BambooHR vs. QuickBooks Desktop Pro

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
BambooHR
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
BambooHR is an on-line human resources solution that provides onboarding, payroll, and benefits management. It also offers automated time-off management and employee self-service.
$250
per month
QuickBooks Desktop Pro
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
Quickbooks Desktop Pro is accounting software from Intuit, Inc. It includes core accounting features, plus analytics and exportable reports. It is offered in on-premise and SaaS forms.N/A
Pricing
BambooHRQuickBooks Desktop Pro
Editions & Modules
Core
$250
per month
Pro
$250
per month
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
BambooHRQuickBooks Desktop Pro
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional DetailsNo matter what HR looks like at your company, we have the perfect plan for you!
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
BambooHRQuickBooks Desktop Pro
Considered Both Products
BambooHR
Chose BambooHR
We really liked the employee portal, the ability to create our own time off types, and the ability to create custom fields & tabs.
QuickBooks Desktop Pro

No answer on this topic

Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
BambooHRQuickBooks Desktop Pro
Human Resource Management
Comparison of Human Resource Management features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR
8.1
120 Ratings
3% above category average
QuickBooks Desktop Pro
-
Ratings
Employee demographic data7.8102 Ratings00 Ratings
Employment history8.7109 Ratings00 Ratings
Job profiles and administration8.4106 Ratings00 Ratings
Workflow for transfers, promotions, pay raises, etc.8.293 Ratings00 Ratings
Organizational charting7.1105 Ratings00 Ratings
Organization and location management8.096 Ratings00 Ratings
Compliance data (COBRA, OSHA, etc.)8.557 Ratings00 Ratings
Payroll Management
Comparison of Payroll Management features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR
8.1
76 Ratings
1% above category average
QuickBooks Desktop Pro
9.3
65 Ratings
22% above category average
Pay calculation8.250 Ratings9.961 Ratings
Support for external payroll vendors8.244 Ratings00 Ratings
Off-cycle/On-Demand payment8.030 Ratings00 Ratings
Benefit plan administration8.859 Ratings9.835 Ratings
Direct deposit files8.458 Ratings9.853 Ratings
Salary revision and increment management8.060 Ratings9.949 Ratings
Reimbursement management6.730 Ratings7.350 Ratings
Leave and Attendance Management
Comparison of Leave and Attendance Management features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR
8.8
104 Ratings
9% above category average
QuickBooks Desktop Pro
-
Ratings
Approval workflow9.1102 Ratings00 Ratings
Balance details8.995 Ratings00 Ratings
Annual carry-forward and encashment8.485 Ratings00 Ratings
Employee Self Service
Comparison of Employee Self Service features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR
8.7
115 Ratings
7% above category average
QuickBooks Desktop Pro
-
Ratings
View and generate pay and benefit information7.971 Ratings00 Ratings
Update personal information9.2114 Ratings00 Ratings
View company policy documentation9.094 Ratings00 Ratings
Employee recognition8.677 Ratings00 Ratings
View job history9.0107 Ratings00 Ratings
Asset Management
Comparison of Asset Management features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR
7.8
48 Ratings
1% above category average
QuickBooks Desktop Pro
-
Ratings
Tracking of all physical assets7.848 Ratings00 Ratings
HR Reporting
Comparison of HR Reporting features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR
7.7
91 Ratings
1% above category average
QuickBooks Desktop Pro
-
Ratings
Report builder8.187 Ratings00 Ratings
Pre-built reports7.785 Ratings00 Ratings
Ability to combine HR data with external data7.463 Ratings00 Ratings
Onboarding
Comparison of Onboarding features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR
8.6
95 Ratings
7% above category average
QuickBooks Desktop Pro
-
Ratings
New hire portal8.791 Ratings00 Ratings
Manager tracking tools8.683 Ratings00 Ratings
Performance and Goals
Comparison of Performance and Goals features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR
8.2
59 Ratings
1% above category average
QuickBooks Desktop Pro
-
Ratings
Corporate goal setting8.246 Ratings00 Ratings
Individual goal setting8.257 Ratings00 Ratings
Line-of sight-visibility8.245 Ratings00 Ratings
Performance tracking8.153 Ratings00 Ratings
Performance Management
Comparison of Performance Management features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR
7.9
65 Ratings
1% below category average
QuickBooks Desktop Pro
-
Ratings
Performance plans7.658 Ratings00 Ratings
Performance improvement plans8.052 Ratings00 Ratings
Review status tracking7.959 Ratings00 Ratings
Review reminders8.261 Ratings00 Ratings
Multiple review frequency7.856 Ratings00 Ratings
Succession Planning
Comparison of Succession Planning features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR
7.1
45 Ratings
10% below category average
QuickBooks Desktop Pro
-
Ratings
Create succession plans/pools5.831 Ratings00 Ratings
Candidate ranking7.737 Ratings00 Ratings
