Highlights
Quickbooks Desktop Pro and Quickbooks Self-Employed are both accounting software designed to handle financial data, invoicing, and reporting. Both versions of Quickbooks share a lot of features, but Quickbooks Desktop Pro is designed for businesses with employees, whereas Quickbooks Self Employed is built for freelancers or very small businesses. As a result of these design decisions, Quickbooks Desktop Pro is a popular choice for small to mid-sized businesses while Quickbooks Self-Employed is used almost exclusively by very small businesses.
Features and Limitations
Quickbooks Desktop Pro and Quickbooks Self-Employed both offer the same suite of essential features for financial management. These features include income and expense tracking, downloadable transaction information, and automated data backup. Despite these similarities, there are also a few key differences between the products.
Quickbooks Desktop Pro includes features for tracking employee timesheets and payments, and also allows for multiple users. These features are essential for businesses with employees to manage or multiple accountants that need to access financial data. Quickbooks Self-Employed lacks these features but allows for the separation of personal and business expenses, which can save time for users.
Pricing
Both Quickbooks Desktop Pro and Quickbooks Self-Employed offer 30-day free trials for users to try out the product before purchasing. After the free trial, Quickbooks Self-Employed costs $7.00 per month. Quickbooks Desktop Pro is priced at $299.95 per workstation. This pricing makes Quickbooks Self-Employed an affordable option for businesses without employees while Quickbooks Desktop Pro is ideal for small to medium businesses.
Feature Set Ratings
- QuickBooks Desktop Pro ranks higher in 2 feature sets: Payroll Management, Reporting & Analytics
- QuickBooks Self-Employed ranks higher in 5 feature sets: Customization, Security, General Ledger and Configurable Accounting, Inventory Management, Order Management
Payroll Management
Pay calculation
Benefit plan administration
Direct deposit files
Salary revision and increment management
Reimbursement management
Customization
API for custom integration
Plug-ins
Security
Single sign-on capability
Role-based user permissions
Reporting & Analytics
Dashboards
Standard reports
Custom reports
General Ledger and Configurable Accounting
Accounts payable
Accounts receivable
Cash management
Bank reconciliation
Expense management
Time tracking
Fixed asset management
Multi-currency support
Multi-division support
Regulations compliance
Electronic tax filing
Self-service portal
Global Financial Support
Primary and Secondary Ledgers
Intercompany Accounting
Localizations
Journals and Reconciliations
Enterprise Accounting
Configurable Accounting
Centralized Rules Framework
Standardized Processes
Inventory Management
Inventory tracking
Automatic reordering
Location management
Manufacturing module
Order Management
Pricing
Order entry
Credit card processing
Cost of goods sold
Order Orchestration
End-to-end order visibility
Order exception Resolution
Attribute Ratings
- QuickBooks Self-Employed is rated higher in 3 areas: Likelihood to Recommend, Usability, Support Rating
- QuickBooks Desktop Pro and QuickBooks Self-Employed are tied in 1 area: Likelihood to Renew
