QuickBooks Online vs Desktop: Which Is Right for Your Business?
When comparing QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop, each version has its own advantages, helping specific businesses with certain financial management needs. QuickBooks Online is popular for businesses that want flexibility — both in terms of where and how they can access their finances as well as what plan they can choose as they grow. On the other hand, established businesses may get more out of QuickBooks Desktop with its advanced capabilities in a secure database. She started her career writing and editing content about home services before transitioning to home improvement products. She has spent the last year and a half working at a software company, managing content about CRM, project management and other business topics. The software must also have a mobile app to enable users to perform accounting tasks even when away from their laptops or desktops.
Add new QuickBooks Online invoices to Google Sheets spreadsheet rows
QuickBooks Desktop is desktop based, meaning you’ll buy a hard copy of QuickBooks’ software, then download that five types of budgets in managerial accounting software once onto a single device. However, if you’re not a Mac user, you can choose from all three QuickBooks Desktop plans. The QuickBooks Desktop Premier Plus plan is particularly useful for business that want industry-specific features. Most notably, Premier Plus has 150+ customizable reports for nonprofits, general contractors, and retailers. 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.
Pricing
If you purchased a Desktop Pro plan in 2021, your software will still work until 2024—but new customers who bought the 2022 software version can only choose annual subscriptions. QuickBooks Online has been part of the Intuit accounting software family for a few decades now. Since QuickBooks Online is browser-based, not desktop-based, you can log on to your Quickbooks Online account from any web-enabled device with a sturdy internet connection.
QuickBooks Online features
Moreover, we’d also like to see customization options to enable users to generate reports based on what they want to see. This section focuses more on first-time setup and software settings. 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.
- Everything from the installation screen to the lagging UI gave me flashbacks to the 1998 dial-up tone on my family’s Pentium III computer.
- If you make the switch from Desktop to Online, you can import your data and access your original company file at any time.
- Accountants often find QuickBooks Pro and Premier to be more traditional, but you don’t have to be an accountant or professional bookkeeper to learn QuickBooks Online.
Perhaps the biggest area where QuickBooks Desktop falls short is that its Pro and Premier versions will soon be discontinued for new users. While QuickBooks Enterprise will still be an option, this is powerful software with an expensive price tag that will be too much (in terms of features and pricing) for most small businesses. You should also consider budget constraints before choosing, as QuickBooks Online provides more plans and more diverse pricing options, while QuickBooks Desktop can be more expensive. I want to confidently say that the difference in pricing is due to the considerable amount of features that QuickBooks Desktop offers, but I’m unsure if that’s the case.
QuickBooks Online vs. Desktop features
It’s fair to point out that multiple people can use QuickBooks Desktop over the local network at the office. But when multiple users are working on the same file simultaneously, changes made by one user won’t be instantly visible to the rest of the team. The changes need to be saved and refreshed, leaving a lot of potential for errors.
For instance, if you choose the Simple Start plan, you’re the only person who can use the software—apart from your accountant, with whom you can share your business’s account at no additional cost. We also don’t recommend QuickBooks Desktop to Mac users, since there’s just one desktop-based plan for Mac users. This plan, QuickBooks Desktop for Mac, has the same features as QuickBooks Desktop Pro Plus, the most basic desktop-based plan.
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. Both QuickBooks Desktop and QuickBooks Online utilize a subscription pricing model. It has less of a learning curve than QuickBooks Desktop and comes with a much more simplified dashboard that’s easy to navigate. And let’s not forget offline accessibility for the times your ISP decides to ruin your Monday.