Financial Edge (legacy) vs. QuickBooks Desktop Pro

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Financial Edge (legacy)
Score 6.8 out of 10
N/A
A legacy software offering, Blackbaud now instead offers and supports their cloud-based accounting solution, Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT as a modern alternative.N/A
QuickBooks Desktop Pro
Score 8.3 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
Financial Edge (legacy)QuickBooks Desktop Pro
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Financial Edge (legacy)QuickBooks Desktop Pro
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Financial Edge (legacy)QuickBooks Desktop Pro
Considered Both Products
Financial Edge (legacy)
Chose Financial Edge (legacy)
Most FE installations I have participated in were from QuickBooks Pro. QuickBooks, if set up well, is a great alternative for the smaller association or nonprofit, but it has challenges handling some of the unique aspects of nonprofit accounting. Recent editions of QuickBooks …
QuickBooks Desktop Pro
Chose QuickBooks Desktop Pro
The transparency of QuickBooks Desktop Pro is less complex. This really helps with larger projects/companies with one shared accounting office.
Features
Financial Edge (legacy)QuickBooks Desktop Pro
Payroll Management
Comparison of Payroll Management features of Product A and Product B
Financial Edge (legacy)
1.0
4 Ratings
153% below category average
QuickBooks Desktop Pro
6.9
69 Ratings
9% below category average
Pay calculation1.03 Ratings6.664 Ratings
Benefit plan administration1.02 Ratings6.638 Ratings
Direct deposit files1.02 Ratings6.956 Ratings
Salary revision and increment management1.03 Ratings6.652 Ratings
Reimbursement management1.04 Ratings7.554 Ratings
Customization
Comparison of Customization features of Product A and Product B
Financial Edge (legacy)
1.0
7 Ratings
153% below category average
QuickBooks Desktop Pro
6.0
43 Ratings
23% below category average
API for custom integration1.05 Ratings6.635 Ratings
Plug-ins1.07 Ratings5.339 Ratings
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
Financial Edge (legacy)
1.0
9 Ratings
156% below category average
QuickBooks Desktop Pro
8.3
101 Ratings
1% above category average
Single sign-on capability1.06 Ratings8.282 Ratings
Role-based user permissions1.09 Ratings8.495 Ratings
Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Financial Edge (legacy)
1.0
9 Ratings
154% below category average
QuickBooks Desktop Pro
8.5
117 Ratings
9% above category average
Dashboards1.09 Ratings8.4100 Ratings
Standard reports1.09 Ratings8.9117 Ratings
Custom reports1.09 Ratings8.3114 Ratings
General Ledger and Configurable Accounting
Comparison of General Ledger and Configurable Accounting features of Product A and Product B
Financial Edge (legacy)
1.0
10 Ratings
153% below category average
QuickBooks Desktop Pro
7.7
124 Ratings
1% above category average
Accounts payable1.09 Ratings9.2119 Ratings
Accounts receivable1.07 Ratings9.2121 Ratings
Cash management1.09 Ratings9.1107 Ratings
Bank reconciliation1.010 Ratings9.6119 Ratings
Expense management1.08 Ratings9.3108 Ratings
Time tracking1.04 Ratings7.551 Ratings
Fixed asset management1.08 Ratings6.069 Ratings
Multi-currency support1.05 Ratings7.331 Ratings
Multi-division support1.06 Ratings8.858 Ratings
Regulations compliance1.07 Ratings8.042 Ratings
Electronic tax filing1.04 Ratings8.355 Ratings
Self-service portal1.07 Ratings6.341 Ratings
Global Financial Support1.06 Ratings4.517 Ratings
Primary and Secondary Ledgers1.08 Ratings6.740 Ratings
Intercompany Accounting1.08 Ratings8.343 Ratings
Localizations1.05 Ratings4.519 Ratings
Journals and Reconciliations1.08 Ratings8.776 Ratings
Enterprise Accounting1.06 Ratings7.138 Ratings
Configurable Accounting1.07 Ratings7.647 Ratings
Centralized Rules Framework1.06 Ratings6.427 Ratings
Standardized Processes1.07 Ratings8.455 Ratings
Inventory Management
Comparison of Inventory Management features of Product A and Product B
Financial Edge (legacy)
1.0
3 Ratings
152% below category average
QuickBooks Desktop Pro
6.1
59 Ratings
18% below category average
Inventory tracking1.02 Ratings6.356 Ratings
Automatic reordering1.02 Ratings6.335 Ratings
Location management1.03 Ratings6.332 Ratings
Manufacturing module1.02 Ratings5.518 Ratings
Order Management
Comparison of Order Management features of Product A and Product B
Financial Edge (legacy)
1.0
2 Ratings
153% below category average
QuickBooks Desktop Pro
7.1
77 Ratings
5% below category average
Pricing1.02 Ratings7.755 Ratings
Order entry1.02 Ratings8.655 Ratings
Credit card processing1.02 Ratings7.651 Ratings
Cost of goods sold1.02 Ratings8.363 Ratings
Order Orchestration1.02 Ratings5.520 Ratings
End-to-end order visibility1.02 Ratings6.423 Ratings
Order exception Resolution1.02 Ratings5.518 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Financial Edge (legacy)QuickBooks Desktop Pro
