is quickbooks online better than desktop

Check out our QuickBooks Desktop Payroll Enhanced vs Assisted comparison for more information. 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. The QuickBooks Desktop mobile app is very limited as it only allows you to capture expense receipts and track business mileage. If you want to perform bookkeeping from anywhere, we strongly recommend QuickBooks Online’s mobile app. When you upgrade to Enterprise, QuickBooks Desktop’s most comprehensive plan, you’ll gain access to advanced inventory features, including barcode scanning and serial number tracking.

is quickbooks online better than desktop

Ultimately, your specific business’s size, type, and needs are the real deciding factors in determining which of the QuickBooks versions is best for your business. Just remember, you will need to make a decision quickly if you want QuickBooks Desktop Pro or Premier, as sales of these products will be discontinued this year. With QuickBooks Online, users receive many of the same great features while gaining the mobility of cloud-based software. QuickBooks Online is easier to use and has more automations, more integrations, and better invoicing. The downsides are the lack of sales orders, lead management, and other complexities that loyal Desktop users may miss (such as customizable letter templates, a built-in calendar, and even spellcheck).

Other popular merchant processors don’t require this, making collecting payments more difficult. While QuickBooks Online is very popular among business owners, some have problems with the system. Problems stem from the complexity of making simple fixes, such as miscategorizations or duplicate entries. Support is limited, so users are left reading help articles rather than getting a live person to help. At Business.org, our research is meant to offer general product and service recommendations.

Number of users

We recommend crunching the numbers to decide whether the online or desktop versions of nonprofit bylaws best practices QuickBooks are right for your specific business. Unfortunately, pricing is no longer disclosed and you will need to contact QuickBooks Sales for more pricing details. At the time of our last review, pricing started at $349.99/year for a single user. Join the thousands of people like you already growing their businesses and knowledge with our team of experts.

  1. Plus, the platform offers unlimited customization to tailor the platform to your specific needs.
  2. Ideally, there will be a wizard to walk the user through the import process.
  3. Your business is unique, but your routine bookkeeping tasks are going to be similar to many other businesses such as consultants/coaches, dog walkers, and photographers.
  4. Moreover, we’d also like to see customization options to enable users to generate reports based on what they want to see.

Pricing

All QuickBooks Desktop Pro, Desktop Premiere, t account examples Mac, and Desktop Enhanced Payroll products, excluding QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise, will no longer be available to new users after September 30, 2024. Existing QuickBooks Desktop Pro, Premier, Mac, or Enhanced Payroll users will not be impacted. Security updates and product updates will still be released for all users who purchase a QuickBooks Desktop Plus or QuickBooks Desktop Payroll subscription before the cutoff date. Customer service is evaluated based on the number of communication channels available, such as phone, live chat, and email. Software providers also receive points based on other resources available, such as self-help articles and user communities.

Reporting in QBDT and QBO

This allows you to easily customize the invoice based on how you want it to look without clicking the preview button. We have an extensive history of reviewing QuickBooks products, and we stay up-to-date with the latest features and enhancements. Our first-hand experience, guided by our internal case study, helps us understand how the different QuickBooks products compare with each other and how they work in real-world scenarios. QuickBooks Online is user-friendly, but it requires some prior accounting knowledge to get the most out of it. You can send a copy of your company file to your accountant and import their changes. All reports can be exported to Microsoft Excel for customizing, viewing on screen, printing, or emailing directly to recipients.

It’s an acceptable system but isn’t nearly as convenient as sharing your books through QuickBooks Online. While QuickBooks Online and Desktop have their strengths and weaknesses, they ultimately balance out—which makes them tied in terms of overall features. Below we provide a detailed comparison across each feature, where we also determine a winner for each category. QuickBooks Desktop offers more than 100 standard reports that can be customized as needed. Ease of use is one of the most important things to consider when shopping for software.

This requires the software to allow users transitioning from other bookkeeping software to import their chart of accounts (COA), vendors, customers, service items, and inventory items. Ideally, there will be a wizard to walk the user through the import process. Service or project-based businesses should choose accounting software that can track project costs, revenues, and profits. The software must have tools to track time, record billable virginia income tax rates for 2021 hours or expenses, send invoices for progress billings, or monitor project progress and performance.