Table of Contents
QuickBooks Online is powerful accounting software that many small businesses use to manage their finances. It’s easy to compare QuickBooks for Windows with the Mac version and pick one out for your business needs.
Self-Employed, Simple Start, Essentials, Plus, and Advanced are the five editions of QuickBooks Online. The monthly cost ranges from $15 to $180. According to our QuickBooks Online comparison, the best package for you is determined by the number of users you need and if your company wants services such as accounts payable (A/P), inventory, or advanced reporting.
Among the most sophisticated small company accounting software, we recommend QuickBooks Online. Answer a few simple questions below to help you narrow down the best plan for your company. This will provide you with a personalized suggestion based on your replies. After that, keep reading for a more in-depth analysis of the five QuickBooks products.
Which QuickBooks Online Version Is Best for You?
- QuickBooks Online Self-Employed is designed for small company owners who report business revenue on Schedule C of their tax return and do not have any employees.
- QuickBooks Online Simple Start: Best for small service firms that require one user to handle assets, liabilities, revenue, and spending.
- QuickBooks Online Essentials: For small companies that need to allocate billable hours to clients, manage bills due, and give access to up to three users.
- QuickBooks Online Plus: Best for retailers, distributors, contractors, and other small companies that need inventory management, job costing, budgeting, and access for up to five people.
- QuickBooks Online Advanced: For SMBs that want more thorough reporting, configurable user permissions, a dedicated support manager, and up to 25 users.
Comparison of QuickBooks Online Pricing and Features
QuickBooks Online is available in five different editions, each of which can:
- Keep track of your earnings and spending.
- Be invoiced, and payments can be received.
- Allow accountant access to information.
- Save your bank and credit card transactions to your computer.
- keep track of your miles.
- Capture and organize receipts using a mobile device.
- Provide customer service
QuickBooks Simple Start vs. QuickBooks Self-Employed
QuickBooks Online Self-Employed is an excellent option for persons who work for themselves in a service field and record their company revenue on Schedule C of their income tax return.
If you plan to hire workers or manage inventory in the near future, you may begin building up your business with QuickBooks Online Simple Start. Payroll processing is included with Simple Start, allowing you to compute and monitor payroll taxes. If you need to monitor assets and liabilities and apply automatic sales tax on invoices, QuickBooks Online Simple Start is the way to go. It’s a good match if you conduct your bookkeeping and don’t require inventory tracking. You may sign up for QuickBooks Live Accounting, offered in Simple Start and other higher plans if you need a dedicated professional to manage your ongoing bookkeeping tasks.
QuickBooks Self-Employed vs. Simple Start
Takeaway: Schedule C firms with workers, sales tax to charge consumers, or a balance sheet indicating assets and liabilities should choose the more expensive Simple Start. If you have inventory in your Schedule C company, you’ll need to upgrade to QuickBooks Online.
QuickBooks Essentials vs. QuickBooks Simple Start
QuickBooks Essentials supports three users. However, QuickBooks Simple Start only permits one. In addition to assisting you in making timely payments, documenting delinquent invoices is required for preparing accrual-based financial statements. QuickBooks Essentials generally fits the demands of tiny enterprises that charge clients for hourly services.
QuickBooks Simple Start vs. QuickBooks Essentials
Takeaway: Most businesses choose Essentials over Simple Start since they need many users. Essentials should be used by service-based firms that charge clients by the hour to allocate time to customers.
QuickBooks Plus vs. QuickBooks Essentials
When compared to QuickBooks Essentials, QuickBooks Plus is a significant boost. Plus enables your organization to manage inventory costs and calculate profit and loss by project, one of the most important enhancements. Budgets, classes, client kinds, locations, and limitless report-only users are useful features featured in Plus but not accessible in Essentials.
QuickBooks Plus is an excellent option for businesses that sell items and need to keep track of inventory and sales costs.
QuickBooks Essentials vs. QuickBooks Plus
Takeaway: Retailers and wholesalers should choose Plus to keep track of inventory costs. Plus is also a good option for contractors who want to monitor the profitability of particular projects. Other firms should examine if the additional $30 per month membership fee for profit and loss monitoring by class and location is worthwhile.
QuickBooks Advanced vs. QuickBooks Plus
Compared to QuickBooks Plus, QuickBooks Advanced includes a lot of bells and whistles but none of the essential tools for excellent accounting. However, when your company expands from small to medium-sized, you’ll most likely need to upgrade from Plus to Advanced to accommodate the extra users. Advanced eliminates the constraints imposed by Plus on the number of courses, locations, and accounts, in addition to enabling up to 25 users. This makes Advanced an excellent choice for a developing company, mainly because QuickBooks Online Plus only allows for a maximum of five users. QuickBooks Online Advanced is also the only package with a dedicated success manager and free staff training.
QuickBooks Plus vs. Advanced
Takeaway: Unless you’re running into the size constraints of Plus, upgrading to Advanced isn’t necessary. The need for more than five full-access users is the most probable constraint that will force you to upgrade.
Conclusion
QuickBooks Online Plus is the ideal solution for most small companies, particularly those that deal with inventory or significant projects. On the other hand, QuickBooks Self-Employed is an excellent low-cost alternative if you are self-employed with no workers. If your firm is service-based and does not need inventory, QuickBooks Essentials should meet your needs while saving you $30 per month over QuickBooks Plus.