Candidate search7.139 Ratings00 Ratings
Candidate development8.035 Ratings00 Ratings
Recruiting / ATS
Comparison of Recruiting / ATS features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR
8.1
78 Ratings
4% above category average
QuickBooks Desktop Pro
-
Ratings
Job Requisition Management8.055 Ratings00 Ratings
Company Website Posting8.361 Ratings00 Ratings
Publish to Social Media8.256 Ratings00 Ratings
Job Search Site Posting8.259 Ratings00 Ratings
Duplicate Candidate Prevention7.453 Ratings00 Ratings
Applicant Tracking8.268 Ratings00 Ratings
Notifications and Alerts8.672 Ratings00 Ratings
Customization
Comparison of Customization features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR
-
Ratings
QuickBooks Desktop Pro
7.9
39 Ratings
11% above category average
API for custom integration00 Ratings8.032 Ratings
Plug-ins00 Ratings7.836 Ratings
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR
-
Ratings
QuickBooks Desktop Pro
8.5
93 Ratings
6% above category average
Single sign-on capability00 Ratings8.975 Ratings
Role-based user permissions00 Ratings8.188 Ratings
Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR
-
Ratings
QuickBooks Desktop Pro
8.4
108 Ratings
10% above category average
Dashboards00 Ratings9.693 Ratings
Standard reports00 Ratings7.5108 Ratings
Custom reports00 Ratings8.2106 Ratings
General Ledger and Configurable Accounting
Comparison of General Ledger and Configurable Accounting features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR
-
Ratings
QuickBooks Desktop Pro
8.0
112 Ratings
8% above category average
Accounts payable00 Ratings9.7107 Ratings
Accounts receivable00 Ratings7.5109 Ratings
Cash management00 Ratings2.497 Ratings
Bank reconciliation00 Ratings9.7108 Ratings
Expense management00 Ratings8.899 Ratings
Time tracking00 Ratings8.747 Ratings
Fixed asset management00 Ratings6.064 Ratings
Multi-currency support00 Ratings7.927 Ratings
Multi-division support00 Ratings5.752 Ratings
Regulations compliance00 Ratings7.239 Ratings
Electronic tax filing00 Ratings8.050 Ratings
Self-service portal00 Ratings9.738 Ratings
Global Financial Support00 Ratings7.015 Ratings
Primary and Secondary Ledgers00 Ratings8.837 Ratings
Intercompany Accounting00 Ratings7.438 Ratings
Localizations00 Ratings8.517 Ratings
Journals and Reconciliations00 Ratings9.665 Ratings
Enterprise Accounting00 Ratings9.733 Ratings
Configurable Accounting00 Ratings8.141 Ratings
Centralized Rules Framework00 Ratings7.824 Ratings
Standardized Processes00 Ratings9.748 Ratings
Inventory Management
Comparison of Inventory Management features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR
-
Ratings
QuickBooks Desktop Pro
6.7
56 Ratings
5% below category average
Inventory tracking00 Ratings6.553 Ratings
Automatic reordering00 Ratings6.132 Ratings
Location management00 Ratings6.229 Ratings
Manufacturing module00 Ratings8.216 Ratings
Order Management
Comparison of Order Management features of Product A and Product B
BambooHR
-
Ratings
QuickBooks Desktop Pro
7.3
70 Ratings
1% below category average
Pricing00 Ratings6.650 Ratings
Order entry00 Ratings7.449 Ratings
Credit card processing00 Ratings7.148 Ratings
Cost of goods sold00 Ratings9.058 Ratings
Order Orchestration00 Ratings9.018 Ratings
End-to-end order visibility00 Ratings9.021 Ratings
Order exception Resolution00 Ratings3.216 Ratings
Best Alternatives
BambooHRQuickBooks Desktop Pro
Small Businesses
Patriot Software
Patriot Software
Score 9.0 out of 10
QuickBooks Self-Employed
QuickBooks Self-Employed
Score 9.1 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Paypro Workforce Management
Paypro Workforce Management
Score 9.5 out of 10
Accounting Seed
Accounting Seed
Score 8.3 out of 10
Enterprises
Infor Human Resources
Infor Human Resources
Score 7.3 out of 10
Oracle Fusion Cloud ERP
Oracle Fusion Cloud ERP
Score 8.1 out of 10
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User Ratings
BambooHRQuickBooks Desktop Pro
Likelihood to Recommend
8.9
(124 ratings)
5.6
(124 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.2
(10 ratings)
10.0
(18 ratings)
Usability
8.5
(51 ratings)
8.2
(31 ratings)
Availability
9.3
(5 ratings)
8.3
(2 ratings)
Performance
8.7
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.5
(48 ratings)
2.3
(29 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Online Training
9.2
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.6
(3 ratings)
9.0
(6 ratings)
Configurability
8.6
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
8.3
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
9.6
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.9
(5 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Professional Services
9.2
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
8.9
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
9.1
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
BambooHRQuickBooks Desktop Pro
Likelihood to Recommend
BambooHR
I think BambooHR is meant for companies that have more than 200 employees, because it is not cheap, but for what they are offering, it is a nice software with some easy UI to understand for everyone at a company. I think for a small company, it is way too big of a software and it is not that worth the price.
