However, QuickBooks comparable store sales syncs with hundreds of third-party apps, many of which offer better inventory tracking than QuickBooks does. So if you sell goods, you don’t necessarily need to exclude Simple Start. Intuit has always been good at acknowledging how different small businesses can be. The company provides multiple levels of its applications, each containing a common set of features and progressing in complexity as you move up the product hierarchy. Today’s leading accounting platforms offer standard security features such as data encryption, secure credential tokenization and more.
You can request a callback anytime when you need a little extra help. Yes, you can switch to another plan from any version of QuickBooks Online, QuickBooks Payroll, and QuickBooks Time.
But if you work in a highly specialized industry—say, the nonprofit sector—a QuickBooks Desktop plan that caters to your unique business could be worth the investment. It has only basic bookkeeping features (including minimal reporting), doesn’t help with more complex business taxes, and accommodates just one user. If you aren’t a freelancer, Self-Employed honestly won’t work for you. If you’re used to thinking in terms of desktop QuickBooks, it’s most comparable feature-wise to QuickBooks Pro. You can have up to five users working in the application at once, and the monthly fee is $39.95. Intuit reports that 94% of accounting professionals feel QuickBooks Online saves them time and thus saves their clients’ money.
Live Expert Assisted also doesn’t include any financial advisory services, tax advice, facilitating the filing of income or sales tax returns, creating or sending 1099s, or management of payroll. A popular add-on is the payroll feature where you can run payroll and access benefits in one convenient place. It does cost more to access this, which is approximately $22.50 more per month plus $6 per employee, per month.
QuickBooks Money
- Paying your freelancers is also easy thanks to 1099 contractor management features.
- Because there is an unlimited number of users that can use the program, you can maximize its use if you have a team of professionals who need access to your accounting software.
- Advanced suits growing businesses, incorporating all previous features plus enhancements for scalability.
- Protect sensitive data with user-level access to specific features and share reports with up to 3 log-ins.
- Based on the depreciation method you choose, Advanced automatically calculates the depreciation for the fixed asset and creates a depreciation schedule.
The best QuickBooks Online plan for you depends on the size of your business and your particular needs. If you deal with inventory or large projects heavily, Plus is the best option. However, self-employed individuals and solo business owners should consider Solopreneur—unless you have an employee, which will require an upgrade to Simple Start. QuickBooks Online Advanced now offers a fixed asset accounting feature that allows you to enter and track fixed assets, such as vehicles, buildings, and equipment. Based on the depreciation method you choose, Advanced automatically calculates the depreciation for the fixed asset and creates a depreciation schedule.
QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise
Meanwhile, Simple Start is a good starting point for most small businesses, especially those that don’t need to enter bills, track billable hours, and manage projects and inventory. It includes payroll processing, which allows you to calculate and track payroll taxes, and it lets you track assets and liabilities and use automated sales tax on invoices. Additionally, it enables you to record and track payments made to 1099 contractors.
App integration
Plus includes inventory accounting that allows you to monitor stock items and quantity—a necessity if you’re selling products. It also lets you update inventory costs and quantities, separate taxable from nontaxable items, and set up alerts if you’re running out of stock. Most importantly, Plus will separate the cost of your ending inventory from COGS using first-in, first-out (FIFO). You’ll need to make this tedious calculation in a spreadsheet if you choose a lower-tier plan. The main differences between the two QuickBooks plans are the ability to track inventory costs and calculate P&L by project. Other helpful features in Plus are budgets, classes, customer types, locations, and unlimited report-only users.
QuickBooks Online Essentials
Businesses with inventory will likely get the most benefit from QuickBooks Plus. Large businesses that need access for up to 25 users will probably want to go with QuickBooks Advanced. Although QuickBooks Online is a great cloud-based accounting platform, it isn’t the only one. Since both are a part of QuickBooks Online, you’ll get the use of free mobile apps that can help you manage your business on the go. Each plan also has automatic data backup, automated workflows and reports tailored to your business.
It’s worth taking a closer look at the included reports list to see if there’s anything you’d be missing out on if you chose Essentials over Plus. There is no need to download QuickBooks Online because it is connected to the cloud, which means you can access online accounting from any device with an internet connection. You can download the QuickBooks Online mobile app from the Google Play Store or Apple App Store. At Business.org, our research is meant to offer general product and service recommendations. We don’t guarantee that our suggestions will work best for each individual or business, so consider your unique needs when choosing products and services.
