QuickBooks Online vs QuickBooks Desktop: Unlocking the Best Choice for Your Business
Both QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop are designed to handle small business’s bandwidth and needs. Strictly based on ease of use and basic functionality, QuickBooks Online is an easier-to-adopt option that can handle small business accounting needs well. Seeing as it’s a program installed on your local system, it relies on the device’s processing power and resources. With larger datasets or complex operations, QuickBooks Desktop might utilize more local processing power compared to the online version. However, if you own a big business, prefer locally stored software, or want industry-specific reports, QuickBooks Desktop could be a better fit for your business.
Add new QuickBooks Online invoices to Google Sheets spreadsheet rows
If you’re searching for accounting software that’s user-friendly, full of smart features, and scales with your business, Quickbooks is a great option. 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.
QuickBooks Desktop also offers different versions of its software for certain types of businesses (construction, nonprofits, manufacturing, etc.). These versions offer industry-specific reports, in addition to 50 more reports than you’ll find on QuickBooks Online. Its highest-tiered plan is the Advanced option, which costs $100 per month for the first three months, then $200 per month after that. Additionally, you can give access to two accounting firms and have unlimited users for the platform’s time tracking and reporting features. QuickBooks offers extensive support resources, including tutorials, FAQs, and live chat options. QuickBooks Online users benefit from automatic updates and cloud-based support, while QuickBooks Desktop users have access to specialized support for their locally-installed software.
Plus, you can build a portal in Method for your customers to log in and place orders themselves. QuickBooks Enterprise has much more granular permission settings than QuickBooks Online. So, if you need to restrict internal access, QuickBooks Desktop is the better choice. While both platforms offer robust features, the differences between QuickBooks Online vs. Desktop are distinct. Both QuickBooks Desktop and QuickBooks Online have the ability to set up bank rules, which are ‘if this, then that’ rules that apply to transactions imported from the bank. 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.
QuickBooks Desktop vs. Online: At a Glance
Non-Plus editions of QuickBooks Desktop put the responsibility of backing up files entirely on you. This can be accomplished in much the same way you’d back up other files. This is by saving them to other locations on your PC, other sorts of media (such as flash drives), or uploading them to the cloud (using apps like Dropbox or Drive). Hosting your QBDT file on the cloud is available for all editions of QuickBooks Desktop and is available through a variety of providers.
Online payments, automated leads, and customer management?
- MarketWatch Guides may receive compensation from companies that appear on this page.
- We also don’t recommend QuickBooks Desktop to Mac users, since there’s just one desktop-based plan for Mac users.
- As you consider whether QuickBooks Desktop vs. QuickBooks Online is better for your accounting needs, keep in mind that QuickBooks Online is the more recent, up-to-date, and constantly evolving product.
As I was testing them out, I found QuickBooks Online a lot sleeker, more modern, and easier to navigate than QuickBooks Desktop. Every step was prefaced with a tutorial, guiding me in setting up my company’s profile by prompting me to provide specific information. I’ve deduced that it comes down to a stubborn user base—one that refuses to let go of QuickBooks Desktop in favor of its cloud-based successor. Granted, most people agree QuickBooks Online is the better option, but the old-timer is still somehow in the running.
QuickBooks Self-Employed, or QBSE, is the version of QBO marketed toward freelancers and other self-employed business owners. Unlike its counterparts, this edition of the software can never be upgraded to the small business editions of the software. Similar to other cloud-based apps, QuickBooks Online allows for anytime/anywhere access to your books.
The online version of QuickBooks is much easier to use than the desktop version. With QuickBooks Online, you can add QuickBooks Online Payroll starting at $50/month. Both QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop offer a large number of features. While they share many of the same features, QuickBooks Desktop’s features are often more developed, except when it comes to invoicing. It’s hard to say which software is cheaper because there are so many variables. But there are some general guidelines to know which version might be the what is the difference between public companies and public sector one for your business (and your budget).