If you switch from QuickBooks Desktop to QuickBooks Online, you might be able to get better access, teamwork, and integration. But it’s important to carefully plan the move, do it carefully, and give your employees enough training to make sure it goes smoothly and helps your business in the long run. The safety and security of your financial information is a top priority for both QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop. QBO was designed to be user-friendly to the end user not to the accountant.
Unless you’re an accountant, the learning curve will likely be a little higher for you than it would with QuickBooks Online. The dashboard is super intuitive with large, easy-to-understand charts, and the mobile app is similarly easy to use. If your home or office has a slow or unpredictable internet connection, QuickBooks Desktop can ensure you can reach most of your data even if the internet goes down overnight. The downside to locally stored data, though, is that you can only access it from where it’s stored.
Back then, you couldn’t pull industry-specific reports and could only access mildly customized reports within the system. Depending on how many users you want to share access among (3 or 5), you’ll either select the Pro or Premier plan. (The Enterprise version is overkill for the majority of home-service businesses.) From there, you’ll be prompted to download and install the software before importing your company’s financial information.
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This price for payroll starts at an extra $45/month plus $4/employee/month. A Premium and Elite version of payroll exists for an increased monthly and employee/month cost. These versions cover more powerful tools and on-demand experts to assist you with daily tasks. The most advanced offering in the family, QuickBooks Enterprise, is the closest thing to an ERP software that Intuit provides. While not an ERP software in the traditional sense, QuickBooks Enterprise brands itself as an “ERP alternative” and is truly an all-in-one solution for business management.
QuickBooks Online is accessible through the cloud and gets changes automatically, while QuickBooks Desktop is a powerful program with advanced features. The choice relies on how much you like to use the Internet and how complicated your business needs are. Absolutely not, it never will because Desktop was designed in the 90s and still looks relatively similar to that. But based on the nature of your business and its unique needs, one of these programs is likely to be of more benefit to you than the other. Accountants are most commonly against it because QuickBooks Online is a new system, and it functions the same but looks different. The job of an accountant is now to advise you on how to grow your business from those financials and business experience in a specific field.
QuickBooks Online provides access to multiple users and automatically handles software and version updates. 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 locations, you’ll want QuickBooks Online over Desktop.
Which Is Better for Home-Service Businesses?
Accounting software’s usefulness is largely determined by how easy it is to use and how it works. QuickBooks Online has a modern interface that is built on the web and can be used on any device with an internet connection. Its dashboard is easy to use, which makes it easy for people to handle their finances.
- Their easy-to-use web-based platform means you can access it from anywhere at any time.
- QuickBooks Desktop (QBD) and QuickBooks Online (QBO) offer two distinct approaches to small business accounting, each with its own set of strengths and weaknesses.
- There may be better fits for businesses with advanced requirements or those operating in locations with unreliable internet connectivity.
- QuickBooks Online files are also easier to share because you only need to invite a ProAdvisor to your company file, and they’ll have 24/7 access to your books.
Although QuickBooks Desktop is recognized as a better reporting system and helps in ease of managing complex tasks. Let’s assume you’re now choosing variable consideration between the Desktop Pro and Online Plus versions. Some of the biggest feature differences stem from the online nature of, well, Online.
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QuickBooks Online is probably the better option if you need easy-to-use, remote-access accounting software that can be used from anywhere. However, if you need more features and customization options, currently, QuickBooks Desktop has the lead. QuickBooks Online is cloud based, which means you can access your QuickBooks account anywhere you have the internet and an internet-enabled device. QuickBooks Desktop is desktop based, meaning you’ll buy a hard copy of QuickBooks’ software, then download that software once onto a single device.
However features present in editions older than three years are subject to planned obsolescence, removal, and discontinuation to “incentivize” you to purchase a new release. These versions are further differentiated by how you purchase the product. If you using QuickBooks pro for up to 3 years and do not have any extra users, this feature will save valuable money. Neither QuickBooks Desktop pro nor QuickBooks online has built-in payroll. You can go through the Intuit Online payroll review for in-depth information. Although, if you select to buy QuickBooks Desktop enterprise, it let you access built-in enhanced payroll.
Join me in GoSkills’ beginner-friendly QuickBooks Online course to gain the confidence you need to handle your business’ books, boost your accounting efficiency, and enhance your bookkeeping skills. Because QBDT is a local install on your computer, you can access your file at any time. If the internet goes out, you’re still able to view, edit, and otherwise work on your books. There’s never any requirement that you have internet connectivity after the initial download and install. QuickBooks Desktop is, as its name implies, the desktop version of the software.
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QBDT is installed locally on your PC in much the same way other software is, like your internet browser. Both QuickBooks Desktop and QuickBooks Online support small business bookkeeping, but the manner in which each product does so differs. QuickBooks allows you to access almost all types of accounts, including but not limited to savings account, checking account, credit card accounts, and money market accounts.
If your business needs sales orders, QuickBooks Desktop is your only option. Although Intuit has talked about adding sales orders to QuickBooks Online, this feature is only available with QuickBooks Desktop products at this time. QuickBooks Premier also has a payroll add-on, or you can purchase the QuickBooks Premier + Payroll annual plan. QuickBooks Enterprise Gold and Platinum plans include Enhanced Payroll, while Enterprise Diamond includes Assisted Payroll. Both include the basic reports you’d expect to find with accounting software, such as a balance sheet, a Profit & Loss report, a cash flow statement, etc.
This is compounded by the fact that the rules list is not really well organized and could have hundreds if not thousands of rules. Non-Plus editions of QuickBooks Desktop put the responsibility of backing up files entirely on you. This can be accomplished in much the same way you’d back up other files. This is by saving them to other locations on your PC, other sorts of media (such as flash drives), or uploading them to the cloud (using apps like Dropbox or Drive).
The company has updated its help centers to be more user-friendly, but there’s still no email support. Both options, however, are working to reduce long hold times on the phone by now offering a callback feature. Both QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Pro offer a good number of helpful integrations and add-on products.
