Granted, most people agree QuickBooks Online is the better option, but the old-timer is still somehow in the running. QuickBooks Online is user-friendly, but it requires some prior accounting knowledge to get the most out of it. Many, or all, of the products featured on this page are from our advertising partners who compensate us when you take certain actions on our website or click to take an action on their website. If you invoke the guarantee, QuickBooks will conduct a full n evaluation of the Live Bookkeeper’s work. Work from anywhere with the power of the cloud and real-time, secure collaboration. QuickBooks Online is cheaper than QuickBooks Desktop if you need multiple users.

Plus allows you to assign classes and locations to your transactions, so you can see how your business performs across divisions, locations, rep areas, or any units that are relevant to your business. If you run businesses in multiple locations and want to see which one is most profitable, an upgrade to Plus from Essentials is worth the price. The biggest difference between Simple Start and Solopreneur is that Simple Start allows you to pay and manage bills. You can track your unpaid bills easily what is the reason for pooling costs a to shift costs from low and pay them directly within QuickBooks.

QuickBooks Contractor Payments

It does cost more to access this, which is approximately $22.50 more per month plus $6 per employee, per month. When subscribing to this service, you’ll get a 1099 e-file of forms and a next-day direct deposit. QuickBooks Desktop doesn’t offer the same multi-user accessibility, but it does have a more comprehensive assortment of features that provide an in-depth view of your accounting operations. QuickBooks Desktop offers more advanced inventory management features, job costing worksheets, sales orders, and highly customizable reports. I was impressed with how you could do batch invoicing, something QuickBooks Online doesn’t offer.

QuickBooks Desktop provides better security and control over data than QuickBooks Online

We are driven by the Fit Small Business mission to provide you with the best answers to your small business questions—allowing you to choose the right accounting solution for your needs. Our meticulous evaluation process makes us a trustworthy source for accounting software insights. We immerse ourselves in every platform we review by exploring the features down to the finest nuances. Yes, QuickBooks Online offers a mobile app that allows you to access your account, track expenses, create and send invoices, and more, all from your smartphone or tablet. QuickBooks Online is better than QuickBooks Desktop if you prefer cloud-based accounting software to a locally installed one. QuickBooks Online’s biggest advantage is its ability to be accessed from anywhere with an internet-enabled device.

Find help articles, video tutorials, and connect with other businesses in our online community. A new and improved migration process gives you even more ways to move online. Move from any version of QuickBooks Desktop, and only migrate the data that matters most to you. Check out our evaluation of the best QuickBooks alternatives for additional recommendations, which include free and paid options.

QuickBooks Essentials vs QuickBooks Plus

1. Users can tailor their reports by filtering and grouping data and creating custom fields and dashboards.
2. While both software types have plenty of perks, QuickBooks Online is a more flexible, affordable, and scalable option for most small-business owners.
3. It has faster load times and quicker response rates, all while requiring minimal local processing power.
4. QuickBooks Online is a good option for many small businesses that are looking to make invoicing customers easy and integrate invoicing and payments into the general ledger.
5. These can be useful for companies with more complex business structures and accounting workflows.

If your business is service-based without any inventory, then Essentials should provide everything you need while saving you $34 per month compared to Plus. If you’re scaling from five to 25 users and need advanced features like fixed asset accounting, then go with Advanced. Ease of use gets the highest weight in this case study because we want to give more credit to easy accounting software.

You can pay extra (or upgrade to a pricier plan) to get data hosting through QuickBooks, which will let you access some financial information—though not all of it—on a different device. In the past, customers could choose between annually renewing plans and single-purchase software with a license that stayed valid for three years. 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. If you have employees, you can add QuickBooks Payroll to your QuickBooks Online account for as little as $45 per month plus $5 per employee. 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.

Head to our detailed QuickBooks Payroll review to see if it fits the bill. We developed an internal case study to evaluate the accounting software we review subjectively. Using the data we gathered from this case study, we are able to compare QuickBooks Online and Desktop across several key categories, such as pricing, ease of use, general features, A/P, A/R, and banking.

You just need to select the bills you want to pay from the Pay Bills window, place a checkmark next to the bills, and then select Save or Save and Print. It’s important to note that FreshBooks is the most competitively priced software solution we found. While QuickBooks Online is only 50 cents more than Xero, note that that is the introductory cost for the first three months. QuickBooks Online goes to $30 per month after that and is easily our most expensive option. Yes, you can switch to another plan from any version of QuickBooks Online, QuickBooks Payroll, and QuickBooks Time.