We also carefully read through individual user reviews on sites like Gartner Peer Insights and Trustpilot to ensure we wrote a balanced, fair review that took multiple perspectives into account. Watching tutorials, reading support pages or consulting experts for advice are all great options to learn how to use QuickBooks Online for your business. The main dashboard will give an overview of your QuickBooks account, showing your profit and loss overview, invoices, expenses and sales.

• If you’re a single freelancer, you won’t need to manage any other employees, and you won’t need to track many sales (if any) – so the Self-Employed Plan is best for you.
• Both QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Self-Employed are great software, whether you need them for real estate accounting or nonprofit accounting.
• Zoho’s pricier plans include advanced features like sales and purchase orders, recurring bill payments, a collaborative vendor portal and enhanced metrics.
• Other businesses should consider whether tracking P&L by class and location is worth the extra $30 per month.
• Reporting tools are available on the Simple Start plan but they are a bit limited.

However, the problem with Plus or any of the other versions is that you can’t compare cost estimates to actual costs by project. QuickBooks Desktop software is as an annual subscription that will auto-renew with your credit card on file, controller vs cfo: 6 key differences to understand so there’s no service interruption. If you purchased Desktop software via retail, make sure to place your credit card on file for uninterrupted service. When you move to QuickBooks Online, you’ll create a new account and login.

NerdWallet’s List of Best QuickBooks Alternatives

All QuickBooks Online plans have basic mobile accounting features, such as the ability to create and send invoices. However, higher-tiered plans have additional functionality, like the ability to enter bill payments and view reports. Plus includes inventory accounting that allows you to monitor stock items and quantity—a necessity if you’re selling products. It uses first-in, first-out (FIFO) inventory tracking, an essential feature that helps manufacturers or retailers determine how their inventory affects their profitability. It also lets you update inventory costs and quantities, separate taxable from nontaxable items, and set up alerts if you’re running out of stock.

QuickBooks Online also syncs with a variety of payroll tools, including the accountant-friendly QuickBooks Online Payroll. While QuickBooks Online users don’t get a discount when signing up for QuickBooks Payroll, the two software products integrate seamlessly with one another and are equally easy to use. Whether you decide to manage your bookkeeping on your own or work with a professional, you’ll have no trouble accessing online resources for QuickBooks Online. The company offers video tutorials, webinars and training classes, as well as community forums, support topics and other resources on its website. You have the option of contacting QuickBooks customer support directly for any help you may need too.

I work in construction. Does QuickBooks have what I need?

Naturally, QuickBooks Online syncs with other QuickBooks products as well, including QuickBooks Time (formerly TimeTrex), TurboTax and QuickBooks Online Payroll. QuickBooks Online Simple Start is geared toward solopreneurs, sole proprietors, freelancers and other micro- and small-business owners. Its basic features include invoicing, online payment acceptance, 1099 contractor management and automatic sales channel syncing (for e-commerce business owners).

All Simple Start features for up to three users, plus bill management and the ability to add employee time to invoices. Our partners cannot pay us to guarantee favorable reviews of their products or services. Merchant Maverick’s ratings are editorial in nature, and are not aggregated from user reviews. Each staff reviewer at Merchant Maverick is a subject matter expert with experience researching, testing, and evaluating small business software and services. The rating of this company or service is based on the author’s expert opinion and analysis of the product, and assessed and seconded by another subject matter expert on staff before publication.

QuickBooks Online Vs. Desktop: What’s The Difference?

Accept credit cards and payments anywhere and we’ll automatically calculate sales tax for you. The QuickBooks Online Simple plan costs $30/month and supports one user. We’ve got you covered with a breakdown of the four different QuickBooks Online (QBO) plans. We’ll discuss how to know which plan is right for you and what additional costs to expect, so you can know precisely what you’re getting into before deciding to purchase QuickBooks Online.

• All of the QuickBooks Online Payroll pricing plans include full-service payroll.
• Locally installed basic bookkeeping tools, including invoices, industry-specific reports, time tracking, inventory management and more.
• As for inventory tracking, this feature is also available in the Plus plan.
• A popular add-on is the payroll feature where you can run payroll and access benefits in one convenient place.

Another cumbersome feature that users don’t like is the requirement that clients must establish their own accounts to pay an invoice. Other popular merchant processors don’t require this, making collecting payments more difficult. You aren’t required to fill out every field in an expense or income entry, but the more detailed your records are, the more useful certain reports can be. For example, with QuickBooks Online Plus and Advanced, you can track inventory and do job costing — that is, you can figure out how much you spent to complete a certain project. Offers four plans to accommodate a range of businesses with different needs; each plan limits the number of users, though. Your bookkeeper categorizes transactions and reconciles accounts for you, freeing up time to focus on your business.

million customers

QuickBooks Payroll starts at $45 a month plus $5 per employee paid per month, and new users can choose between a 30-day free trial or 50% off discount just as they can with QuickBooks Online. You’ll get the most value out of QuickBooks Online if you understand how to use its transaction tags and reporting capabilities. If you’re not sure whether you’re getting the most of these features, consider asking your accountant to review your chart of accounts and how you’re categorizing transactions. You can also use QuickBooks’ ProAdvisor network to find certified accountants and bookkeepers. Given QuickBooks Online’s number of users, accountants outside of the network should be familiar with the software. If your monthly average is $50,001 or more, the monthly price for QuickBooks Live is $400.

The Best Corporate Credit Cards For Businesses In 2024

What used to be a huge bulk of QuickBooks business is no longer so—it focuses mostly on its cloud version and actively encourages users to make the switch from Desktop to Online. This may signal future abandonment of its Desktop version as more people move to the cloud. If you make the switch from Desktop to Online, you can import your data and access your original company file at any time.