What is QuickBooks Online?
QuickBooks Online is cloud-based accounting software that provides various services, including financial reporting, bespoke invoices, multiple currencies, inventory management, and over 650 integrations. Furthermore, QuickBooks online provides more advanced features like automatic sales receipts, scheduled invoices, and split transactions that you can’t avail of yourself with a traditional desktop version. Its easy-to-use interface, add-in mobility, extras, and add-ons make it the best bet for small to medium business owners.
Although the software is comparatively handy and easy to operate, drawbacks also come. You may sometimes face navigational problems; if you need help, the support staff may take too long to respond, which can be frustrating. Plus, the price increase sometimes makes QuickBooks Online an expensive tool for most businesses. These are a few complications of using it; however, QuickBooks Online offers many features and is an ideal solution to fulfil most business accounting needs.
QuickBooks’ Quick Overview
Cloud-based accounting tool – supports up to 25 users
Added unique features – like QuickBooks live bookkeeping, QuickBooks capital lending, Data Migration, and GST and VAT tracking
Above 650 Integrations – to connect with other software and applications
Feature-rich accounting software – best suited to small to medium-sized businesses
Pros
- Improved dashboard, enhanced onboarding, and supports projects, payroll, numerous add-ons, and 650+ integrations.
- Convenient mobile App
- Easy to operate
- Advanced invoicing feature
- Easy customization
- Cloud accounting
Cons
- Expensive
- Mediocre customer support
- Sometimes unintuitive
QuickBooks Online Cost
QuickBooks Online provides four different plans, ranging from $25 to $180 per month; you can choose the plan that suits your preferences.
QuickBooks Online also offers a 30-day free trial, and it doesn’t require any credit card information or a contract, and you can cancel the service if you want to.
Intuit regularly offers a discount for QuickBooks online, so check your eligibility to utilize the deal.
You cannot utilize the discounts if you use the free trial. And if you are a new user, you should check your eligibility for the promotional price, which gives 50% of the three-month fees.
- Simple Start Plan
QuickBooks Online Simple Start plan costs $25 per month and is designed for smaller businesses. It supports one user with unlimited invoices and estimates, expense tracking, online payments, live bank feed, basic reports, 650+ integration Apps, and tax support.
- Essentials Plan
This plan costs $ 50 per month and provides all the features of a simple start plan plus accounts payable, time tracking, and support for up to three users.
- Plus Plan
The plus plan costs $80 per month and includes everything in the essential plan; it adds additional features like inventory management and project management and increases the accessibility to up to five users.
- Advanced Plan
The $180 per month advanced plan provides everything of a plus plan and add-on some premium features such as – advanced reporting and analysis, enhanced support, custom user access, automated workflows, on-demand online training, exclusive premium apps, and allows access for up to 25 users.
The advanced plan is more dedicated to larger businesses that may need to consider a sophisticated accounting solution that mediocre accounting software doesn’t fulfil.
Note: If you think 25 users accessibility won’t fulfil your accounting requirements and need more, you should consider Xero, which allows unlimited users access.
QuickBooks Price Comparison
Undoubtedly, QuickBooks is considered the best accounting software for most small to medium businesses, but it is also more expensive than other software. A few lower-cost options are available that can satisfy small business accounting needs.
If you all need modest accounting software for a tiny business or personal expense tracking under your budget, then you should look at the following software.
Zoho Books costs from $0–$30 per month and provides as many features and flexibility that it can be a go-to choice for smaller organizations.
FreshBooks is the top recommendation from most professionals for micro-businesses; its cost ranges from $15–$50 per month.
Xero costs $12–$65 per month and competes with QuickBooks in some features, but it lacks a good user experience and offers an ominous learning curve.
Wave and Sunrise are free of cost; neither can compete with paid applications in terms of features and flexibility. However, a small and straightforward business might find everything it needs to keep the accounts management upright.
Is QuickBooks Online Easy to Operate?
Mostly, QuickBooks is intuitive, and most features are easy to use. The User Interface is designed beautifully but could still be enhanced. You may find some aspects hard to discover, but the built-in “help” option can fetch the desired information for you and make your task easy.
Is QuickBooks Online Secure?