Small Businesses
QuickBooks Self-Employed (discontinued)
QuickBooks Self-Employed (discontinued)
Score 6.9 out of 10
QuickBooks Self-Employed (discontinued)
QuickBooks Self-Employed (discontinued)
Score 6.9 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Zoho Books
Zoho Books
Score 9.1 out of 10
Zoho Books
Zoho Books
Score 9.1 out of 10
Enterprises
Oracle Fusion Cloud Enterprise Performance Management
Oracle Fusion Cloud Enterprise Performance Management
Score 7.6 out of 10
Oracle Fusion Cloud Enterprise Performance Management
Oracle Fusion Cloud Enterprise Performance Management
Score 7.6 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Financial Edge (legacy)QuickBooks Desktop Pro
Likelihood to Recommend
1.0
(10 ratings)
8.5
(135 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(19 ratings)
Usability
2.0
(1 ratings)
9.2
(42 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
8.3
(2 ratings)
Support Rating
1.0
(1 ratings)
1.2
(29 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(6 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Financial Edge (legacy)QuickBooks Desktop Pro
Likelihood to Recommend
Discontinued Products
  • Financial Edge is well suited for traditional day to day accounting, accounts payable, and related needs.
  • Financial Edge dashboard does not provide a snapshot view of data that I have found are available through other platforms (like QBO).
Read full review
Intuit
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.
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Pros
Discontinued Products
  • Financial edge is able to be customized in a way that fits our organization.
  • Financial edge is able to provide reports to our end-users on budget versus actual account balances.
  • Financial edge is able to handle a large volume of transactions with ease, having built-in capabilities for batching and balancing.
Read full review
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
Discontinued Products
  • Customer service blames the customer, and never offers solutions other than "wait it out." I've always been told it's my computer, even though everyone else at my work has the same issues.
  • Website is constantly "under maintenance" and it somehow never gets better.
  • The Database View is outdated and glitchy. Honestly get rid of it.
  • The Crystal Report is the only way to handle monthly recurring statements, and Financial Edge does not offer support for it anymore. Good luck figuring that out on your own.
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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
Discontinued Products
No answers on this topic
Intuit
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.
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Usability
Discontinued Products
It's user friendly, when it wants to be.
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Intuit
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.
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Reliability and Availability
Discontinued Products
No answers on this topic
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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Support Rating
Discontinued Products
I would give this a zero if I could. Here's the deal. Once you request a chat with a representative, they immediately respond. So responsiveness: 10/10. However, they have a tendency to (always) tell you that whatever problem you're experiencing is your problem, not theirs. They offer no solutions and never take responsibility for their website malfunctioning
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Intuit
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.
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In-Person Training
Discontinued Products
No answers on this topic
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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Implementation Rating
Discontinued Products
No answers on this topic
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
Discontinued Products
Financial Edge is more economical than GuideStar, and more focused on the financial successes than simply the management of funds and general data.
Read full review
Intuit
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.
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Return on Investment
Discontinued Products
  • Like any enterprise software, there are costs/investments ahead of return. It isn't something you would implement without support.
  • During the significant financial downturn, we were able to use FE to forecast trends and make budget adjustments easily. It transformed communication about forecasting and cuts with assurance.
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Intuit
  • 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
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ScreenShots