COBRA Business Operations vs. QuickBooks Desktop Pro vs. QuickBooks Online Advanced

Perfect for small companies. Very user friendly in my opinion. I have never had many troubles using this program and when I do the customer support seems to always know how to fix it.

Incentivized

For a small business, QuickBooks Desktop Pro is great! For a larger, more complex business, another system may be more beneficial. We actually run multiple businesses on QuickBooks Desktop Pro, but all are very small. The help feature is sometimes so beneficial, and sometimes it seems like you just can't get the right answer and need to find a workaround - but this is usually for more complex issues.

Smaller businesses that need affordable accounting software that many people are used to should look at Quickbooks. QuickBooks makes it easier for people to access your books from multiple locations. If cost is an issue, QuickBooks is very affordable, given you do not need to install and maintain a server.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• It allows us to link to bank accounts in order to get up-to-date, real-time information, which is so important in today's lightning speed work world.
• The "canned" reports are excellent and allow for extreme customization also. This makes them very helpful to both me and my clients.
• The user interface for QuickBooks Online Advanced is easy to navigate and is intuitive for novices. The screens are well laid out and have cohesiveness on each screen to match tasks with others that match up well.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• Proper advice in QuickBooks Online Pro for the usage if QuickBooks Online Advanced will be more efficient.
• More features and space in the app for organization of the self-created workflows.
• The stability of QuickBooks Online Advanced can still be better.
• There are still file-size issues and limitations on transactions and attributes of transactions.

I'd love to keep using it, and do intend to - though we've not been pleased with price increases over the past several years. In fact, we used to subscribe to the payroll service, but QuickBooks priced themselves out of reach for us, so we discontinued that. Currently, pricing would be the primary reason for NOT renewing, if we didn't.

Incentivized

QuickBooks Online Advanced is very easy to use and the data is very transparent. The reporting shortfalls (not being able to report the current month and YTD results on the same report) as well as the issues with the limitations with the management reports.

Incentivized

The set up was quite easy. I took some online training causes, and figured our the rest pretty quickly. The only issue I had during the implementation process was it was very hard to change some of the GL Account name to reflect the needs of a non-profit organization, such as Net Assets. At the end I had to scratch what I did, and used the existing formats that the third-party bookkeeping firm shared. Everything else is simple and easy to manage and implement.

Incentivized

QuickBooks Online Advanced is great and effective. I use it for almost three months and it definitely does their job

Incentivized

I haven't experienced a time when QuickBooks Pro was unavailable when I needed it in the entire 20 years of using the software

Incentivized

No issue at any time with Availability

Incentivized

It can be access at any time and reports is generate in less than a minute

Incentivized

They are awful. Intuit doesn't spend real money on support. They appear to have typically said, first-level script readers who are sending messages to the senior people for anything even a little bit difficult. Many of them don't speak particularly good English. Considering that they recently doubled (or, if you are paying annually, tripled) their pricing, and touted as one of the benefits that it includes [..] support, it's a real ripoff. However, we have to use the product because it is ubiquitous. I look forward to the day a competitor comes up with something good enough, which has excellent support, that matches all the features QuickBooks Desktop Pro currently has [...] or at least gives us a way to have all the functionality we currently have without excessive sacrifice [...] so that we can switch. I was very satisfied with QuickBooks for many years. This latest [rise] in price, and their sheer gall at touting the benefit of the 100 to 200% increase as being [the] inclusion of support, is what turned me so far against them.

Incentivized

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.

The online training is good enough.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

I was not present when it was implemented at first

Incentivized

none in my time here

Incentivized

We tried switching from QuickBooks Desktop Pro to QuickBooks Online, but there were a lot of issues and bugs so we ultimately decided to stay with Desktop Pro. Unfortunately, we are losing a lot of Online Banking capabilities on 5/31 as we have an older version of QB, but we plan to stick with Desktop Pro. In terms of invoicing, SaaSOptics beats QuickBooks in almost all aspects as it's all automated and takes seconds to create and send invoices. However, SaaSOptics is not really a full ERP program so it wouldn't serve us as a main bookkeeping software like QB.

Incentivized

QuickBooks Online Advanced isn’t as robust as Netsuite or Sage, but it is generally a great choice for most businesses. This software will meet or exceed the needs of most companies, and should be the first part of your accounting software decision. I would even reach out to a QuickBooks Online Advanced expert to ensure you need to step up to Sage or Netsuite before doing so on your own.

Incentivized

Very good product

Incentivized

• Training time is low compared to other accounting packages
• It was difficult to adapt to DCAA requirements, [which] required [the] hiring of [a] special consultant for that
• QuickBooks Desktop Pro is a standard for small companies and makes it easy to hire bookkeepers

Incentivized

• QBOA has shown my clients the increase and decrease of my monthly income activity
• I am able to project my income and spending more easily
• The P&L reports has shown me a lot and by customizing to focus on my income and expenses has allowed me to better budget

Incentivized