When it comes to selecting and suggesting any accounting software, Intuit QuickBooks comes at the top. Here, in this article we present various reasons for selecting QuickBooks, its features, limitations and few other ones. Although QuickBooks is our second choice, we also present you an alternative to it, Xero accounting software.
Why QuickBooks Online?
Best price
Talking about best accounting software, QuickBooks is the best paid and affordable accounting software which also provide services for a variety of businesses. QuickBooks Online provides all the required features for small business, including freelancers, online merchants, consultants, store/restaurant owners, and other service providers. If you are just beginning or in case looking to expand, this accounting software can provide you with basic features and it can be scaled and customized with other advanced capabilities to fulfill your business’s needs.
Its cheapest plan which cost just $9.99 per month, is restricted to one user only, but still, it doesn’t compromise on various basic features essential for self-employed or small business owners need to manage their finances. Its features include financial reporting, the ability to download credit card and bank transactions, tracking of both, income and expense, automatic data backups and tax preparation and filing at quarterly and year-end.
Ease of use
Well, we were really impressed with its simplicity in starting and adding new information. The architecture of the software was clean which makes it easier for the user to understand and accomplish tasks. For example, when it comes to connecting dashboard with bank accounts and credit cards, or adding operational data like vendor details, it can be done without any fuss and complications. The dashboard is the most attractive feature of this software.
QuickBooks keeps updating its online dashboard on a periodic basis, which in turn provides more intuitive and seamless user interface. Navigating is quite easy become of the presence of navigation bar on top and a side menu. It can also give snapshots of information like financial status, and other data like income, expenses, overdue/paid invoices, profits and losses and it also come with a to-do widget.
If you wish to try QuickBooks, then you should go for its free 30-day trial without any requirement of a credit card. If you wish to learn more, there are videos and demos which you can watch to learn how to use this software.
Time-saving features
For most of the small business owners, one the most important feature they look for in any accounting software is that how much time it saves and doesn’t complicate the accounting process of small business. Based on this, QuickBooks is by far, the best choice.
A major feature of this accounting software is its automated tasks completion. This makes accounting less time consuming and less stressful for these small business owners. This software can automate almost everything from bill payments, recurring invoices to syncing the data across credit card and bank transactions. You can also reconcile and categorize expenses automatically, which eliminates the need for time-consuming manual data entry of every single transaction. QuickBooks wide collection of in-built reports takes away the requirement to create financial reports from scratch.
QuickBooks also integrates with about w150 third-party apps, like email marketing apps, e-commerce, payment processors, customer relationship management (CRM), payroll services, time tracking and much more. This can save a lot of time by make processes streamlined and allowing you to import, export and sync the necessary data automatically, in real time among the various services.
Customer service
When it comes to customer support, QuickBooks provides the best in class service to its users. It offers both chat and phone support, which can be directly accessed throughout this software’s website. In case you like to troubleshoot problems yourself, there are many resources that can help you like a small business resource center, a Learn and Support knowledgebase, the QuickBooks blog and a community center. It also gives access to local certified Intuit advisers who can provide one-on-one help to you so that you can do business smoothly.
QuickBooks sales rep is quite good, and you will have a pleasant experience. All the answers to the queries were made with effectiveness, patience and in details. The sales rep also helps in finding right QuickBooks product based on your business and suggest plans that will fulfill your specific needs. The sales rep also informs you about current discounts and various promotions which can take advantage of without any hassles and constant pressure to sign up for paid account.
Other benefits
When it comes to the biggest benefits of using QuickBooks Online, it is the software which is “accountant approved.” It has all the features accountants require and much needed for small business. It also eliminates many problems is you are planning to hire an accountant or use in the future.
The reason behind this is that majority of the accountants use QuickBooks, so most of them don’t have to learn, and you don’t have to take the load of teaching them about how to use the software. In case you are going to hire an outside accountant, you can easily avoid compatibility issues while sending or exporting QuickBooks files and reports.
Limitations
Now coming to limitations of this impressive software. A major drawback to this software is that its mobile apps lack few features. While most of the accounting software products provide a mobile app to carry out accounting task and viewing business finances on the go, QuickBooks’ free mobile app brings a small set of features on the iPhone, the iPad and Android devices, which limits you to do such work on phone and tablet. Mentioned below is the things you can do on these devices:
- iPads – You can view customer information, add and accept electronic signatures, send invoices. You can’t edit customer information using your iPad.
- iPhones and Android Phones – You can view and edit customer data, create and send invoices and estimates instantly, mark invoices as paid and you can also check customer balances.
From this QuickBooks review, it’s apparent that this software provides complete accounting solution for freelancers and small business owners. Now, we will discuss its alternative as there are few drawbacks in QuickBooks which can make their user switch to this alternative accounting software.
Why consider Xero?
Xero is another accounting software which is touted as QuickBooks alternative, and it has same basic capabilities that QuickBooks have. But there are few things that this software offers which makes it good value for money. It starts at just $9 per month, and it includes features like billing, unlimited users, and expense reports, etc., which costs extra on QuickBooks. Xero can offer an affordable payroll solution for $30 per month, which would have cost you around $75 per month, in the case of QuickBooks, depending on the number of employees and users.
Xero is also one of the easiest accounting software available in the market. Its simple yet extensive and detailed user interface is quite impressive. You can just start your accounting work in a brief period of time. Its learning curve is quite small, and you can easily get command on navigation of the software and in using its core features.
With completely informative and pleasant dashboard with a simple tabbed navigation, Xero functions similar to QuickBooks, Xero can easily run on desktop PCs, iPhone, and iPad, without any problems of getting the books in order on any device of your choice.
The only drawback that is a major issue for this software is that it’s unlikely that your accountant uses it. Although, many accountants have made the transition to Xero, but QuickBooks is still the leader among accounting software.
To resolve this issue, Xero provides you easy access to partner accountants and many accounting firms that use Xero as their accounting software. It also makes easy to switch yourself by providing quick set of resources to export data from QuickBooks and easily get started with Xero.
With this, we end our QuickBooks Review and its alternative too. You can try any of these software and can decide which one fits your purpose perfectly. Don’t forget to share your experience and do mention your suggestions and reviews in the comment section below.