Intuit QuickBooks Online Review

Why QuickBooks Online Is Best for Small Businesses 

We selected QuickBooks Online as the best accounting software for small businesses. It provides four plans for small businesses, ranging from $35 to $235 per month, as well as a separate Solopreneur plan that starts at $20 per month. At the time of this review, for all five plans, a 50 percent discount was available for the first three months if you skipped the 30-day free trial.

The QuickBooks Online plans offer features that are suitable for a variety of small businesses, ranging from startups to established companies. They give you access to all of the tools and reports you’ll need for accounting purposes, and you can upgrade your plans seamlessly as your business scales.

We like that the platform is easy to set up and use, so you can get your accounting software up and running yourself. QuickBooks Online allows you to create custom invoices, estimates and sales receipts so your company’s branding is always at the forefront of client-facing communications. 

However, if you want extra assistance, Intuit’s professional bookkeepers can help you configure the software in a way that makes sense for your business. This is a different service from QuickBooks Live Tax, an add-on that provides hands-on tax assistance via another Intuit property, TurboTax.

Originally, QuickBooks was intended for personal financial management, especially for self-employed individuals and small business owners. The software has since grown to accommodate established businesses with multiple employees and, as such, provides payroll forms and management, e-commerce integrations and invoice tracking. For the features and services you get, this software is a bargain.

Usability

QuickBooks Online has an easy setup that begins with making sure you are directed to the appropriate plan. If you’re not sure which plan to use, you’ll receive a complimentary one-on-one guided session, where you can ask questions and learn how the software will help your specific business.

When you’ve decided on a plan, you will be able to access the QuickBooks dashboard, where you’ll connect and manage your accounts. The process is seamless, and question prompts guide you while you enter your financial information. You also have the choice to import any saved data from previous accounting software or enter the information manually. Plus, there are drag-and-drop dashboard modules for customization, and you can hide or bookmark your favorite modules or tools.

Once you input the data, you can review your account balances and access your workflows and reports from the dashboard. The Business Overview tab is especially helpful, as it offers a breakdown of your company’s cash flow, profitability, expenses, income and sales.

QuickBooks Online Features

Small business owners need accounting software that will save them time while ensuring their financial records are accurate and up to date. We found that QuickBooks Online easily lives up to this expectation by providing the following features.

Workflow Automation 

QuickBooks Online automates tasks to make accounting less time-consuming and less stressful for small business owners. You can send recurring invoices and payment reminders, sync data from bank and credit card transactions, and reconcile expenses, all of which eliminate the need to do so manually. Manual data entry is tedious and time-consuming, and it opens the door to human error, which creates inaccuracies or redundancies in your books. For a platform dedicated exclusively to automating accounts payable and receivable, you can also consider Plooto.

Expense and Profitability Tracking 

With QuickBooks Online, you’ll never have to wonder where your transactions are. The program tracks your income and expenses automatically and then sorts them into categories. Although this automatic organizing is increasingly becoming standard among accounting software platforms, we were impressed with this feature. QuickBooks makes it feel especially hassle-free.

One big reason QuickBooks is so easy to use is that it offers personalized models for expense reporting. The program’s expense categories can be edited based on your business’s payment types. QuickBooks automatically matches receipt information to an existing transaction and learns from your inputs. We were highly impressed with this feature, as it made for more organized, accurate categorization.

You can also create custom rules so expenses are sorted properly. For example, you can create custom rules to categorize tax-deductible expenses separately from nondeductible expenses. This feature makes it even easier to review your deductions at tax time. We like that QuickBooks makes this tax-lowering aspect of accounting straightforward.

Reporting

QuickBooks Online’s built-in reports spare you from the laborious task of creating financial reports from scratch. These reports include the trial balance, general ledger and 1099 transaction detail reports, which you’ll need at tax time. We like that you can mark the reports you use most as favorites so you can quickly find them at the top of the Reports page. You can also set up the software to run reports and email them to you automatically, as well as schedule them for a specific time of day and frequency, such as daily, weekly, monthly or quarterly. 

