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). Ultimately, it’s all about getting the job done right and on time while ensuring your costs are tracked accurately, whether on a per-job, per-employee, or per-period basis. QuickBooks can help – but it does best when properly integrated with apps that offer functionality QuickBooks lacks – like time tracking with Workyard. Early in QuickBooks Online’s release, there was a significant price difference between the various desktop and online versions. However, that price gap has closed among lower-tier plans in recent years.
- QuickBooks Desktop is better for small to large-sized businesses with complex accounting needs requiring more customizable features.
- In the long term, QuickBooks may move entirely online, but by now, you can probably expect all (or at least most) of Desktop’s key features to be folded into QuickBooks Online.
- QuickBooks Online and Desktop both offer excellent income and expense tracking and bank reconciliation tools.
- 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.
- It offers more integrations, as well as a much smoother integration process that allows you to access third party apps directly within QuickBooks Online without the need to sync applications or import data.
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.
Get free migration help and a personalized setup session when you move to QuickBooks Online.*
During the setup process, you can choose the features and functions that you will likely be using in QuickBooks Online. No need to worry if you skip one; you can always go back and add it at a later date. QuickBooks Online is user-friendly, but it requires some prior accounting knowledge to get the most out of it. Katherine Haan, MBA is a former financial advisor-turned-writer and business coach.
Once you decide, if you need some assistance with your QuickBooks Migration, be sure to check out our comprehensive QuickBooks Tutorial. QuickBooks Desktop wins this, offering more reporting options as well as industry-specific reports and forecasting options not offered in QuickBooks Online. QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop have very different pricing structures, with QuickBooks Online available by a monthly subscription, while QuickBooks Desktop has an annual cost. A variety of short video tutorials are available as well as on-demand webinars and training classes. One of the best resources is the QuickBooks Online community, where you can connect with other users to share tips, answer questions, and find answers to problems that may arise. Product support can be accessed directly from within the application, where you can ask a question or connect to support personnel.
Which Is Better for Home-Service Businesses?
In terms of budget and other factors, deciding which product is better for your organization is crucial. Hence, in this article you will learn some of the critical differentiators between QuickBooks Online vs Desktop, to help you make the right decision. For an additional monthly fee, QuickBooks Online forms and associated taxes for independent contractors offers a virtual bookkeeping solution, which can be used to get help with setting up and managing your accounts. It takes half the time to get tasks done in QuickBooks Online than in the desktop version. From receipt scanning to credit card reconciliations, get it done faster with QuickBooks Online.
- This is one area where QuickBooks Online outperforms the desktop version.
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- This means you’ll have to make manual adjustments, which are more prone to errors or simply being overlooked.
- If you have the accounting knowledge and need for those, then QuickBooks Desktop is the obvious choice.
This is for the “Gold” version which should give your business all you need to get started with accounting. This annual subscription can sometimes include a 10% discount for the first year of service. When you think of the most popular online accounting software, QuickBooks Online will always be in the conversation. Their easy-to-use web-based platform means you can access it from anywhere at any time.
Project Accounting (Winner: QuickBooks Desktop)
The higher your plan tier, the more reports and users you can add, although it’s important to understand concurrent users are each sold separately. While QuickBooks Online offers project management features, it doesn’t have the same level of customization options as QuickBooks Desktop. For instance, QuickBooks Desktop allows you to create customized job costing reports tailored to specialized industries, including manufacturers, contractors, and retailers.
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. We recommend crunching the numbers to decide whether the online or desktop versions of QuickBooks are right for your specific business. QuickBooks Desktop wins this head-to-head competition, with better reporting, industry-specific features, a better price structure, and more comprehensive features. However, if things like integration and cloud access are important to you, QuickBooks Online may be the way to go.
QuickBooks Online vs Desktop: Pricing
I recommend saving a backup of your QuickBooks Desktop company file in case of any issues. While most information transfers well to QBO, not all of your information will convert from Desktop. We think QuickBooks Online is the best overall option for small businesses, but QuickBooks Desktop Premier is a great option for niche businesses. Overall, QuickBooks Desktop Pro reviews are more favorable, but both user bases have good and bad things to say about each product. Accountants often find QuickBooks Pro and Premier to be more traditional, but you don’t have to be an accountant or professional bookkeeper to learn QuickBooks Online. The online version of QuickBooks is much easier to use than the desktop version.