QuickBooks Online vs. ZipBooks

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
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
ZipBooks
Score 7.7 out of 10
Small Businesses (1-50 employees)
ZipBooks is an accounting software solution for small business owners and accountants. Users can track expenses, manage their team, send recurring invoices and manage projects.
$0
Pricing
QuickBooks OnlineZipBooks
Editions & Modules
Self-Employed
$15
per month
Simple Start
$25
per month
Plus
$75
per month
Advanced
$150
per month
ZipBooks Starter
$0
ZipBooks Smarter
$15
ZipBooks Sophisticated
$35
ZipBooks Accountant
Custom
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
QuickBooks OnlineZipBooks
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
QuickBooks OnlineZipBooks
Considered Both Products
QuickBooks Online
Chose QuickBooks Online
We liked the fresh approach and the clean aesthetics of Wave, Xero and ZipBooks. However they all lacked the ability to customize a invoice template, which is sad to say, but that was the #1 feature for us, since we had existing customers that we didn't want to disrupt; i.e., …
Chose QuickBooks Online
The only other service I have used that was similar to QuickBooks was Gusto. My experience with it was pretty limited. We did not use it for very long. We tried it because it was made for small businesses and we are a smaller department. QuickBooks was more scalable and worked …
ZipBooks
Chose ZipBooks
ZipBooks is a much cleaner, easier to use software.
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
QuickBooks OnlineZipBooks
Payroll Management
Comparison of Payroll Management features of Product A and Product B
QuickBooks Online
3.1
78 Ratings
83% below category average
ZipBooks
-
Ratings
Pay calculation4.369 Ratings00 Ratings
Benefit plan administration3.832 Ratings00 Ratings
Direct deposit files4.865 Ratings00 Ratings
Salary revision and increment management1.644 Ratings00 Ratings
Reimbursement management1.346 Ratings00 Ratings
Customization
Comparison of Customization features of Product A and Product B
QuickBooks Online
2.5
68 Ratings
95% below category average
ZipBooks
9.1
2 Ratings
25% above category average
API for custom integration1.354 Ratings9.12 Ratings
Plug-ins3.857 Ratings9.11 Ratings
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
QuickBooks Online
3.7
108 Ratings
73% below category average
ZipBooks
9.5
5 Ratings
17% above category average
Single sign-on capability2.981 Ratings9.74 Ratings
Role-based user permissions4.5102 Ratings9.34 Ratings
Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
QuickBooks Online
5.3
132 Ratings
35% below category average
ZipBooks
10.0
6 Ratings
27% above category average
Dashboards4.7124 Ratings10.06 Ratings
Standard reports5.3128 Ratings10.06 Ratings
Custom reports5.9116 Ratings00 Ratings
General Ledger and Configurable Accounting
Comparison of General Ledger and Configurable Accounting features of Product A and Product B
QuickBooks Online
3.7
143 Ratings
67% below category average
ZipBooks
8.8
6 Ratings
17% above category average
Accounts payable5.4122 Ratings00 Ratings
Accounts receivable6.0131 Ratings8.05 Ratings
Cash management6.3120 Ratings00 Ratings
Bank reconciliation6.2137 Ratings8.01 Ratings
Expense management5.6123 Ratings10.05 Ratings
Time tracking1.756 Ratings9.06 Ratings
Fixed asset management5.353 Ratings00 Ratings
Multi-currency support1.423 Ratings9.12 Ratings
Multi-division support1.442 Ratings00 Ratings
Regulations compliance1.738 Ratings00 Ratings
Electronic tax filing5.266 Ratings00 Ratings
Self-service portal2.566 Ratings00 Ratings
Global Financial Support1.316 Ratings00 Ratings
Primary and Secondary Ledgers3.535 Ratings00 Ratings
Intercompany Accounting4.929 Ratings00 Ratings
Localizations4.121 Ratings00 Ratings
Journals and Reconciliations5.174 Ratings00 Ratings
Enterprise Accounting1.825 Ratings00 Ratings
Configurable Accounting2.038 Ratings00 Ratings
Centralized Rules Framework2.924 Ratings00 Ratings
Standardized Processes3.948 Ratings00 Ratings
Inventory Management
Comparison of Inventory Management features of Product A and Product B
QuickBooks Online
1.2
47 Ratings
142% below category average
ZipBooks
-
Ratings
Inventory tracking1.245 Ratings00 Ratings
Automatic reordering1.222 Ratings00 Ratings
Location management1.321 Ratings00 Ratings
Manufacturing module1.317 Ratings00 Ratings
Order Management
Comparison of Order Management features of Product A and Product B
QuickBooks Online
3.7
86 Ratings
67% below category average
ZipBooks
9.2
6 Ratings
22% above category average
Pricing4.855 Ratings00 Ratings
Order entry4.853 Ratings00 Ratings
Credit card processing2.363 Ratings10.06 Ratings
Cost of goods sold3.868 Ratings8.52 Ratings
Order Orchestration4.721 Ratings00 Ratings
