QuickBooks Enterprise also has a number of other useful features and tools you won’t find with Premier, such as a business plan creator. QuickBooks Premier is suitable for small to medium businesses with five or fewer users. Businesses that require multiple users or want more accounting features will benefit more from using QuickBooks Online.
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To help you make the best choice for your business, Top Consumer Reviews has researched and ranked the top accounting software platforms available today. Plus, accounting software also offers flexibility and savings that make it an attractive option. One of the biggest advantages of accounting software today is the support that comes with it.
Take a look at this chart to see which product suits your business’s size. If you’re running a small business, you’ll be comparing QuickBooks Online or QuickBooks Pro. The type of business you run has a huge influence on which QuickBooks product is right for you. If you want locally-installed software, you can take your pick from QuickBooks Pro, QuickBooks Premier, or QuickBooks Enterprise.
QuickBooks has done an excellent job incorporating AI functionality into its software. We think it’s especially cool that the software can “learn” about your spending habits to better organize expenses. QuickBooks can also automatically match foreign currency bank accounts. It automatically backs up your data to the cloud, saving you the time it would take to perform manual backups. QuickBooks can automate payment reminders, recurring invoices and bill payments.
QuickBooks Online Features
- We wanted to gauge the opinions of real users of these QuickBooks alternatives and turned to third-party websites to get a gauge of how these customers felt about their experiences with them.
- The main downside of QuickBooks Mac Plus is that the software doesn’t have a single integration.
- We also like that QuickBooks Payroll manages your state and federal taxes, so you don’t have to worry about missing a tax filing deadline.
Payroll ledgers, which involve payroll journal entries, are essential to recordkeeping, whether you run payroll manually or automatically. We also like that QuickBooks Payroll manages your state and federal taxes, so you don’t have to worry about missing a tax filing deadline. Alternatively, you can set up automatic payroll, which works best for companies with salaried staff on direct deposit. After reviewing your payroll summary, you simply click to submit it.
Limited account users with each plan. Chat and phone support available Monday through Saturday in all plans. This easy-to-use and feature-rich software is ideal if you have no bookkeeping experience and want top-notch customer support. QuickBooks Pro, Premier, Enterprise, and Mac are the best for users with existing accounting experience or who want a locally-installed option. If you don’t know much about accounting, you’ll probably want to shy away from QuickBooks Pro, Premier, or Enterprise, unless you’re willing to put in the time to learn.
Business Planning
Both are locally-installed accounting solutions, both offer numerous features and robust reporting, and both have numerous integrations. QuickBooks Solopreneur offers basic features at a cost-effective price. Businesses with multiple users or that need more advanced features won’t find what they’re looking for here. QuickBooks Pro only supports up to three users, and you have to pay per user. Another big difference to note is the number of supported users. However, QuickBooks Pro’s features do come at a price, as this software has a steep learning curve.
- It automatically backs up your data to the cloud, saving you the time it would take to perform manual backups.
- QuickBooks Online supports up to 25 users based on the plan you select.
- Higher tiers add bill management, time tracking, advanced analytics and workflow automations.
- Typically, payroll systems let users view and download data by time frame, employee or location.
- Intuit QuickBooks Payroll is the best full-service payroll solution with an accounting integration, thanks to how it syncs seamlessly with QuickBooks Online.
- With strong accounting capabilities, impressive features, 750+ integrations, and fully-featured mobile apps, it’s no wonder QuickBooks Online is one of our top accounting recommendations.
All three plans include Hubdoc, which captures paper bills and receipts. Established adds support for expense management, project costing, and multi-currency support. The payroll add-on is through Gusto, and costs $40 per month, plus $6 per employee. Xero is offering a limited-time promotion of 90% for four months.
QuickBooks Online Pricing
Solopreneur also gives you access to a tax expert to answer questions throughout the year and during tax season. QuickBooks Solopreneur (another offering from Intuit) was created to help freelancers stay organized each year for tax season. All plans accept ACH payments, and there’s an app store with lots of integration options.
