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. We went to user review websites to read first-hand reviews from actual software users.
This feature is particularly useful if you sell and ship products out of your state. Both versions offer automatic syncing with your bank so you can categorize transactions. Add corporate and investment banking and markets payroll to QuickBooks Online starting at $45 per month, or to Desktop starting at $50, plus $2 per employee, per month. QuickBooks Desktop is an annual subscription, starting at $549.99 per year, which may be cost-prohibitive for small businesses or cash-strapped startups. While the Desktop version has app integrations, it doesn’t have near as many as the Online version. There are over 200 options instead of the 650-plus to its cloud counterpart.
The software must have features that allow users to set sales tax rates, apply them to invoices, and enable users to pay sales tax liability. QuickBooks Online is easier to set up because it’s a cloud-based platform that doesn’t require installation. Also, the guided setup helps new users easily and effectively set up their company information, connect their bank accounts, create customers and vendors, etc. In both QuickBooks Online and Desktop, you can assign costs to your inventory items and track the quantities sold to calculate the cost of goods sold (COGS). 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.
The QuickBooks mobile app is also available for free and lets you manage your account on the go. QuickBooks Enterprise is designed for large businesses or small enterprises and starts at $1,481/year or $142/month. You can add payroll, more users, and cloud hosting for additional fees. Although QuickBooks Online earned a perfect score and Enterprise took a slight hit in this criterion, we consider this a tie. Both allow you to create essential reports, including profit and loss (P&L), cash flow statements, and balance sheets. While Enterprise missed a few points because it doesn’t provide income/loss by location reports, it offers many other advanced reporting options and features that provide additional value for many businesses.
If you can file the effects of underapplied overhead taxes confidently on your own, Enhanced Payroll might be suitable. If you want QuickBooks to file your taxes for you, then you must upgrade to QuickBooks Desktop Assisted Payroll. Check out our QuickBooks Desktop Payroll Enhanced vs Assisted comparison for more information.
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. In addition to having more integrations, QuickBooks Online also has better integrations.
The changes need to be saved and refreshed, leaving a lot of potential for errors. Yes, you can, but the process is a bit tedious, as you need to export your files from QuickBooks Online to Desktop manually. If you are currently using QuickBooks Online and want to switch to an interface similar to QuickBooks Desktop, we recommend using the QuickBooks Online Desktop app. Read our article on what the QuickBooks Online Desktop app is to learn more. While QuickBooks Online and Desktop have their strengths and weaknesses, they ultimately balance out—which makes them tied in terms of overall features. Below we provide a detailed comparison across each feature, where we also determine a winner for each category.
Lastly, our expert opinion score is our subjective rating based on our experience in trying the software. The software must have enough learn the difference between gross margin reports that can be generated with a few clicks. Moreover, we’d also like to see customization options to enable users to generate reports based on what they want to see. Even after initial setup, the software must also let users modify information like company name, address, entity type, fiscal year-end, and other company information. On the other hand, QuickBooks Enterprise involves a more complex setup due to its extensive feature set designed for larger businesses.
