Item: QuickBooks Desktop Pro
Rating: 8
Author: Alexis Lewis

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use QuickBooks Desktop Pro as our main bookkeeping software for our small cash-based business. We do not create and send many invoices out of QuickBooks Desktop Pro as we have automated that through another program, but QuickBooks Desktop Pro is our main financial record for all transactions.

Pros and Cons

Bookkeeping
Accrual and Cash Based accounting modes
Integration with other softwares

With cloud-based software on the rise, QB Desktop Pro has become "clunky"
Some screens are slow to load (Customer Edit for example)
Small bugs in opening multiple company files

Return on Investment

Clean and accurate bookkeeping records [have] made reporting and sharing information with tax accountants a breeze.
Invoicing out of QB is a bit slow and time-consuming[,] unfortunately, so we were forced to choose another software to integrate.
A great way to have all accounting needs in one place - AP, AR, Reporting, etc.

Alternatives Considered

SaaSOptics and QuickBooks Online

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.

Key Insights

Do you think QuickBooks Desktop Pro delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with QuickBooks Desktop Pro's feature set?

Yes

Did QuickBooks Desktop Pro live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of QuickBooks Desktop Pro go as expected?

I wasn't involved with the implementation phase

Would you buy QuickBooks Desktop Pro again?

Yes

Other Software Used

SaaSOptics

Usability

It is a great software that does everything a small business needs it to do, but there are just a few bugs and quirks that make additional software necessary. The slowness of the software occasionally might eventually be overshadowed by the quickness of cloud-based software though.

Support Rating

We have only reached out a few times but they did their best to help us. It was a banking issue so QB really could only do so much, but they weren't able to identify what went wrong. ['The] good news is that we very rarely have problems in QB that require us to reach out to support.

Likelihood to Recommend

QuickBooks Desktop Pro is well suited for small businesses, especially if they are a cash-based business. We love being able to flip from cash-based to accrual-based view when we need certain reporting metrics, and most of the new finance software is geared towards accrual-based businesses (for obvious reasons). Unfortunately, as companies grow they inevitably outgrow QuickBooks and need to move onto a larger cloud-based software for accounting needs which is a major downside. It can be a bit slow [on] some screens just due to the nature of it being [...] physical software, but it is great for companies doing [simply] to mid-level complexity accounting and bookkeeping.

QuickBooks Desktop Pro for Small Cash Businesses

Overall Satisfaction with QuickBooks Desktop Pro