QuickBooks offers some of the best reporting functions of any company we reviewed. We particularly like the program’s tools for building custom reports with visualizations and adding them to management reports. We also found it simple to create custom financial forecast reports and turn them into budgets. You just need historical data and actuals from a previous year to forecast your finances. When you enter a budget line item for the current year, you’ll see the amount divided over 12 months. This also makes it easy to compare your projections against previous actuals — another major reporting win.

Tax Deductions 

QuickBooks Online helps you maximize your tax deductions and increase profits. Your receipts are entered automatically with the “snap-and-store” function, and the program tracks your miles for business trip expense deductions. Your expenses are sorted and categorized automatically, so you will know what to deduct on your taxes when you are ready to file. 

Another QuickBooks tax deduction tool we were really happy with was the ability to receive a guided Q&A experience from QuickBooks’ experts. Through QuickBooks’ Sales Tax Liability Report, you can view sales tax information at any time, with an on-demand report broken down by tax agency.

We love that, come tax time, all of your documents will be organized and ready for you. The program also includes automatic tax calculations for quarterly payments. This feature especially impressed us, as certain QuickBooks competitors lack tax features entirely.

Invoicing

Without the right software, invoicing is laborious. With QuickBooks Online, it’s painless. Customer information is tracked when invoices are viewed and paid. This way, you’ll know when to follow up. You can also personalize the invoices with your company’s brand images and color schemes to keep your brand at the forefront of all communications. Invoices can be sent manually or scheduled to be sent automatically on a recurring basis, which we found especially useful. QuickBooks recently introduced artificial-intelligence-powered invoicing through Intuit Assist, which creates a free personalized invoice in seconds. 

QuickBooks also allows you to add a button to accept payments directly from the invoicing tool. It works with payments made via credit card, debit card, automated clearing house e-check, Apple Pay, PayPal or Venmo. Both this feature and the invoice customization tools are now expected of accounting software platforms, but we found QuickBooks’ tools especially strong.

1099 Forms

With QuickBooks Online, you have the option to send, track and file 1099 forms for independent contractors. In fact, we found QuickBooks’ workflow for preparing 1099 forms to be exceptionally straightforward, with only three steps.

You can also generate reports in QuickBooks to see which transactions you should and shouldn’t include in 1099 forms. Furthermore, QuickBooks’ automatic updating of 1099 forms ensures your company remains compliant with IRS requirements and provides your freelancers with the documentation they need to pay their taxes. Not every accounting software platform we reviewed offers this functionality, and it’s extremely beneficial for any business that hires freelancers — making QuickBooks stand out among its competitors.

Mobile App

Both iOS and Android apps for phones and tablets are included with your QuickBooks Online account. Here’s what you can do with the app:

• Create, customize, send and track invoices
• Take photos of receipts and attach them to expenses
• Reconcile transactions
• View customer information, add new customers, message customers with MessageDesk, and text invoices directly from the app
• View dashboard data, such as your account balance and profit and loss report, and open current and past-due invoices
• Accept payments on the go and online (after activating QuickBooks Payments)

Business Banking

QuickBooks is the only accounting program we’ve encountered that offers its own business banking accounts. We were especially drawn to this feature because it’s a major benefit for your cash storage and transactions to be part of your financial management software. We also love that there are no monthly fees, overdraft fees or monthly minimums. The 3 percent APY on savings accounts is a nice addition, as the national average was 0.41 percent APY at the time of this review.

QuickBooks Cost

Compared with other accounting software, QuickBooks Online is competitively priced, with four service tiers designed to accommodate different business needs. Here is a breakdown of each plan. Note that, according to a QuickBooks representative we spoke with, each plan’s user caps don’t include third-party accountants.

• Simple Start: This plan is designed for small businesses with one user and costs $35 per month. Users can track income and expenses, capture and organize receipts, maximize tax deductions, track mileage and manage cash flow. It allows you to generate general accounting reports, create and send estimates, manage 1099 contractors, and track sales and sales tax.
• Essentials: This plan is for small businesses with three users and is priced at $65 per month. In addition to the features included in the Simple Start plan, it includes time tracking, the ability to manage and pay bills, and enhanced accounting reports.
• Plus: In addition to accessing the features included with Simple Start and Essentials, users can track project profitability and inventory with this plan, which costs $99 per month. The accounting reports are more comprehensive, and the plan supports up to five users.
• Advanced: For $235 per month, this plan allows 25 users alongside unlimited reports-only users. It combines the benefits of the lower-cost plans with the most powerful accounting reports. Other notable features are batch invoice and expense creation, Excel business analytics, employee expense management tools, data restoration, exclusive app integrations, a dedicated account team, on-demand online training, and automated processes and tasks. Users can also restore company data and specify who can and can’t access data.

