QuickBooks Online or QuickBooks Desktop: Comparison 2024

is quickbooks online better than desktop

You can pay extra (or upgrade to a pricier plan) to get data hosting through QuickBooks, which will let you access some financial information—though not all of it—on a different device. However, if you’re not a Mac user, you can choose from all three QuickBooks Desktop  plans. The QuickBooks Desktop Premier Plus plan is particularly useful for business that want industry-specific features.

Software-only QuickBooks Desktop

QuickBooks Online offers a variety of pricing plans, which range from $12 to $75 for the first three months. While the features are similar, QuickBooks Desktop offers more functionality, such as the ability to run checks to pay bills and more in-depth customer and vendor management capability. 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. For both cases, I strongly encourage you to find or buy a migration checklist. There are many cases where it’s to your benefit to learn how to approach and resolve a task.

Is QuickBooks Online Right for You or Your Business?

The Ascent, a Motley Fool service, does not cover all offers how do you find net income with total assets and liabilities and dividends on the market. 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. Once you decide, if you need some assistance with your QuickBooks Migration, be sure to check out our comprehensive QuickBooks Tutorial.

  1. 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.
  2. Granted, you don’t have to be an accountant to learn QuickBooks Desktop either, but if you are new to accounting, you will need a lot of time to learn the program.
  3. Both QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop offer a large number of features.
  4. You can easily connect to any third-party app from within the application, saving you a ton of time in the process.
  5. If your business needs sales orders, QuickBooks Desktop is your only option.

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. But aside from cloud access, there are other differences between the two applications that we’ll talk about next. Rachel Barnett has been a QuickBooks user since 1995, eventually earning QuickBooks ProAdvisor status. When she’s not busy supporting professionals and their businesses, Rachel enjoys actively participating in the QuickSource accounting community. Access to accountants is granted independently from your regular user limit in QBDT.

is quickbooks online better than desktop

Do you need mobile access to QuickBooks data and forms?

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. Hosting your QBDT file on the cloud is available for all editions of QuickBooks Desktop and is available through a variety of providers. In contrast to Pro and Premier, at the time of writing the software-only version of QBDT Enterprise is an annual purchase of $1,213 for its Silver, or most basic, level of functionality. QuickBooks Desktop is, as its name implies, the desktop version of the software.

Inventory Management: QuickBooks Desktop Wins

This lets you invoice clients from anywhere and integrate with other online services. major types of recording transactions Whether it’s QuickBooks Online or Desktop, each platform offers a range of pricing plans to fit your specific needs. Intuit reports that 94% of accounting professionals feel QuickBooks Online saves them time and thus saves their clients’ money.

Plus, the platform offers unlimited customization to tailor the platform to your specific needs. Plus, it also offers the QuickBooks Live Bookkeeping service for real-time bookkeeping assistance and expert financial advice. Because QuickBooks Online is connected to the cloud, you can work from any device with an internet connection. Those who want to take their accounting on the go will appreciate the mobile app. It brings most of the features of the online platform, plus it enables mileage tracking and receipt capture for quick and convenient recordkeeping. QuickBooks Online is a leader in the accounting industry with it being the bookkeeping software of choice for many accountants, certified public accountants (CPAs) and bookkeepers.

Once the initial setup has been completed, you’re wholly responsible for handling your books. However, if you still need help or social security administration simply want to outsource your bookkeeping to an expert, you can also find a bookkeeping professional in the ProAdvisor directory. Intuit often offers discounts and incentives for purchasing it for set blocks of time, though for the purposes of this article, I’m only covering its full regular price.

QBDT is installed locally on your PC in much the same way other software is, like your internet browser. However, in Method CRM, you can easily customize your account to track and report on sales by representative. Plus, you can build a portal in Method for your customers to log in and place orders themselves.

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