We use QuickBooks for updating and maintaining our financial books and records first. We have also begun using it for payroll, payroll taxes, and tax calculations and filings. We also opened a bank account through QuickBooks for the attractive deposit yield. Finally, we started looking at the QuickBooks lending options for working capital loans.
Pros
Financial record keeping.
Tax filings.
Management reporting.
Cons
Bank connections need to be refreshed more often.
It can become expensive to add critical features like payroll.
New AI features are good, but need more development.
Likelihood to Recommend
Amazing for financial recording and reporting. This is the core function and is well worth the money.
I use QuickBooks Online to keep my books in order. It helps me know what my revenue and expense streams are, as well as provide insights as to how financials compare with other periods. I also use QuickBooks Online for my clients' bookkeeping needs. QuickBooks Online addresses the need to have accurate financials and allows me to compare one period with another.
Pros
Processes transactions.
Let's me know how I'm doing financially.
Allows me to compare one period with another.
Let's me store receipts and matches them with the transaction they are associated with.
Cons
Make it so that any issue I call about is resolved within a few minutes.
While AI is typically correct, sometimes it is incorrect.
Bring in transactions without me needing to request them.
Likelihood to Recommend
It's great for providing financial reporting. I wish that when I generated reports, it would tell me if there are any transactions that need to be processed within the reports screen.
I can analyze prior periods and compare revenue and expenses and thus be able to gain insight into what is driving profit.
We use QuickBooks Online for our day-to-day accounting of sales, expenses, fixed assets and cash. The system is a great out of the box ready tool that any organization can use, however, the functionality and simplicity of it makes it more geared towards businesses that are startup in nature or organizations with very little to no technical complex accounting.
Pros
Cash Management
Basic Financial Statement Reporting
Billing
Cons
More robust options to mass update vendors, customers, journals, etc.
Customer support
Billing functionality
Likelihood to Recommend
QuickBooks Online is best suited for startups, partnerships, small businesses with a small number of employees, etc. QuickBooks Online is not suitable for organizations with complex accounting, rapid change and multi-entity structured businesses.
I used it to manage my expenses/deposits and run payroll. I also use it to invoice my clients for payment. It helps me keep a handle on my money all in one place – temporarily taking the place of an outside financial service while I'm starting to build my company.
Pros
Invoicing
Payroll
Expense and deposit management
Cons
Better training/onboarding for less financially savvy people
Ability to project out future spending/income in an automated spreadsheet
Likelihood to Recommend
I'm a novice, a new business owner. I don't have the budget to pay anyone outside to support with financial services. It's user friendly but it's hard to make sense of the full capabilities without having a background in managing finances. Additionally, I got a really great discount the first three months ($15 a month) and it just shot up to $100 a month. That is a big difference for a small business owner – would rather they just average that out at $50 a month from the beginning so I could better budget for this expense.
We use QBO as our primary bookkeeping software for a dozen entities. We also use it to issue invoices for corporate clients because the ACH payment and deposit cycle is much faster than our sales platform, which can take 7+ days. We adopted QBO Enterprise a year ago, and I am still learning its features; however, in general, it's not yet fully baked.
Pros
Categorizes expenses easily, and if AI guesses well, even easier.
The search feature really does find everything.
QBO Enterprise allows you to switch locations quickly.
Cons
QBO Enterprise is half-baked.
The print/export to PDF options for limiting to 2 pages wide or something are a bit limited.
Likelihood to Recommend
It does the job, as far as I know, and is needed for bookkeeping. I'd imagine those who try to use it to manage inventory/supplies may have a completely different experience. I just use it for services.
Balancing accounts, payments to and from suppliers, reconciliation at the end of the month and year. The biggest issue is that our business outgrew QBO and we had to build our own program. However for smaller businesses with not so many customers and sales QBO is perfect I loved it until it wouldn’t load end of month reports because they were to large.
Pros
Custom reports.
Easy to learn.
Easy to teach how to use.
Cons
Need for larger customer base.
Customer service isn’t always quick
Sometimes when to many people are working in it at the same time there are issues.
