QuickBooks Online Review 2024: Features, Pros & Cons

We recommend crunching the numbers to decide whether the online or desktop versions of QuickBooks are right for your specific business. 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. QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop share the same basic functionality of organizing your accounting processes and automating much of the manual data entry work.

You can download a 30-day trial version of QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise only—both the Premier Plus and Pro Plus plans come with a 60-day money-back guarantee, but no free trial. Alternatively, you can sign up for a free 30-day trial with QuickBooks Online. Just know that doing so waives your option to get 50% off your QuickBooks Online subscription for your first three months.

Which is better for small businesses?

1. 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.
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3. In evaluating pricing, we considered the billing cycle (monthly or annual) and number of users.
4. The QuickBooks Desktop mobile app is very limited as it only allows you to capture expense receipts and track business mileage.
5. This is useful for businesses with multiple departments or divisions and those that provide various types of services.

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). One big drawback of QuickBooks Pro in the past was that it didn’t have mobile apps. Fortunately, a mobile app is now available with the introduction of QuickBooks Desktop 2022. However, the QuickBooks Desktop app is a very pared-down version of the desktop and is poorly rated. If your business needs sales orders, QuickBooks Desktop is your only option.

The right fit for all kinds of businesses

In both QuickBooks Online and Desktop, you can assign costs to your inventory items and track the quantities sold to calculate the cost of goods sold (COGS). Terms, conditions, pricing, special features, and service and support options subject to change without notice. QuickBooks Desktop is an annual subscription, starting at $549.99 per year, which subscription billing vs one may be cost-prohibitive for small businesses or cash-strapped startups. While the Desktop version has app integrations, it doesn’t have near as many as the Online version. There are over 200 options instead of the 650-plus to its cloud counterpart. When signing up for QuickBooks Online, it only gives options for paying monthly.

QuickBooks Desktop is also not a great choice for accounting newbies, as the UI is quite unintuitive and has a steep learning curve. And while Desktop has a respectable number of integrations when compared to other accounting software, it falls far short of what QBO offers its users. What stands out most about QuickBooks Online when compared to Desktop is that QBO is cloud-based accounting software. Because of this, QuickBooks Online is much easier to use and has many more integrations and time-saving invoicing automations, such as auto-scheduling. While we’re on the topic of invoicing, QuickBooks Online has the superior product, offering six invoice templates and multilingual invoicing in six languages. Going completely cloud-based comes with marginally higher security risks.

Compare QuickBooks products

Additionally, you won’t find the industry-specific features and reports that you’ll get if you sign up for Desktop. All QuickBooks Desktop Pro, Desktop Premiere, 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.

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The software must have enough reports that can be generated with a few clicks. Moreover, we’d also like to see customization options to enable users to generate reports based on what they want to see. Businesses with inventory items should choose accounting software that can track inventory costs, manage cost of goods sold (COGS), and monitor inventory units. Even after initial setup, the software must also let users modify information like company name, address, entity type, fiscal year-end, and other company information. On the other hand, QuickBooks Enterprise involves a more complex setup due to its extensive feature set designed for larger businesses. You need to properly install and set up the software, which often requires IT support for proper configuration.