QuickBooks Online Review: Features & Pricing for 2024

It’ll help you manage all of your clients, suppliers and employees without hassle. Additional users cost extra, and you can only have one to three users, making this an accounting solution for small businesses. Launched in 2004, QuickBooks Online https://www.adprun.net/ is cloud-based accounting software used by over two million people. With strong accounting capabilities, impressive features, 650+ integrations, and fully-featured mobile apps, it’s no wonder this is one of our top accounting recommendations.

How to Set Up QuickBooks Online for Personal Use

The Fit Small Business editorial policy is rooted in the company’s mission, which is to deliver the best answers to people’s questions. This serves as the foundation for all content, demonstrating a clear dedication to providing valuable and reliable information. Our team leverages its expertise and extensive research capabilities to identify and address the specific questions our audience has—and this ensures that our content is rooted in knowledge and accuracy. Larger businesses with sophisticated inventory, reporting and accounting needs. Creating customer groups allows you to find all customers that match certain criteria for things like location, customer type, or the customer’s status.

Step 2: Create a new chart

1. Your account information is securely stored in the cloud and available anytime on all your devices.
2. 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.
3. We believe everyone should be able to make financial decisions with confidence.
4. Bank-level security ensures your data is safe and accessible only to you and the people you choose to share it with.
5. This requires the software to allow users transitioning from other bookkeeping software to import their chart of accounts (COA), vendors, customers, service items, and inventory items.

After you sign up for QuickBooks Online, you’ll be able to log in to your account and access the main dashboard view. If you’re moving to QuickBooks from another accounting software, you can import your existing files to your new account. Christine Aebischer is an assistant assigning editor on the small-business team at NerdWallet who has covered business and personal finance for nearly a decade. Previously, she was an editor at Fundera, where she developed service-driven content on topics such as business lending, software and insurance.

Mileage tracking

Intuit reports that 94% of accounting professionals feel QuickBooks Online saves them time and thus saves their clients’ money. Or let a tax expert powered by TurboTax do your taxes for you, start to finish. Intuit reports that 94% of accounting professionals feel QuickBooks Online saves them time and thus saves their clients money. Excel is a spreadsheet program that you can use for multiple functions like creating databases, project management and, yes, accounting. However, creating a solid accounting database in Excel requires a thorough knowledge of how to set up spreadsheets and all the formulas that may entail.

We offer flexible accounting plans to fit businesses small and large, across all industries, with integrations like payroll, time-tracking, and payments to help you grow efficiently when you’re ready. QuickBooks Online Simple Start costs $30 per month, includes only one account user (plus access for two accountants) and does not offer billable hours tracking, bill pay or inventory management. how to write off bad debt For multiple users, bill pay and the ability to add billable hours to invoices, you’ll need to upgrade to the Essentials plan, which costs $60 per month. For inventory management, you’ll need to opt for the Plus plan at $90 per month. QuickBooks offers a separate product — QuickBooks Self-Employed — designed for freelancers and independent contractors, with plans starting at $15 per month.

Many powerful features in QuickBooks Desktop you may not even aware that they exist but they could save you a lot of time and frustration through automation. There’s also a place to manage unrecognized transactions, record credit card transfers, and view all downloaded transactions in the register. Though some may be more useful than others, all of these features are worth exploring further if they are available in your version of QuickBooks.

While QuickBooks Online isn’t the most inexpensive software, we awarded it an above-average score for pricing because it offers four scalable options, which can be ideal for growing businesses. It is available in four plans ranging from $30 to $200 per month. You can either get a 30-day free trial or purchase right away and receive a 50% discount for three months and a free online session with a QuickBooks ProAdvisor to set up your account. In addition to accounting products, QuickBooks offers payroll and POS software, along with payment processing services. QuickBooks Enterprise is the most customizable and powerful version of all the QuickBooks products, making it ideal for larger businesses with complex finances. It builds on Premier Plus with QuickBooks’ most advanced inventory, reporting and pricing capabilities.

Because QuickBooks Online is connected to the cloud, you can work from any device with an internet connection. No matter which version of QuickBooks Desktop you’re using, you can switch to QuickBooks Online quickly and seamlessly. With our online migration tool, you can move all your data or move only what’s key—like balances and specific lists. If you need help, we can migrate your data for you at no additional cost. You can factor in these item costs using a variety of criteria including quantity, value, freight, duties, weight, or volume, which in turns provides you with more accurate product cost.

Support hours exclude occasional downtime due to system and server maintenance, company events, observed U.S. holidays and events beyond our control. Terms, conditions, pricing, service, support options, and support team members are subject to change without notice. QuickBooks’ mobile app is functional, but we hope to see more features in the future, such as the ability to enter bills and record time worked. Available for Android and iOS devices, it contains many features available in the browser-based desktop interface, making it one of our best mobile accounting apps.

This plan adds up to three users to the account so that the right people have access to data at their fingertips. It also gives you bill management and collects employee time for invoices to add them for proper billing. If you choose to cancel your QuickBooks Online subscription, you will still have access to your QuickBooks Money account and data. QuickBooks Online is a cloud-based accounting platform while QuickBooks is a desktop program that provides additional inventory management features. QuickBooks Online offers more features on the go and is a better overall value than QuickBooks Desktop. If you don’t need the advanced features offered by the Desktop plan, the Online version will save you money.

If you are a small business or a startup, consider QuickBooks Simple Start. Businesses that provide services, rather than goods, should consider the QuickBooks Essentials plan. Businesses with inventory will likely get the most benefit from QuickBooks Plus. Large businesses that need access for up to 25 users will probably want to go with QuickBooks Advanced. QuickBooks Online is cloud-based software that can be accessed anytime and anywhere from any internet-enabled device and has monthly subscription options.

Not only is QuickBooks the dominant small business accounting software on the market today, but it also offers supplementary products to augment your overall QuickBooks experience. In addition to the QuickBooks accounting products—QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop—these are the other available solutions that can help you manage the other aspects of your business. This takes into account customer management, revenue recognition, invoice management, and collections. Both Essentials and Plus offer powerful features that can keep your small business on top of its accounting game. However, we’d definitely recommend QuickBooks Essentials for service-based businesses that don’t have products or inventory to track on a regular basis.

QuickBooks offers plenty of customer support options, including phone, email, live chat, and chatbot. However, if you want to talk with a real person, you need to submit a form and wait for them to call you—unless you upgrade to QuickBooks Online Advanced, which gives you access to https://www.personal-accounting.org/bank-reconciliation-exercise-and-answers/ premium customer support. You can add sales taxes to your receipts, invoices, and estimates, and QuickBooks Online will calculate and track them automatically for easy tax filing. It also keeps track of your tax payment due dates to avoid late filing and late payment penalties.

The software covers all the accounting bases as well as invoicing, expense tracking, accounts payable, contact management, project management, inventory, budgeting, and more. Though there are occasional navigation difficulties, QBO is incredibly easy to use overall. Best for small businesses looking for easy-to-use, cloud-based accounting software and strong mobile apps.

This process ensures that articles are well-researched and organized, offering in-depth insights and recommendations. Consider what the system’s interface looks like, how the navigation works and what setup entails. Your familiarity with accounting concepts and the availability of customer support is also worth weighing. If you want to use your software anywhere you have an internet connection, you’ll likely want to focus on QuickBooks Online or pay more to add remote access through hosting to QuickBooks Enterprise. Think about the specific features you want in your software and which are most important to your business’s success. Use a free trial or ask QuickBooks for a software demo if you’re stuck between products.