QuickBooks Desktop Premier vs. QuickBooks Online

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
QuickBooks Desktop Premier
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
QuickBooks Desktop Premier is an installed version of QuickBooks for general business, contractors, manufacturing and warehouse accounting, as well as nonprofits, professional services, and retail.N/A
QuickBooks Online
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
QuickBooks Online is a SaaS version of the QuickBooks product. It contains all of the features found in the local version. Higher-priced plans include greater automation, payment management, inventory and time tracking, and analytics features.
$15
per month
Pricing
QuickBooks Desktop PremierQuickBooks Online
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Self-Employed
$15
per month
Simple Start
$25
per month
Plus
$75
per month
Advanced
$150
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
QuickBooks Desktop PremierQuickBooks Online
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
QuickBooks Desktop PremierQuickBooks Online
Considered Both Products
QuickBooks Desktop Premier
Chose QuickBooks Desktop Premier
QuickBooks Premier is more powerful and versatile than QuickBooks Online. We use QuickBooks Premier in a hosted environment, which allows our clients to access their software online, but retains the great features of QuickBooks Premier that we love. QuickBooks Online's web-page …
Chose QuickBooks Desktop Premier
Although cloud-based platforms with a monthly subscription are very popular, I still prefer a desktop enterprise solution. Profit & Loss reports by Customer are not accurate in the online version because they cannot account for employee-related costs that should be assigned to …
Chose QuickBooks Desktop Premier
Enterprise is the cadillac of Intuit Products, QuickBooks Online has unparalleled access.Premier is much better than Pro, which doesn't have as many features. I work in the accountant version, so I really like the functionality and sometimes I recommend the client buys the …
Chose QuickBooks Desktop Premier
QuickBooks Premier handles most of my business functions efficiently in one package. It is not my "everything." I use Replicon for time rather than QuickBooks. I don't want my WIP data interfering with my accounting. I use PaySimple for it's web interface and back office …
QuickBooks Online
Chose QuickBooks Online
We selected QuickBooks Online because it is supposed to integrate with a new Project Management software package we are starting to use. QuickBooks Desktop is much better suited to job costing and project management.
Chose QuickBooks Online
QuickBooks Desktop is a really crappy piece of software, from a UI/UX perspective. As an example, the font in the program is tiny. You would think that would be a simple setting you could change, but take a look at what's involved in simply making the font a readable size: …
Chose QuickBooks Online
There are pros to both - but the online version won due to the simple fact that if we have to shut down due to the pandemic, or there is an illness preventing us to work....we can work from home and still get everything accomplished!!
Chose QuickBooks Online
I chose QuickBooks Online primarily because I had the most experience with it. Although the desktop versions will generally have more robust reporting and some areas of versatility, QuickBooks Online has the best immediate access when it comes to support and it's online …
Chose QuickBooks Online
Ultimately, QuickBooks/Intuit has the most market share when it comes to accounting software. The benefit of so many people using this software is that there's always an answer to a problem that you may be having when it comes to using the software. Intuit has provided a …
Chose QuickBooks Online
QuickBooks Online was much easier to use across a non-profit where we needed people in multiple locations working on different servers to access the financial data at once, it also allowed us to connect our bank accounts to the software which was a huge benefit of the program, …
Chose QuickBooks Online
I prefer the online [version] by far! Much easier to access, keep accounts up to date and merge with other features such as banking and credit cards.
Chose QuickBooks Online
We chose QuickBooks online because it was the only option other than QuickBooks Desktop that supports the sub-class functionality that is essential for our business.
