QuickBooks Online Review

Intuit QuickBooks has long enjoyed an excellent reputation in the world of accounting, thanks largely to its intuitive, all-in-one platform and highly flexible pricing that makes the accounts payable process all the more efficient for small and midsize businesses (SMBs).

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Table of Contents

    What is QuickBooks Online?

    Intuit, the creator of QuickBooks, has been in existence since the early 1980s. It has long been Intuit’s view that simpler accounting is vital to minimize time spent on admin and maximize time spent on running and growing businesses.

    An estimated 3.3 million customers use Intuit QuickBooks Online, having switched from the original desktop edition to the online version for seamless cross-platform accessibility. The original QuickBooks was launched back in 2002 after Intuit phased out its first accounting product, Quicken. Only two years later, QuickBooks Online came onto the scene too. The beauty of the online version is that it offers a host of features that you can’t get with the desktop alternative. This includes the ability to schedule invoices, automate sales receipts and split transactions.

    The QuickBooks online accountant software is widely regarded as best-in-class for the way in which it simplifies and streamlines financial management for small businesses, start-ups and freelancers, while QuickBooks Pro focuses on bigger businesses. With hundreds of available third-party integrations and a host of robust tools designed specifically for tasks such as calculating tax, managing invoices, tracking expenses and monitoring sales figures. As an all-in-one small business accounting solution, QuickBooks Online has well and truly changed the game for financial reporting, saving valuable time for owner-managers that can be spent more wisely on their day-to-day business responsibilities.

    Pros of Intuit QuickBooks Online

    Keen to learn more about QuickBooks’ small business accounting solution? We’ve taken the time to put together the core benefits of the cloud-based platform, which centralizes all aspects of managing your business anywhere, anytime:

    Dynamic solution for SMBs

    The motto of Intuit QuickBooks invoice software is that it offers “all you need”, “all in one place”. We couldn’t have put it any better ourselves. For small businesses seeking a dynamic accounting solution that helps you to stay organized, get paid to maintain cash flow and save time by automating much of your workflow and payroll, QuickBooks gets the job done with a minimum of fuss. There’s no need to hop between separate platforms, with QuickBooks Online, you can carry out all essential business processes in one place.

    Responsive mobile platform

    Keen to generate financial reports on your monthly or yearly sales on the go? Or perhaps you need to send an important invoice before the end of the day? QuickBooks Online offers responsive mobile apps for both iOS and Android users that are free for subscribers to QuickBooks Online. Each app is optimized for touch interaction and essential workflows on the move. Using the QuickBooks Online app, managing tasks like expenses is easier than ever, with the ability to photograph receipts and categorize expenses ready for tax reporting.

    Time-saving auto-invoicing and recurring payments

    Does your small business need to send out invoices to clients on a regular basis? Save time and effort preparing the same invoices by using the recurring invoices functionality within QuickBooks Online. You can set up automatic invoices and transactions to go to specific customers and accounts all within the platform. Auto-invoicing for previously unbilled activities is also available, but this is only open to subscribers to the “Essentials” and “Plus” versions of QuickBooks Online.

    Simplicity

    QuickBooks Online is simplicity personified. Whatever financial data you need at the time, you can get it, thanks largely to a highly intuitive dashboard. It’s never been easier to simplify the synchronization of company figures and keep relevant employees and financial advisors updated on the income and expenditure of the business. Auto-synchronization of your business finances ensures a real-time picture of your company’s state of play.

    Great reporting

    QuickBooks Online is teeming with reporting functionality to help your small business get to grips with the heart of your accounting. You can get an instant overview of your sales, expenses, assets, liabilities and everything else in between. Whether you want to know monthly, weekly or annual performance, QuickBooks’ Reports Center can give your business all the insights you need to make informed strategic decisions.

    Time tracking

    Your QuickBooks Online platform can also integrate with TSheets by QuickBooks. This employee time tracking software helps to accelerate your payroll process. According to Intuit, TSheets saves as much as three hours off every payroll run, on average, as well as 6% on average payroll costs. With real-time data, it’s easier to monitor the progress of projects. All timesheets generated by TSheets can be reviewed, edited and approved within the same QuickBooks Online portal.