End-to-end order visibility4.720 Ratings00 Ratings
Order exception Resolution1.218 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
QuickBooks OnlineZipBooks
Small Businesses
QuickBooks Self-Employed
QuickBooks Self-Employed
Score 9.1 out of 10
QuickBooks Self-Employed
QuickBooks Self-Employed
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 8.1 out of 10
Oracle Fusion Cloud ERP
Oracle Fusion Cloud ERP
Score 8.1 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
QuickBooks OnlineZipBooks
Likelihood to Recommend
4.2
(161 ratings)
9.0
(6 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
2.5
(24 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
4.1
(76 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Availability
2.1
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
1.1
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
2.1
(68 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
3.0
(6 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
1.4
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
1.1
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
1.1
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
1.1
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
QuickBooks OnlineZipBooks
Likelihood to Recommend
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.
Read full review
ZipBooks
ZipBooks is really strong for small businesses (and non-profits like the ones I help manage). It may not yet be ready to handle medium or large businesses given the deep, niche functionality that is sometimes required in those cases.
Read full review
Pros
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
Read full review
ZipBooks
  • Invoicing is particularly easy-to-use, quick, clean and beautiful. GREAT for branding.
  • The time tracker was unexpected, but very useful and integrates well with the invoicing. Leads to quick invoicing every time.
  • Customer support is phenomenal -- the support staff is friendly and helpful.
  • Although they are a new company, they are definitely on the right track!
  • I recommend this software to clients, colleagues, and friends alike, mostly for it quick and beautiful invoicing.
  • They do what they can to live up to their name! It doesn't take very long to get set up, or very long to create a complete invoice and send it to the right person.
Read full review
Cons
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.
Read full review
ZipBooks
  • There is some difficulty with a need to learn the use of the menus, they are not open and click, at the moment, the user needs to open the menu then using the pad keys scroll down and use enter to select from the drop-down menu. A mouse does not work.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
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.
Read full review
ZipBooks
No answers on this topic
Usability
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.
Read full review
ZipBooks
No answers on this topic
Reliability and Availability
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.
Read full review
ZipBooks
No answers on this topic
Performance
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.
Read full review
ZipBooks
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
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.
Read full review
ZipBooks
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
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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ZipBooks
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
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.
Read full review
ZipBooks
I've primarily compared ZipBooks vs. Quickbooks because I've used Quickbooks at larger companies before. ZipBooks was the right fit for a smaller organization because it still had all the core features of Quickbooks but at a dramatically lower price that fits the budget.
Read full review
Scalability
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
Read full review
ZipBooks
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
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.
Read full review
ZipBooks
  • ZipBooks is entirely affordable, and with my current $15/mo payments, I get ROI pretty quickly.
  • Invoices are simple and easy to make, while staying beautiful and functional at the same time. This saves me TIME, which means that I don't need to spend 15-20 minutes fiddling with the software to make it do what I want it to do. It just works. And that means, I can spend more time doing client work, and managing projects and sales.
Read full review
ScreenShots

ZipBooks Screenshots

Screenshot of ZipBooks DashboardScreenshot of ZipBooks TransactionsScreenshot of ZipBooks InvoicingScreenshot of ZipBooks Accountant Messaging