Chose QuickBooks Online
The only advantage QuickBooks Online has over QuickBooks Desktop is the mobility. Since the new Harmony user interface, all else is sub-par. QuickBooks Desktop has been around for years, customizable options have been added to reports, and it becomes more user friendly every …
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
QuickBooks Desktop PremierQuickBooks Online
Payroll Management
Comparison of Payroll Management features of Product A and Product B
QuickBooks Desktop Premier
8.9
47 Ratings
17% above category average
QuickBooks Online
3.1
78 Ratings
83% below category average
Pay calculation7.046 Ratings4.269 Ratings
Benefit plan administration10.020 Ratings3.732 Ratings
Direct deposit files8.036 Ratings4.765 Ratings
Salary revision and increment management9.927 Ratings1.744 Ratings
Reimbursement management9.529 Ratings1.446 Ratings
Customization
Comparison of Customization features of Product A and Product B
QuickBooks Desktop Premier
1.3
20 Ratings
138% below category average
QuickBooks Online
2.6
68 Ratings
92% below category average
API for custom integration1.315 Ratings1.354 Ratings
Plug-ins1.320 Ratings3.857 Ratings
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
QuickBooks Desktop Premier
7.4
49 Ratings
6% below category average
QuickBooks Online
3.7
108 Ratings
72% below category average
Single sign-on capability4.843 Ratings3.081 Ratings
Role-based user permissions10.040 Ratings4.5102 Ratings
Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
QuickBooks Desktop Premier
6.8
57 Ratings
11% below category average
QuickBooks Online
5.4
132 Ratings
34% below category average
Dashboards4.848 Ratings4.7124 Ratings
Standard reports7.856 Ratings5.4128 Ratings
Custom reports7.854 Ratings6.0116 Ratings
General Ledger and Configurable Accounting
Comparison of General Ledger and Configurable Accounting features of Product A and Product B
QuickBooks Desktop Premier
7.1
60 Ratings
4% below category average
QuickBooks Online
3.8
143 Ratings
64% below category average
Accounts payable7.058 Ratings5.4122 Ratings
Accounts receivable7.059 Ratings6.0131 Ratings
Cash management8.054 Ratings6.2120 Ratings
Bank reconciliation8.057 Ratings6.3137 Ratings
Expense management6.156 Ratings5.5123 Ratings
Time tracking5.028 Ratings1.856 Ratings
Fixed asset management5.139 Ratings5.353 Ratings
Multi-currency support9.018 Ratings1.423 Ratings
Multi-division support7.033 Ratings1.542 Ratings
Regulations compliance1.819 Ratings1.738 Ratings
Electronic tax filing10.028 Ratings5.266 Ratings
Self-service portal8.017 Ratings2.666 Ratings
Global Financial Support9.03 Ratings1.416 Ratings
Primary and Secondary Ledgers7.06 Ratings3.535 Ratings
Intercompany Accounting9.08 Ratings5.029 Ratings
Localizations5.01 Ratings4.121 Ratings
Journals and Reconciliations7.014 Ratings5.274 Ratings
Enterprise Accounting9.05 Ratings1.825 Ratings
Configurable Accounting7.16 Ratings2.138 Ratings
Centralized Rules Framework9.93 Ratings2.924 Ratings
Standardized Processes4.37 Ratings4.048 Ratings
Inventory Management
Comparison of Inventory Management features of Product A and Product B
QuickBooks Desktop Premier
2.9
36 Ratings
83% below category average
QuickBooks Online
1.3
47 Ratings
138% below category average
Inventory tracking1.735 Ratings1.345 Ratings
Automatic reordering1.015 Ratings1.222 Ratings
Location management8.019 Ratings1.321 Ratings
Manufacturing module1.017 Ratings1.317 Ratings
Order Management
Comparison of Order Management features of Product A and Product B
QuickBooks Desktop Premier
7.0
38 Ratings
6% below category average
QuickBooks Online
3.7
86 Ratings
67% below category average
Pricing10.030 Ratings4.755 Ratings
Order entry10.031 Ratings4.753 Ratings
Credit card processing7.027 Ratings2.463 Ratings
Cost of goods sold6.334 Ratings3.968 Ratings
Order Orchestration10.03 Ratings4.621 Ratings
End-to-end order visibility1.04 Ratings4.620 Ratings
Order exception Resolution5.01 Ratings1.218 Ratings
Best Alternatives
QuickBooks Desktop PremierQuickBooks Online
Small Businesses
Dext Prepare (with Receipt Bank)
Dext Prepare (with Receipt Bank)
Score 9.1 out of 10
Dext Prepare (with Receipt Bank)
Dext Prepare (with Receipt Bank)
Score 9.1 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Accounting Seed
Accounting Seed
Score 8.3 out of 10
Accounting Seed
Accounting Seed
Score 8.3 out of 10
Enterprises
Oracle Fusion Cloud ERP
Oracle Fusion Cloud ERP
Score 8.2 out of 10
Oracle Fusion Cloud ERP
Oracle Fusion Cloud ERP
Score 8.2 out of 10
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User Ratings
QuickBooks Desktop PremierQuickBooks Online
Likelihood to Recommend
3.0
(63 ratings)
4.2
(161 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
1.3
(12 ratings)
2.5
(24 ratings)
Usability
7.0
(14 ratings)
4.1
(76 ratings)
Availability
8.9
(5 ratings)
2.1
(5 ratings)
Performance
5.7
(4 ratings)
1.1
(4 ratings)
Support Rating
1.1
(12 ratings)
2.2
