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. Four pricing plans for QuickBooks Online are available, ranging from $35 to $235/month (with an additional $50+/month for payroll). QuickBooks Desktop also has several additional features you won’t find with QBO, including sales orders and lead management. Because it is locally installed software, you also have more control over keeping your financial data secure.
We immerse ourselves in every platform we review by exploring the features down to the finest nuances. Merchant Maverick’s ratings are editorial in nature, and are not aggregated from user reviews. Each staff reviewer at Merchant Maverick is a subject matter expert with experience researching, testing, and what is inventory meaning definition examples evaluating small business software and services.
Can QuickBooks Online do payroll?
This plan, QuickBooks Desktop for Mac, has the same features as QuickBooks Desktop Pro Plus, the most basic desktop-based plan. In other words, Mac users can’t scale up their software from one plan to the next as they add software users. Unlike QuickBooks Online, Desktop Pro includes built-in inventory management. And if data analysis is an important part of growing your business, QuickBooks Desktop is a solid pick. It includes 100+ reports, while QuickBooks Online Simple Start includes around 40. The Desktop Premier edition escalates to 150+ reports, including industry-specific reports for general contractors, manufacturers and wholesalers, nonprofits, and retailers.
Talk to sales
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. QuickBooks Desktop is preferable for companies wanting to manage their books without an internet connection. It’s also the better option for businesses requiring complex inventory accounting features.
QuickBooks Online VS QuickBooks Desktop: Pricing Comparison
For instance, QuickBooks Online Plus only costs $99 per month ($1,080 per year) for up to five users as opposed to Desktop Enterprise, which costs $1,481 per year for only one user. With QuickBooks Desktop, you must make an Accountant’s Copy of your data file and send it to your ProAdvisor. The copy will allow you to continue to work on transactions in the current period while your accountant makes adjustments to past periods. It’s an acceptable system but isn’t nearly as convenient as sharing your books through QuickBooks Online.
QuickBooks Online vs QuickBooks Desktop
Service or project-based businesses should choose accounting software that can track project costs, revenues, and profits. The software must have tools to track time, record billable hours or expenses, send invoices for progress billings, or monitor project progress and performance. Although QuickBooks Online earned a perfect score and Enterprise took a slight hit in this criterion, we consider this a tie.
- Lastly, our expert opinion score is our subjective rating based on our experience in trying the software.
- However, once you’ve signed up, navigate to your account settings, and you can switch to annual billing to save 10%.
- With our online migration tool, you can move all your data or move only what’s key—like balances and specific lists.
- The mobile app for Online is robust, and Desktop’s mobile app is so limited, that it essentially functions as a receipt uploader.
Because of this, QuickBooks Online is much easier to use and has many more integrations and time-saving invoicing automations, such as auto-scheduling. While we’re on the topic of invoicing, QuickBooks Online has the superior product, offering where to file your taxes for form 1120 six invoice templates and multilingual invoicing in six languages. 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 is cloud-based accounting software that covers all the accounting needs you may have. It’s a subscription-based service that is good for various industries and beneficial to those who regularly work with a bookkeeper or accountant because you can give them access to your files.
In addition to third-party integrations, QuickBooks home accounting and personal finance software Online integrates with native products, such as QuickBooks Payments, QuickBooks Payroll, and QuickBooks Time (formerly TSheets). QuickBooks Desktop can be integrated with QuickBooks Desktop Payroll and QuickBooks Time. Another notable difference between QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop is their integration capabilities. QuickBooks Online integrates with over 750 third-party apps, and we highlighted the most notable integrations in our guide to the best QuickBooks Online integrations for small businesses.