QuickBooks Review - Online Accounting Software For Small Businesses

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QuickBooks at a Glance

Best for: Small businesses that need an online accounting system
Price range: From $12.50 for base plan
Key features: Bill, expense, and contractor management
Apps: Web, Android, iOS
Integrations: Paypal, Square, Tsheets

QuickBooks Ease of Setup and Use

QuickBooks puts priority on its customer onboarding process. Those thinking about using the program for their accounting needs are encouraged to reach out to the QuickBooks sales team first which can be reached Monday to Friday from 9am to 5pm PT. Additionally, QuickBooks has put together comprehensive onboarding documentation that can guide clients through the setup process. QuickBooks is an intuitive and user-friendly platform to use. The web UI and mobile apps ensure that small businesses can update their accounts both from the office and while on the road.

QuickBooks Pricing and Plans

QuickBooks is available for:

Users can sign up for various tiers from the entry level Base plan through to Advanced, which is suitable for more experienced users and includes up to 25 users. 

Additionally, Payroll Core costs an additional $22.50/month plus $4 per employee per month for processing. 

QuickBooks Features

Project Profitability Tracking

With QuickBooks, users can keep track of the profitability of every one of their projects. QuickBooks can pull in expense and cost of doing business (CODB) data in order to compute the level of profitability for each project underway. For project-based businesses, this feature allows them to easily identify cost overruns and keep within profitability targets. 

Real Time Inventory Tracking 

QuickBooks supports real time inventory tracking for organizations that sell online. Additionally, the QuickBooks website hosts an inventory tracker which is designed to prevent both understocking and overstocking. Customers can receive instant notifications about projected stock levels as soon as purchase orders (POs) are inputted to the system. On-demand reporting makes it easy for businesses to quickly identify their best-selling merchandise. Online sales reporting can sync with major Ecommerce retail platforms including Amazon, Etsy, and Shopify.

General Ledger and Expense Tracking

Expense Scanning

Users can capture expenses in QuickBooks by either scanning and uploading them directly into the platform or by emailing them to a unique address associated specifically with their account. After capturing receipts, users can categorize them in the system. Additionally, QuickBooks uses optical character recognition (OCR) technology to automatically determine the contents of scanned receipts including payment date, vendor, payment method used, and amount paid. Expenses can also be attached to invoices issued. This feature is useful for companies and freelancers that bill their clients for expenses incurred.

Billing and Invoicing

Bill Organization

QuickBooks supports invoice entry to keep track of accounts payable as well as accounts receivable. Using QuickBooks, companies can settle outstanding balances via credit or debit card as well as bank transfer. All payment options can be initiated from within the user area. All paid bills are recorded and tracked through the system. Additionally, users can connect their bank accounts to automatically track and categorize both inbound and outbound payments. The system also supports deferred bill payment in order to maximize cash flow. 

Professional Invoicing

One of QuickBooks’s key features, of course, is the ability to create and send invoices. Using QuickBooks, users can:

• Apply theme customizations so that the layout and color scheme of their invoices conforms to internal style and branding guidelines.
• Configure recurring invoices. This is perfect for businesses that bill clients on retainer.
• Add billable hours. In order to simplify the import of these, users can integrate QuickBooks with Google Calendar or TSheets and import hours that they have logged.

QuickBooks Integrations

QuickBooks supports a wide variety of integrations, allowing customers to do more with their online accounting platform by connecting it with other online services. 

These include:

• Calendar and time tracking apps: QuickBooks can integrate with Google Calendar and Tsheets in order to automatically import time logged on client accounts and bill that to clients.
• There are also Ecommerce connectors. One example is the BigCommerce QuickBooks app, which allows companies to automatically generate documentation required for online sales. 

QuickBooks Mobile Apps

QuickBooks has apps for both Android and iOS and these can be downloaded from the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store respectively. Only those features available in QuickBooks Online Simple Start are available in the app version. So, at the time of writing, customers on the Essentials, Plus, and Advanced plans will be unable to access their extra features from the mobile versions of their QuickBooks installations. Additionally the mobile versions can be used to access multiple accounts. Those that want to take and process payments directly through their mobile devices can do so with the QuickBooks mobile card reader. Customers can be invoiced directly through the app.  

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QuickBooks Customer Support

Need to reach out to the QuickBooks customer support team? Intuit maintains a comprehensive online troubleshooting section that it designed to help users resolve their own issues before reaching out to the team. 

In the event that users are not able to resolve their question through the documentation, or the community forum, users can initiate a support discussion over live chat or by phone. The live chat option is accessible 6am to 6pm Monday to Friday (PT) and from 6am to 3pm on Saturday. The phone line is accessible from Monday to Friday 6am to 6pm and is closed on weekends. 

Bottom Line

QuickBooks is a powerful invoicing and accounting system that is favored by small businesses all over the world. Its features include contractor expense tracking, project profitability reporting, and receipt capture by direct upload and email. There is no free tier, but paying users can choose the premium tier that best suits their needs.