Best for Industry-specific plans
QuickBooks calculates wages and deductions to ensure accurate payroll withholding, and then business owners review and submit payroll for processing. Several top-rated payroll services allow unlimited payroll runs. Several payroll systems integrate with QuickBooks Online, but those payroll providers may charge add-on fees for general ledger or integration services. Employees enter information about their bank accounts and complete W-4 forms online. We appreciated the timely alerts for upcoming tax payments, which allowed us to see the tax type, payment status and method.
If a specific version of QuickBooks stood out to you, we recommend taking the software for a test run to make sure you love using it. The main differences between the versions are your computer’s operating system and your business’s size. QuickBooks Solopreneur is specifically for freelancers, while QuickBooks Online is a good fit for nearly any size business. While the numerous options seem intimidating at first, each version of QuickBooks is designed to reach a certain business size and type. If you want a happy medium, QuickBooks Mac Plus might be a good balance since its UI is easier to use without sacrificing advanced and customizable features. On the other hand, if you’re an accountant or someone with a great deal of accounting experience, you may like QuickBooks desktop options that use traditional accounting practices.
Bank online banking user id to log in. From QuickBooks, an online banking customer will use their U.S. Bank online banking user id to qualify for QuickBooks Online. Log in to online banking and export your account information manually into QuickBooks with types of liquidity ratios no fees. With U.S. Bank, you can connect your financial institution with QuickBooks Online to manage your bank and credit card transactions all in one place.
Team Management Tools
Quickbooks Solopreneur is an easy-to-use, cloud-based software with strong mobile apps. QuickBooks Self-Employed is tax software created to help freelancers manage their finances. QuickBooks Online offers an incredible number of features and automations.
QuickBooks Pros
We also look at less tangible benefits, such as customer support quality and ease of use. So, you may be able to start with the lowest tier around $20 per month, but when you need to set up recurring bills or purchase orders, you could justify subscribing to a higher cost for those features. The great thing about tiered subscriptions is that they scale with your business as you uber turbotax discounts andservice codes grow. Accounting apps will usually set you back about $20 per month for the low tier of cloud-based solutions. Whether you think QuickBooks is the best choice for your small business or you think a QuickBooks alternative is better, you should make a checklist of your needs.
If you’re new to accounting software, it’s important that you have the time to commit to learning the software. QuickBooks Mac Plus — also known as QuickBooks for Mac — is locally-installed accounting software designed specifically for Mac users. QuickBooks Premier is best for small to medium business with five users or fewer that need strong accounting and industry-specific accounting features. The software includes certain features Pro lacks, including earned income and earned income tax credit eitc tables business plans, inventory assemblies, and sales forecasting. QuickBooks Pro is locally-installed software with highly developed features like contact and lead management, expense tracking, project management, accounts payable, invoicing, and more. QBO offers up to 25 full-fledged users total and an unlimited number of time-tracking-only users.
Business credit cards
It offers a completely free plan with unlimited invoices to serve businesses that are just getting started. To determine the best payroll software for business owners who prioritize accounting integration, we focused on vendors that offer all-in-one accounting and payroll products. Many online payroll services administer retirement plans, offer health insurance or track paid time off (PTO). As small businesses look to consolidate vendor contracts and streamline operations, Intuit QuickBooks offers an ideal solution for payroll and accounting needs. However, it lacks inventory tracking and line-item accounting, and lower plans limit client numbers, so growing businesses may need higher tiers.
In the past, accounting meant long hours spent doing calculations by hand or struggling with complicated spreadsheets. Owning your own business has lots of ups and downs. Our interactions with the QuickBooks team were mainly positive, with relatively quick response times and accurate answers to our questions. No matter which plan you choose, employees can access their pay stubs and other important information through the workforce portal. Premium and Elite users can share important documents and request digital signatures from new hires.