Likelihood to Recommend
Suited for businesses with small customer base and easy to learn so could be good for start up company. <div>Less appropriate for larger companies with large customer bases.</div>
VU
Verified User
Manager in Finance and Accounting (51-200 employees)
I use QuickBooks Online with the daily Operations of many companies that I am a Contractor with. The different classes that can be set up have resolved many problems related to tracking. We can use classes instead of 1000 account numbers. Very helpful. Being able to utilize QBO from anywhere is just superb!
Pros
Ease of using from anywhere.
Keeping up to date with transactions as they present to financial institutions.
Keeping up with receipts to eliminate cluttered paperwork.
Cons
Bringing in transactions using the same account as before. Clunky.
The split of transactions could be smoother with able to see from same screen instead of leaving to another.
Ability to attach cash receipts but needing to add online fees without making a deposit. Wish it would allow me to add receipts and the fee on the same screen without having to make a deposit first to match.
Likelihood to Recommend
I have been a part of installing QBO on several occasions. I do think it is easy to use and pretty straightforward. It does have some flaws, as anything would when trying to please millions of people. That is impossible. I think, for the money, this program is excellent, and I will continue to promote it.
I enjoy QuickBooks Online. I use QuickBooks Online for multiple companies in many different ways. Accessing the internet is convenient when you are traveling and have access anywhere. The reports and detail options make it very convenient when you are trying to review monthly accounts during meetings. I would recommend QuickBooks Online.
Pros
Invoicing.
Reports.
Customer details.
Cons
I dislike that the online bill pay option through QuickBooks is required for their invoicing.
The auto-fill portion of the customer setup, specifically the company name, is listed, but it also auto-fills in the name portion, which is inconvenient and time-consuming to remove.
Likelihood to Recommend
I appreciate the ability to auto-generate invoices for recurring transactions, which saves time, as well as the option to set up auto-generated transactions. The report option is super helpful when reviewing information, as you can click to view the details in the report without having to go back and forth.
VU
Verified User
Administrator in Human Resources (11-50 employees)
Our accounting needs are very simple. A small payroll, some invoicing, not many outside accounts. We always thought that QBO was overkill for our needs, but it was compatible with everything else, including two different accountants so we overpaid for a long time.
Most businesses our size would undoubtedly be the same way. We process most items automatically although what we don't do automatically is very, very manual.
Pros
Uptime and data retention
Lots of features
Standardized reports are very thorough
Cons
The upsells have gotten worse over time and are on every screen in the most awkward positions. I don't need a constant reminder to upgrade, especially on a very old account that's paid thousands over the years.
The interface has never been especially intuitive, but I was an old Quicken user and it was somewhat familiar. Over time, it's gotten worse, and in the last 2 years, the program seems to move things more often than I would expect.
The software constantly adds features that I don't want and want to turn off, but the interface is so difficult to use that I find myself skipping it. Imagine seeing a message that the system recognized invoices that hadn't been paid so it prepared reminder notices for you that can be sent at the click of a button. Who thinks using canned reminders that you've never seen is a good thing?
A lot of functionality seems to derive from connecting your bank accounts to QBO. I don't want Intuit to have an always-on connection to any bank accounts, even checking.
Likelihood to Recommend
I'll bet this program is great for people who spend their whole day doing at least some measure of bookkeeping or accounting. I know one small company that has moved completely to the Intuit ecosystem--QBO, TurboTax, MailChimp, and some add-ons, and they love it.
For the average small business, QBO has gone from being difficult to use to expensive and difficult to use.
We use QuickBooks to keep track of all of our paid invoices, we have all of our accounts (banks, credit cards) connected to it so we know how much is coming in and leaving.
Pros
Keep track of invoices per client
banking log in to keep track of money coming in and leaving
keep a detailed list of all clients
Cons
the reports are confusing
with the new improvements too many things are going on the dashboard
Likelihood to Recommend
I love that there are so many things you can do with QuickBooks. I have not learned all the aspects of it but it could be a great concise place to meet all your bookkeeping needs.