QuickBooks also offers a separate product called QuickBooks Solopreneur, which is priced at $20 per month. If you’re an independent contractor who wants to use QuickBooks to manage your accounting, QuickBooks Solopreneur includes the basic tools you’ll need, such as income and expense tracking, quarterly estimated taxes, receipt management and basic reporting. Each version of QuickBooks includes a 30-day free trial, unless you opt in to the half-priced first three months.

QuickBooks Online Setup

We went through the QuickBooks online setup process to understand how to get started. With QuickBooks Online, first you enter your company’s information and customer sales preferences. Then, you customize expense form fields and set up advanced preferences. Some advanced preferences can include the choice between two accounting methods: cash or accrual accounting.

You can select your company logo and your default net payment invoice terms. For example, if you expect clients to pay invoices within one month of receipt, you would select Net 30. 

If you sell products, you will also need to set up the sales tax function in the Tax tab. You can decide how you want to track your inventory by choosing an inventory management technique, such as first-in, first-out or last-in, first-out.

Once you’ve chosen each of the above, it’s time to create an invoice in QuickBooks to test-drive the software and see how it works. We recommend sending a sample invoice to yourself or a staff member. If all goes according to plan and the invoice is received properly, you’re ready to use the software. 

QuickBooks Customer Service

QuickBooks Online provides several support channels to its customers. The company offers phone and chat support, which you can access from the QuickBooks website. We were pleased with the support we got when we tested the phone and chat lines. We also preferred the ease of phone access to Xero’s setup, which requires you to file a support ticket to set up a call. [Read our Xero review and our Xero vs. QuickBooks comparison to learn more.]

If you prefer to troubleshoot problems yourself, you can use the support page, which has user guides, a searchable knowledge base, articles, business advice, webinars and videos. If you want to chat with other business owners, go to the QuickBooks community to talk shop, ask questions and get inspiration. We also like that the QuickBooks Online app has a chatbot feature, called QuickBooks Digital Assistant, which can answer a variety of questions about your account and connect you to live support. [Read related article: Guide to QuickBooks Alternatives]

QuickBooks Online Drawbacks  

QuickBooks Online is an impressive accounting system that’s easy to use and includes all of the features most small businesses need to efficiently accomplish their accounting tasks. However, there are some points to consider before you choose your software plan:

• The plans limit the number of users who can access the system. However, regular accountants aren’t counted in this limit unless they’re your primary user.
• To obtain the lowest possible pricing for your first three months, you’ll need to forgo a free trial.
• State filing of 1099 contractor forms is not supported in every state, and QuickBooks supports only two payment types for 1099 contractors.

Despite these limitations, there’s no denying the value QuickBooks can add to your business operations. The wide assortment of features and the affordable pricing make QuickBooks a great option for any small business.

Methodology

To determine our best picks for accounting software, we reviewed a slate of popular platforms. For each, including QuickBooks Online, we dedicated a minimum of five hours to research, including attending software demonstrations, participating in free trials, reading customer reviews, and conducting Q&As with company representatives. 

To select the best accounting software for small businesses, we considered a combination of cost, features and ease of use, and chose the platform we thought would save business owners the most time while meeting their needs at a competitive cost.

Overall Value

We recommend QuickBooks Online for … 

• Small businesses that are looking for basic to complicated accounting software plans. 
• Anyone who needs access to hundreds of third-party app integrations.
• Busy small business owners who want streamlined, trackable recordkeeping and reporting. 

We don’t recommend QuickBooks Online for …

• Businesses with many accounting users. 
• Businesses that are looking for automatic state filing of their contractors’ 1099 forms.
• Businesses that are unwilling to sacrifice a free trial for short-term cost savings.