QuickBooks Online has multiple safety measures to keep your data encrypted and secured from unauthorized access, and Intuit is still working keenly to update its security by the time. The security measures include:
- Routine Checking
- Multifactor Authentication
- 128-bit SSL encryption
- Physical Safeguards
QuickBooks Online User Experience
QuickBooks online shows a vertical toolbar on the left side with tabs representing significant categories on the software: Dashboard, Sales, Expenses, Taxes, Reports, Transactions, Payroll, Cash Flow, My Accountant, and Live Bookkeeping, etc. In short, this toolbar represents multiple small businesses’ most recurring tasks.
QuickBooks Online has revamped the opening screen into two tabs; the first is labelled as “Getting Things Done”, and the second is “Business Overview”.
The first tab shows several graphical flow charts that depict the business progress. This tab is further divided into Money In/Out and Accounting and reports options.
The Business Overview page shows more technical information and tools, which help see and manage business activities. For example, graphs for total sales and expenses, profit and loss status, and account balances. It also has a link to your registers.
In the upper right corner are additional tools like search, help, and Account and Settings option. It also contains links to tools like Budgeting, Chart of Accounts, Data Import and Export, User Management, and an audit log.
Thorough data Records
One of the major benefits of an online accounting application is that you rarely have to re-enter any information you entered once. For example, if you create an account for vendors, customers, products, or services, you can access these records whenever you make transactions and reports.
The customer record templates not only contain their contact information but also have tabbed sections for tax information, billing preferences and payment options, notes, and attachments. Intuit has also introduced a new language tab, so you now have an opportunity to create and send sales forms in any of the six languages.
The vendor accounts are handled similarly; they contain account numbers, billing rates, terms of payments, and opening balances.
QuickBooks Online offers the “best “product records” among other accounting software. It provides separate templates for both inventory and non-inventory items.
Inventory record templates include areas for items purchased, items sold information, and their relative accounts. You can easily track the inventory, know when to reorder stock, and avoid overstocking or stockouts.
In the case of service records, you can specify them as billable and non-billable, as individual activities or timesheets. The individual activity records are exceptionally detailed, with fields for specifics like employee name, customer, project details, and pricing. You also have the option of entering start and end times for a project.
QuickBooks Online Features
Quickbooks Online has gotten everything you would expect from good accounting software, including bank reconciliation, journal entries, expense tracking, class tracking, and much more. You can create sales invoices, receipts, estimates, and purchase orders.
In addition, there is also some time-saving automation to help you with the scheduled activities, such as recurring invoices and auto-scheduling. You can also easily apply to lending funds through QuickBook’s built-in Capital lending platform.
Let’s check out some distinguishing features that QBO offers.
- Bookkeeping
- Invoices and Estimates
- Inventory Management
- Sales and Expenses
- Reporting and Budgeting
- Live Bookkeeping
- Built-in Capital Lending
- Tax Support
- Payroll and Add-Ons
- Accounts Reconciliation
QuickBooks Online Reviews
Most customers give positive reviews for QuickBooks online, and it gets an A+ rating. More specifically, it receives 4/5 stars on G2 Crowd and 4.3/5 stars on GetApp. The mobile apps are also ranked high, with Android users rated 4/5 stars and iOS users 4.7/5 stars.
Besides its unique features, the problems also come side by side, and frequent complaints about significant shortcomings have been addressed, like software lags, poor customer support, and bugs in the mobile application.
Positive Reviews
- Many unique features that other software lack
- Multiple automated operations to save time
- 650+ integrations to connect different business applications and software
- Easy customization
- Various versions and numerous add-on apps
- Cloud-based accounting software and mobile apps offer much flexibility and automation.
- Easier to understand and operate
Negative Reviews
- Deficient customer care service and long wait times
- Bugs and lags, especially in the mobile applications
- The expensive monthly cost usually for such small businesses don’t need many features to handle their accounts
Final Say: Is QuickBooks Online worth it?
QuickBooks Online covers many features and has some essential accounting abilities that small-to-medium business owners need. The software also offers a handsome number of integrations and some unique features that are not found elsewhere, like Live Bookkeeping and a built-in Capital Lending program.
It has also received Editor’s Choice award owing to its compelling features and well-designed user interface. Its flexibility, automation, extensibility, easy customization, and mobile access outclass its rivals despite many strong contenders. It is intuitive and easy to use that an inexperienced bookkeeper can learn it in no time, but an experienced user can make the best out of its advanced accounting tools.
Most professionals prefer QuickBooks to other accounting applications due to its simplicity and depth.
On the other hand, some problems are associated with using QuickBooks, which are discussed above, such as insufficient customer support, lags and glitches, and its cost, but multiple features, extensiveness, and strong accounting still exist, which make QuickBooks the champ.
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