Read full review
Intuit
I am only going to recommend it because it is currently ubiquitous, and most accountants prefer it at the moment. I do not stand by the company, and will not use the product any longer than I have to. [I believe] the support is lousy, the product is overpriced, but it does the basics of what we need. I'm very happy for all those outside Intuit who make their living supporting QuickBooks Desktop Pro; third-party support is desperately needed. They also doubled their prices for software upgrades this year, and require those who don't pay double what the last upgrade cost, to subscribe every year for $200. If one does not subscribe beyond the first year, one will not be able to use the software beyond the first year. They are moving to a rental model even for those who refuse to use the LOUSY QuickBooks online. They were good company once. Now they just turn out bloatware that everyone uses, so the rest of us have to. I look forward to the day that an honest, better-priced competitor wipes the floor with Intuit.
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Pros
BambooHR
  • Customer Service - The customer service is consistent and the team is always eager to help. They are polite, patient, and there are never terrible interactions.
  • Communication - BambooHR communication channels are simple. There are many different ways to communicate with the team. I prefer e-mail because it helps me keep track of the conversations and they respond within the appropriate time. Also, the e-mail reminders or notifications help tremendously and it's not overbearing.
  • User Interface - It's simple and easy to use!
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Intuit
  • It is easy to manage and adjust inventory on hand.
  • It is easy to make reports and customize them to your needs.
  • We also use it to pay our employees directly.
  • It is easy to make year-to-year comparisons to see where we can make improvements and the current financial situation.
Read full review
Cons
BambooHR
  • Reporting - I wish that you could choose a timeframe for all reports. There are times when I need to run a report for information at a point in time, but there is no functionality to complete this (maybe this is an add-on, but seems like it should be a basic function.)
  • ATS - Customizable notifications and making it easier to figure out how to change notification/email settings. I figured it out, but it was difficult to find. I wish you could choose to notify managers of candidates 1/week instead of every time someone applies.
  • Custom Holidays - being able to set up 2 different Holiday policies for different working groups. Some of our team gets a floating holiday, but we can't set that up without doing it for the entire company.
  • Being able to intercept a form that was signed by an employee but not the 2nd signer. We can't access onboarding forms that new hires signed after the 2nd signer left the company. Now we have to have our team resign all their onboarding forms because we cannot access the one with their signature.
  • Delegation for approvals - being able to delegate this when someone is on leave or time away so that Admins don't have to manage.
  • Org chart - being able to customize this feature
  • More broad or customizable EEO categories
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Intuit
  • QuickBooks Desktop Pro has been around for a few years and after an update[,] they force you to look at the changes/updates before you can use [them] after updating.
  • QuickBooks Desktop Pro does not have 2FA.
  • QuickBooks Desktop Pro should offer a way to store backups to a personal cloud without having to map a local network drive.
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Likelihood to Renew
BambooHR
Overall we have not had any reason to discontinue our use of BambooHR. We have not found a better solution, and there is no pressing reason that we would want to move away from the product. If they should fail to continue to improve their features over time, I could see this changing down the road, but for now I would say we are very satisfied with them. We would definitely like to see continued growth of their product however.
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Intuit
We've used the program for more than 20 years in our firm both with clients and as our software. For the cost and value of the program it works well for our firms needs and desires for an accounting software program. At this point to switch would not make sense.
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Usability
BambooHR
Is very easy to navigate. All processes once explained, you can actually create an implement process associated to your HR goals. It is like a digital file of your employees, with functionalities that let you be on track on onboarding, performance, information, among others process. Time off approvals are easy to navigate.