    Invoice-to-pay function

    QuickBooks Online really is a genuine end-to-end accounts payable solution for small to midsize businesses (SMBs). Not only can your invoice directly through QuickBooks Online, you can also utilize their Online Bill Pay functionality that makes it easier for your business to make its own payments to suppliers, partners and such like. Having both the Online platform and the Bill Pay working in sync means you can pay bills electronically and directly via bank transfer, with all transactions recorded accurately and instantaneously in QuickBooks Online.

    QuickBooks Online features

    • Instant calculations for tax purposes
    • Synchronized banking data
    • Bespoke invoice templates
    • End-to-end invoice management
    • Capture expense receipts on mobile
    • Create estimates
    • Manage bills
    • Top-down feeds and intuitive dashboards
    • Direct clients to pay online within invoices
    • Check printing
    • Report on profit and loss
    • Report on your overall balance sheet
    • Track payments and automate reminders
    • Gain insights that can inform strategic business decisions
    • Manage your sales and expenses
    • Full support for Mac23
    • Compatible with iOS and Android smartphones and tablets
    • Export data to Excel
    • Fully automated online banking
    • Share documents across multiple devices

    QuickBooks Online pricing

    If you like the sound of the functionality of Intuit QuickBooks Online, you’ll probably be keen to learn more about the QuickBooks pricing structure before you go any further. First and foremost, it’s important to note that you can enjoy a 30-day free trial of the software before you commit long-term, such is Intuit’s confidence in their product.

    QuickBooks Online pricing plans

    The pricing structure of QuickBooks Online focuses squarely on “Small Business” and “Freelancer” customers:

    Small Business

    • Simple Start - $12 per month for first three months ($25 thereafter) – Covers the basics of monitoring income, expenses, invoicing and financial reporting.
    • Essentials - $20 per month for first three months ($40 thereafter) – Covers all the functionality in Simple Start, plus the ability to manage bills, track timesheets and have up to three user accounts.
    • Plus - $35 per month for first three months ($70 thereafter) – Covers all the functionality in Essentials, plus the ability to track project profitability, business inventory and have up to five user accounts.
    • Advanced - $75 per month for first three months ($150 thereafter) – Covers all the functionality in Plus, as well as the ability to pay bills, utilize accelerated invoicing, smart reporting powered by Fathom and have up to 25 user accounts.

    Freelancer

    • Self-Employed - $7 per month for first three months ($15 thereafter) – Covers most of the functionality in the Simple Start plan.

    Technical details

    Pricing Model

    • Monthly subscription

    Target Customers

    • Small businesses
    • Start-ups
    • Freelancers

    Supported Languages

    • English only

    Product Deployment

    • Exclusively cloud-based

    Supported Devices

    ANDROIDWINDOWSMACIOS (IPHONE/IPAD)WEB BROWSER-BASED

    Customer service

    QuickBooks Online – also abbreviated as QBO or QBO Online – customers can rely on telephone support 12 hours a day between 6am-6pm PST on Monday to Friday. Helplines are open on Saturday too from 6am-3pm PST. Within the QuickBooks Online software itself, there is an in-built help functionality that users can avail themselves of. This opens up a vast database of help and support articles, complete with step-by-step instructions to keep things moving.

    There’s also the QuickBooks Assistant that offers an engaging live chat function, operated solely by artificial intelligence bots.

    Bottom line

    QuickBooks Online is an all-in-one accounting solution that gives small business owners and professional freelancers the headspace to focus on growing their operations by streamlining the invoicing and payroll process. It is powerful enough to handle complex accounting tasks and has an impressive number of third-party integrations that can synchronize with QuickBooks Online and maintain a real-time overview of your business finances. Although its higher-tier subscription plans may be somewhat more expensive than competitor platforms, you get what you pay for with Intuit QuickBooks Online.