Compare QuickBooks Online vs QuickBooks Desktop

QuickBooks Simple Start has a decent ability to record and track payments to independent contractors, making it easier to stay compliant with tax regulations. When you add a new vendor, you can designate them as a 1099 contractor. This ensures that their payments are tracked separately for 1099 reporting purposes. The biggest difference between Simple Start and Solopreneur is that Simple Start allows you to pay and manage bills.

QuickBooks Online Advanced

If you deal with inventory or large projects heavily, Plus is the best option. However, self-employed individuals and solo business owners should consider Solopreneur—unless you have an employee, which will require an upgrade to Simple Start. Check out our evaluation of the best QuickBooks alternatives for additional recommendations, which include free and paid options. Ease of use includes the layout of the dashboard and whether new transactions can be initiated from the dashboard rather than having to navigate to a particular module.

QuickBooks Online Payment Gateways

This page also has links to that customer’s transactions, statements, projects, and late fees, as well as to new transaction forms like invoices. Live Bookkeepers aren’t responsible for errors resulting from incorrect information that you provide, or if you re-open the books by overriding closure after a Live Bookkeeper completes the month-end closure. If you invoke the guarantee, QuickBooks will conduct a full n evaluation of the Live Bookkeeper’s work. Our unbiased reviews and content are supported in part by affiliate partnerships, and we adhere to strict guidelines to preserve editorial integrity.

The Android and iOS apps for QuickBooks Online are outstanding—by far the best of any small business accounting software I've reviewed. They don't replicate all the browser-based version's capabilities, but they provide most of the tools you need to get a lot of your accounting work done remotely. QuickBooks Online’s project tracking capabilities are roughly comparable to FreshBooks Premium’s. You simply assign transactions (invoices, payments, expenses, estimates, time, purchase orders, and bills) to specific projects. QuickBooks Online creates a page for each project, showing you at a glance its current income and expenses by category.

1. If your business is service-based without any inventory, then Essentials should provide everything you need while saving you $34 per month compared to Plus.
2. Contractors should also select Plus to track the profitability of individual projects.
3. If you use QuickBooks Payroll, payroll liabilities like taxes and deductions will be tracked automatically.
4. All subscription levels of QuickBooks Online allow you to securely access your books from anywhere you can connect to the internet.
5. Although QuickBooks Online is a great cloud-based accounting platform, it isn’t the only one.
6. QuickBooks is the platform most used by professional accountants so if you plan to work with an accountant, they will likely be very familiar with the platform, its features and capabilities.

This option is best for large businesses that could benefit from the extra support features, like a dedicated manager or the trial balance virtual training classes. QuickBooks also offers connections to a variety of online payment processing services. PayPal and Square are included, as our integrations section above touches on, while Stripe and Authorize.Net are two more potential payment services.

A/P features include creating vendors and bills, recording purchase orders and converting them to bills, creating service items, and recording full or partial bill payments. Even after initial setup, the software must also let users modify information like company name, address, entity type, fiscal year-end, and other company information. In evaluating pricing, we considered the billing cycle (monthly or annual) and the number of users.

Pay your team

QuickBooks Online, like its competitors, can accept payments from customers via credit or debit card or bank payment. It also simplifies and accelerates the process of scheduling and paying your effective annual rate own bills through QuickBooks Bill Pay. You also have the option to upload bills from your computer or enter them manually, marking them paid if you still pay them offline. QuickBooks Online, owned by Intuit, has been the best small business accounting application for many years. It's a PCMag Editors' Choice award winner again this year thanks to its depth of features, customizability, and understandable user interface. A well-integrated payroll app and hundreds of add-ons extend its usefulness to an even broader audience.

With five plans, each at different price points, users can choose the plan that best meets their business needs without paying for additional features that they don’t want. As a business grows, users can easily upgrade to a more advanced plan with additional features seamlessly. QuickBooks is the platform most used by professional accountants so if you plan to work with an accountant, they will likely be very familiar with the platform, its features and capabilities.

Know that your data is protected without downloading and installing product updates. You don’t have to worry about losing everything in a fire or an unforeseen event. However, note that there’s no direct data migration option available from QuickBooks Solopreneur to any higher version of QuickBooks Online. This means you must first cancel your Solopreneur subscription and then sign up for the QuickBooks Online version you wish to upgrade to. This allows you to what is inventory accounting and why do it compare the estimated costs and revenues of your projects against the actual numbers incurred throughout the completion of the project.

Yes, QuickBooks Online offers a mobile app that allows you to access your account, track expenses, create and send invoices, and more, all from your smartphone or tablet. The right QuickBooks Online plan depends on the size of your business and the features you need. For example, QuickBooks Solopreneur is best for freelancers or solopreneurs, while Simple Start is ideal for small businesses wanting to track assets and liabilities. Essentials is preferable if you need to track unpaid bills, while Plus is great if you require inventory and project management.