. Additionally, the desktop products are only available as annual subscriptions, making them a bigger commitment than QuickBooks Online.
There are a lot of features and enhancements that will not only make your job easier but also help you keep pace with the greats. Keep in mind that if you do decide to have QuickBooks Desktop hosted, there will be an additional fee. As an added statement of retained earnings convenience, if you outgrow your current edition of QuickBooks Online, upgrade to a more powerful plan in minutes. QuickBooks Desktop’s user interface is very different from QuickBooks Online, offering navigation using a flowchart style menu.
Compare QuickBooks products
QuickBooks Pro 2023 must be purchased through a reseller or a phone call with QuickBooks Sales. Advanced Inventory is included in the Platinum and Diamond subscriptions only. Advanced Reporting is included in all QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise subscriptions. You can, however, switch your business’s account from QuickBooks Desktop to QuickBooks Online without losing your data. Different software packages include licenses for 1 to 10 users, up to 20 users, up to 30 users, and up to 40 users. QuickBooks Online is user-friendly, but it requires some prior accounting knowledge to get the most out of it.
The company has updated its help centers to be more user-friendly, but there’s still no email support. Both options, however, are working to reduce long hold times on the phone by now offering a callback feature. These versions give business owners more features and reports geared toward their industry. You can learn more in our guide to the industry-specific editions of QuickBooks Enterprise. Both include the basic reports you’d expect to find with accounting software, such as a balance sheet, a Profit & Loss report, a cash flow statement, etc. The main difference between QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop is that QuickBooks Online is cloud-based accounting software, and QuickBooks Desktop is locally installed.
Only QuickBooks Online Offers…
Doing so grants you access to the Priority Circle loyalty program, including a dedicated account team, free on-demand training, and premium care from QuickBooks experts. If you have employees, you can add QuickBooks Payroll to your QuickBooks Online account for as little as $45 per month plus $5 per employee. QuickBooks Payroll allows you to pay your employees by checks or direct deposits, e-file and e-pay taxes, print and e-file W-2 Forms at year-end, and more.
QuickBooks Online vs. QuickBooks Desktop: Ease of use
QuickBooks Desktop is better for small to large-sized businesses with complex accounting needs requiring more customizable features. Both QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop are capable programs with strong accounting features. Both QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Pro and Premier have notoriously poor customer support (QuickBooks Enterprise support has better priority support). In addition to having more integrations, QuickBooks Online also has better integrations. QBO’s integrations cover more business needs and include multiple payment gateway options.
See why businesses are switching from Desktop to QuickBooks Online
Creating customer groups is a great way to later create curated mailing lists, understand your sales, and better improve your business goals. Besides this, QuickBooks Online is better suited for business owners with less capital and who are likely to move around on a day-to-day basis. On the other hand, QuickBooks Pro is a complete accountancy software capable of recording complex transactions and can make use of vital information for reports.
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While the features are similar, QuickBooks Desktop offers more functionality, such as the ability to run checks to pay bills and more in-depth customer and vendor management capability. QuickBooks Desktop also offers easy integration with QuickBooks Payments so you can accept online payments from customers. But aside from cloud access, there are other differences between the two applications that we’ll talk about next.
For many small-business owners, most of the time, QuickBooks Online works better than QuickBooks Desktop. It’s more affordable, easier to share with your accountant or other financial stakeholders, and offers better invoicing than its locally installed counterpart. The dashboard is super intuitive with large, easy-to-understand charts, and the mobile app is similarly easy to use.