(68 ratings)
Online Training
1.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
7.2
(7 ratings)
3.0
(6 ratings)
Configurability
9.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Ease of integration
7.0
(1 ratings)
1.4
(2 ratings)
Product Scalability
6.2
(4 ratings)
1.1
(2 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
1.1
(2 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
7.0
(1 ratings)
1.1
(2 ratings)
User Testimonials
QuickBooks Desktop PremierQuickBooks Online
Likelihood to Recommend
Intuit
QuickBooks Premier is not well suited to manufacturing industries, as it cannot handle the complicated inventory requirements of raw materials, work in process, and finished goods. Retailers and Wholesalers can use QuickBooks Premier as long as they have an add-on inventory tracking program or Point of Sale system that integrates with QuickBooks. Likewise, restaurants would need specialized restaurant software that integrates with QuickBooks Premier. Non-profits can use QuickBooks Premier non-profit edition, but if they use fund accounting, it will require some complicated work-arounds. QuickBooks Premier is well-suited to most construction trades, personal and professional services providers, small retailers, and rental property owners.
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Intuit
It seems Intuit is more interested in generating revenue than taking care of their customers. After only 28 (working) days using it, I've had to call for Help 23 times, and, in my experience, only spoken to 2 people who had an understanding of basic accounting practices and the ramifications of some of their suggested fixes on the General Ledger.
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Pros
Intuit
  • The program is easy to learn and use. We can train our clients' personnel how to use the program with out difficulty.
  • It is easy for clients to generate bills and manage accounts receivable.
  • It is easy to manage accounts payable and allows clients to pay their bills electronically.
  • Transactions can be imported electronically for credit card and banking transactions.
  • It is easy to reconcile bank and credit card accounts.
  • We can import data generated by QuickBooks into our tax and accounting software.
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Intuit
  • It enables me to do a P&L for each specific program as requested by the county for the grant money that they give us.
  • It enables me to do [an] organizational budget as well as a budget for each specific program
  • It enables the accountant and the auditor access at any time for transparency
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Cons
Intuit
  • I would like to be able to choose how i want to view accounts receivable aging. I would like some flexibility to sort and choose how to present the data.
  • For a seasoned accountant, I would like to see some of the restrictive controls that are in place for novices to be able to be relaxed so that I can easily make some entries and adjust some balances that ordinarily a regular user would not be able to do.
  • I would like to see an easy way to clear old outstanding checks that need to be reversed without affecting prior balances/history.
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Intuit
  • The budgets feature leaves a lot be desired - difficult and clunky to populate and maintain.
  • Reporting for Budget vs Actual is available but the ability to reforecast based on updated data is not.
  • The rules function to default common types of expenses isn't perfect and will get confused if like amounts or a number of similar items present.
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Likelihood to Renew
Intuit
Because we have been extremely happy with the product and our organization tends to be creatures of habit. We rarely leave a product that works this well for the latest and greatest. Typically we follow the "if it's not broken, don't fix it rule". While QB does make changes we typically just roll with it. If we do find something we don't like we work through it until we fully understand its functionality.
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Intuit
It like the product 'right out of the box' and I trust Intuit will continually improve it over the years based on my experience with their desktop products. The large providers of Apps makes customizing the entire package relatively easy and seamless for a wide variety of business types.
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Usability
Intuit
QuickBooks is an amazing tool that provides all of the necessary features needed to run the finances of a company. I would like for QuickBooks to provide better resources for training. There are many features that go unused because of lack of knowledge. Procore offers chatting and calls on their platform and they make it easy and accessible to get answers and solutions.
