The Pros & Cons of QuickBooks Online vs Desktop

However, these versions don’t receive security updates, live support, or access to cloud-based services such as live bank feeds, QuickBooks Desktop Payments, or QuickBooks Desktop Payroll. QuickBooks Desktop Premier Plus and Enterprise plans have industry-specific reports for manufacturing and wholesale, retail, nonprofit, general contractor and professional service businesses, too. For example, nonprofits can use the desktop products to run donor contribution summary reports while manufacturing, wholesale and retail businesses have the ability to forecast product sales. Contractors and professional service businesses can use the software to compare revenue by city, customer and job type.

There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data. QBO was designed to be user-friendly to the end user not to the accountant. The screens an accountant is used to seeing are still there but hidden and not as easy to find.

1. QuickBooks Online offers over 80 reports depending on your plan, whereas QuickBooks Desktop Pro has over 130 reports.
2. With so many options, nailing the proper choice for your needs may appear more challenging than actually using the software.
3. Businesses with inventory items should choose accounting software that can track inventory costs, manage cost of goods sold (COGS), and monitor inventory units.
4. If you’re interested in QuickBooks Online, check out our comparison guide of QuickBooks Online plans to help you decide which is best for you.

For instance, QuickBooks Desktop allows you to create customized job costing reports tailored to specialized industries, including manufacturers, contractors, and retailers. QuickBooks Online and Desktop share many similarities, including income and expense tracking, bank reconciliation, accounts payable (A/P) and accounts receivable (A/R) management, and reporting. We consider them tied in terms of features, as they are both robust accounting software, and they have their own strengths and weaknesses. To expedite product setup, you can choose to use the default chart of accounts that is included in the application. You also have the option to import products and services into the application to avoid having to re-enter the data. This is a tie since both QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop offer users the same support options.

Its prominence also stems from its inclusion of tools its competitors lack, such as integrated advanced time tracking. QuickBooks is a suite of accounting software developed and marketed by Intuit, designed for small and medium-sized businesses to handle their financial list of accounting standards management and automate accounting operations. It provides features that cater to invoicing, expense tracking, payroll management, and tax preparation. Many satisfied QuickBooks Online users appreciate that they can access the program from any internet-enabled device.

Similar to other cloud-based apps, QuickBooks Online allows for anytime/anywhere access to your books. Based on feedback I have received from clients, the other benefits of Plus do not warrant the additional cost. DIY clients often find that hiring a professional bookkeeper for on-demand support is a better use of their time and money than the 24/7 support desk. By not purchasing the Plus edition of the software, you lose the automatic backups, but those can be easily handled by yourself. QuickBooks Online is like the charismatic superhero who can do it all while looking cool.

QuickBooks Desktop is also a good fit for niche businesses such as nonprofit organizations, retailers, and general contractors looking for a more industry-specific solution. Whether you’re thinking about converting to QuickBooks Online or switching from QuickBooks Desktop to QuickBooks Online, your first step should be to take a long look at both applications. When you do, you’ll notice the difference immediately as QuickBooks Online offers a streamlined user interface, while QuickBooks Desktop relies on a flow-chart based interface.

Learn more about the time tracking capabilities in our full review of QuickBooks Time. QuickBooks Desktop Pro, Pro Plus and Premier are no longer sold, although unsold copies may still be available at authorized vendors for a limited time. QuickBooks is encouraging all existing Desktop clients to migrate to QuickBooks Online as soon as possible. It has less of a learning curve than QuickBooks Desktop and comes with a much more simplified dashboard that’s easy to navigate. Zapier is a no-code automation tool that lets you connect your apps into automated workflows, so that every person and every business can move forward at growth speed. Yes, you can, but the process is a bit tedious, as you need to manually export your files from QuickBooks Online to Desktop.

You can, however, switch your business’s account from QuickBooks Desktop to QuickBooks Online without losing your data. The online version will soon be the only available version, and it’s used by hundreds of thousands of American businesses. To find out what we thought about it, please check out our review of QuickBooks Online 2024. If you made a one-time software purchase of QuickBooks Desktop, support for the 2021 edition will end in May 2024. For 2020 copies, support ends in May 2023, and for 2019 copies support has already ended, according to QuickBooks.

Can I switch from QuickBooks Online to QuickBooks Desktop?

With so many options, nailing the proper choice for your needs may appear more challenging than actually using the software. Julie is a dynamic professional with over 16 years of rich experience as a VDI and Application Hosting expert. On the weekend, you will find her hanging out with her family or surfing around the North Shore of Oahu. Yes, you can migrate your data from QuickBooks Desktop to QuickBooks Online.

Since QuickBooks Online offers four cloud-based plans, it easily grows with your business. As you hire more employees or bring on more customers, you can scale up your software to match. And if you manage your business from multiple https://intuit-payroll.org/ locations, you’ll want QuickBooks Online over Desktop. Only QuickBooks Online includes free access to a comprehensive version of the QuickBooks mobile accounting app, which is one of the best apps in the accounting sphere.

QuickBooks Online vs. Desktop table of contents

Product support can be accessed directly from within the application, where you can ask a question or connect to support personnel. Support options are fairly similar for both QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop, with the more expensive plans offering better support options. QuickBooks Desktop also offers easy integration with QuickBooks Payments so you can accept online payments from customers. But aside from cloud access, there are other differences between the two applications that we’ll talk about next. You must purchase additional licenses if you want to access it on multiple computers. While you can add cloud access to QuickBooks Enterprise, it involves an additional fee.

Should you choose QuickBooks Desktop or QuickBooks Online?

Both QuickBooks Desktop and QuickBooks Online offer multiple service tiers that cater to different business needs, such as the number of employees who need to access the software. QuickBooks Online is optimized to be as user-friendly as possible and very easy to navigate. The side menu categorizes features for easy access, for example, aggregating sections for employees, their taxes, and compliance details under the Payroll category. It takes a bit of time to click around and understand where everything is, but a quick run-through is more than enough to familiarize yourself with what QuickBooks Online can do. The A/P section focuses on vendor management, bill management, bill payments, and other payable-related transactions.

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Software type

However, converting your data from one desktop solution to another can be a complex process. Each Desktop plan comes with one user; additional licenses cost extra. Small to midsize businesses that want a desktop solution or need advanced inventory and industry-specific features. For $27.50 per month for the first three months, then $55 per month after that, get up to three users, manage and pay bills and track time with its Essentials plan, which is its most popular plan. Upgrade to Plus for $42.50 per month for the first three months, then $85 per month afterward, and you will receive access for up to five users, inventory tracking and the ability to track project profitability.

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. You can also integrate QuickBooks Online with Zapier, which lets you connect QuickBooks to thousands of other apps in your business’s tech stack. You can do things like automatically add customers to or create receipts in QuickBooks when payments happen in other apps, or track new QuickBooks invoices or payments in another app.