QuickBooks Online vs QuickBooks Desktop: Unlocking the Best Choice for Your Business
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. However, if you’re not a Mac user, you job order costing principles of managerial accounting 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.
Software type
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- Speaking of extra fees, QuickBooks Desktop also charges for e-commerce app integration, invoice-based payment acceptance, and online data hosting.
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- You can send email invites to your accountant from within the software.
- The software offers comprehensive features, unique touches (such as lead management and sales orders), industry-specific versions of the software, and the potential to be more secure.
Because it’s cloud-based, QuickBooks Online seamlessly integrates with hundreds of third-party applications. This broad compatibility lets you create a customized software ecosystem tailored to your specific business needs. Think CRM platforms for managing customer relationships, inventory management tools for tracking stock, and e-commerce platforms for selling online. As Forbes points out, QuickBooks Online boasts over the ultimate guide to construction accounting 650 app integrations, simplifying and automating many accounting tasks (source). This extensive network of integrations streamlines processes, reduces manual data entry, and provides a more holistic view of your business operations. Plus, QuickBooks Online is accessible from any device with an internet connection, giving you the flexibility to manage your finances from anywhere, as highlighted by Zapier (source).
Industry-Specific Features
Each staff reviewer at Merchant Maverick is a subject matter expert with experience researching, testing, and evaluating small business software and services. The rating of this company or service is based on the author’s expert opinion and analysis of the product, and assessed and seconded by another subject matter expert on staff before publication. Merchant Maverick’s ratings are not influenced by affiliate partnerships. These versions give business owners more features and reports geared toward their industry.
The transition from QBO to QBDT is rarely smooth and will very likely take multiple attempts to get the data to load. Once loaded, there is extensive post-migration work that will vary from company to company. The decision to use one QuickBooks version over another (QuickBooks Online vs Desktop) isn’t one that’s written in stone. While you should strive to avoid multiple and consistent back-and-forths, your choice of QuickBooks version isn’t written in stone. By using optical character recognition (OCR), details from your receipts are scanned and recorded directly into relevant transactions. Non-Plus editions of QuickBooks Desktop put the responsibility of backing up files entirely on you.
QuickBooks Online Subscription Model
Our partners cannot pay us to guarantee favorable reviews of their products or services. Rachel Barnett has been a QuickBooks user since 1995, eventually earning QuickBooks ProAdvisor status. When she’s not sample personnel policies for nonprofits busy supporting professionals and their businesses, Rachel enjoys actively participating in the QuickSource accounting community.
QuickBooks Online is simply easier to learn, provides a detailed onboarding process, and is very intuitive. It’s designed to foster collaboration between multiple users, facilitating multi-user access to accounting data. Each user has their own login credentials, which can be customized to limit access to sensitive information. There’s also a feature that facilitates inviting your accountant to the platform, so they can have direct access to your data.
Each Desktop plan comes with one user; additional licenses cost extra. Both versions offer automatic syncing with your bank so you can categorize transactions. Add payroll to QuickBooks Online starting at $45 per month, or to Desktop starting at $50, plus $2 per employee, per month. QuickBooks Online has a lower initial cost with subscription-based pricing, making it more cost-effective for small businesses.