If you’re running a small business, you’ll be comparing QuickBooks Online or QuickBooks Pro. If you are a small business owner, it will come back to the decision between cloud-based and locally-installed software to determine which software is right for you. However, QuickBooks Mac Plus does noticeably lack some of the features available on QuickBooks Online, including recurring invoices and live bank feeds.

• QuickBooks Online is a cloud-based accounting platform while QuickBooks is a desktop program that provides additional inventory management features.
• Plus, QuickBooks Desktop integrates with over 200 third-party apps, so you can add extra accounting functionality that way too.
• It’s a great fit if you’ll be doing the bookkeeping yourself and don’t need inventory accounting.
• For new and small businesses that don’t need to assign many users, the Free platform is quite robust.
• With Essentials, you can track your unpaid bills easily and pay them directly within QuickBooks.
• HMRC do not provide exact dates for any Self Assessment repayments, however, they do provide a general guideline of 12 weeks for overpaid returns.

Cloud-based software is far more popular today and with that comes tiers for different types or sizes of businesses. So, you’re likely to find a free plan, which would be suitable for an individual, but you’ll have limits on the number of invoices you can send or you may have no access to advanced features. 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. Aside from the obvious features, such as double entry and time tracking, you should look for software that offers payroll, bill payment and is affordable for your budget. We reviewed more than a dozen accounting software options using a detailed methodology to help you find the seven best QuickBooks alternatives. QuickBooks dashboard is more comprehensive than FreshBooks, which can be overwhelming to new users.

Cloud-based vs. desktop-based QuickBooks products

Instead, it mainly functions as a tool to upload and organize receipts to make tax time easier. If, on the other hand, you’re not sure you need all the tools QuickBooks Desktop includes, you may want to stick with a small-business accounting software like QuickBooks online. It tops our list of the best accounting apps thanks to its variety of plans, excellent invoicing tools and solid accounting tools.

The biggest difference between Simple Start and Essentials is that Simple Start doesn’t allow you to pay and manage bills. This is a bit inconvenient since even solopreneurs or freelancers have bills that need to be paid. However, if you only need to record expenses as you pay them, then Simple Start might be enough. You should know that Patriot Accounting has more limited features than many other competitors, so its “premium” plan is more on par with entry-level plans from QuickBooks and other alternatives.

QuickBooks Pros

It’s very likely that Intuit QuickBooks Enterprise and QuickBooks Premier will follow suit in the years to come. It’s also worth noting that its different versions cater to different industries and business sizes. That’s why it’s important to ensure that your chosen QuickBooks version can accommodate your business’ future growth. Jeff is a writer, founder, and small business expert that focuses on educating founders on the ins and outs of running their business. FreshBooks keeps the dashboard clean with limited summaries so that you aren’t overwhelmed with the data, whereas QuickBooks gives you the option of seeing everything from the onset.

QuickBooks Essentials vs. Plus: At a Glance

(The general business version still includes excellent reports—they’re just more broad.) For instance, the general contractor plan includes job costing and reports that organize costs by vendor. The wholesale version breaks down profitability by product, and the nonprofit version lets you generate donor contribution summaries and end-of-year donation statements. While we love QuickBooks Online’s accessibility, low learning curve, and simple scalability for multiple business types and sizes, it’s one of the pricier cloud-based accounting solutions. As an extremely popular accounting solution, QuickBooks Online integrates with hundreds of the best third-party financial apps, from payroll companies like Gusto to point-of-sale systems like Square.

FreshBooks vs. QuickBooks: At a Glance

Where FreshBooks limits the number of clients to five on its Lite plan, QuickBooks is unlimited on all its plans. For FreshBooks users who don’t have a large book of business, this could be a non-issue, but for small business owners who must invoice a large number of clients, QuickBooks is the better solution. Intuit QuickBooks is a popular accounting software program that has been around for years. It’s beloved by many small business owners for its comprehensive features and its ability to integrate with pretty much anything out there. FreshBooks, on the other hand, hasn’t traditionally been as popular because it focuses on the much smaller end of the business market.

Both software programs have a 30-day free trial for you to test the product and see if it will be sufficient for your needs. FreshBooks goes from $8.50 per month during the promotional period to $17 per month when billed annually for the Lite option. QuickBooks’ perpetual inventory system vs periodic inventory system Simple Start option is $15 per month during the promotional period and moves to $30 per month when billed annually after that. A big comparison between FreshBooks vs. QuickBooks is the number of billable clients you can have on the lower-tiered plans.

The mobile app means you can quickly snap a photo of a receipt and upload it to create an expense (or add to an existing one). QuickBooks offers many different ways to categorize expenses, with 18 different categories. You can also use the app to accurately track mileage using GPS and classify trips as business or personal.