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Intuit
While QuickBooks Online is generally easy to navigate, there are some features and functions that often require a Google search in order to find out where they are actually hidden. Additionally, there are some simple customization features that are surprisingly not available for an otherwise advanced program (e.g. only having a pool of 4 fonts to choose from, only having 4 very limited templates for invoicing, not color selection, etc). While I would say that about 75% of users shouldn't have a problem finding their way around with basic functions, there is a learning curve if you want to be able to dive into some of the more useful features, almost to the point that you need to have a dedicated account manager in order to use QuickBooks Online most effectively.
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Reliability and Availability
Intuit
This is very reliable software, the desktop version is fast. If there is a problem, it is most likely on your own hardware!
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Intuit
We have rarely had outages in the last 10 years. I can only recall 2 times in the last 10 years where we were not able to access our client files.
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Performance
Intuit
It takes forever to load.
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Intuit
There are tab issues. When I tab the field doesn't highlight and I have to backspace or delete what is in the field. Happens on the memo field and sometimes other fields. Very time consuming.
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Support Rating
Intuit
This is an awesome product and the support team is very knowledgeable. The product is mature, so there are not a lot of bugs and the support team really solves problems quickly. Usually it is a user error issue, but the support desk helps me out. I love the fact that it is US based support.
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Intuit
Support is great, all incidents been resolved. Quickbooks Online forum is very well organized and helpful. I like the fact that they let the community contribute in resolving issues. Most or many of your answers can be found online. You can also get help on YouTube, but the easiest way to get assistance is through their chat system.
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Implementation Rating
Intuit
It is important to do your research. There are tutorial videos online that could help new user of this accounting system. These tutorials are straightforward and easily understandable.
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Intuit
The person in charge of QB needs to be very accurate with record keeping and is recommended to stay on top of tasks. The biggest issue we have is reconciliation, and those issues occur only when too much time has occurred between reconciliations
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Alternatives Considered
Intuit
QuickBooks Premier handles most of my business functions efficiently in one package. It is not my "everything." I use Replicon for time rather than QuickBooks. I don't want my WIP data interfering with my accounting. I use PaySimple for it's web interface and back office processing. I don't have security issues since I don't have any credit card data in my possession. With today's identity theft environment, I have to protect myself as much as I can. Not having credit card data in my accounting software lets me sleep much better at night. Quicken will do basic accounting but does not have all the double entry accounting systems contained in QuickBooks. QuickBooks Online does much of the basic business functions but I don't like the pricing structure. As a professional accountant, that is very important to me. Bill.com provided a good service but the ability of QuickBooks to add bills and receipts to transactions makes it redundant.
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Intuit
I have used Wave Accounting for another business. I selected QuickBooks Online over Wave because of the features available from QuickBooks. Wave is great since it is free, but I feel that paying for QuickBooks Online is worth it for the features. In addition there is such a robust support network and training available for QuickBooks.
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Scalability
Intuit
They're getting better. Still room for improvement.
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Intuit
As we have grown along our professional path, we have also expanded our use of QB. The scalability is easy and features seem to be waiting for you until you need them. We have increased profits by over 10x from our first year in business to the current and have yet to find a reason to look elsewhere
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Return on Investment
Intuit
  • Since our financials are kept very up to date, it helps us compare our financial results to prior years and it is used for our internal goal setting.
  • Due to the accountant copy function, we are able to provide better service since our clients are not waiting on us to fix historical data. They can continue their operations uninterrupted.
  • The import feature certainly speeds up the process of accounting for our payroll. As previously mentioned, it takes about a minute to do our entries for payroll and check them.
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Intuit
  • It has created a lot of cost and in-efficiency whenever we need to talk to support.
  • I spent a lot of time setting up their automatic reminders for past due invoices and it worked for a couple of months and then it stopped. It's currently being worked on by their tech team but it has been months and it is still not working. It would have saved me a lot of time.
  • Their multi-currency saves time in sending invoices abroad but it's limiting when a customer wants an invoice in USD instead of a foreign currency so I have to set up different customer accounts for different currencies.
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