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Intuit
It is a great software that does everything a small business needs it to do, but there are just a few bugs and quirks that make additional software necessary. The slowness of the software occasionally might eventually be overshadowed by the quickness of cloud-based software though.
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Reliability and Availability
BambooHR
Yes, there is a huge team in the back of the online platform or it looks like it because I have never been left without an answer when I have a question or waiting from a response on my chat .... There must be a huge team, this is so great and I always seem to have someone that is very knowledgeable too. So many times in the past I had to leave with customer service that would connect you with someone else because of the expertise, here everyone seems to be some kind of an expert in the HR function.
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Intuit
I haven't experienced a time when QuickBooks Pro was unavailable when I needed it in the entire 20 years of using the software
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Performance
BambooHR
I love BambooHR. Reports are easy to run and download and it usually covers any types of requests I get from the management team. You get excel or .csv downloads/reports and it is fast and simple, not too crowded so it is easy to read through. We don't integrate the tool yet but again, soon we will. we just did not had the time to utilize it yet but that's the plan.
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Intuit
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
BambooHR
I have used the help chat function several times and that is easy and great to use. There are also many articles, FAQs sections and an entire learning platform to learn on your own. I believe that is great. I also have used ChatGPT to ask how to do certain functions as well, which were accurately reported.
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Intuit
The support team is not always easy to use or able to understand the problems. There are some difficulties understanding [...] the issues the purchaser has and the solutions are sometimes hard to implement. A lot can be avoided if the users have adequate training and security is set up correctly at implementation.
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In-Person Training
BambooHR
I didn't have in-person training besides teaching my managers how to use the program. However, I couldn't omit this question (maybe a system glitch).
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Intuit
Best thing I ever did was to attend a two day training seminar on QuickBooks, I learned an immense amount in a short time with hands on training by experts. I strongly recommend such training for anyone using any part of the software. It will pay for itself in the first month.
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Online Training
BambooHR
As far as I can recall, everything went well with doing it online and got questions answered. Was thankful to work with a dummy file to get used to some practices prior to getting our own domain within bamboo to then place our personnel information in the system, this helped a lot!
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Intuit
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
BambooHR
It was some work involved in moving all of our documents from a drive over to the correct folders and creating the system of what folders were needed and what got placed where
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Intuit
We implemented the software ourselves. The training we received on the software was done by taking a community course teaching us how to use QuickBooks. It allowed me to get started with some basics of how to use the program and have not needed much assistance since completing the course work.
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Alternatives Considered
BambooHR
Although there are many products in the marketplace, there is no perfect system. BambooHR is the most economical HRIS for a small business, start-up, or business that has never had HR software. BambooHR was selected for its affordable functionality. However, if they continue to ingore the lack of functionality the pretty package will no longer have any value.
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Intuit
Zoho had great end-user support and it was almost as simple to learn and was as easy to use. But its reports were not as [customizable] as QuickBooks Desktop Pro, and its job cost and department accounting [were] more cumbersome than QuickBooks Desktop Pro was. In addition, while I like an underdog (Zoho) the fact is that it is easier to find staff that [is] comfortable with QuickBooks Desktop Pro than anything else on the market.
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Contract Terms and Pricing Model
BambooHR
Since my organization has dropped with employees, I always find ways to reduce costs. I thought there would be a cheaper option, but I was glad that my package included a lot for the price, and downgrading would cost more. The rep could have let me downgraded and taken me to a higher package. I am thankful that didn't happen.
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Intuit
No answers on this topic
Scalability
BambooHR
There is so much you can do with this platform, it is incredible and so welcoming. We don't utilize it 100% yet just because we are growing and the HR team has not been able to concentrate on other areas offered to us but but we will soon. Which is also why we got the product, specifically because what BambooHR can do to help us meet our growing business needs.
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Intuit
No answers on this topic
Professional Services
BambooHR
VERY professional!
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Intuit
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
BambooHR
  • It's been a great force multiplier for our HR staff, supplementing their skills to allow them to focus on more complex tasks.
  • Employees enjoy using it and have to talk to HR staff less with the self-service options.
  • You may find as your organization grows that you outgrow a module or BambooHR and will replace with a dedicated solution.
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Intuit
  • QuickBooks Desktop Pro is a no hassle accounting solution that ticks a lot of boxes. It almost never disappoints and organizations will usually keep using it for many years. If anything, the only time I've seen an organization migrate away from it is if they have specific accounting needs, or if the organization has grown to the point that they need a more robust accounting solution. Even then, QuickBooks can usually be maintained within another accounting software system for specific functions, like A/R & A/P for example.
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ScreenShots

BambooHR Screenshots

Screenshot of BambooHR's Reporting